at home

The value for the month at the school through May is 'co-operation'.

It's a helpful reminder for all of the children there, of course. And the way that the Head worked through the thing today was really good. Illustrating just what it means in the life of a school like this.

Explaining just what the cooks in the kitchen do each day, and how they go about it (I didn't know, for instance, that they also cook the lunches there for Cramond Primary School - and the lunches then get taken down by truck!).

Explaining how all of the school could help in funding one of the pupils as he goes across to Turkey to represent Scotland in some 'MindLab' competition there.

And a whole host of other pertinent illustrations too. It was good.

I'm glad he sees myself being there as part of a large co-operative sort of venture in the whole of the wider community. We have to work together. And sometimes the lines are not that neatly drawn.

Co-operation is the essence of my life, I guess. I'm working together with God. Same as really every single follower of Christ.

We're figuring out what he is working at: and getting involved with that ourselves. It makes life pretty interesting, that's for sure.

The midweek lunchtime service is a case in point. None of us really thought this up. It just sort of 'happened'. Something the Lord was doing. So we played along with him.

And week by week I'm really very humbled at just what it is he's doing there and how he lets us be involved in all of that.

Same again today. I was leading the service on Psalm 62. And looking out across the sea of faces I ws struck by just how many folk are there. Folk I thought were really not that bothered about our worship here since for long enough I rarely ever saw them on a Sunday.

And here they are, each week! It's wonderful. And it's good for them to have the chance for eating with each other afterwards.

Which involves a huge amount of work, of course. Preparing food and serving food. That sort of thing. But again it all comes back to this one crucial value that the Head is always on about - co-operation.

Because there are folk involved in the serving of the food who haven't been with us at worship yet. At least, not in the formal 'Sunday' sense of worship. But they love it here on a Wednesday and enjoy being involved in this 'service' of hospitality.

For them, I suspect, it's a helpful sort of staging-post in their ongoing journey of faith. A means by which the Lord just draws them closer to himself.

There are folk who come to lunch here who are just like that as well. Week by week we see them here, popping in for their lunch.

And again, at a level they're happy with, they're exposing themselves to the Lord. Most of the time without every having the faintest clue that that's what's going on!

One of the Mums who comes has a little girl. Three years old or so. A lovely wee girl, who's really into ballet and who loves to help us out. Clearing the tables and taking the stuff to the kitchen. That sort of thing.

She had me out in the gardens here, to show me her blowing bubbles.

Strange how the smallest breath of wind on that little watery mess can create such beautiful bubbles and see them floating away.

A picture of the strange unseen activity of the powerful Spirit of God.

A picture impressed on a young girl's mind at an early age. A thing of fun and beauty. A lesson that the Lord is maybe storing up for her to learn in later years.

I was back in my office after lunch when Alastair came along. I was due to meet with him, so that was no surprise. But at the door he announced that there was someone there looking for 'the prime minister'.

This wee girl again. So in she comes, quite the thing, and sees the fish and wants to feed them food, and .. well, just makes herself at home. Which is great.

I'm going to be talking with this man here, I say. Good, she replies. The hint not taken at all.

Do you want to go back to your Mum, now?

No.

Maybe your Mum is looking for you?

No.

Maybe your Mum is missing you?

No. What's this? she asks.

I explain. It's a little plastic 'troll', with a shock of gaudy blue hair, and a little sign which says on it 'I love my Dad'.

It looks like you, she says.

(Thanks a bunch, I'm thinking to myself. I prefer the prime ministerial comparison)

Let's see what your Mum has to say, I suggest. Getting back to the point.

No.

Come on, I say, I'll take you to your Mum! Let's play a game and go and see if we can find your Mum!

A move to which she finally concedes.

Here's a little girl who feels at home.

I think that's what we're really trying to do. Help people, old and young alike, just feel at home. Give them a sense of coming home.

Which is what we're all of us seeking. And what the message proclaims. Relationship with God is really much like coming home.

But the journey can be a long one. Ask the 'prodigal son'.

And there are loads of stops on the way.

A little girl like this, she maybe needs to feel it first, before the thing is ever put in words.

And I guess it's not just little girls for whom that's true.