meetings where minuets are kept.....

I had a book I don't remember the title or who the author was which is unlike me. It was a book that had silly comments in it about life those of you who no me will get the type of thing I mean and why it amused me. I remember so of the comments in it, things like 

out of bounds = a tired kangaroo

vestry = where the Vicar keeps their vests

and then the meaning of meeting = where minutes are kept and hours wasted :) 

I'm Not much for meetings I like doing, not sitting and talking about doing especially when it leads to the above statement. I do plan and prepare and think and pray things through but not normally while sat in a room or behind my desk. How I do that comes in a variety of ways.. sometimes it's in a room with others a lot of the time it's while doing other things little thoughts come together then they go down on sticky notes that cover different surfaces. My tutor taught us a away of doing this to see the vision come through from pre conception conception birth and then through to maturity. Funny he still uses this method and posted a photo on his facebook just this last week....

The two meeting this week were community meetings one I'm still not sure what it was about- the other was great 5 of us where there a parent two teachers myself and another member of the community and a member of Leicester council.. 

What both meetings did have was new contacts two from the first meeting and much more from the second... 

I came away from the first meeting a little disappointed, even though at the end two brief conversations added to the network of possible contacts in the area.

today one of those contacts was put into place in the second meeting.. and look forward to seeing how things work out in the coming months.

New Home....

My patch is on the move again .... I'm moving just down the road to a new house. 

This wasn't what I was expecting to be doing for a while yet.And definitely not in at the end of february  . I was told just a week ago that the landlord would have to sell the house :(. It wasn't a call they wanted to make nor the one that I was expecting. The call I was expecting was to say they were on the way to come fix the fence that came down in the recent storms.... So it was a bit of a shock and saddening I'd made this little house home. Friends had helped in the garden and little things around the house. Gutted is the closest I can find to how it felt. 


The afternoon I got the call I went for a walk just to see what was in the local area I wanted to stay close by. I have always felt that I wanted to live and work in the same community. One of the comments that cemented this was by one of the youth group a few years ago who commented miss your one of us arn't you, you live on .......... street. 


well I found a house just 5 mins away.. I rang up and monday evening viewed it... tuesday morning i camped outside the estate agents with all the paperwork i thought i may need to fill in a application for the house. then the wait to find out... well lunch time today I got the call that my application was successful and i can rent the house...

Covenant

The Methodist Covent Service I have a copy of the covent prayer on my office wall. I've had a copy of it for a long time now, this one I picked up from Wesley's House. It's never a easy prayer to say. Wesley would have classes about it to help people think through just what was being said during the covent.  This year it was even harder after a difficult year... 

I am no longer my own, but thine.

Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.

Put me to doing, put me to suffering.

Let me be employed for thee or laid aside for thee,

exalted for thee or brought low for thee.

Let me be full, let me be empty.

Let me have all things, let me have nothing.

I freely and heartily yield all things to thy pleasure and disposal.

And now, O glorious and blessed God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit,

thou art mine, and I am thine.

So be it.

And the covenant which I have made on earth,

let it be ratified in heaven.

Amen.

If your like me right now the words you just read the word that comes to mind is ouch... 

the prayer strips away the very core of the thing that we take so strongly our RIGHTS.. To say this prayer is to deny they very thing that drives our world. That last line I freely and heartily yield all things to thy pleasure and disposal. 

The first service of January in Baslow I joined friends as we came together to join together in renewing this covent with God.

Just Another Bear!!

Earlier this week I posted the photo below on my photo blog. The day I saw it walking the dog it really stopped me. It really isn't something you expect to see. One of the things this blog was about was seeing God in the little patch that I live and work in. To see God in the everyday in the ordinary of life. This image has stayed in my thoughts all week. one comment left saw 'peace offering'. I don't no the story behind why this was done a joke or a remembrance of a accident. So what was the photo 

Bear behind barbed wire on the top of a wall. So many of those who live next door or down the road to. Those who are our neighbours and even yes even each of us can be just like this bear at times that wanting to be loved, cared for love me lots. Yet there are hugh sharp barriers around keeping us in and others,  and hurting ourselves and others out.

The amnesty international symbol also came to mind with this picture 

 

Hope and light in a dark place in the candle and wire, love and peace comfort behind wire in the image of the bear in both these images is what our communities need.

Today another image spoke to me that of Holy Saturday that saturday between Good Friday and Easter day. Esther  De Waal writes about a image of what took place on this day something that artist struggle to show. yet on a font in a English church 

 is a dramatic and dynamic scene, portrayed with extra- ordinary vigour and richness. Christ is dragging Adam out of a limbo of twisted knots, rather like clinging tentacles. (An antiquarian brochure, written by someone who had no idea of the context, described it as a man being pulled out of a thorny hedge, and somehow I always felt that this homely interpretation was no bad way of catching something of the difficulty and discomfort of how entangled we become and how we need the help of a strong hand to drag us upward.)  Seeking Life.p.14-15

The bear at the end of the road here a daily reminder of the mystery and grace of Easter that there is nothing not even a barb wire fence that will stop the Love and grace of God reaching out to His creation. Not matter what the darkness in life may be His light will shine through and the comforter will be there alongside by His Spirit and by His People being Jesus with skin on.

December

December seems to hit at a high speed. Even with Advent a time to prepare to reflect on the great mystery of christmas as godly Play puts it. December seems to pass in a blur. Which is sad I've started to enjoy and see advent in a new way recently, partly through being connected in london with a Anglican church and with friends who view and realise advent in different ways to us here in the uk and this year being in a new patch. It;s been good not to have the trapping of christmas around until almost the last week of advent. The tree Went up in church on the 18th when the christingle took place. 


A wonderful carol service at Baslow Methodist Church while visiting STF at cliff college. 

carols by candlelight at All Saints

And another but very different back in MyPatch by candlelight