Journal: I'm different!

I can't describe the feelings that the closing day has brought me. Well I can but it would sound trite and the potential to do it an injustice is so great I guess I can but say, "Wow!".

Somewhere in today there was a gentle funeral service, some wonderful home Communion visits, some funeral prep which left me positive and blessed, some pastoral encounters and an evening spent with a great bunch of people as we studied and formed our individual theological positions and found ourselves united in it.

I was once told that life is like a giant slinging tile puzzle, you can't lift the tiles to set the order - the classic 'fifteen tile game' being something I think we all know - so you have to move in sometimes unexpected directions to get them into the right place; and when you do you have numbers or letters in the right sequence or a picture or whatever. This is what the Christian life is like with the objective being to see Jesus at the end of the game!

During the course of the day I was told on a few occasions that I am, "Not like 'normal vicars'!" As thankful as I am for being able to maintain my personal brand of weirdness, I have to say that I don't think I've met a normal cleric yet. So today I challenge one of those who had uttered the comment as to what they meant. At first they were a bit shocked and quickly told me that they meant it as a compliment. I responded by telling them that that's what I'd taken it as and was merely wondering what is was that made me 'abnormal'. "Not abnormal. Different!" Was the response; and before I could ask how, they told me. 

At the end of the encounter I found myself feeling blessed by who I am for in the words used to describe me were little squares on another person's puzzle and they were moving to show the face of Jesus becuase of their encounters with me. And through their encounters with me they were encountering Jesus, the Christ. 

This is all I life for, to make Christ known and to make for a passionate, engaged and redeemed image of the invisible God in every person I meet.

Please God, don't ever let me be whatever a normal cleric looks like, let be look and smell and be like  Jesus in the lives of those I encounter. May I be a pleasing aroma, a child who basks in the love of the Father at whose feet he plays, a man of the word and one who will always come alongside.

Lord for the day past I thank You.

For the noise and the mayhem that is me, I ask that you use what You can and recycle what distracts.

For those for whom I have been a blessing - thank You.

For those I have failed to help as I should - bless them and give me another opportunity.

For those who frustrate me and cause me to stumble by my wrong responses: bless them and change me.

As the song has it:

Lord You have my heart and I will search for yours: Jesus, take my life and lead me on.

Lord You have my heart and I will search for yours: Let me be to You a sacrifice.

Journal: Friday Fun

What a stonking day with four visits done before Lunch!

I love getting to meet and have a conversation, reminisce, and get to have Communion with people where they are. So many high spots as we celebrated progress with matters medical at one end of the scale and contained our concern at the lack of it elsewhere. Tea drunk, Communion celebrated (for it the Church that celebrates whilst the person serving it up presides), family proclaimed. Pure bliss.

Pastoral conversations today were limited to no more than a handful outside of the Communion but even they were positive and encouraging - no new fires on the horizon - the flames that were once to be found are now (apparently, and hopefully as they seem) dying embers.

Kid's Club was a joy and amidst the games of snooker and pool (no Wii this week) and the birthday celebrations there was the joy of educational progress and more stable life experiences. Not the busiest we've been but having past twenty kids in the place it felt full enough. A wonderful part of the ministry in this place - another of the real joys.

Later there was the finishing off of the Sunday service and all that entails - funny how some seem to think that the Sunday happenings just happen to happen without planning, predation and study. Must remember to offer them a go at it some time :-)

Somehow the 'third of a day off' things didn't happen - hard to stop when you're having such a good time innit?

So Lord, 

for the obvious places where You have been found - I give You thanks,

for the surprising places where You became noticed - I praise You,

for the people whose lives You are changing - I applaud You,

for loving and using me - I'm astounded, humbled and blessed.

May today have sown seed, may tomorrow see me reap the harvest of Your love.

This place of reflection is here for me to dialogue internally and gain insight and perspective. It first appeared in this current form for some of those looking at creating their own journal as part of the their journey to discerning vocation. The Morning prayer is there also for that same purpose: to create the discipline of prayer. 

A funny sort of day

Touching base with many different people in a variety of ways - it seems that as we get closer to celebrating the incarnate we lose that self-same attribute in ourselves. Jesus, the invisible God made visible and made flesh - clergy, man made invisible, as we communicate by text, email and social media!

A quick encounter with someone by telephone is worth a hundred texts and to actually manifest ourselves physically before someone - well it's akin to a theophany in the Bible - and for some, as rare too!

Being aware of someone's existence is something but being in their physical presence is something else. As I sense God in my life I am uplifted, quickened and enabled - I call upon Him, sometimes to answer by fire as the story relating to the contest with the Baal followers, because I have a confidence that He's there. Do those I serve have the same confidence in me?

Today a day of encouragement and hope from a organisation of the same name and funeral visits, another Kid's Club, pastoral stuff and an evening off. Lost a couple of people - amazing how someone moving and changing get their mobile number can cause them to just vanish - not even the support workers can find them. It's worrying that there are so many mentally ill people slipping through the net, if the welfare state is in such a state that it can ignore and incompetently handle the mad like this, isn't it time that the Church got mad and brought some sanity to it all?

But here I am, knackered tonight, eyes heavy and it's not even midnight - the Christmas rush hasn't bit yet - there's no time - and it's always my busy time of year, because that's what I reckon the Boss always has too. So Lord strengthen me, fill me with your Holy Spirit, and make me to become an incarnate presbyteral entities - burn the paperwork and, having  buried the dead, proclaim the Christ in the company of a living and broken world - in the flesh.

For all that today was I thank you and for all that tomorrow will be I bless your name.