Sanctuary Tiles and How Not To Behave In Church

Remember on Thursday I said that the new encaustic tiles in the Sanctuary had finished being laid?
Aren't they wonderful? Each colour is a different tile.

Today's Gospel reading was Luke Ch 4 v 1-13 and the Dean spoke about the purpose for Lent, based on Luke. He said we should be looking at the effectiveness of our witness for God and also be willing to lean more on God for strength.

Firstly, the Holy Spirit can only fill the space we give it, so if unGodly things are cluttering up spiritual space then some Spring-cleaning is required. The purpose should be to get rid of anything in us which is taking up space that the Holy Spirit could be using, otherwise we will be running on half empty tanks!

Secondly, we do not do this journey alone. The Church and our fellow Christians are there to help, encourage, and to be helped and encouraged. We need to commit to walking together and not all doing our own thing and hoping for the best.

The first point about the holy Spirit's space struck home with me particularly- clearing of clutter is definitely on the agenda for this week!


There was a Baptism during the Service, and since the Font is at the back of the Church, everyone turned round to face the opposite way to share the event. As a result the two children sitting beside the organ were then in front of me, so when the Dean was sloshing water over the baby's head and was hidden behind everyone I lent forward and whispered to S and I; 'This is when the Dean takes the baby by his feet and holds him upside down over the font to dunk him like a chocolate biscuit. He did the same to you when you were baptised.'
They started giggling and their Granny turned round to hiss at them, saw it was me, rolled her eyes and gave up! (Their Granny was my Sunday School teacher when I was their age and still tries to keep me in line...fails miserably but not for the want of trying!)

Busy Friday

I tell you- yesterday was double the blessing when we got up to today's dark greyness and drizzling rain! Yesterday afternoon, after a last practice with the 'singing children' Mum met me at school and we took ourselves out to Cliffoney as I needed batting, and yellow thread, and it was the most glorious day for a drive up the coast to the quilt shop! I took those photos from the car park of the shop, you can see how close the sea is.

Today after taking B to school and collecting Sos from 'the Brewery' (student union car park) after staying the night with friends (out late then stayed up talking until 4.30am) I returned home to bed. I had a funeral to go to at 2.oo pm but of all days today the battery in the alarm clock went, and when it registered 11.30am and bleeped it was actually 1.o5pm. Too late to start out, and since one eye had gone all swollen I decided to not go. Not a feel-good decision.

So I am now working through today's list, which includes deciding on hymns for Sunday morning's Harvest and checking with the other Organist to ensure she hasn't chosen the same ones for the evening Service! I have the hymn book open beside me: I love the headings for the different parts of the Church year- 'The Life Of Faith', 'God the Father, Creator', 'The Church's Witness and Mission', and my absolute favourite, 'The Christian Hope'! What's that verse 'to everything a time and place, to everything a season', that's not exact but to have the year set out is such a safe frame-work for living. (not sure 'frame-work' is the right term?) To me it is a great comfort.

I also have to bag up two tins of Quality Street sweets into 40 goodie bags for the singers, do some laundry, badger Sos into getting on with her chores, and Dilly has just texted to say she's coming home tonight as Dublin is driving her mad! The girl's early years in remote parts of East Africa seem to have left them all with a need for wide spaces: they enjoy social events and friends and doing things in town, but every so often they have to spend time on the beach, or up the mountain, which for Dilly means coming home. Well I'm glad! I think we haven't seen her since the start of August!

I've lit the fire in the stove to heat up the sitting room and kitchen as its such a cold day; B's hockey practice has been cancelled due to the rain. Sos is Kick-boxing again tonight so everyone will be glad of the fire later, I'm already wearing two wool sweaters.

I forgot to mention that my car's reversing lights seem to be 'on' permanently so I stopped by the garage yesterday evening. The mechanic had a look and said the switch has broken but they didn't have a spare so they'll get one in next week. 'Anyhow', sez yer man, 'its not major; if you're going forwards you can hardly be going backwards, so don't worry about it!' Well now, there's a philosophy!

Then on the way to collect B from school this afternoon I came up behind a car with its sunroof open in the rain! D'you think she has a water problem at home and was harvesting rainwater as she travelled? Or bathing even? In any case, I'd rather banjaxed reversing lights to a banjaxed sunroof!