working together

The children at school have started their own radio station. This is their logo.

Broadcasting, not quite to the nation, but to just about anyone who cares to tune in. Try it yourself by clicking here.

The children who've set it up were given the chance to speak at the school assembly today. To explain it all and encourage participation.

They're on the ball. Communicating. And encouraging interaction.

I volunteered to be first to use their radio show to plug the coming event we're holding here about the environment.

They're into this as well. The environment. It's good to build on common ground and establish these links with the school.

So I took the chance while in at the school to hand out all the competition forms. Another little bit of interaction. Getting them involved. And not for a moment presuming that we've got all the answers.

We don't. We're only just starting to see that there's a problem here, in terms of how we have been treating the environment. We need the sort of fresh imagination which they bring, these children in the school, to think 'outside the box': to see what could be done, what should be done.

We need to work together and not adopt that ghetto-like perspective in our thinking which assumes that we and we alone have all the answers to the issues which arise.

God's world just doesn't work like that. We're made to be community. And that means interaction. That sort of communication. Sharing the truth we've come to know ourselves. Yet ready to learn from others as well.

Too often, I fear, at least in the past, we've understood ourselves to be the true and only guardians of all truth. And so we do the soap box thing and stand there and pontificate. Like we know it all. When we don't.

We have to work together. Which is not to diminish the importance of faith. Nor to belittle the place of God's truth. It's just to acknowledge the need for some humility.

I've been thinking of this quite a bit since Sunday past.

The drama we know as the 'Exodus' which saw a whole people who'd long been enslaved being brought to a new way of life - that drama began with the 'faith' of just five different women.

Who included the princess of Egypt. Hers, at best, was a pretty uninformed faith. I guess we'd have thought her a pagan. Avoided her like the plague (though the plagues had yet to come!).

But she was a part of the people who helped such a drama unfold.

God doesn't have such qualms, it seems, as we, his people, sometimes do, about engaging folk who may not be 'believers' in his work.

It's strange how a day like today can have a recurring theme. For having started the day like this at the school, it was also the way it closed.

I was round at P's and G's again at night (the couple, not the church which goes by that name). Along with a couple of others. And this was the theme we pursued.

The balance there is always meant to be between our eager, total honouring of God and, with that, too, our thorough-going engagement with society.

The only guy who ever really got the balance right was Jesus, I suppose.

The rest of us just tend to sort of gravitate between the Pharisee position (we have the truth and we won't have it sullied by contact with anyone else) and a palsy-walsy 'worldliness' (where anything goes).

I guess that's the issue I wrestle with most of the time. Today the same as any other day.

The drawing close to God - as in the lunchtime worship service I was leading once again.

And the drawing close to people in a range of different circumstances.

And getting the balance right.

The children at the school have got this right at least. They understand that good communication means a lot of interaction.

past put behind us

Those guys who manage to get and keep a load of plates all spinning on sticks at once - I have nothing but admiration for them.

I'd have problems enough with just one. And here they are, able to keep any number of plates on the go all at once. Amazing.

That was a picture which crossed my mind today. I've been asked to take on the role of providing a ministerial lead at a congregation just out of town. Kirkliston. As if I didn't have enough to be doing here!

Spinning plates sort of stuff.

Not that I have to do it all myself. A lot of the time it's a case of simply making sure it's done. But there's a fair amount of organisation involved. A fair amount of extra evening meetings. A fair amount of services to take.

I met with a man from the church out there today. We had a good long time together going over things. A chance to get a feel for the place and the people and the purpose God has for them all.

Another sort of setting for me somehow to be getting my head around. Another changing context where God's new thing will be done.

He's good at spinning plates. Getting a people truly up and running in one place after another. And keeping them going too.

That's what he's doing here. There's a new thing on the go. A new set of plates getting spun around.

I had lunch again with Douglas for the church just down the road. The place was pretty busy once again (it usually is these days, which is great to see). And today there were as well five girls whom I knew from the Royal High, the local secondary school.

They don't usually call in here for lunch. So this was a bit of a first.

Five of them. Five girls.

I found that rather striking since I'd spoken just last Sunday night about the way it was the faith of just five women that had set about the change there was in Israel's situation when they'd been enslaved in Egypt for those years.

Five girls here for lunch. God's future opening up.

But the past must be put behind us.

I was down at the Hospice again tonight to share the patient vigil at the bedside of old Ina who's still hanging quietly on. Her daughter and son-in-law both were there.

It was good to have moments with them. Reading the Scripture. Leading in prayer. Giving thanks to the Lord for a life so well lived.

And then on out to see the sister of another man who'd died. She's well on in years herself and needed time. I was glad to be there and to give her the time and I trust she found solace in that.

She seemed to be helped, for it's not been that easy for her. But in speaking with her it impressed me again how God's new thing requires that the old leaves first drop off the twigs. The beech hedge stuff again.

She was a lovely, gracious lady. Edinburgh through and through. Full of a gentle, humble faith in Christ. But I don't think in a million years she'd ever see her way beyond .. well, the way it's always been.

A long time back I recall being struck, when I looked at the roll of members here, that there'd come a day when loads of them all would die.

I think that time is maybe coming now. A generation dies. And maybe only then can that new thing that God's been surely planning for so long begin to flourish and to thrive.

God's spring

Normal service will (hopefully) be resumed.

But I'm not that confident. I thought, and hoped, the rather hectic nature of these past few days might now at last be past. But, as I say, I'm not that sure.

There are times in the year when nature just seems to erupt.

On Thursday last week our sycamore tree had barely a hint of a leaf. And by Sunday the colour was there. All of a sudden, everything seems to be pushing its way into bloom.

I think there are periods like that in the ongoing work of the Lord. Times when it all seems to happen and there's hardly a moment to breathe.

This past wee while has been a bit like that.

Not that they haven't been good, these last few days. And not that there's not been much I might have written about. It's just that there hasn't been time. Not a moment at all.

Today, I thought things might begin to settle down a bit and give a bit of breathing space.

I was wrong!

There was, of course, the service of thanksgiving for the life of Betty R in the morning. Despite her being some 88 years old there was a large, large number of people at the service which her family held.

I'd done most of the preparation late last night. I knew there would not be the time today with a 10am start for the service. But there was the time to work it through again in the clearer, fresher light of day and tidy up a little bit or two.

The service was great. Her niece had been asked to say some things and she spoke in a way that quite captured just who Betty was. A series of little anecdotes which built a lovely picture of her aunt.

And I had the chance to sort of shine the light of Scripture on her life and pull its many strands together in a way that gave cohesion to it all. She was really quite a character. It was good to be able to take some time remembering her like that.

The school was next. The SU group which meets each week at lunch.

For the first time there were three of the primary 5s. A little bit excitable and I ended up in charge of their small group. It was great to see them there, even though their minds were far from concentrated on the passage we were looking at.

They were always going on about 'panic attacks'. And they thought it hilarious to think that when the crowds were big and were pressing around Jesus, then he had maybe had a panic attack himself.

A slightly creative interpretation of the Scripture text perhaps. But at least they were there and thinking about it all! It was really quite exciting to see them there.

When I was signing out, however, I learned that the guy who's run the football there for donkeys' years - he'd died quite suddenly this morning.

He and his wife and family have been here in the area for many, many years. I think everyone must know him. He talked to everyone, apart from anything else! And was so much involved in so many different things, especially the football in the schools.

He was a lovely, warm and energetic man. So full of life, it seemed. And then this news - Jim Goodwillie dead.

It was really quite a shock.

By the end of the day the 'funeral count' was already again back up to two and a half. (The 'half' because the lady hasn't died, but I'm sure will shortly do so in a day or so).

It was night time before I got round to seeing these folk.

The readings for our morning services through the course of May and June were long since overdue, so I spent some time in the afternoon getting these sets of readings sorted out.

Then out at night to the Boys Brigade and their annual 'Parents Night'. A super time of fun and laughs as they put on a show of the range of different things they do through the year.

Jane, the lady who runs it all, has not had her troubles to seek these last few years. But she does an amazing job. And I was glad to see there were good numbers out. It made for an entertaining evening.

But I had to leave quite sharp.

I'd had another message on the answer machine at tea (actually, I think I had five), alerting me to the fact that an elderly lady I know quite well was really failing fast.

So I headed off down to the Hospice, as soon as the BB thing was done. The lady is really very frail. A lovely, gentle, quietly-spoken woman with a heart of gold. She seemed quite peaceful and I was glad of the chance to sit and talk with her for quite a while.

Not that she maybe heard that much. Her eyes were closed (and I doubt they'll open again), and her breathing now quite slow.

But they always say the hearing's the last thing to go, so - as I say - I simply sat and spoke with her and read some bits of Scripture and then prayed God's gentle blessing on the ending of her life.

Then from the dieing to the dead. I called by on Jim's home to see his wife. One of his daughters, too, was there.

Again, it was good to be able to talk. To talk about his life and all the things he'd done and who he was and why he was the way he was. And all the talking sort of teases out the sorrow and the grief and I think his wife and daughter felt the better for it all.

And closing a time like that with an all-encompassing prayer is always very special. A sacred sort of moment in a sorrow-laden day.

I sometimes watch the beech hedges at this time of year. The old leaves all of a sudden all fall off as the new ones begin to appear.

It happens that quick. And all at once.

And I think these days are pretty much like that. God's spring has maybe arrived!

flexi-time

No, you didn't miss a day!

I did. There simply wasn't time yesterday to post anything here at all.

And even late on, when I thought that there might be a chance, something else came up. The projector refused to perform, so I had to spend time (about an hour it took in all) in sorting that out and fixing it up again.

It's one of those weeks. I jokingly wrote on my 'status' on facebook, on Monday I think it was, that I was in the middle of four funerals and a wedding.

At that point in time there were only two. Funerals. Now there are four. I must be a prophet or something! And the week got suddenly shorter.

(It was short enough already, with there being the three services this coming Sunday, and a wedding on the Friday with the rehearsal the night before - an event which cuts about a day and a half off my normal working week).

On Monday John died. As I said. Betty also died, though I didn't find out about that until Tuesday morning. By which time, a service of thanksgiving for John's life had been fixed for Saturday afternoon.

And all of a sudden the squeeze was on!

All of these things can fit into my diary. What's not factored in is the preparation time. And that's where the 'squeeze' comes in: I have to somehow find odd corners here and there (usually either late at night or right at the crack of dawn) to squeeze the preparation for these different services in.

But before very long I was laughing out loud, the week was getting so silly. In terms of what was needing done. When it gets like that, the pressure's off. All I can do is hand it to the Lord and leave it all with him.

There's no way I can do it all myself. Maybe it's better that way. When I don't have an option but to trust absolutely in him. For everything.

So today's been busy, too. Along at the school and out to have time with Betty's lovely family.

Neither could really be rushed. Along at the school I got chatting with Gus. A local guy who runs a thing called 'Earthcalling'. He was in at the school addressing some eco issues with the pupils. He was keen on what we're hoping to be doing here ourselves. Our 'green' day later, in June.

It was good to have time with him.

And good as well to have time with the family of Betty. Rehearsing so much of her life. Laughing at some of the times that there'd been. Humbled together reflecting on how she lived.

So I'm thinking of her and her sons at this time. And I'm thinking of Janice and all of the rest of John's family, too. And I'm feeling the pain and the grief of these folk. And I'm wondering how best to pack into the brief times there'll be the story and themes of their lives.

And I'm thinking of Robin, whom I've known for about two decades and whose wedding I'm taking on Friday. And I'm trying to discern what it is that the Lord means I say.

And all of the time, with a whole range of tasks that all of them need my attention - all of the time I'm wondering how great God must be to be able himself to embrace all our needs and to know all our hearts and to feel all our hurts and to hear all our prayers.

And I'm glad that I'm his. And I'm glad that I share in his work, that I'm part of the things that he's doing in the world of today. And I love all the time that I spend with so rich a variety of folk.

Because I was out again tonight, along at Paul and Gail's. With another couple, too. Immersed in the sometimes rather crazy-looking world of Genesis 4 and 5.

Then back along here, supposedly to do some preparation, but it turned out there were yet again more people. Staff from one of the schools, who'd been here for a concert tonight. Coffee and chat with them.

I love it all!

time for everything

The Royal Infirmary's over the other side of town. Which makes a visit there a fairly lengthy trip.

I was over there, at the hospital, twice today.

First thing in the morning, first of all, since I'd learned that one of our genuinely gentle gentlemen had taken a turn for the worse.

John's been getting by on about a third of his lung capacity for a good little while. He was diagnosed some nineteen years ago with pulminary fibrosis and told back then that he could expect maybe four more years. He's done pretty well to last as long as he has, though latterly his breathing's not been good.

All the same, it can't be easy living like that. Getting such a small proportion of the air you'd normally get on every intake of breath.

But he's battled on brightly in his usual chirpy way and he didn't ever let it get him down. Not openly, at any rate.

The last few days he's taken a turn for the worse. Gone downhill 'like an avalanche', as his wife very aptly put it.

So I looked in first thing to see the man. To read him God's word and to pray at his side. To thank him again for all that he's been and has done. And assure him of both the love and the power of God.

His breathing was plainly a struggle. And later today, I think it was late afternoon, he died.

I only found out when I called again at the hospital in the early evening. I'd rung his home and no one was there so I figured they must be with him. I guess we passed on the road.

A second trip to the hospital. But this time no one there. Except the staff. The girl who'd been there in the morning and still was there at night. Erica. Long hours these nurses work.

So I took the chance to thank her and her colleagues for the work they do. She said that John had died a very peaceful death. A lot of that was due to them, the nurses who tended his needs.

I don't have a clue what faith the likes of Erica have. But in what they do, they're very much servants of God. Bringing his peace.

It didn't feel as if the trip was wasted. There isn't any limit to the miles we sometimes need to go to say that word of gratitude which others need to hear. Perhaps her hearing someone say those two short words - 'thank you' - perhaps that sort of made that nurse's day. I hope so.

After that second hospital visit I caught up with the family later on. Down at John's house. His wife and daughters were there. And the rest of the evening was spent having time with them.

Most of the time just listening. People need to talk. There is a certain therapy in once again rehearsing all the details of a person's final days. The ups and downs, the twists and turns. Those tiny little details which reveal for folk the providence of God.

Sometimes all they really need is someone there to listen.

And much of the rest of the day I've been doing the same. Simply trying to listen. Mainly to the Lord.

The week is getting fairly full. I'm already starting to wonder how on earth there'll be time for all of the preparation that each of the services brings.

And I don't like ever being rushed. I just can't hear the Lord too well when rushing here and there.

We all need space. The time and space to grieve. The time and space to listen to the Lord. The time and space to speak those little courtesies and say a heart-felt 'thank you' to those 'angels' of the Lord.

There is (a) time for everything, declared the writer of Ecclesiastes. That's very reassuring!

needs must

Nothing went to plan today at all! Hardly anything new!

The early part of the morning, when all was pretty quiet - or so I thought - I figured I'd maybe get some things done.

I didn't.

I had to go down to the centre the post office have for items they couldn't deliver. This was a package which wouldn't fit through the letter-box. So they said. The book of reports, it turned out, for this year's General Assembly.

I hadn't banked on going down there. Nor having to wait as I did.

And then it was off to another part of town to collect some items I'd ordered for one of my sons a long, long time ago. So long ago I'd almost forgotten the fact that I'd placed the order. I hadn't banked on that either.

Nor right in the middle of rush hour traffic which slowed the whole thing down.

It began to dawn on me then that maybe, just maybe, this was going to be 'one of those days'. As they say!

It was.

I was back in time from this collection 'round' to say farewell to my African guests. And to give my son a lift up town to the meeting he'd come up for.

Back to the office at last. Half of the morning gone.

But then I discovered there was work needing done across at my Mum's old flat. Well, 'old' in the sense she used to live there when alive. A lot more work than I had first anticipated when alerted to the need.

So I popped across and then started ringing around. Not quite the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker. But a collection of different folk. Tradesman, insurers and bits of advice from one or two folk that I know. Life as a city landlord!

I guess it was really lunchtime before I got down to the work that I'd planned to do. Half a day late and the time now beginning to fly!

Top of my list of the things that I needed to do was preparing the service of thanksgiving which tomorrow we'll hold for this lady who died last week. This sort of thing takes time. Hours. That sort of time.

I can't (and I won't) just knock up a service like that. It needs a lot of prayerful thought and hours of prayer-filled writing as I try and slowly hammer out a Spirit-wrought memorial of this godly lady's life.

In the end it took me nearly all the afternoon. Other things were simply ditched. Meanwhile. Tomorrow's service will not come again. I have to get it right first time. However long it takes.

I'm praying that the people who are present then will really sense God's presence with them there. Will hear his voice and find both gentle comfort and a ringing inspiration for the living of their own remaining days.

And in amongst all of that there were phone calls and e-mails and all sorts of admin-type tasks.

Including agreeing to take on the role of leading a neighbouring people when shortly their minister leaves. Until they get another one, that is.

Part of me thinks I must be mad to take on another role like that on top of the work I have here. But that's the way the system works. And all of us take our turn.

It's my turn now.

Today's been that sort of day. Doing what needs to be done. And the things that I'd planned to be doing, I've had to squeeze in or put off.

Jesus himself didn't really do his own agenda sort of things.

He came to serve. To do what needed done.

over-work

It's been another long day! As you can see from the time.

I don't ever work fixed hours. Which means my time is flexible. But it also means you can't ever tell if you're 'done'.

It's a common problem, I suspect. More and more I'm meeting up with people whose circumstances, one way or another, are like this. The demands that are made get bigger and more. And they don't have an easy way out.

For a lot of such folk, if it's not quite killing them (sometimes it's getting close to that), it's certainly killing the pleasure they once would have known in the work that they daily do.

Most of such folk, they actually like their work. Find it all fulfilling. But the way what's involved encraoches on all of their life and leaves them with little free time to call their own - it's that which slowly kills off their enjoyment of their work.

It is, I think, a societal problem at root. But it's sometimes worse within the Christian church. We call it 'ministry' not work as if somehow that maybe sort of justifies it all.

It certainly makes it harder to object.

This isn't a complaint on my own behalf. I love my work and don't myself feel hard done by at all. I get looked after here by others really well and never feel the pressures others know.

No. It's more an observation from the people that I meet with and am chatting to each day. There's a pattern I'm observing and it isn't all that great.

There was someone today I spent with again. And that, I can see, is the issue. It's 'christian' work, but the person involved is very much the 'default' box, who ends up doing the things that must be done.

Gladly so, in principle. But the volume of 'stuff' that ends in the default box is slowly sort of suffocating all the person's life.

Martyrdom and ministry are not the same, though often they're related. Working ourselves right into the ground (quite literally) is neither genuine ministry nor even glorious martyrdom. I think the Bible simply calls it 'sin'.

It's getting life wrong. Getting the 'set-up' wrong. Because it's often not the person's fault. It's just the way things work. Given the 'system', the way the whole thing's ordered. That's what needs to change.

As I say, a lot of my time these days is spent with folk like that. Addressing the problems there are in the context of their working lives.

And preparing for Sunday morning, it was striking to see how Paul addressed the problems that there were within the church in Corinth.

He didn't ignore such problems. He didn't just hope that somehow they would go away. He tackled the thing head on. And so must I.

getting connected again

Children are great enthusiasts. No doubt about it!

I was in at the schoool again this morning, first thing. The P4-7 assembly again. Except this time I got to speak.

At least, I'd asked if I might get the chance, since I wanted to highlight the event that we're hosting in June and I wanted to run past the children a little competition that we'll hold.

We have quite spacious grounds here. But we want to act responsibly. In terms of the environment.

Only a small percentage of all the area we have is actually 'green'. Probably way too small a percentage, if we want to be environmentally responsible.

So we're setting the children a challenge and task. In the form of a competition. It's over to them to come up with their ideas as to how we might best be using our grounds in a way that is genuinely 'green'.

They seemed really quite enthusiastic. And even before I'd finished, they'd loads of questions (it seemed) that they wanted to ask. I said to send me e-mails with the questions that they had and I'd get back to them all, in person.

A sort of poor man's version of e-mailing Lawrence McGinty of ITV (which I did when he was down with Mark Austin in Antartica: I e-mailed my question, but I didn't get much of an answer except a few links to various different web-sites on the net: it wasn't all that personal at all!)

We're doing quite a bit on this at the moment. Working through, in different ways, what it means to honour the Lord as the great Creator God in the way we live our lives and treat the world he's made.

We believe it's an issue we shouldn't be playing catch-up on. But instead be taking the lead.

Strange how things can 'coincide'! I was leading the midweek lunchtime service again and the text for today was Psalm 8. All about the creation, our part in it and the weighty, from-the-start responsibility God gives us to take care of that creation for himself.

These midweek 'breaks' for worship are just great. I love them. And there are really quite a lot of folk who take the chance to come. Mainly older, but some at a younger age for whom the simple practicalities of getting out on Sunday is a problem.

It was great having Tom along as well. Tom's from Uganda originally and now heads up the work of the Edinburgh City Mission, along at their West Pilton Centre. Just along the road from where we are.

We've had a close involvement with them there for many years. So I was glad that Tom had the chance to pop along, to share with us in our worship and to stay around for lunch. And chat.

He's a lovely, vibrant Christian man. And he's always much encouraged as he gets on with the work. Which must be pretty daunting some of the time.

But he knows his stuff. And knows how to handle the very needy people that they meet.

He was telling me how so many of these folk will come along to the centre and be open to the worship of God's people there. But wouldn't ever dream of 'going to church'.

I guess that's what happens when 'church' gets rather 'institutionalised'. You get the 'form': but you lose the power.

As a minister of the long-established, well-respected parish Church of Scotland, I'm starting from a really very 'formal' sort of context. And trying to recover the power.

Which isn't all that easy. Sometimes I wonder if it's ever even possible. (With God everything is, of course!).

But the power is all that matters. The power of God, very present among his people. At work in his world. At work in the lives of messed-up, mixed-up people and a wonderful, transforming way.

Like the way he's worked in Sharon. Sharon works at the Centre as well, alongside Tom. And, as he says, she started 'the other side of the counter'.

She was a person in desperate need. And she found as she came that not just the Centre, but actually this person Jesus himself - he changed her life and set her on her feet again and ... well, just made her a new person, gave her a new start.

Now she's doing the same with others. And so it goes on.

That's the way it's meant to be. And that, I guess, is sort of what we're trying to be as well. A people imparting life to those around, in such a way that they in turn become life-givers too.

I was round seeing a couple of different folk in the afternoon. Different situations. Different needs.

But the issue for me is the same. Is my calling by just a formal sort of 'visiting' (which Church of Scotland ministers are meant to do. Why? I guess because that's what Church of Scotland ministers do, is it not?!)?

Or is it more a bringing of God's own presence, power and grace to bear upon their lives?

I hope it's always the latter. I've neither the time nor the inclination for any sort of 'formal', routine visiting. Nor, I think, the gift!

The lunchtime conversation that I had with Tom has been much on my mind today.

The work he does, behind it all there's really very obviously the underlying burden to be putting people back in touch with God. Restoring that lost connection.

And that's the drift of all I'm doing too. That's what I'm about.

So it's been good today myself to be back in touch with people whom I haven't had much contact with for years. Restoring those old connections.

My pal from school whom I'd e-mailed on the off chance in the aftermath of seeing him on the TV news: he got back to me, delighted that I'd been in touch. A connection there to be built on once again.

And, later, a chance to welcome here a relative from South Africa along with her husband and one of her daughters. Here to stay for a few days.

How lovely to see her again. After all these years. It was her and her family I'd stayed with myself some thirty and more years ago. And they all just made me so much just a part of the family. It was lovely. I've always had a special place for them within my heart.

So to see her again with her husband and one of her girls - it was just a thrill.

Connections.

Being back in touch. A picture of what Jesus is all about.

people-time

Some days are fairly non-stop.

Happily so, I have to say. I enjoy the huge variety and I revel in being on the go.

But hardly a moment to pause, take stock and stand back from it all.

Today was a day like that.

A series of different meetings. Except I don't really like to call them that at all.

It's strange that we do. Call them 'meetings'. The word makes them seem so impersonal. Maybe that's why I'm not a 'meeting' person.

Why are they called 'meetings'? I guess because they're times set aside for meeting other people. So why not call them 'people times' instead? So that I could explain, "I've got a people-time at 7.3pm". Instead of saying, I've a(nother) meeting.

My day's been full of people. And I like it that way.

Virtually all of the morning (after I'd made the soups of course!), was spent with the guy who's creating a whole new database for us. A lot of time. But valuable, too. Working through just how the thing will work and how he'll be able to tailor it all to our needs.

It's a sort of 'shepherding' type of thing. A shepherd needs good admin if he's ever going to notice that a sheep of his is lost. He needs to know how many sheep there are if he's going to be able to suss out that one's gone.

The database is that sort of thing. So the meeting was basically 'pastoral' - at least in terms of intent.

At the end of the morning and into lunch I was meeting with someone else. Some of it fairly practical. Some of it bigger and broader by far. Discussing the future. And also just catching up.

People.

There was time with Douglas at lunch as well. Another 'people-time'. Listening, learning, sharing and praying together. Talkng things through. Working things out. Trying to see the hand of the Lord and the ways he's at work in our worlds.

I got in touch with a friend from decades back at school. We were chums back then and in the years that followed schooling we had many times together. Africa, Canada, working up north on the farm that his father ran.

Then over the years we simply got out of touch. He's up north and I'm down here and .. well, our paths just never crossed.

Last night I saw him on the TV news. A brief report and just a tiny snippet of an interview with him (he's a local councillor up north). But I knew it was him right away.

So today I 'googled' the guy and got an address I could contact him through. More time. But more time well spent. People-time again.

And the evening was the same.

I've given up on 'meetings'! The word is just a switch-off, so far as I'm concerned. Mention a 'meeting' - I groan (inwardly). I think I'm going to call them something else.

'People-times' convey a rather different picture!

prepared

As often as not I'm having to think on my feet.

The way things turn out is not quite how they were planned. I wasn't ever in the Scouts, but I think I might have managed fine: at least in terms of outlook and of attitude. Because I do always try to be prepared.

If I'm asked to give a talk, I like to prepare in advance. I think it's the honourable thing to do.

Maybe the trait is something I got from my Dad. He always used to tell us in our growing years - if a job's worth doing, it's worth doing well. And that includes preparing well, I guess.

Well, that's how I see it at any rate. Whatever it is that I'm going to do, I want to respect the task by preparing as well as I can.

But it doesn't always work out quite like that.

The lunch-time meeting of the SU group at school today was a case in point. I'd spoken with the teacher who runs the thing last week: and he told me it was study number 11 - would I do the 'talk'.

So I duly prepared this morning, acquainting myself with all that the study involved. Only to find on arrival, with the children already there, that he'd got it wrong.

Did I say number 11? he asked. I actually meant number 12!

So there I was, well and truly prepared - except, the way it turned out, I was actually totally unprepared! Be prepared ... for anything.

It makes life really varied, that's for sure.

So I had to adjust on the spot. Take a rapid 'speed-read' of study 12. And figure out instantaneously how best I could teach the truth. It worked out fine. We had some fun. And I think they got the message.

The morning was really a time for my getting prepared. The afternoon and evening were the things I was preparing for.

The SU group at lunchtime at the school.

Then straight on to a meeting here relating to a day we're going to hold on the environment. More planning and thinking things through with the team on that: filling in the details bit by bit. Pulling it all together. It should be quite a day. Well, a morninig, at least.

I had to leave the meeting early to get down in time to the local crematorium for the service of thanksgiving I was leading there.

This was the one in respect of the lady from another congregation who had died. Not a lady I'd ever met, so a case of my leading it 'blind'. The 'tribute' was paid by a family friend (who's also a sort of peripatetic parish priest). And I led the rest of the service.

There were loads of folk present. Some of them came and thanked me at the end. They'd found it very helpful and a comfort in their grief. They were grateful for my being so obviously sincere.

By the time I was back from that, the afternoon was gone. And the evening meeting loomed. This time, a meeting with some others here regarding different facets of our worship week by week. A useful time. A chance to stop and talk things through together.

We don't get enough of such chances. Or, more likely, don't make such moments happen often enough.

Sometimes a day is like that. Preparing myself for the action. Then into the action itself. Like an archer, I guess. Taking time to draw his bow right back, to ensure that when the bowstring is released, the arrow flies straight to its target.

Preparation is everything. So they say. It's important to be prepared. For anything!

listening to the Lord

On a Friday there are never so many folk around the place.

Which in some ways is good. It means there's the chance to get on with things in a concentrated way.

I was glad of the 'space' this being-on-my-own afforded me today. There was much that I needed to do.

I wanted to try and get clear in my mind the message God means me to bring. Or messages more like. Sunday morning and night. Two very different 'words'.

It was the evening one I was working on throughout the bulk of the time. Listening in to what the Lord is saying to us here. It's his word, not mine, that I'm seeking to bring. So the heart of my task is this listening to him.

Which takes time. And often a sort of quiet 'isolation'.

How do I know that I'm hearing him? It's hard to put into words. It's kind of like a gnawing sense that this is what he's saying. Like a fire in my heart that won't go out at all.

Over time you start to recognise his 'voice', the fact that he is speaking and the drift of what he says.

Like last night. I hadn't planned on a travelling up to the hospital then. But I found this spreading pressure on my heart to go and see the daughter of the lady who was up there in the hospital.

And calling on her and learning that she was up at the side of her mother's hospital bed, I knew I had to go.

I'd have wished (as I said in yesterday's post) that I might have made it in time and been there before she had died. But I wasn't. I arrived just moments too late.

I called by this afternoon on the daughter (a lady of seventy). She couldn't get over the fact I arrived when I did and was there at that moment of deepest, immediate grief. I'd been, she declared, a 'God-send'. I found that really encouraging.

Her perception, I think, was right. It was a case of being sent by God. I was very aware of that. Hearing his voice, discerning his gentle 'nudges' and just going where he led.

The bottom line in all I do is simply this. God speaks.

That's the basic reality on which my life is built. He speaks: and, as Charles Wesley in his famous hymn once wrote - and listening to his voice, new life the dead receive.

When I stand on a Sunday morning or night and start to preach, I'm seeking to bring God's word. And as I do just that, it is my expectation that things happen.

People who are spiritually dead, emotionally drained, physically spent - they find themselves revived, renewed, transformed.

So I don't like to think of what I'm doing on a day such as this as simply 'crafting sermons'. As if my work was simply a case of constructing a good bit of script. It's not.

I'm seeking to listen to God. To hear his word. To figure it out in such a way that when I start to preach, it's not my words at all. It's God who'll speak.

And when he speaks, things happen.

I can't predict just what. That's part of what makes it always so exciting.

I never can tell just what it is that is taking place in people's lives. I just know something is. Something God himself is doing in their lives.

And Fridays, when I'm on my own, are somehow an important part of all the massive drama of the Sunday when it comes.

Where have I heard all that before?!

building bridges

London is fascinating.

I know that must sound strange from one who finds it hard to cope with the features of London life.

But it is. Fascinating. In all sorts of different ways.

And one of the things I found so very striking about being there were the bridges across the Thames.

It's a city which straddles a river. And these lines of communication are absolutely integral to all its life. The network of constant connections which make for the city's life.

That's been the picture I've had in my mind at point after point through today. The networks we form, the bridges we build, the healthy connections we make.

I was in at the school again today. On Thursdays it's just a fleeting call, at coffee time. And I never know what to expect. But it's basically 'network' stuff.

And I got the chance to speak to a couple of folk about the day we're hoping to hold in June to think through some environmental issues in our lives.

I met and chatted briefly with the teacher who's in charge of the school's "eco-committee", giving the briefest sort of outline of the sort of thing we planned.

I ran some ideas past Dave, the Head, and he seemed happy with these.

I asked for the chance to speak to the pupils about it all, since we want to involve them too. Run a competition for them all, get them doing some thinking on this theme. Again, he was happy to give me the chance. And this coming Wednesday morning looks to be ideal, since he's already arranged for some guy with an environmental slant to come and speak to the children.

It felt like a fruitful fifteen minute stint. Bridges into the life of the whole community again.

There was time today as well to do the rather different 'building bridges' which is what my 'preparation' tends to be about. Bridges across the flowing waters of time and place and culture to connect the world of the Bible with the world we live in today.

A 'network' of a rather different sort. Connecting a people with God. I felt I made progress with that as well.

And then there was the family who'd been bereaved. The ones who'd asked if I would lead the service of thanksgiving for their loved one who had died.

I went to see them as arranged. But there was no one at the house!

They'd forgotten they'd agreed to meet me then and there! Mobile phones have their uses, for sure. I was able to find them and meet with them both (the son and his daughter) and talk through the sorrow they've known.

A lot of the time it's simply a case of my listening in as they speak. Making connections. Getting a feel for where they're all at and why they feel as they do.

I learned from them why they don't want the other minister. Their side of the story, anyway. Which underlined once again how fragile relationships are. How easily bridges get burned.

And it struck me again how important it is, if you live in a city like London, to guard and protect all those bridges there are. How important it is in community life to be careful to safeguard our ties.

But that, I guess, is history, so far as they're concerned. This family's moving on. And the bridges that I'm seeking to be building in their lives are bridges which will re-inforce connections with the Lord.

I prayed with them both at the end of the time. I usually do. That sort of 'formally' opens the bridge and helps them travel across. I think they found it helpful and encouraging to share in such a prayer.

Death is often likened to a river that we have to cross.

I was thinkng of that as well today. Not just in the light of my seeing these folk this afternoon. But at night as well.

I'd called at the home of a lady here, knowing her mother was ill. The lady was out at the hospital, her mother herself more than merely ill, but very much on her death-bed now. her daughter at her side.

It was straight on up to the hospital the other side of town. The elderly mother had literally moments before passed on when I got there. I'd have wished to have made it in time. But at least I was there at that moment of rawest grief.

And, again, it's a case, at moments like that, of building connections with God. The lady who'd died was a lovely believer in Christ. Now very much, and really very evidently too, at peace. Her family, too, will know a peace as they 'network' now with the Lord. Across those fragile bridges of relationship with God.

But there is that river to cross. Death.

People sometimes put off giving any thought to that. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it, is the line that they often take.

But what if they find when they reach that point that there isn't a bridge in place. Not there, where their whole way of living has brought them to.

You need to know where the bridges are. And here, at the point of our certain death, here there's only one. One man whose life and death have built for all a bridge.

And I found it really striking that the new 'Millennium' Bridge (the 'wobbly bridge' as they call the thing, I think) - that bridge leads right on up to the soaring, grand cathedral of St Paul's.

You walk across this bridge and it takes you through the clamours of a city's busy life, it takes you into the overwhelming grandeur of the presence of almighty God.

A lesson on life? I made the connection.

being creative

Most of the time I really enjoy my work.

That's worth saying, I guess, since for many folk that's not the case at all. (I mean, what sort of life does a Sky News reporter really have??) And I'm daily very grateful that I've got some work to do and that it's work I find fulfilling and enjoyable.

I think it's the inherent creativity which makes my work so satisfying. Not in a strictly 'artistic' sense - as in painting pictures all day long. But in the sense that I am essentially required to be creative all day long. In countless different ways.

Like at the school this morning. Assembly time. Where I don't have anything formal to do as such. Mainly a case of my being there. Sitting in and listening well to all that's going on.

And finding the ways to make the most of all the little chances that there are to be creative. Gentlemanly courtesies (no, not the sort of courtesying ladies do, but minding my ps and qs). Moments of conversation. Smiles to brighten up the day.

It's not that I get nothing at all to do, of course. I help give out certificates - so there's a chance to be creative in the way I'm doing that. I'm asked to lead the children in a prayer - and again there's scope for creativity in that.

I like being along at the school, I have to say. Building on relationships. Sharing in their lives.

A rather different sort of creativity's involved in what I found myself engaged in for the rest of the morning today. Seeing some folk in relation to needs or concerns that they have.

Some fairly major issues here. And a large part of what I am called by the Lord to do is simply listen hard and long. Listen to them and listen to him. To find the way forward and figure out how best they can be helped.

I hadn't planned my morning would be spent like that. At least not entirely so. It just was. The needs arose. The people came.

It's a case of being creative again.

Which I had to be at the lunchtime service, too, since the time I'd thought I'd have throughtout the morning to prepare just didn't exist at all the way it all worked out!

So expounding the passage of Scripture while thinking on my feet is an exercise again in creativity. I rely on the Lord to help me out. He being the great Creator himself of course.

These midweek lunchtime services are great. For the folk that come, for most of them at any rate, it's the one real way they get to share in the worshipping life of the people here.

A short half hour together in an act of public worship: and then the chance to eat and chat together over lunch. It's just sort of grown like Topsy into a weekly thing. That's somehow the creativity works. It just happens. Grows and develops quite naturally.

After lunch on a Wednesday I generally meet with one of the leaders here. I value the time with him. He's a long-standing friend with a down-to-earth wisdom and nous. Supportive and helpful.

And chatting things through with him like this, and rounding it off with prayer, that helps the creativity. Stimulates my thinking and gives clarity to thought.

After that it was down to some long-overdue work on the praise for the worship we'll be sharing on this coming Sunday night. A different sort of creativity again. Creating a memorable occasion where the presence of God can be known.

And before I knew it the morning and afternoon both were gone! The time just flies.

At night I was out once again. Meeting with folk in a sort of embryonic fellowship group. Just the five of us still. And we've started exploring Genesis. (As in the first book in the Bible).

What a great time we have. Addressing the questions quite honestly. And finding surprising vistas of truth. The whole thing comes alive.

Which I think never ceases to come as a major surprise to us all. Not that we don't expect God's word to be like that. It's just the way it comes alive is really very wonderful. Exciting just how apposite it is. How up to date.

I think we all felt that.

And I love the 'creativity' involved in bringing it alive.

There are few things quite as satisfying as that. So, yes, I love the work I do.