threads

There's a programme sometimes on the TV called 'Comic Connections'. Or something like that.

It shows the connections there are across the years between different comedians, writers, producers: that sort of thing.

Yes, I know, it doesn't sound really riveting stuff. But it's interesting, nonetheless. Seeing the hidden connections.

And it's more than a little interesting to see those sorts of connections in the way God does his work.

Mostly you only ever see it all in hindsight. Not as it's going on.

Because most of the time it's spread out over years.

For instance. Today it was back to business with our lunches here. And being a Tuesday, it was my turn for the soups.

Always up for adventure, I decided to experiment. A different soup. One I hadn't made before.

Potato Soup. Well, that's what I said to start with. Then I soon began to realise this wasn't going down a bomb. The name, I mean. It sounded ... well, boring and bland, and not exactly what we're looking for.

I tried again. "I'ts 'Cream of Potato Soup," I said. As if that little epithet would somehow effect some major transformation.

They still were somewhat dubious. 'They' being the girls who run the whole affair.

"You'll just have to wait 'til it's ready and try it then. You'll see," I said, "it's tasty and good. I'm sure it is!"

Of course, I couldn't give a guarantee since I hadn't ever made the thing before. But I'd got the general notion from a man who lives behind me in one of the new houses up the hill.

I visit these homes round Christmas and Easter time each year. I knock on the doors and deliver a card. Seasonal greetings. That sort of thing. And I'm up for a chat, and sometimes they welcome me in.

This man usually does. So when I was round before Christmas last month, he welcomed me in once again. We got chatting about all sorts of things.

In the course of which it transpired that he makes a soup which all of his family love. I mean, really love. They insist that he make it. It's that good.

So being in the business of soup-making, too, I asked him just what it was. I didn't take down all the details but I got the general drift. And here today I thought I might as well start back with a bit of a bang and try making the soup myself.

Onions, potatoes and stock. Seasoned to taste. And then at the end a tub of Mascarpone. The man didn't say to do that: he just said 'cream cheese'. But I figured that this would do.

And it did. Turned out a treat.

Connections, you remember. A series of routine visits over the years. Getting to know the guy.

And here we are, a good few years on down the line, and the connection I've forged with this man bears its fruit. Well, a little bit of fruit.

There were other 'connections' as well today.

I've been in and out of the Royal High, the local secondary school, for more than twenty years. Most of the time just 'touching base', helping out with the different assemblies they have and there at the end of the year.

It's not much, I guess, in the whole grand scheme of things. But it's regular, a kind of slow and gentle 'drip .. drip .. drip' in terms of contact with the school.

But it meant today that the school was quick to turn to us to see if we could help. They've got the chance of hosting a striking presentation of the life of Eva Schloss, the step-sister of Anne Frank (of 'Diary' fame).

Not a chance they want to miss. But their hall's being used for exams. Could we help out?

It's exciting to think we'll maybe be hosting a thing like that for the school, which folk from the community woould be welcome at as well. (It's yet to be decided, but it's likely at this time).

The acting rector and the man who's doing the organising of it all came across in the afternoon to view the possible venue. They were most impressed and taken with it all. Even quite excited at the prospect. As we were too.

Connections again. It wouldn't have ever got this far without there being those threads and threads of contact down the years.

In some ways that's what all my time and all my days are really on about. Winding those threads together 'til they form a thick, strong net which draws folk in to Christ.

Funerals, too, are pretty much that sort of thing. No one event on its own ever impacts on a person's life to bring them to the Lord. Most times it's a whole long, varied series of events, a whole long time of warm, sustained relationships, which helps an individual to configure all their thinking once again and see at last why Jesus is so central to it all.

But funerals play their part in that, for sure.

Death always makes us stop and think a bit. Which is a major part of the battle.

So there's a sense in which there's a willingness to listen and to think throughout the service of thanksgiving that's being held.

I leave it up to the Lord, of course, as to what in fact gets through. I simply paint my pictures, as it were, in the hope that what I say about the person who has died will let folk know that no one knows us better than the Lord himself.

"You got her to a T!" I was told again today. Which is gratifying and somewhat re-assuring. But I hope folk see it isn't really me who 'got her to a T', it's more the Lord. I hope folk start to sense that ... well, they cannot hide from him. He sees and knows it all.

And loves us nonetheless.

Another guy came up to me at the end today and said, "There was an awful lot of work in that".

True. There always is. An awful lot.

But I live my life on the premise that as I work so God works too.

The great Creator God. Who takes all the chaos our lives reflect and remarkably brings some order to it all.

Which is just as well.

Because there's an awful lot of chaos in our lives as well!

And even on a day like this, where there's much that's excited and warmed our hearts, there's been as well an awful lot of time spent on the phone, addressing different issues where our tendencies to chaos have created vexing problems once again.

It would be great if life were simple!

But the trouble with working with all those threads is that often they end up knotted!