a stitch in time

Another full day, shortened by the fact that I had a visit to the dentist in the morning.

That involved a 3/4 hour hike through the snow, across the hill, to get there, a full 3/4 hour there (not all of it in the dentist's chair - well, it was, I suppose if you include in that phrase the waiting room chairs), and then a 3/4 hour hike all the way back.

Maths isn't my strong point, but that works out at over 2 hours of the morning removed from the frame. Not that it's wasted time. A stitch in time saves nine, and a filling in time saves a lot of hassle later (hopefully).

The dentist gave me an injection to numb that part of the mouth, though he needn't really have bothered - not because I'm a big brave lad, but more because my mouth was numb already from the cold. It was freezing! Beautiful to look at, but absolutely freezing. Probably about -14 or so again.

I think my mouth started to thaw out at some point through the afternoon. Certainly a good while after the lunchtime service, where the attendance was up on last week, but still (because of the weather) noticeably small.

Then there's been the session we're having with the Primary 7s tomorrow to be prepared for. The thing's been a bit on hold, until we knew for sure that it was going ahead. But the school confirmed today that it's definitely going ahead.

We've done this now for a year or two at Christmas and Easter. The whole P7 year group come round to the halls (with their teachers and one or two helpers), and we work through a two hour, inter-active presentation with them on the theme of Christmas (or Easter, obviously, at the second event).

It's a fun time, when hopefully at least something of what Christmas is all about comes across to the children. A case of trying to separate the 'bubblegum' from the 'fluff', if you can see the force of that illustration.

It's when we're young that the message ideally is heard and embraced. The older we get and the more set in our ways we become, the harder it is to embrace the good news of Jesus. So we want to try and disentangle all the strands of Christmas in such a way that they're able to see very clearly what it's all about.

It makes life a whole lot less complicated later on. A stitch in time sort of thing again.

We put our work among the children growing up within the community here right up there at the top of our priorities.

Not because other things (and other people) don't matter as much (they do), but partly because the opportunities today for work among the young are fewer and farther between than once they used to be and need to be grasped when they're there.

And also because the one stitch now is going to avoid the nine (and often significantly more) metaphorical stitches later on.