funeral services

The service I conducted today was mobbed out with people.

The family had chosen the smaller chapel (which seats maybe 65 or so): but it was way too small! There were loads of people there.

The older son spoke for a bit about his mother who had died. Simply, warmly, with a very obvious gratitude and pride. And with a bit of humour, too.

He'd said the other night when I'd been down and seeing them all - he'd said he wasn't religious at all. As I think I said, a post or two ago.

That always makes it rather hard. I don't ever want to seem somehow to be kind of 'preaching' at a guy who's made it clear just where his ground's staked out.

And yet, I can't renege on my calling as a preacher of the word.

It's not the easiest balance to sustain. But I try. And I think both he - and the rest of the family, too, and, indeed, the bulk of the people there - found it helpful the way I handled it.

And I hope that they gained some sense of the presence of God.

There was another funeral service taking place in the chapel afterwards. Not one that I ws conducting. And I noticed that just as the hearse arrived, a mourner (presumably) stepped into the road and started taking photos of the funeral cortege.

I'm not sure why, I have to confess. But it struck me that funeral services are somehow changing quite a bit.

Certainly the funeral service I was conducting reflected certain changes that are taking place. Two bits of music as the mourners all came in. Instead of the usual one.

The organist wasn't all that chuffed. I mean, he doesn't mind playing the organ. But putting the CDs on? I think he feels he's bit by bit becoming a kind of daytime clubbers' DJ, or something like that.

The thing is becoming a bit of a big event. One final grand performance almost as a sort of one-stop little tribute gig in honour of the person who has died. And a photographic record of it all will go down well.

I don't know.

I find it puzzling and more than a little disturbing. I fear it's in part because our people today are struggling in a mire of spiritual ignorance, confused, perplexed and often as not with a wholly distorted view of what death is and how we should respond.

All the more reason for starting to teach the people here along these lines.

four elephants

When I was at an age when it was OK to read comics, one of the jokes that did the rounds was this -

How do you fit four elephants into a Mini?

Answer: two in the front and two in the back.

Yes, I know it's not really funny at all. It's on a par with the "what's yellow and has large black spikes coming out of the top?" to which the answer was "shark-infested custard!"

I guess humour has changed a bit across the years!

But I was reminded of jokes like that today because this was very much a four-elephants-in-a-Mini sort of day. Trying to fit everything in.

There's a wedding this Saturday coming. Which makes the week shorter itself. Added preparation and less of the Saturday time in which to be getting it done. Time gets shorter on two counts.

There's a funeral service as well tomorrow afternoon. Same phenomenon again. Another two-fold shrinkage of the time-size of the week.

Today I was round at the school, since the new routines are now established there. An assembly today for Primary 1-3.

These assemblies with the younger set of children will be happening once a week, so I'll get more chance to meet with them than I seemed to do last year. The older group (the Primary 4-7s) will only be meeting once a fortnight - but I'll hopefully have a good deal more of a contact with them through time with them in the class.

At least that's what seemed to emerge from the 15 flying minutes that I spent with the staff in their room at the mid-morning break.

The Primary 5s booked me in for another 5-part course on Christianity. Same as last year which they seemed to think was great. The Primary 7s are wanting me in for a 3 or 4-part course on baptism and the saints. And the Primary 4s are wanting to fix something up about some of the Christian doctrines and the work of a guy like me.

I think they maybe look at the ground they're meant to be covering and think to themselves - Help! So I'm glad to be there to offer such help.

And it's great having that sort of contact with all of the children.

So a profitable morning in many ways, along there at the school.

I'd hoped I might have completed my preparation for the funeral service tomorrow by midday. But that didn't work out at all.

There were computer problems to do with our new database which I tried to address. And that took a fair bit of time.

There were people to see who needed some time just to work a whole load of issues through. And though I hadn't planned on that (I keep my days pretty flexible when I can, mind, deliberately), it was good to be able to have the time with them. The timing today seemed right.

And the whole of the afternoon was much the same. Priorities get adjusted on the hoof. The funeral preparation had to wait. I mean, it does get done: just not when I'd thought I'd do it.

At night I was out at Kirkliston again. Seeing the family where the young man died a couple of weeks ago. They're always glad to see me and give me a lovely sort of welcome every time.

It turns out that that the father whose son had died - he'd done some work with some slabbing round the back of our premises here and knew the place a bit. And his wife has done the catering for many years for one of the groups which uses our premises here every year.

They hadn't made the connection before. It was great to make it now.

It was like the Lord himself just sews these different strands aross our lives and slowly, subtly weaves them all together in a quite amazing way. He knows what he's doing all right!

Like in another situation where one of the folk involved in God's people here e-mailed to say that at last she'd secured just the perfect job. It was wonderful to hear!

A single Mum with all sorts of burdens to bear. And suddenly losing her job at the start of the summer. But her daughter was ill through the summer and she was 'conveniently' therefore at home. And now the daughter's better again - and she finds herself in work.

Wonderful! He knows what he's doing. Even when half the time we haven't a clue.

here for a service

"I'm here for a service..."

The man was .. well, 'up in years' as they say. Not young, by any means: and not really middle-aged any longer either.

I know it's a Wednesday. But it's not what you maybe think. The Wednesday lunch-time services haven't restarted yet.

And it wasn't even here I heard the man. It was up at the Renault garage, where I had to put the car in for a minor bit of work.

"... Well, not me, of course, but the car," the man went on, making things crystal clear for the young Australian guy who was at reception.

"Though maybe I could do with one, too," he added. And the way he looked, and the way he sounded, too, I thought maybe you're right!

But although that was first thing this morning (a good many hours ago!), his words have stuck with me most of the day and I've chewed on them a bit.

For myself I had a bit of to-and-fro-ing through the morning, getting up to the garage then back by bus, then up later on, mid-morning, by bus again, then back with the car when they'd sorted the invoice out. It all takes time, but it's good for a bit of a read or some quiet thought.

'Service' time for myself in a way. Servicing the soul. Giving my heart a bit of time and space away from other people and the multitude of little tasks that fill a day.

Like the time of morning prayer here, too. We've put an alarm clock out in the main Reception Area, so just before 9.40am the bell or the buzzer goes off! The call to prayer!

That's been great as well.

Yesterday we prayed for a person we haven't seen or heard of for a while. Months really since we had any sort of contact with the girl. And we were burdened to pray for her by name.

So what a thrill it was today (much later on) to get a lovely e-mail from the girl! Though she's not been around at all, she still listens in from time to time to our services on the internet. A different way of checking in for a service. But the same sort of thing.

At one stage this morning I popped out into the Reception Area. It was good to have the briefest of chats with one of the leaders here, who's not had her troubles to seek.

She'd been in for a coffee, a chance to chat, and here she was just leaving. It was good to be able to talk with her and then, as we stood there together right by the door, to pray together about the situation that's been vexing her.

I'm here for a service.

The unuttered script of so many folk who call by here. Not just the 'service' they're given by coffee, tea and lunches being served. But 'ministry', that sort of gentle friendship through which, by words and deeds, their hearts are touched and comforted and fortified again.

Much of the afternoon was spent addressing with a fellow leader here how best we make the meeting of the leaders here next week a rather different time than what it's customarily been. More of a genuine meeting of minds and hearts.

We changed our constitution back in June. And the role this meeting of the leaders has is ripe, I think, for change. We want the thing relational and worshipful instead of being a business-driven time.

There were seven or eight of us out for a time of prayer at night as well. 'Servicing' the work and people of God.

I tried to do things just a wee bit differently. What we sometimes do is sort of run through all the many different things there are to pray about (at length), and then go back and pray about them all and hope folk can remember them.

It's a kind of 'Generation Game' sort of praying, I sometimes think. You hear all the things to be prayed for and then have to try and remember them all when it comes to the time of prayer.

And I wonder what the Lord ends up thinking. Is he not there as well when we're discussing the matters before? Do we keep him out of the room at that time and only ask him in when our 'list' has been compiled?

Of course not. He's there from the start. We ask for his presence, acknowledge his presence, rejoice in his presence. So, hey, he's there all right.

So I tried to ensure we included him in the discussion the whole way through. It was great. An hour and a quarter later or so we figured it was time to close things down.

At least I did. I'd arranged to call on a bereaved family. And I was already late.

Another set of people who were 'here for a service.'

In their case, of course, they wanted to talk through the thanksgiving service there'll be at the end of the week.

The lady who'd died, her oldest son confessed he wasnt 'religious' (to which I felt like saying, 'join the club'), but the time that I had with the three of them there was good and I didn't feel awkward engaging with them in prayer at the end.

It's just really part of the 'service'.

meetings

Talk about 'meetings'!

Which I was yesterday.

My day today seemed to illustrate the point. Not 'meetings' as such (which often are lacking in any real meeting of minds and of hearts at all), but meeting with people and having the chance to chat and share.

We met for prayer, of course. The 9.40-42am thing. The soups were both already on, long since, by then, and the doors were locked ('Peter sent them all out of the room' after all) and for just those few moments we stopped and we joined in prayer.

Meeting like that is great. Short but very sweet. And who knows how important and effective in all that God is purposing to do.

Later I was meeting up with Douglas over lunch. Always a good and refreshing chance to pause and talk and toss things round (thoughts and ideas, I mean, rather than plates or food!).

But before I got seated, I'd met another couple who had just popped in for lunch. New to the district and checking things out - doctors, dentists, that sort of thing. They'd seen the place was open so they'd come right in and liked the lunch and ... well, maybe their being there was just a part of prayer being answered.

It's great when things work out like that. I ended up having really quite a long chat. And I guess it helps folk feel a little bit at home when things are, otherwise, all strange and new.

Then in walked my sister as well! I hadn't expected to see her or meet her today, so that was a lovely surprise. And she joined us for lunch. Another chance encounter. Another bit of meeting up with people.

And the day went on like that as well. Calling on folk in their homes in the afternoon. Planned visits, but nonetheless meeting with people, enjoying the time with them. And sensing in all such times that we're meeting not just with one another but with God himself as well. He's there too.

And in between such visits to the homes of different folk I'd meet with other people on the street. Entirely chance encounters, but all sorts of different people and who knows how much these fleeting little moments where we genuinely meet will mean, nor what they will effect.

For instance. I was in very briefly to see the family where the 5 year old boy (well, he's coming on 6, I suppose) is being baptised this coming Sunday morning. And on the way in, then on the way out, I had the chance to meet and chat with the guy who is their neighbour.

We've known his wife and daughter for a while (mainly through the Reception Area and latterly through the Holiday Club).

The girl so loved the place and so much enjoyed the Holiday Club she almost sort of dragged her parents along to Sunday worship. Usually the Dad, but sometimes her Mum instead.

So here was the chance to chat with her Dad. And we chatted a bit about Sunday morning's service. And I think he hopes they'll all be there.

Another tiny little bit of an encounter with the Lord perhaps, which slowly forms a picture in his heart of this God being for real. Who knows.

I love days like this, where I'm meeting with folk all the time. And half of the time unplanned.

It was the same at night.

I had gone up town for a 'meeting' (the sort that's not really meeting, if you see what I mean) and on the way back I got onto the bus and there was another young man I know. It was great to see him again, to sit and to have just the briefest of chances to chat.

It's been like that throughout the day. And running through it all, I realise that what makes my life so rich and such fun, is the fact that I'm meeting, throughout its course, with the Lord.

Like walking up town for that 'meeting' tonight. 45 minutes of genuine meeting with God. Chatting things through with him. Hearing what he has to say.

That's going on all the time. I think it's totally brilliant!

It's just 'meetings' themselves that I have these issue about!

moderator?

There was almost a case of a serious mistaken identity today.

For which I'd have been responsible, I guess. Although it was all a misunderstanding.

I was conducting a funeral service this afternoon. Way over the other side of town. Not the usual place.

But then, it wasn't a local person who had died. This was 'Kirkliston time'. So most of the mourners only knew me at best by sight - and mainly, I guess, not at all.

The service was good and folk listened well. And I think appreciated all that I said. I had that sense at any rate.

Waiting around in the aftermath, as mourners filed outside, a man came up and, in the course of fairly idle chat, he asked -

"Are you the moderator, then?"

I was about to say 'Yes' - since, of course, that's what I am in relation to the church out there at Kirkliston: the 'Interim Moderator', to give it its full designation. I assumed that's what he was talking about.

But someone once told me, 'Never assume - it only ever makes an ass of u and me!'

This could have been a case in point.

My assumption was way off beam. The guy was thinking of something rather different - the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.

Which is a rather different, and vastly more elevated, creature than a humble 'Interim Moderator'.

Had that little word 'Yes, actually crossed my lips, I fear I might have had him asking for my autograph or looking for a photo of the two of us together. His fifteen minutes of fame as he spoke with this noble personage - 'The Moderator'.

So I had to disabuse him of that notion pretty quick.

It's silly what titles can do to the way that we view folk we meet. I mean, whatever I'm called, whatever position I hold, I'm still only me.

And that's how the folk in the fellowship here all treat me. By and large. Which is great. The way it's meant to be.

Like Jesus and his followers. The way he called them friends. And said that's what he was for them as a well. A friend.

Yeah, sure, he was their teacher and their leader, but he never pushed position or tried to use his leadership to lord it over them. Anything but.

I guess that's why they loved the guy and gladly hung around with him. He was glad to be just one of them.

When things are like that it's great!

Like today.

I'd prepared for the funeral service when I first came in. Then the rest of the morning it was a celebratory chill-out sort of session over coffee, scones and cream with the Reception Area team.

They treat me as part of the 'gang', just one of them. And when we meet like that it's not like a committee meeting or anything remotely like that.

Things get discussed and decided, for sure. There's 'business' we get through, I guess. Except it never feels like that at all. It's more just being with friends.

Quite a productive morning, nonetheless. Sharing in a common enterprise and trying to see together what the Lord himself is doing at this time.

At night I was out with friends again. Back with the 'five' to get into the Bible again. That's always good. We kind of miss it when there are spells such as this when we don't get to meet at all.

Did I have a 'meeting' in the morning and at night?

Well, that's a sort of 'Are you the moderator?' question.

Because I don't really go for the things that we call a 'meeting'. Not at all. But I love when I'm meeting with folk!

Which is why these things that I don't really like are actually called a 'meeting' - I suppose!

Except, in a strange sort of way, we often as not don't really 'meet with' each other at all. They're formal and structured and driven by business concerns. There are axes that people are grinding and issues that make folk defensive.

They're often not 'relational' at all. And I think that's the difference. And maybe the problem, too. The absence of relationship.

Which makes me think there's some real mistaken identity going on. Why call them 'meetings' when there's not really any true meeting of people going on?

(That's a rhetorical question, by the way!)

10k swimming

There were four of us who joined for prayer together today at 9.40am.

There may have been more, of course, who joined in prayer without being there in person. But four of us certainly 'downed our tools', put everything else to the side, and simply joined in prayer.

It was really quite exciting!

The rest of the day then was pretty non-stop. A long stretch of time on the task of putting together the words that I'll say at the service of thanksgiving tomorrow. A fair bit of time in the kitchen, too, with desserts to be made for the meeting we held here tonight.

I felt like one of those swimmers who've been doing their Olympic swim - the 10k swim which I think must be the pits. You swim and you swim and you swim and every time you look up it seems you've still as far to go.

I breathed a sigh of relief, I have to say, when, with all of the desserts now complete, I'd finished preparing the funeral talk as well. That was my target today.

That was my equivalent of those great 10k swimmers looking up and catching breath - and seeing that there was still as far to go.

The phone rang. Another death. Another family bereaved. Another funeral service to prepare for and address. I think that must be four I've on the go just now. I'm losing track a bit! Like the swimmers, I just 'crawl' on.

A stark, persistent statement of the brevity of life. We all must die. And the message I'm proclaiming must take note of that.

But that's where the 9.40 passage is rooted, of course. A woman had died. And Peter prayed. And helped her back to her feet.

Living out the message of a resurrecting God.

That's what I'm seeking to do.

And I can't get away from that basic fact that it's set against the backdrop of death.

fixing the mess

Another day when I didn't seem to stop that much at all.

One little incident seemed to sum it up.

I was late getting back in the afternoon, and when I arrived there were two little girls out playing in the street.

It's a cul-de-sac so they're often out on their bikes. One of the girls lives there, the other is there with her grandparents - and I know her from the local school.

The two of them looked quite troubled, so I asked what the trouble was.

It was the latter girl's bike. She'd managed to get a length of rope entangled in the chain. 'Woven' might be a better way of describing it since it was well and truly intertwined at about three different places and all coiled up round both of the sides of the hub of one of the wheels.

A mess.

And she was worried as well. Worried that her grandparents might give her a row since the bike wasn't her's but her smaller, younger cousin's.

Well, it didn't take really all that long - and yes, I was later still with the tea. But the bike got fixed, the fears were allayed and the girls were back on the road.

Another little 'Jim'll-fix-it' adventure.

And a picture of what my daily life is like, I guess. A lot of it unexpected. With people whose lives have one way or another gone off the rails, or hit the buffers, or ground to a dreadful halt.

Talking of which, the brake lights on the car had ceased to work. So I'd had to make a sizeable, lengthy detour (the garage is not that close) to see if they could fix the thing for me. (I'd tried and failed).

I saw it as a providence of God that the guy who served me (Stephen) was the guy who'd also been dealing with me a few weeks back when I'd had the car in for a service. And he recognised me right away.

He couldn't fix it there and then so he asked if I would leave the car and he'd get it done (at least in a temporary way) that afternoon.

A rapid juggling of ... well, not so much what I'd planned to do, but how I planned to do it. I had to get back to the halls here since I was already well late for meeting someone here. And then I had another call that I'd arranged to make, relating to one of the funerals I'm conducting over these next few days.

And, of course, later on I had to get back, across the town to the garage to get the car. And then get the thing back here!

The day was really tight enough time-wise as it was! I'd been out to Kirkliston at the end of the morning to see a man there whose mother had died. I was seeing the lady in the village here, as I say, whose husband had died.

And I had to be out at Kirkliston again pretty sharp at the start of the evening. Seeing the family who'd known such wretched tragedy in the sudden, awful death of their 20-year old son: just, in a sense, simply being with them and having a time of prayer with them all as well.

A special time again.

And then a lengthy meeting of the leaders of the church out there at Kirkliston which didn't see me back here till, well, what's the time, I suppose about 10.25pm or so.

Like I say, it was one of those days. A rope-in-the-chain-of-the-bike sort of day. Which is pretty much a Jesus sort of day, I think, if I read the Bible aright.

The guy gave his life to that. Fixing the messes, helping us back on the road.

Whcih brings me back to the 9.40-42 resolve.

I started this morning to pray like that. I stopped and had that special time of prayer and prayed that what I'd read of Peter doing, reaching out a hand to this woman Tabitha and helping her up and putting her on her feet again - I prayed that that's what we'd see Jesus doing here as well.

I think I just did!

And for good measure, too, the Lord threw in the kindness of a young man by the name of Stephen who fixed not my bike but my brakes - and kept me on the road.

9.40-42

Some weeks get to be a bit like this, when all of the time seems to simply disappear.

There was a call today from another undertaker. Another death. Out in Kirkliston again. The wife of a man who'd died some three months back in May and whose funeral service I'd taken.

Her only son now suddenly left alone. And feeling the isolation with his mother and father now dead.

So with the new week after Sunday now just two days old I'm already trying to juggle three very different series of pastoral visits. Fitting them in. Keeping the details separate in my mind. Adjusting to all the particular, personal circumstances each one has.

How the Lord copes with all of us, I really don't know!

But it's plain that he somehow does! In amongst all that's been going on today, and triggered in part by one of the conversations that I had, the thought was placed in my mind of the need that we had to set aside a short, but definite time each day to pray together for all the different aspects of the work we're doing here. In the Halls, I mean.

That's a pretty obvious thought, of course. But the particular, personal thing was the startling sudden clarity with which (I can only believe) the Lord put the hour and the minute into my mind.

"9.40," he seemed to say. As simple and straight as that.

"And look up the reference, too," he seemed to add.

Which I did. Chapter and verse. I got that sense which I sometimes do that there was something he wanted to show me from the Bible.

Not all of the books of the Bible have as many as 9 chapters. Though most of them do.

But of those that have 9 chapters, only really a very few have as many as 40 verses. And most of those had little of any real relevance at all.

It all went down to the wire, in fact. The last book in the Bible to have a 9th chapter with more than 39 verses. The book of Acts.

It hit me like a bombshell.

"Peter sent them all out of the room: then he got down on his knees and prayed."

Talk about 'confirmation'. I was that excited, I then read on.

"Turning towards the dead woman, he said, 'Tabitha, get up.' She opened her eyes, and seeing Peter she sat up. He took her by the hand and helped her to her feet. Then he called the believers and the widows and presented her to them alive. This became known all over Joppa, and many people believed in the Lord."

It was like the Lord was saying very simply. 'Just pray. Close the doors, as it were. Send everyone else away, out everyone else out, and just go pray. Because, see what follows - that's what I mean to do.'

We can't do any of this on your own, what we seek to see in all that goes on day by day down here. The Lord just seemed to stop me in my tracks today and said, 'You've got to pray. I'm the only one that can do it, so don't try doing it all yourselves.'

'You do the praying, I'll do the rest.'

This is the vision we have for all we're involved in here in the Reception Area where people come for teas and coffees and lunch. We long to see people helped to their feet as Tabitha was, coming alive, renewed, restored and made alive.

Maybe the whole community is simply looking for this, as Joppa was.

So that's what he says. 9.40-9.42

The hour and minute (in the morning, I should add! The place officially opens at 10am).

The chapter and verse. From the book of Acts. You want to see things happen? Do this then, together. You act. And I'll act.

A short little time each day when all of you simply pray.

It's great when the Lord speaks with such amazing directness and gives such a wonderful promise of all that's yet to be.

We kind of needed that today.

That's what I mean about the Lord being so very personal and particular!

sorrows

The fact that Edinburgh buses often come in threes I can understand.

The reason's been explained to me and I see the obvious logic of it all.

Quite why it should be that sometimes there's that three-fold pattern when it comes to deaths - that I don't really understand. I'm just aware it happens.

Maybe it's just coincidence.

But on days like this it leaves a certain sorrow sort of hanging in the air.

A young man with his roots out in Kirkliston died on Friday afternoon. A very tragic death. Sudden, unexpected and a fine young man, respected, loved and cherished by a multitude of different folk. So much to give. So much to live for.

And then in an instant an accident takes all that just gone.

I was out to the family home today. What lovely, lovely folk his parents and his family are. The young man's father had his brother die quite suddenly, a good many years back now, in a similar sort of accident as well.

A man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.

Indeed.

It isn't ever easy seeing a family like that. A family I'd never met before.

And in a sense, all that I can ever hope to bring - all that I aspire to bring - is a sense of the presence of that other guy who more than any other was 'a man of sorrows acquainted with grief.'

A sense that there is indeed a God who cares, despite the cruel hand life seems to deal. There is a God who understands. There is a God who's come.

And comes to be with us in all our sorrows, griefs and pains.

That's all I hope that I'm able to bring. Somehow.

It's going out on a limb each time. Stepping out in faith. Because that can only ever be what happens (the sense of the presence of Jesus himself) if God makes it happen himself.

It's miracle every time. There's nothing I can ever do or say that somehow sort of conjures up that sense. Nothing. As I say, it's miracle.

And every time I call on folk like that, I'm looking for that miracle. Praying for it. Hard.

I find it very humbling, a pretty awesome thing, when the miracle takes place. It was like that today. Something that was palpable.

In a strange sort of way I have no doubt there's something quite significant going on in all their lives.

This morning, as well, I had word of another death. The grandmother of the young man who was married just a week ago.

It's sometimes all the harder for a family when soaring joy and searing grief are set so close to one another.

Such a wonderful day last Monday down in Rothbury and Alnwick. And then such sorrow last night, just six days later on.

It was Sunday night she died. The day of resurrection.

Sometimes having that sort of permanent 'marker' in a family's grief can help. You can't ever think of the death without being reminded of what, in the face of death, God's done. The weekly assurance we're given that what was accomplished once, a long, long time ago, will one day happen again. For all of us.

I had a call as well today from a neighbouring church. A member of their fellowship had died. The minister was away. Would I cover in his absence?

Of course.

(It's hard, as I said before - it's hard to say 'No')

The weight of their grief is always something that I feel. No matter that I haven't ever met the folk before. It's always something that I feel. It weighs upon my heart.

And all that I can think is that the reason why it feels like that is just because a family's grief is something which the Lord himself must feel. And somehow that, in some small way, transmits itself to me.

So that my very feeling their grief becomes, in a way, the tangible means of the presence of Christ being known.

It's a strange and mysterious thing.

And in its way, as I said before, nothing less than miracle.

3mph

I forget who it was, but someone once said that our brains work best at 3mph.

As in when we're walking.

The quote's from a book called 'Wanderlust' which spends some 300 plus pages talking about .. well, walking really. In all its different shapes and forms.

The writer was quoting some quite famous guy to make the point that we do our best thinking often enough when we're out and enjoying a walk.

Anything faster, and our brains don't cope too well. At least in terms of genuine, constructive thinking.

Who am I to argue?!

But it's all to do with this business of time. And whether we pace out lives aright.

I don't hear God if I go too fast. And I get pretty stale if I'm not getting out and about.

So my days are a mixture of both. And Fridays not least, when I'm wanting to get things all clear in my mind as to what the Lord's meaning to say.

Some of the day I'm stuck at my desk. Sitting, and reading; reflecting and writing; praying and starting to preach (as it were) to myself. So that I can hear God's word and feel its potent impact on my heart.

And some of the day I'm out and about as well. Walking around, calling on homes, meeting and talking and listening all of the time to what both they and the Lord have to say.

Then putting it all together. Getting the drift of just what God's word to us all has to say.

And that's best done at 3mph I suppose. I can't afford to live too fast.

time

"What did we do in the days before we had these mobile phones?"

I was chatting away in the street with a guy this afternoon. An older man.

His wife was chatting with someone else when the someone else's phone went off. The someone else's daughter, it transpired, was ill. The phone was a bit of a lifeline.

"Carrier pigeons aren't really quite the same," he went on.

And they're not, of course. Not that I've ever had one.

The mobile phone technology sort of speeds things up. Instant communication.

Which is handy, of course, when your child is taken ill (and you're not around).

But there's a downside to technology as well. And I don't just mean the mobile phones.

I mean all of our technology: e-mail (as opposed to letters), driving (as opposed to walking), flying across the Atlantic (as opposed to taking a boat).

Technology speeds life up. And for all its obvious benefits, there are two important downsides which I'm more and more aware of in our time.

First, it makes life highly stressful. Being able to do things more quickly (whether it's getting across the Atlantic or cooking your evening meal) doesn't give you more time: it actually gives you less. You're always keen to fit just that bit more into your diary and day.

Which is not a good way to live.

And second, it makes us often fairly superficial. There isn't time to think. There isn't really time or space to stop, to pause, to take the chance for any really serious reflection.

Writing a letter's a work of art. An e-mail's just a rapid splash of paint across the page.

The good things in life take time. And time is what technology removes.

So I haven't worn a watch for long enough. I'm trying to walk instead of drive a car. I'm trying to find the ways each day to recognise how good is God's good gift of time.

Sometimes God simply does that all himself for me.

There was a guy in here today to work on our computers. He needed them both, so here I was with no computer access for a good two hours or more.

It meant there was time just to meet and to talk. To work things through in more than just that rapid sort of superficial way which gets things done but doesn't have much depth.

Being out on the streets and in people's homes and walking from home to home is precisely the same. It gives the chance to talk. To stop and have time and be able to talk. And to get beyond the superficial pleasantries and down to things that matter in this brief but brilliant life.

That's the sort of day it's been today.

distance learning

Nothing to do with today, but here are some photos from Graham and Helen's wedding.

You can see just how happy they are!

* * *

Children don't seem to have much trouble when it comes to saying 'No!'

Certainly, the word very commonly goes hand in hand with a phenomenon called a 'tantrum'. But, hey, they manage to get the word out clearly enough!

Sometimes getting on in adult life it gets harder. Maybe it's the desire to please. Maybe it's some pangs of guilt. Who knows? (I'm not a psychologist).

But it sometimes gets harder simply to say to folk 'No'. Gently and quietly. With not a hint of a tantrum.

But still simply 'No'.

Anyway, I didn't manage it when asked the other day if I would take on a 'student' for a six month placement here.

I say 'student' because the guy is a grown man with a family who holds a responsible job in one of the high street banks. I know him well, and his family, too. They used to worship here and were much involved in all that was going on. Lovely folk.

Which was part of the reason I couldn't say 'No', of course!

He's started a course of training which will see him in a year or two able to serve the Lord not only in the work-place, but as a pastor, too. A 'minister of word and sacrament' as it's put.

He doesn't live all that close, but he wanted this placement here. And I'm glad to oblige. Really.

So that's why I didn't say 'No'.

What I did do, though, was step down from another commitment I've had for long enough in the teaching and training realm.

I've tutored for ... well, it must be more than twenty years I guess at a Bible college in Glasgow.

A 'Distance Learning Tutor'. Which means I don't go through to Glasgow or anything like that. Any more than the students do. I simply get assignments and I mark them and return them with my comments and suggestions. And sometimes there's the chance to ring the student up and chat things through.

I've really enjoyed the stimulus it brings. But I've recognised for quite some months that now perhaps is time to let that go.

It's not a huge commitment, obviously. But neither was the final straw that broke the camel's back.

So that's been where my gentle little 'No' has now been said. I've written in, resigning from that role. The folk at the college are great. They more than understand.

Which frees me up to give that added extra time that's needed with a placement such as Barry will be doing here.

I was seeing him today. Discussing with him what these months might involve. Why he'd asked for his placement here. What he looked for from what these months bring. That sort of thing.

I'm pleased there'll be that further point of contact with his family as well. They'll all come here on Sundays and be part of what we're at. Despite the distance there is.

So it is, I suppose, another sort of 'distance learning' I'm involved in once again! Except this time I get to see the student. The best of all worlds!

We've tried to see there is for us a certain responsibility to help in the training and shaping of leaders within the church.

'Us', I stress. For it's not just a thing that I do. We see it as a way in which our congregation's life can help inform and shape and nurture the whole ministry of leadership the likes of Barry will have.

We're glad to help. And the more so with someone like him. It should be good!

wedding

The long weekend of total 'cyber silence' is easily explained. I was at a wedding.

Not all the time since I last posted anything here.

Just yesterday. First in a place called Rothbury (which I'd never heard of before). And then at Alnwick Castle (which I had heard of before).

It was a case of being fairly late back at night. And long past my computer bed-time (usually). So no post.

The wedding was great. A beautiful old-time village church which had character written all over it.

(Not literally, of course: there were far more pious things than simply 'character' painted across its vaulted roof and on its stained glass windows)

The music was terrific. A lively worship band, with a lovely lead to the singing of some rousing songs being given by some girls at a microphone.

They needed all the amplification they could get to better the lead being given by the bridegroom himself. Graham was simply belting the worship out with all that he'd got - just lovely to see!

It was that sort of wedding. Lively and fun and shot through in every part with a sense of the presence of God.

And the reception at the castle later on was just the same. Lively, fun, and shot through throughout with that sense of the presence of God.

The contrasts were really striking. The old, old village church: and the very modern music that accompanied the praise. The 'marriage' of the two was really something special. The old and the new. The long years of Christian tradition: the freshness of something quite new.

And it was the same along at the castle. The very formal setting (I mean, you can't have a meal in a castle without it being a somewhat formal thing): and the informal ethos pervading the whole of the time.

It's that sort of balance, and that sort of mix, that I suppose that I'm looking for here.

The way we talk of Scripture is indicative of this. The old and the new. Together.

Getting the mix is the trick, though. That's where the hard work comes.

And, reflecting on it all tonight, I recognise that through the different meetings that I've had with three quite different folk today, it is precisely that which we've been grappling with.

Combining the two. The old and the new.

hearing God's call

Dougie is an architect. David is the pastor of an independent fellowship here in Edinburgh.

We'd arranged to meet today. Dougie I've met before and got to know just a little bit. David ... well, I know his daughter better. I'd never set eyes on the guy before!

We were meeting to talk through some issues relating to prayer. How best to encourage the people in this part of town to pray for the city itself. How to give a sense of shared identity, or 'solidarity', in what we're all about.

All in the context of Pray for Scotland, I suppose.

It was good to have the chance to meet like that. And what struck me was how in speaking abbout prayer we were actually most of the time concerned to be thinking about hearing the word of God for ourselves.

We kind of assume that prayer is all about us doing the talking. Spouting forth to God about this and that. Praise and thanksgiving. Confession, petition. All that sort of thing.

When really it's far more a sort of 'conversing' with the Lord - and giving him the time and space to speak with us and share his heart with us.

The big thing always is for us to get clear just what the Lord is saying to us in these days. Where the Lord is leading. What the Lord is calling us to be and do.

Learning to listen is just as much the heart of prayer as anything else, I guess. Maybe it is in fact the actual core of the thing.

That's what we've been trying to do here, anyway. Keep our ear to the ground as it were. Or up in the clouds. However you like to think of it. But hearing what God has to say. Where he's leading us these days.

In many ways my 'preparation time' is really doing just that. Listening for what the Lord has got to say and figuring out just where it is he's leading us.

Which at present is plainly to be down some new and demanding paths.

But more of that another time.

I was really quite aware today that growing old is actually just such a new and demanding path for growing numbers of the folk within our fellowship here.

Calling by to see such folk, some in their homes, some now stuck in hospital, it dawned on me again how hard this whole last stage in life can be. How much the exercise of faith has got to be involved to cope with all the challenges that failing health and strength can bring.

And maybe that's a lesson for us all in terms of how we learn to care not just for people who are growing old, but for our planet, too, as years and decades pass. Time takes its toll on the planet as well.

blossoming

Someone else from Kirkliston was in to see me today.

There's loads going on out there these days! It's exciting to see and to have that sense of a work of God going on. It's a thrill to be a part of it.

This lady who was in has been involved in one small growing sphere of ministry. Like much in life, the thing had started small. And now she finds that God's been laying this whole burden of a growing work upon her heart. Impressing these things upon her heart with quite some force.

We chatted a bit about it all, and prayed about it too: and sought to see together what the Lord's mind is in regard to the next sort of steps she has to take.

As I say, it's great to see this sort of thing, the way a work of God begins to come to the boil.

At night as well, in a rather different context, there was something fairly similar. A work of God that's beginning to grow and expand.

I was round seeing a couple who've not long since (some eight months back or so) had a baby. I know them a bit since I married them both some years ago. And I got to know her family a bit since prior to their wedding her father had sadly died.

Little seeds, the first little bits of embryonic life, have been there for a while.

But now, with the gift of their own little son and confronted by life in the raw, they're starting to want to take the whole thing further. Explore who this Jesus is a bit and see how his life can be known and enjoyed.

It was great having time to chat with them and to see how the Lord is at work in their lives as well. A quiet, patient working in their lives across the years. Just doing them good, no strings attached.

And then an evening such as this, where it's like the Lord just nudges them a little further on, to take the next important steps and see where that will lead.

So it's been a day which has been topped and tailed with a similar sort of theme. A work of God already begun (in small and barely noticeable ways) now starting to be moved towards a fuller stage of life.

Which made me sense that maybe that's the way he means that I should see things here as well. A work that he's long since begun. Quietly, patiently, without a lot of fuss or noise at all.

But now about to move into another fuller sphere of life and growth. Blossoming into what the Lord has always planned that it should really be.

Exciting: and really quite humbling!