clearing paths

There was a further fall of snow today.

Compared to the rest of the country, though, it didn't amount to much. But it did seem to throw arrangements across at the school a bit.

I went along for the 10am assembly. Not quite shock, horror on the faces of the secretaries. More a gasp of 'Oh dear!' They'd changed the time of the assembly today from 10am to 9am. Not to worry. I'd be back.

The Scripture Union group meets each week at 12.45pm. So I was along in good time for that. But the snow meant lunch arrangements were slightly changed as well. 'Inside breaks' and all that. So instead of our usual half and hour we got maybe 15 minutes with the children.

Better than nothing, but pretty brief, of course. And they're always keen to come along, no matter how short the time might be.

I'd missed it last week. They'd all been challenged to find some ways of doing the Jesus thing and servinig other folk. And I knew they'd be asking me as well what I had done this week.

The snow at least gave a chance to serve the community. Out with the snow shovel shifting the snow and clearing the paths around the buildings here.

'Preparing the way for the king' was how the prophet John understood his role in life. That was a long time back. But it's part, I suppose, of how I see myself. Clearing the paths of access to and for the king. As it were.

I called by on a lady this afternoon whose husband had died a wee while back. She hasn't all that much time for the church. As in, she doesn't have a great opinion of the church. Stuff your religion is probably about where she's at.

Which is fine by me. I don't have that much time for religion myself. And I told her so.

She told me a bit of her background and what it was in the past that had put her off. Church, in all of its worst, most religious of guises. Rules and regulations. Threats and demands. Callous and careless of how people felt and what people's needs might have been.

No wonder she's not that enamoured with Christ and his church.

Well, I explained, as I said, that I wasn't 'religious' myself, and didn't have that much time for 'church' the way she'd spoken of the thing. I said I was just a follower of Jesus. That he was worth getting to know.

She wanted to know what I meant. So I explained. And what I'd thought might have been just a brief little fifteen minute call, ended up a good deal longer!

What will my sister think of me if she finds I've been speaking to Jesus? were pretty much her parting words. I don't really know. But it'll be interesting to find out!

Those sort of conversations are a part of how the paths are slowly cleared, enabling folk perhaps to get a good deal nearer to the Lord.

At night I was out in the home of another family. They've known grief as well. Deep, profound, sore. Tragedy and sorrow six months back.

I sensed it was right to go out and see them once again. I mean, I do pop in from time to time. But I just had that sense that I really should go there tonight.

I was glad that I'd gone. And I think they were too. They were, all of them, there. And it's always so easy to be there as part of their family life. They always make me welcome.

We chatted, of course, over all sorts of things. Including the pain of their grief.

It's hard, I think, to feel able to get through to God when you've been through the mill as they've been. It's not just as snow that the flakes of their sorrow have fallen. It's more like a blizzard that's come.

Clearing paths through such 'drifts' takes an awful long time!

But I'm ready to make the effort. That's what I'm called to do in life.

Shovel the snow all away and clear all the paths so that people get through to the king.

do as you like!

There was another service of thanksgiving held today.

The lady who'd died was 93 and the crowd that gathered was really impressively large. I mean, when you get to that age, your peers usually are either unfit or .. well, no longer there. In the main.

The size of the congregation was tribute itself to the calibre of this lady. And it's always a very real privilege to lead such a service and use such a person's long life as the platform for speaking God's word.

The message was simple. Jesus' answer, when questioned about what was the greatest commandment of all.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.

Which is pretty much what I think this lady had sought to do through her life.

It's good to be able to stop like that, and pause for a bit of reflection. Quite challenging, too. Is this how I'm living my life?

I forget who it was that first said it, but I remember it being said - Love God and do what you like!

That's going a long way back, mind - my first hearing that. I was still, I think, in the flush of youth, my early twenties sort of thing, and I remember being really quite struck by these words.

They seemed to me quite liberating. No rules and regulations. No laws at all. Just love the Lord and do what you like!

Except, of course, when you start to love the Lord, you cease to be all that concerned with what you'd like to do, and more and more concerned with what he'd like.

But as I say, that radical perspective's always been a really liberating thing for me. And hugely challenging, too. In the end of the day that's all that really matters - that I love the Lord, with all of my mind and all of my strength and all of my spirit as well.

I've an idea it was maybe a guy called Augustine who 'coined' the phrase. It's certainly the sort of thing that he'd have said.

So the service spoke to me as well - even if no one else was really touched!

I didn't have time to go on with the family for the after-service 'do'. There was another service here. The midweek lunch-time service.

A little bit more on the story of Joseph McJacob. A bright young man who ends ujp abroad and finds himself acting as a kind of economic czar for the powerful king of Egypt.

We've been thinking and praying a lot about our own young folk. Joseph was hitting his thirties when all this came about. And we recognise the huge sort of role our own young folk may play when they start getting into their thirties and on beyond.

Joseph displayed remarkable leaderfship gifts. It's these that we were looking at again.

We were praying them for the leaders in our own land here today: because that's the sort of leadership a country always needs.

And we were seeng just how important it still is for us in all the ongoing nurture of our young folk growing up - how important it is to instill in their minds and their hearts this outlook and perspective on all life.

The sort of thing that Joseph learned. And which made him such an influence for good.

I've been thinking a lot these past few weeks about those who were 17 or so when I first came here. Because I'm seeing them now, some twenty years down the line, at the age that Joseph was when the economic crisis began to kick in in Egypt.

And I'm aware of the roles that some of these folk now play - and the whole big sphere of influence that they have. At a time when a similar sort of economic 'downturn' hits our shores.

And I'm thinking, too, of the way in which the nurture and instruction and example that we give throughout those first long years of life before they leave their homes (as Joseph did, aged 17), are hugely instrumental in the shaping of the people they become.

And how it's often only twenty years on down the line before that prayerful Christian nurture maybe really starts to come into its own.

So we're praying hard for our young folk and for those that are up in their thirties now as well. And those beyond as well, of course!

We had our usual time of prayer at night. And that encompasses a whole great range of need

Including the needs of older folk, with whom the bulk of my afternoon was spent. Their day is maybe done in terms of all the influence they have out in the workplace and the market place of life. But they're still quite able to pray.

And still as able, well on in years, whatever their needs and condition - they're still as able to love the Lord, with all their heart and soul and mind and strength.

And then, I suppose, do as they like!

soup-making

Tuesdays begin with the soups.

I generally start here quite early, about 7.30am. And on Tuesdays I start with the making of both of the soups. There's a certain sort of therapy in that, because it keeps me from simply rushing headlong into all the different things there are to do. And gives me time to think.

It's the same with the task of setting up the tables and the chairs in the halls. There's a therapy in that at the start of the day. I'm getting the place in order. Looking good.

And that involves both time and work. But that's the business of creation.

We're wanting to serve our society and offer them something good. Like the soup. But it has to be got on the boil for quite a while. It doesn't happen instantly. (I know you can get these packs of instant soup, but they're not the same. Really!)

Today I was thinking that it's much the same with all that we're seeking to do. With the soup it's the raw materials of various different vegetables that I'm working with, preparing and then combining them over hours of gentle heat, until at last they emerge as a tasty soup.

That's not a bad picture of the bigger sort of work in which I'm day by day involved. Except it's not vegetables I'm working with, but people. The basic raw material from which the 'soup' of kingdom living's to be made.

There's work to be done with people individually. That personal 'preparation' which is part of our discipling folk.

But there's work to be done on a larger canvas too, as we slowly start combining all these very varied people and building them together as the church of Christ.

'Church', I fear, still looks far too like just the bundles of varied vegetables which I bring into the kitchen in my shopping bag. Everyone present and correct. Together in a sense.

But hardly soup. In fact barely recognisable as such at all.

A shopping bag full of veg isn't soup. And a building full of people on a Sunday isn't church.

The same sort of thing occurred to me later on. One of our older members was compiling a brief sort of 'bio'. A sheet about himself since his previous one was a little bit out of date.

Could we help him? So we got down to work with the text and set it all out in a range of different ways for him to see. And then we got down to the photos as well. Any number of different poses, the camera clicking away like a machine-gun doing over-time.

And once we'd got the picture we got to work with cropping it and 'softening' it, and shaping it, until it looked pretty good.

You may think that's a waste of my time. But it's not. It's a picture of what I'm about. Working away with this person and that to present them at last to the world in a way that reflects more and more both the beauty and grandeur of God.

Soup all over again - in an individual's life. Working with some pretty basic raw materials and seeing them transformed into something remarkably good. Which draws folk in and makes them want to 'taste' for themselves and see that the Lord is good.

But it takes a long, long time. And a lot of hard work as well.

My soups have to simmer for hours on end.

And the work of the kingdom of God - that, too, takes time.

admin

There's been a lot to do today relating to my responsibilities out at Kirkliston.

It's a fairly long and sometimes complicated process, this business of a congregation choosing their new minister. But by and large it works pretty well.

And the fact that it's long means there's always a bit of a 'breathing space' in the time between two ministers. A chance to take stock and reflect on who they are and where they're coming from and what it is God's purposed for the days ahead.

The process is fairly straightforward. The people choose a team (the 'Nominating Committee') to find on their behalf the person whom God's calling as their minister. They then come up with the person whom they 'nominate' (hence the name of the committee!).

And the congregation then get the chance to hear that person conduct worship and preach before them all. And then they vote.

That's what this coming Sunday brings. The 'sole nominee' conducting the worship, and then the congregation voting.

Basically fairly simple. Except if you live in Scotland and had your ear to the ground at all during the last round of elections, you'll know that the voting can be sometimes a problem!

So there are a load of different systems that I need to set in place and all sorts of different arrangements I have to ensure are made.

It's called 'Admin', I think. And there are days when it takes up a fair amount of time.

It's easy to begin to resent the amount of time that gets taken up on 'admin'. To start thinking of any number of other things that I might more profitably be doing. Or that I'd certainly prefer to be doing.

But love involves good 'admin' (as well as good manners which an early friend of Jesus underlined).

I mean, to put on a meal for your family, friends or whoever - that involves good 'admin'. Arranging the times, making it happen, getting things all prepared.

Nothing flash, mind you, just easy and relaxed. But it needs a bit of 'admin'.

Same as a shepherd looking after his sheep. The only way he knows a sheep is missing is because he's done the 'admin' in advance. He knows how many there are meant to be. He's done the count (and hasn't fallen asleep).

So I don't really mind the 'admin'. And, of course, it's not the only thing I'm doing at all.

There was another service of thanksgiving today. John had been in hospital these last few years. But there were still a good number of people out at the service, maybe 60 or 70 folk.

He was a lovely, gracious, gentle Christian man, with a delightful smile and a warmth and a sparkle writ large across his face.

You always got the sense that this man knew where he was headed and was quite at peace with the world. We sang three good going hymns and the whole of the time was essentially real celebration.

Celebrating a life well-lived. Celebrating a man well-loved. Celebrating a God who's altogether good. Such times as that are marked far more by an underlying joy than any lasting sorrow.

And, aware as I've been today of the role that our 'admin' plays, I saw again how important it is that we've done the preparation.

That's why a service like that is so good. It's not a shambles. The thorough preparation was all done well in advance.

That's how things will work well this coming Sunday out at Kirkliston. If the preparation's all been done with thoroughness and care.

And that's how John had lived his life. He'd done the preparation. He was well-prepared for death.

Long before his mind began to falter and his health went into decline, he'd long since sort of buried in the soil of his own soul the solid hope of resurrection joy. With the result that even when his faculties began to wane, this hopefulness pervaded all he was.

He'd read and studied the Bible. He'd prayed it into his soul.

Routine sort of stuff in its way. But he'd done it. The 'admin' of the soul.

Do the 'admin' well, and the pay-off is assured.

little courtesies

I like the cartoon above. It's a bit like what I feel like since these last couple of days have been pretty non-stop.

Yes, so what's new!

Today was fairly typical with a merry-go-round of different tasks and people.

The primary school (twice - and it should have been three, but I got hopelessly waylaid by a late morning meeting and missed the SU group by almost an hour).

A whole load of e-mails and forms to be filled and letters I needed to write. And telephone calls as well, arranging a time to be meeting with folk.

A meeting with the person who'll preach before the congregation at Kirkliston in 10 days' time as the choice of the Nominating Committee out there. A lovely time and thrilling to hear of the wonderful ways the Lord has been working in this person's life as well.

The service of thanksgiving for a man up in his nineties, the father of one of the secretaries at the primary school. His son-in-law spoke, and spoke very well. Then I tried to pull all the strings together and bring them God's word for the day.

Then straight on from there to a meeting about the way that our pastoral care is being slowly developed, renewed and transformed. A little bit longer than I'd thought but useful and helpful and positive all the way through.

Some planning by phone over tea and then straight off again to meet with some folk through the evening. Two separate 'appointments' arranged some while in advance. The one more practical, the other more pastorally complex.

But in amongst the busy-ness of another day like this, it's strange how it's a small and fleeting moment at the school which sticks in my mind.

I was leaving the school at break-time, after the second of the two assemblies, when a girl in P5 who'd been at the earlier assembly now passed me in the corridor.

I smiled and said 'Hello' and used her name. And she turned and said, 'Thank you for your prayer'. Not much, you'll think. Perhaps nothing more than a gesture of her courtesy.

But it re-affirmed this whole 'Melchizedek' approach. This is what I do. I bless people! And here was a girl who, off her own bat, on the back of the 'blessing' my prayer with the children had been, responded with a 'thank you'.

It fairly made my day!

Melchizedek again

This Melchizedek thing is great!

This guy who's a king and priest showed the way for us all. Since that's what all of us are, as followers of Jesus - kings and priests. And prophets, too, for that matter.

Melchizedek met with Abraham and blessed him. That's what these kings and priests do. So that's what we do too.

And of course it works both ways. You get to be 'blessed' as well as your 'blessing' others.

The day wasn't all that old when a man from Kirkliston came in.

The soups had been done (Scotch Broth, the sort of soup you reall need on a day like today, and cream of tomato soup - an original recipe, shall I say!). The folk for the ante-natal class were already filing in.

And we were just about to get down to our time of prayer. So he came and joined us for that. And then came in to see me. Really very briefly.

He'd been going to drop me an e-mail, but he thought that the person-to-person approach was better by far. The Melchizedek thing.

He wanted to thank me, not only for all I've been doing out there at Kirkliston, but more in his own life too.

He described his 'journey' of faith, the progress he's made in learning to follow the Lord. And he hihglighted three major, pivotal points in his life. The last of which, he said, was the impact my teaching had had on his life - utterly transforming, was the way he phrased it.

If that's not 'blessing' a person, such a testimony to the way in which God's hand is on my life, then I don't know what is!

And I think, in many ways, that's what this 'blessing' is. Imparting to another that sense of the hand of almighty God upon that other person's life. Bestowing the grace and assurance of God's own love to their deepest soul.

Well, he did that for me. And I suppose that he had me walking on air for much of the day. Not that it had ever crossed my mind that there might have been such an effect upon his life through my (really fairly minimal) involvement in his life.

He and his wife are a wonderful couple, and I think they simply go around each day just doing this Melchizedek thing. 'Blessing' people, doing them good, encouraging them in their walk with the Lord.

I was thinking of that while conducting a service of thanksgiving this afternoon. There weren't that many folk among the people gathered there that I'd set eyes on much before. And I couldn't be sure just where these folk were coming from.

In terms of their knowledge of God, I mean.

But I really just wanted to do the Melchizedek thing. To 'bless' them. To give them a sense of the hand of God outstretched and actually touching their lives with his love, his presence, his life-transforming power.

There was time for a brief little chat with the son of the man's second wife. He's the one whose daughter I know from the school. It was good to touch base with him and make the thing that bit more personal too.

Back here after that and a brief chance to meet with Douglas again. I was thinking again of Melchizedek and what it might mean to bring blessing to Douglas as well.

I was asking the Lord, as I listened to what Douglas said - I was asking the Lord to show me just what I might say. That would be a blessing to the guy.

And he gave me the words to say. It was great. Douglas turned round immediately and said, I'll take that as the word of the Lord for me!

He went away blessed. I think!

It's a great way to live.

bless you!

An early start today.

My nephew was staying last night, on his way from Dundee to Saudi, where he presently works. It was great to see him again, he's a lovely young man.

I took him to the station, concerned somewhat that the further south he was going today the more he would run into snow. There was even some doubt as to whether his plane for the marginally warmer climes of Saudi would ever take off tonight. I believe it did.

Edinburgh's traffic gets heavily congested these days. So I had to leave in good time to make sure he was there at the station in time for his train.

There is a way to get to the station by car. It's just that it's not always easy to find!

I was glad to be up and about, though, as there's loads of admin I needed to tackle first thing. Forms to be filled and letters to write and e-mails to send and all sorts of stuff that I had to be doing on-line.

It filled most of the morning. And that was without interruption.

There were people to see in the afternoon - mainly relating to both of the funerals later this week. And then some preparation for the service of thanksgiving tomorrow.

I had an e-mail from a friend who knows (in a vague sort of way) one of the relatives of the man who died, whose funeral is tomorrow. This relative's been 'seeking' for a while, trying to make sense of life. Tomorrow may just be a another small part of the jigsaw being put in place by the Lord.

It's a thrill to be able to see how the Lord is at work in so many people's lives. And to know that our words may be far more important than what we had possibly thought.

Which, in some ways, was the note that we struck when I met later on with the small group of folk whom I meet with on a regular basis.

It started two years ago now with simply three. Myself and a couple who really just wanted to find out what who on earth this guy Jesus was, or is, and why or how he possibly makes a difference here and now.

A year or so later the three grew to five. And these last few weeks there's been six. A lady who's been part of the congregation here for years started coming along. Full of questions, too, which is great.

Tonight we were up to seven. A lady who was once, I think, quite heavily involved within a local church, but somehow drifted off. Well, she's come back and is keen to learn. And who knows where the whole thing will go!

We've been reading our way through Genesis. Not very quickly, I have to say. Tonight (once again) we were stuck in chapter 14.

This time with Melchizedek. It's tempting, I guess, to skip these bits. They're kind of odd in a way.

But the guy's an interesting man. And these few short verses tucked away in Genesis 14 always really excite me.

The man, so we're told, was the king of Salem. And also the priest of God. An interesting combination. King and priest.

No wonder the New Testament writers latched onto the guy and saw in him a picture of who Jesus is. The king and the priest.

And what he does is simply come out and converse with good old Abraham and then he proceeds to bless him. I mean, that must have made Abraham feel pretty good.

So we talked for a while about how we, too, may simply 'bless' the people round about us every day. Because that's what Jesus makes us - kings and priests.

And this is what kings and priests do. They bless people.

So next time I'm asked what it is that I do, I think I'll just say - I bless people!