I came across this prayer yesterday. Made me think.

How do I build your ‘house’ – your kingdom, Lord?

I think I’d find it easier
if you told me to build
a temple of bricks and mortar.
That’s tangible. I could measure my progress.
What is it you want me to build?
You say you don’t live in a temple made by human hands (Acts 17:24)
But you also say my body is your temple (1 Corinthians 6:19)
and that we together as Christian community are your temple (1 Corinthians 3:16).

So it seems it is my very life and my relationships
that build a dwelling place for your Spirit, Jesus.
Today may everything I say and do be a building block
creating space where you are pleased to dwell.
When I meet with others remind me to ask:
‘Would God be pleased to dwell with us in this conversation… this activity?’
And when I spend time and money on my own lifestyle
let me be just as generous with time and money to help
your kingdom to come on earth just as it is in heaven.
(Sheila Pritchard)

Some words of Oscar Romero

It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.

The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No programme accomplishes the church’s mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.

We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something,
and to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.

We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.

We are prophets of a future not our own.
Amen.

Wise and thought-provoking words

Burns night

Burns night will rapidly be upon us. This year I am preparing for 3 Burns Suppers. At two I am giving the Immortal Memory and at the other I simply need to say the Selkirk grace.
I do enjoy reading Burns and wished I had started to read him years ago. Sadly we did very little of Burns at school and there was more Shakespeare on the curriculum( and this in Scottish schools!).
In his poem 'Address to the unco guid'( address to the rigidly righteous) Burns presents a biting satire of those who look down on others with a self righteousness. The poem is prefaced by a reference to Ecclesiastes 7:16.
The first verse reads:

O ye wha are sae guid yersel
Sae pious and sae holy
Ye’ve nought to do but mark and tell
Your neighbours’ fauts and follies
Whase life is like a weel- gaun mill
Supplied with store o' water,
the heapet happer's ebbing still
and still the clap plays clatter.

The final verse reminds the reader -

Who made the heart, tis he alone
Decidedly can try us
He knows each chord, its various tone
Each spring, its various bias
Then at the balance, let’s be mute
We never can adjust it
What’s done we partly may compute
But know not what’s resisted.

Wise words from the Bard.

Thanksgiving, dedication and blessing

I have been back to work now for over a week and today was my second Sunday back after the 3 month sabbatical.

This morning's Parade Service included an act of thanksgiving, dedication and blessing as Amelie's parents came to give thanks for her, dedicate themselves to her nurture and pray with the whole church family for God's blessing on her growing life. Amelie behaved superbly and I seem to be doing well recently with the children brought on these occasions - no screamers or wailers for quite some time. Perhaps it is the grandfatherly aura! Long may it continue.

As part of the service we thought about what the words thanksgiving, dedication and blessing meant, with the children of the uniformed organisations giving me their thoughts. There are one or two who are already heading towards being philosophers.

As part of the service we watched a small clip from Habitat for Humanity about building basic houses for people in South Africa. This was where one of our church members went earlier in the year as part of the project. We were reminded that the work of building these houses is a real 'blessing' for people who usually live in damp shacks. But we were also reminded by one of the volunteers on the film clip of how 'blessed' she felt by being part of the project herself. Perhaps being a blessing and being blessed often( if not always) go together.

Sabbatical Report

There are 2 copies of the report for anyone who might be interested. The longer report can be viewed at

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dmw43qs_1gbtxwv

and the shorter version which simply gives details of some of the quotes from Peterson's 3 books on Spiritual theology can be found at:

http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=dmw43qs_5z8sb8j&hl=en

Hope this might be of some interest.

Day 85

The sabbatical period is almost over. Officially I will be back in the pulpit on Sunday, but have started to prepare for this and the services throughout Advent.

Our final 'sabbatical' weekend was spent at home( only the second weekend we have been at home since the beginning of September). On Saturday we attended the annual St Andrew's day dinner of the Harrogate St Andrew's Society and on Sunday we went to the annual St Andrew's day service at St Paul's URC.

At the dinner we were entertained by an exiled Scot who now lives in Hertfordshire. He sang some familiar Scottish songs and in his speech reminded us of a particular Scottish phrase which uses two positives to make a negative - "Aye right". A wonderful little phrase which can be used very effectively with the right tone of voice.

Another Scottish phrase can be used to describe the return to normal, everyday life after the sabbatical period. During this week it is back 'to auld claes and porridge' for me.

Day 81

No blogs for quite few days after our visit to Scotland at the weekend. We had a good time with the family and Annette enjoyed meeting cousins she hadn't seen for over 30 years. Such was the 'cousinly' conversation and showing of family photographs that the time sped past and before we knew it we were being reminded that the restaurant was about to close at midnight. It is the first time I have been thrown out of a restaurant at closing time!

Over the past few days I have continued to work on some writing up of what I have been reading.

Here are a few of the quotes from the three Eugene Peterson books -

“Spiritual Theology is about living the Christian life. It is not some text or technique or programme and is about God and not us.”

“The doctrine of the Trinity is vital because it prevents us from reducing God to what we can understand or need at any one time. We are in the presence of the One who is both before us and beyond us. We need to listen and wait. Trinity is a steady call and invitation to participate in the energetically active life of God.”

“Community is vital but is often difficult.” Peterson uses the example of the Israelites on the journey following the Exodus and suggests ‘getting saved was easy, becoming a community was much more difficult’.

Faith is not an explanation, it is a passion

In describing the experience of Isaiah in the Temple the author reminds us that “ 'holy, holy, holy' is not Christian needlepoint - holiness is dangerous, exhilarating.”

“The holy is not that which we can market or produce or control on our terms. We, like Isaiah (and Moses and John on Patmos) can only respond.”

“Jesus, who in abridged form is quite popular with the non-church crowd, was not anti-institutional. Jesus said "Follow me," and then regularly led his followers into the two primary religious institutional structures of his day: the syna­gogue and the temple. Neither institution was without its inadequa­cies, faults, and failures.”

“a spirituality that has no institutional structures or support very soon becomes self indulgent and subjective and one generational.”

Sadly - International football has not brought much joy to north and south of the border over the past few days!