lonely people

The undertaker rang today.

And, yes - another funeral. He wondered if the man who'd died resided in the parish. He did. I was the right guy to contact.

'Another' funeral? In a way that's right. But in some ways, too, it's not just another funeral. It's really rather different from the normal ones there are - for all that they all vary too, enormously.

With this one, though, there isn't any next of kin. In fact, the undertaker said that he was pretty sure there only would be him and me attending at the service to be held.

I've only ever had that once before in nearly thirty years. Last time it was a burial. I remember the time and the place most vividly.

The man's name was Hugh Ferguson. I'd called on him a couple of times on account of the needs that he had. I sort of knew the man a bit, I guess.

But his only friend in the world - apart from me, I realised - was actually his dog. He had family all right, but they simply didn't want to know at all. And hadn't done for years.

Like I say, I remember the thing to this day. A sad and poignant, desperately solitary act of worship at the graveside where his body finally lay.

It is not good that the man should be alone. Not in life. And equally not in death. That's not how it's meant to be.

I remember the song the Beatles sang went running through my head as I stood at the ancient Kilsyth graveside. All the lonely people...

And I wondered how many there are like that. All alone in the world. It brings a lump to my throat to this day, just thinking on the thing.

Because I hadn't ever realised that I was the only real friend that he had.

So I've always been aware since then that time I spend with people may be hugely more significant than I would ever estimate.

And today's been a day a bit like that, I guess.

Lots of little nothing-really-special sort of meeting and conversing with a range of different folk.

Along at the local primary school again for a few short minutes' chatting with some teachers there in the course of their mid-morning break.

Up to see some staff at another neighbouring school. Again, along with coffee, just a few short minutes' worth of fairly routine chat.

A load of different e-mails to be written and sent off. None of them that obviously significant: but all of them another point of contact, another little gesture of the friendship we all crave.

Time with one of the leaders here addressing a number of issues there are in relation to Sunday worship.

And a meeting at night with leaders from all of the local churches here. Trying to see where the future lies. Some of these leaders, I sometimes think, feeling a little bit lonely and out on a limb on their own.

To the lonely 'Hughs' of the world, who knows what all these small, inconsequential points of contact maybe mean.

Perhaps they are, far more than we can realise, the gentle touch of God's befriending hand upon a person's life.

No time I spend with people can be ever insignificant.

playing music

The school didn't have their usual assembly today.

Instead they had a full blown concert sort of thing. I went along to sit in on it all. It was really very good.

Loads of different children were involved. Maybe as much as a third of all the school. Either singing or playing an instrument. Solo or part of a group. Or even a large-scale orchestra.

Of course, they're only learners. The pieces they played reflected that. But to see them there, using and stretching their musical skills - well, it did the heart good.

And I e-maiiled the head later on to say just that and how impressed I'd been. He was the one who'd set the whole thing up and twisted arms to get them all to put the concert on.

It crossed my mind it's not all that much different from what we're about in what we're doing here.

It isn't quite 'music' as such we're encouraging folk to play. More 'life' itself. But the folk involved are spread across the spectrum of both age and stage.

We have quite a number of older folk who come through our door week by week.

There's a group from one of the local hospitals which comes and has a morning cup of tea (and scones). Rosaly's come to be a sort of unofficial chaplain at the hospital. She takes services there and gets to know the patients in one part quite well.

So now a group of them come here. It's great to have them come around. Though it sometimes brings its problems, too.

Like yesterday. When one of the patients collapsed. First I knew about it was a knock at my door and an urgent request for some 'screening' to put around the man still there on the floor.

The moment was a cameo of what we are about. The 'Reception Area' became a sort of recovery room. It's messy, of course, having bodies lieing around like that.

But we happily live with the mess and we constantly hope that the place can become a refuge where people recover from all of life's hurts.

It helps that Rosaly's training's as a nurse. And the man himself was fine in the end of the day. But we hope the whole environment, the 'ethos' of the place, the friendship and the service and the laughter and the quiet - we hope all that enables real recovery, across the board.

Today there was the midweek lunchtime service. Again, it's mainly older folk who come along to that. The time and the duration suit them well. And there's lunch together afterwards.

One of the ladies got stuck in the ladies' toilet after lunch. Locked inside a cubicle and couldn't get out.

Another knock at the door. Another rescue mission!

This time with a ladder in the busy ladies' toilets. Climbing up and reaching down a long right arm to pull the lock aside and open up the door. And set this lady 'free'.

Another graphic picture in this fleeting little cameo.

How many people are there in society today who've somehow locked themselves inside some prison in their lives - and can't get out?

And how prepared am I, are we, to enter into realms where somehow etiquette suggests we shouldn't really go - and help release the lock inside that prison they are in?

Isn't that what Jesus did? Unlock the doors from inside people's lives and set them truly free.

But it isn't only older folk who come around us here.

It's like it was at school. A right old mix, throughout the different age groups that there are.

Some Mums are in on a Wednesday. With toddlers and babies alike. And sometimes the din that they make can be - well, pretty loud!

But we can live with that as well. We're glad they're all around. Learning to play the music of life.

There's one little girl who's often there on a Wednesday over lunch. She always likes to come and feed the fish. She's plainly quite at home. Which is lovely. The way it should be.

She stands on the table and pours in a hand-ful of fish-food (for fish already well fed, I have to say: I mean, one is getting huge!).

Are these little incidents really a part of my 'work'? I like to think they are. As important as all of the letters and e-mails I write. As important as all of the hospital visits I make. As important as all of the 'sermons' I preach and prepare.

These little daily incidents create, I think, in people's minds and hearts, a picture of the pleasures that there are in learning how to play with one another all the music of God's life.

Orchestras and symphonies are all made up of individual players and of individual notes, which on their own may not amount to very much at all.

But joined together, carefully and patiently, they start to make and play the music which captivates the soul.

spicy soup

There's a certain therapy in making soup.

Being Tuesday, that's how my day began. In the aftermath of Saturday's event, I settled on something green. At least for one of the soups.

Lettuce soup.

One of the guys who was with us on Saturday, Gus (you can read and see some more about his work at http://www.earthcalling.org/) - he'd produced for the day some nettle soup, which everyone thought was great.

This wasn't quite some nettle soup, but the same idea. It didn't taste too bad.

I also made a spicy carrot and lentil soup, though we played down the 'spicey' part when letting folk know what it was. Anything slightly different and they're often just not quite so keen.

It's in part the creativity involved I like. Conceiving the soup, then bringing it into being.

It's like a gastronomic sacrament - a reminder to me of what it is I'm about. Feeding the people of God and making that food nutritious and interesting and fresh.

It's also, as I think I've said before, an act of humble worship. Praising God in sleeves-rolled-up activity to serve the needs of others.

But it's strange how averse to all change we can be. And the soups are a constant reminder of that as well.

Soups are somehow symbolic. A good, old-fashioned broth, for instance - well, there's something reassuring in that bowl of soup. Thick and warm and strangely reminiscent of a cosy, homely past.

They somehow carry memories, most soups. Or conjure up their own distinctive 'pictures' in the mixture of their fragrances and tastes.

'Spicy' spells adventure and uncertainty. For some that's not what soups are meant to be. They like their soups to be a source of reassuring comfort in the midst of all the turmoil in their lives.

A bit like some wish the church itself to be. A picture of the past. A place of reassurance in a troubled, complex world which seems to change so very, very fast.

Stick with the old, traditional, trusted soups! Such is the unspoken cry of the heart in regard to the way church should be.

Except Jesus himself is really rather 'spicy' (in the parlance and language of soups).

That's why he ended up nailed to a cross. He was way too 'spicy' for some.

And yet there was a reassuring comfort in his simply being around as well. The two-soup combination that we try to go for here.

It's the balance that's hard to sustain in the way our life is lived.

The balance between the reassuring comfort of his kind and gentle leadership - and the spicy, almost 'racey' sort of radical adventure that he leads us on, upsetting old conventions and hitting the tastebuds of our hearts with the heat of the love of God.

The meeting of the leaders here at night reflected just how difficult that balance really is. But it's one we have to work at and sustain.

grief and fear

I see a lot of grief.

Sometimes I see it in a raw and naked form. Today was such a time.

The man who'd died was only 37. It was his funeral this morning and I didn't really know just what I should expect.

I hadn't found it easy to prepare - and in fact was still preparing right up to the point I left to go along the road to take the service at the local crematorium.

It was the small chapel (which seats maybe 65) that they'd chosen. Which surprised me - when a man of that sort of age so suddenly dies, the attendance is generally large. There were maybe twenty people there today. Not a lot.

When the coffin came in the man's mother and brother came out to the front and clung to the coffin with tears and with cries of sorrow, distress and despair. It's hard to comprehend how deep a mother's grief can be when her son is gone like that.

I haven't seen anything quite like that for years. Raw and naked grief. Clinging in vain to a past and a person that's gone. For ever.

His partner had invited one of his friends to speak. Which he did. He'd prepared what he wanted to say, but when it came to the bit and he came to the front he simply said that it shouldn't be something he read, it should come just straight from his heart.

Except the heart doesn't quite behave like that. It speaks a different language at a time like this. The vocabulary of grief doesn't use that many words. Cries and sobs and groans again. That's pretty much all that would come.

Raw and naked grief.

I didn't know how long or short he'd be and so I was aware I'd have to adapt. I had longer than I thought. Which was maybe just as well.

I spoke to them in a fairly personal way. Slowly. Pointedly. Carefully (and I mean, full of a genuine care for them). And I tried to give them something that would help them all go on.

But it's hard.

The man who'd died - the mother of his child was there. Not the woman he's been living with in recent years, the one he'd come to love.

And here this woman was in tears throughout. Another grief, so raw, so very naked in the way it was expressed.

I felt like Florence Nightingale, addressing the gaping wounds of countless different mourners on this battlefield of grief. The Lord alone can heal. And I'm sure that he was there.

* * *

Another man called by to see me in the afternoon.

I know the man, a softly-spoken, gentle man in every sense. Death was on his mind as well.

"I'm now well into my eightieth year," he said. He needed to know about death.

What happens when we die? What happens after death?

He'd been reading some magazine, I think, while hanging around in some waiting room. And he'd read a bit going on about re-incarnation. It had got him rather worried, poor man.

We had a good chat and I think I managed to put his mind at rest. I gave him a copy of 'Forever Alive!', a booklet that we have which deals with all these issues in a farily comprehensive sort of way.

Death certainly always troubles us. Fear. And grief. Sometimes really very raw and naked. Both of them.

* * *

In between, I was along at the Scripture Union Group for the last one of the year. One of the girls had written a card and gave me a packet of chocolates to say 'thank you' for doing SU with them. It was sweet of her. Quite made my day!

Little things like that do us good. I think that's just what Jesus did. Good. He made people feel good. He made people good. By going around and doing good himself.

Which is what I tried to say to the folk this morning gathered at the crematorium. Another man who died quite young. But the man who changed the world.

And that's how his life is summarised - he went around doing good...

I hope they caught a glimpse of him, those grieving folk today. The mother of the man who'd died came up to me and thanked me at the end for what I'd said.

Maybe something got through. Maybe some small glimmer of light got through the wall of darkness that her grief has brought.

living simply

'living simply' was what we called the event we put on here today.

An attempt to help folk see both why there's a need to - and how we can - live a whole load more simply than we do. And to help folk see the whole thing can be fun.

It was today! Fun.

It was a great day.

All sorts of different folk, from all sorts of walks of life, helping us think through just how we can live in a way that's really more responsible.

And good for the environment.

The Head Teacher from the local primary school came along and opened it.

It was good of him to come and he helped to underline the importance of the issues we're endeavouring to address.

The weather was great, mainly sunny and always dry. So people happily spent a fair amount of time outdoors.

Where there was plenty to do.

Like subtly enticing the riding of bikes again.

Preferable to jumping in the car. More friendly to the environment. And better for ourselves.

Some folk were glad just to sit back and take a break.

The children were right in their element and found their own, distinctive and instinctive ways to 'chill'.

There were all sorts of people from right across the community. And they all seemed to have a brilliant time.

I think the folk who arranged it all were pleased as well.

There maybe weren't as many there as they'd have liked to see. But it was a start. And starting is the key.

We started something here today. Set the ball rolling.

And who knows where it all will lead?

Apart from our making the world a better place.

For our children as well as ourselves.

getting there

There's been a fair bit to do today in relation to the event that we're holding tomorrow.

Like collecting display boards from different neighbouring bodies. We can't do it all by ourselves.

And there've been fifty or so DVDs to produce, each with its cover with graphics and script which requires to be carefully cut to fit inside. And each of the DVDs takes quite a while to burn. And the computer's been playing up and half the time's reluctant to accept a disk I try to insert.

One of those days. Juggling a hundred and one different things.

In amongst preparing for the services this coming Sunday. And the meeting that there'll be after the shorter morning service. And the need to work quite hard to make that morning service shorter by some way from what it usually is.

And tomorrow's event to be thought about, too. And preparation done. A powerpoint presentation for the prize-giving that we're holding in relation to the children's competition that we ran about the best way we could use the ground we have.

And the little opening ceremony that we'll hold. And how that's to be worked.

It happened as well to be just the day the engineer came to do his annual maintenance on the burglar alarm at the house. So I had to head back there as well. It's usually not that long.

But today it was. We seem to have a problem, he declared. Once he'd been at the house for at least three times the length of time he generally is.

And then the police rang!

Is that Mr Middleton?

I could get rather paranoid, the way I seem to have them on my tail these days! But it wasn't anything sinister. Just the alarm engineer had set off the alarm and so the police then got involved.

It was one of those days.

And cricket on top of it all at night.

And yes, we lost again! But, hey, we're getting better!

roots

There wasn't a huge crowd of people by the side of the grave today. Twenty at most, I'd have said.

It was out at Kirkliston, the cemetery right by the church. And the lady who'd died was a good 94, so most of her contemporaries were either dead themselves or not really up to the thing.

A cousin of the lady's son (her nephew, I suppose!) was speaking to me at the end. Appreciative of what I've said and how I'd managed to compress into my words the essence of the person that she'd been.

But informing me, in a casual sort of way, that the family had been there for 400 years and more. A settled sort of life, down who knows just how many generations of the clan. For all of them it's home.

It has to be. It's in the blood. It's in the genes. It's in the very air they daily breathe.

That sort of settled living over time allows the sort of roots that people need, creates, like few things else, a sense of real belonging.

I remember reading, a good few years back now, a book called Soil and Soul by Alastair McIintosh. I think it argues a similar thing - among a whole load else. The connections we make with the land on which we live. And the way we treat that land, of course, as well.

Those connections are largely lost in the context of city life. The land has been largely covered - with concrete and buildings and tar.

And the people are more transient. Moving around, not quite with no fixed abode in the legal sense - but at a deeper, truer level, that's the truth. No real fixed abode at all.

Not like the folk at Kirkliston! I'm learning a lot from them.

Not least because of the lack of genuine roots, the city's often now 'dysfunctional'. Detached from the land, and with little by way of real roots, the folk have kind of lost their basic bearings.

I was struck by that again when calling on the mother of the man who'd died last week. The young man, aged just 37 or so. And I was round to see his mother and his partner in the latter's home. Just down the road from here.

What a struggle to make life work. They're good and kindly folk. And my heart goes out to them, I have to say. I was there quite a while and we really had a good and easy time.

Relaxed and all-encompassing in terms of what we spoke about. And I tried to help them put down roots in ending with a prayer.

Because the roots we need are bound up with the Lord as with the land. The latter far more basically than often we assume.

The land is his, for one thing. The day-by-day expression of the Lord and all he is. Right in your face. As it were.

But as well as that, it's from the land, from the dust of the ground as it's put, that we derive. There's a very close connection that we have with what we stand on day by day. And one we ignore at our peril.

Which is pretty much what we've tended to do. At least in city life. We cover the land. Smother the 'mouth' of the 'herald' of God, so to speak.

We lose our bearings. And these two folk - lovely folk, I'm bound to say - these two folk, his mother and his partner these past months, I think they've sort of simply lost their bearings in their lives.

It's hard and it's sore at the best of times. Bereavement. It's harder when it's someone like your son, a very part of you.

And harder still when in the face of the gales of grief which blow across their hearts there are no roots. I think above all else I'm simply trying each day to give such people roots.