More googly fun.

I saw this on the very good blog "There and back to see how far it is" and thought it looked fun. I was right. It is, but it's time consuming.

Instructions:

Answer the questions below, do a Google Image search with your answer, take a picture from the first page of results, and do it with minimal words of explanation.

1. The age you'll be on your next birthday.
2. A place you'd like to travel to.
Antarctica.
3. Your favourite place.
4. Your favourite food.
Don't knock it till you've tried it but a buttered Scottish morning roll with Walkers Worcester sauce crisps in it is just lovely. Not very healthy so perhaps best to make it an occasional treat.

5. Your favourite pet.
6. Your favoutite colour combination.
Purple and red.
7. Your favourite item of clothing.
8. Your favourite tv show.
Lost.
9. The town in which you live.
10. Your first job.
Plucking turkeys. Actually the sister in law of the farmer I worked for (25 years ago and 50 miles away) showed up at our church this morning - a blast from the past indeed.
11. Your dream job.

12. A bad habit you have.

13. Your worst fear.
I fear Him Indoors and I both dying, at the same time, before the children are grown up.
14. What you'd like to do before you die.
I'd like to be involved in some people's journey into living faith.

Not a boy called Sue but a man called to SU.

We had a family for dinner tonight (not literally - that would be cannibalism which is illegal) but we had a couple and their four children round to eat a Chinese (meal, not person as that also would be illegal). As they have three boys and a girl to our three girls and a boy - the ages aren't quite right but not to worry - I've cooked up the idea that fifteen years from now or so they can all marry each other at a joint quadruple wedding. This will save lots of money. Also, it would be unusual enough to merit press attention, so we could sell the story for enough to pay for the wedding. Sorted.

Meanwhile back in 2008, the dad in this family works full time for Scripture Union Scotland. This is an organisation for which I have a huge respect, and for which I hope for lots more support in terms of volunteered time as well as gifted money in years to come.

Although I grew up in a Christian home, for which I am immensely and permanently extremely thankful, God has no grandchildren and Scripture Union had a huge part to play in my moving from a kind of inherited faith to a personal one that was real for me too. At thirteen I went to a Scripture Union camp in St Andrews and I reckon that as the time when my faith made the transition from what I'd grown up with but didn't really understand or think about much, to something very very real and personal. I understood about the cross for the first time that week and my life has never been the same since. My "testimony" is kind of boring - people love to hear the dramatic story and mine just isn't, so I don't get asked to tell it, but I fiercely insist that God is worthy of just as much praise and glory for bringing me, in spite of my folly and failings and foolishness, through 29 years of this faith journey, rescuing me from many a blind alley and wrong path and putting me back on the right road.

Being a Christian at school these days isn't easy but it wasn't much easier in the late seventies/early eighties either because the fact is that adolescence is tricky!

Although I had church on a Sunday, it wasn't overrun with young people, and it was Scripture Union which was church for me then. We had a lunchtime meeting at school once a week, we had camps. I went to four altogether while at secondary school. The week-long one at St Andrews already mentioned. A sailing one at Kinlochard, also a week long - it was a flat calm all week so not much sailing happened - and two weekends at Linlithgow. I also went to a monthly Saturday night youth event in Glasgow, called Interalia. I lived for those nights. We were very unsophisticated in those days and had never heard of multimedia, but bands performed, there was drama, speakers, singing and a tuck shop. What was great about them for me as a teenager (oh, it's SOOOOO long ago...) was that for a couple of hours at that event I didn't feel like such an oddity as I did in my class at school.

Isn't that partly what Church does for us? We go, those of us who do, for all kinds of reasons, but one reason I reckon is that it simply reminds us that there are others of us nutters out there. In our everyday lives we may be in a small minority as believers in our workplace and/or families, perhaps even a minority of one, but when we go to church there are a host of others singing from the same hymn sheet - literally. And that's an encouragement, isn't it? And the odd time when we get to attend a really big praise event, like Prom Praise or Frenzy or whatever, it is such a blessing to look round and see there are lots of other weirdos like us...

Interalia and Scripture Union did that for me, and SU has helped countless other kids. Before I started my current job, when I was a lady of leisure, I helped in a Scripture Union group in a primary school in my parish. Kids' and youth work isn't my thing really - I'm a bit rubbish at it (give me a bunch of bad boys in jail any day) - but I realised the one leader at the time needed support and I was glad to do it. It's really cutting edge stuff, SU work. It's front line. It's not hit and run evangelism (which I don't like). It's relational. It's about loving the kids. In this day and age they know next to nothing about the Christian faith, so there's not much chance more will happen than that seeds will be sown, but that's no small thing. Seed sowing in agriculture is a pretty important task.

Where is this post going? Who knows? I'm tired. It's ten past midnight. I just know I want to record three cheers for Scripture Union, and to acknowledge that, humanly speaking, I can't see that I'd still be going on in my faith, weak and all over the place though I undoubtedly often am, were it not for the wonderful job SU did in my teenage years. Our kids are now beginning to go to SU camp too, and I hope it will be of just as much help to them. Blue eyed boy tells me he's the only kid in his class who goes to church and that sometimes he gets "slagged off" about it. It's hard for a child not to care what folk think. (Wait till you get in your forties my boy - it's most liberating!) So I'm thankful for the big gang of boys his age that come each week to our church (and the girls my daughters' ages) and I pray he'll get the sense from church and SU camps that he's not a freak, but part of a big worldwide family which includes boys his age too...

For anyone who's interested, but who can't be bothered clicking the SU Scotland link above, here's a brief history of the organisation, cut and pasted from their website:

"Scripture Union Scotland is part of a world-wide movement that traces it's origins back to 1868. Then, a gentleman called Josiah Spiers gathered children together on the beach at Llandudno, Wales, to tell them stories about Jesus. He started something which now operates in 130 countries.

Across the globe these Scripture Union movements are linked by their desire to reach children and young people where they are with the good news about Jesus Christ. Josiah Spiers began that mission by helping children to trace out and decorate Bible verses in the sand. Still today, the commitment is to encourage people of all ages to read and engage with the Bible which is described in SU's Basis of Faith as being both authoritative and trustworthy.

In Scotland, Scripture Union formally came into existence in 1902. Holiday Beach Missions formed the core of the work at the start but that soon developed into a camps programme and later, work in schools. These things always sat alongside the production and distribution of Bible reading plans and notes. SU Scotland become an autonomous movement in 1972.Across its history and around the globe, SU’s work has been and remains largely dependent on volunteers. In Scotland each year more than 2000 people of all ages and backgrounds form the core workforce for the ministry.Today SU Scotland has groups in around 10% of Scottish schools and some 4,500 children and young people are involved each year in residential events. The aim is to see the scope of this work expand so that more of the 750,000 plus children and young people in Scotland have the opportunity to explore and respond to the significance of Jesus Christ for their lives.SU Scotland has always sought to work with the church. The aim is to see children and young people giving a life-time of service to Jesus Christ within a local church context."

PS The Chinese meal was delicious and the kids had a whale of a time of course including (mildly) untidying the house we had just tidied, and enjoying each other's company. No marriage proposals were overheard though.

It's a sign, contd.

TGIF.

This is a really fun link.

And in other news... I'm off to watch a DVD with the kids and forget about work, although it's "Harry Potter and The PRISONER of Azkaban" - I'm certainly very glad I'm not full-time chaplain of Azkaban.

Mind the Gap

This post on Under the Overpasses, one of the most fab blogs out there IMHO, really moved me when I read it this evening. The post itself and some of the comments also chimed in with a whole range of things I've been thinking about this week to do with how society and in particular church society views, treats and welcomes (or otherwise) the marginalised or odd or just plain weird. The author of Under the Overpasses works in a homeless shelter. I too have worked in one in the past (a long time ago and not for long but it was a powerful world-view-altering experience) and I know that prison clientele has a certain similarity to the homeless shelter clientele.

What I've been thinking about is to do with Christian prisoners, i.e. prisoners who are (now, even if only of late) professing practising Christians rather than those who register as Church of Scotland or Roman Catholic on their admittance to jail and in reality are atheists or agnostics. In the course of the relationship I form with them I often talk about church. I explain that right there in our crappy surroundings we are a church congregation and we're part of the worldwide body of Christ that is the church, brothers and sister of Christians all over the world. I also tell them, and I truly truly believe this, that their "chances of success" as Christians are vastly greater on release if they find themselves a church and start going to it. I know lots of people say you can be a Christian without going to church. I'm not convinced about that. If you CAN'T go that's one thing, but if you WON'T go, I think that's not good. And certainly if you don't have the years and years of churchgoing under your belt that those of us who grew up in the church gained (willingly or otherwise!), if you're the only believer among your family and friends, and if you're still to face the challenge of living a life away from crime and addiction, I have no question in my mind that (a good) church is a crucial part of the best strategic action plan for your future.

However, how do we bridge the gap for our guys who've found faith during their sentence from prison chapel to church? If you're a national rather than local facility that's even harder.

I am really exercised in my heart about it this week. Our guys who come to the chaplaincy services talk the talk about wanting to go to church on the outside but as one of them freely admitted (privately of course) to me today, it's a really really scary prospect.

I think this may be a wider issue than just prisoners though. I spoke to a woman one day last year, I forget where but it may have been at the hairdressers, who asked how you went to church. I didn't understand at first but it became clear she didn't realise you could just turn up on a Sunday at service time, go in (without a ticket) and take a seat. And of course why WOULD she know that?

But for prisoners there are added difficulties. They worry about the potential response if they reveal their past. They worry about the church being full of middle class people. They worry about not knowing how to behave and what is expected of them (prisoners worry about that a lot actually - they worry about coming to events held in the jail - I think it's to do with insecurity and losing face and then appearing weak - unless you explain at GREAT length exactly what will happen at the event and what the expectation will be).

And that's only the gap-bridging problem from one side. How do we get our churches to cope better with the odd, the weird, the marginalised, the ex-offender and the recovering addict? Some do it really well already. Some less so. But Under There's post which I referred to above just makes my heart yearn to feel surer that our churches are full of people who want to love unconditionally, at the possible expense of having to leave, or at least invite challenging people into, their comfort zones. It's hard in both directions this gap-bridging and I have no answers.

My Catholic colleague and I are planning to hold services in the jails during Prisoners Week, to which prisoners can come if they want, and to which local churches will be invited to send folk. As the date approaches I now find I'm wanting to engineer and stage manage these. The purpose of the services is to encourage the churches to pray for the prisoners and to show the prisoners that the churches love them. I also want to cause the prisoners to feel that after all church people aren't so very different from them. So I'm now seriously considering (whilst realising how ridiculous - and discriminatory - it is) that I want to minimise the proportion of middle class grey haired old ladies (that's me out then!) and maximise the number of cool dudes and dudesses.

I want the guys to FEEL that the church folk love them. Some middle class grey haired old ladies loving them would be fab. But I don't want to confirm them in their suspicion that ONLY middle class grey haired old ladies go to church, with the implication being that it's not for them. So I find myself (feeling totally false and devious) in the ludicrous position of trying to engineer and stage manage a designer congregation of working class younger males. I realise sadly of course that the truth is that most congregations are short of working class younger males and that in so doing I'm maybe not being totally honest. And in any cases one of the most beautiful things about church which I personally appreciate every Sunday is that almost the whole point of it is that this random collection of people who on the surface would seem to have nothing in common in reality are family with the deepest possible bond of all connecting them. So maybe I should worry less about it. On the other hand if I manage to crack the job of creating my ideal congregation for those services maybe churches all over will start hiring me to do tailor made bespoke designer congregations for them in the style of their choice...

Noah's blog - a link worth following.

My colleague Tom across the pond in the US of A has a funny post here.

Incidentally, on the subject of Noah's Ark, can I recommend the film "Evan Almighty" to anyone who hasn't seen it. There aren't all that many films our kids watch that I truly enjoy once, let alone watch again and again as they're prone to do. This was one of the exceptions.

AnneDroid and Chums. Ahead of the curve.

I can't decide which of the many many pictures I took of Notre Dame to upload - the truth is it's so amazing no one (or even ten) pictures can do it justice. And there's also the Louvre, the Mona Lisa, the pavement cafes, the Seine and the Scottish pub which we stumbled across in the middle of the Scotland-Norway game. And more. I'm giving up. We had a great time. That's the shortened version of the story. And Paris is great. Very French. Very Parisien. The end.

And in any case now I've been back in jail for three days, my mind's on prison and prisoners. Apart from that I've so many posts to catch up on reading from my bloglist, I'm abandoning the laborious process of selecting and uploading endless pictures one at a time. If you want to see pictures of Paris there are plenty better than mine under Google Images!

Anyway, back in Jailworld, it's been good to be back. As usual I'm confronted with all the rich diversity of our prisoners, and their stories, and their needs, together with the great challenge of how to fulfil all the expected roles of chaplaincy in two prisons, with only me and my part time colleague. The truth is, of course, I don't think we can. We can only do our best and remember that rather than taking God into prison we have to recognise He was there long before us; He doesn't ask us to do it all, but just invites us to tag along with Him and "help" in the way a toddler "helps" its mother to bake!

I may have said this once or thrice before here (I don't always remember everything I write but I comfort myself with the thought that you won't either) but I have found prison chaplaincy extremely liberating. This is ironic because jail's obviously not very liberating for the prisoners. But it has been so for me. When I was at university (as I may have said) I used to get frustrated with Calvin's Institutes because I thought they were too vague sometimes. I wanted every theological and ecclesiological i dotted and t crossed. Now I find that working in prison chaplaincy has caused me to shed so much baggage in terms of niggly points of doctrine and church practice which I now realise don't matter a bit in kingdom work outwith the institution of the church. They DO matter, to a degree, in church-the-institution. I'm not having a go at my fellow clergy for worrying about things that do matter to an extent in the organisation and identity of their church congregations and denominations. But I am so blessed by being in a position now where I'm so released and freed from all that STUFF.

On Maggi Dawn's blog (see blogroll for link) a few days ago she had a quote I liked about chaplaincy (she's a university chaplain). It's from Brian McLaren, from the U.S.A., who's a leading light of the so-called emerging church movement. I sent the quote out by email to all my fellow chaplains in the Scottish jails for their amusement/inspiration/edification/information/delight/astonishment.

Brian McLaren says: "I've been noticing more than ever how many chaplains are 'ahead of the curve' in dealing with the 'great emergence' we're part of. Many (not all!) pastors, professors, and denominational officials can stay in their comfortable echo chambers in a way that chaplains can't - whether they're serving in hospitals, prisons, universities, retirement centers, or elsewhere." So it’s official. We’re the cutting edge. Where it’s at. Etc. Woo hoo!

Droids on tour, part 5.

I also liked the Arc de Triomphe a lot. In fact we went twice. The two youngest did a spot of pigeon chasing as you can see.When we went in the evening and climbed to the top it was just amazing. You would have needed some kind of camera able to take a 360 degree picture to do it justice. This one is looking down the Champs Elysee. About half way down the photo on the left you may be vaguely able to spot a red canopy. We had our lunch under that on our first visit and couldn't believe how cheap it was considering it was on such a famous street near such a famous landmark. I could have sat there all day watching the world go by.I was thoroughly glad we were travelling by metro. For us driving in Paris would mean being on the "wrong" side of the road, but here in the Place de l'Etoile it would be just horrific. Looking down on it from above was scary enough. I have no idea how people negotiate it and come out alive.Walking down the Champs Elysee was fun too. Him Indoors bought me a new watch but not from this shop:It was a Swatch like this which I love because I can see the face without my specs.

Droids on tour, part 4.

I love curves in architecture so I was predisposed to like the Sacre Coeur basilica. Photography wasn't allowed inside, which was fair enough - people were trying to pray, in among the tourists like us gawping at everything and trying to shush our children.

Droids on tour, part 3.

We nobly gave up two days of our five full days in Paris, and two million pounds (it felt like) to take the kids to Disneyland. They thought it was totally wonderful. Having been adamant for years that I would never go and that if I did I would hate it, I have to admit I did enjoy myself. But I've no urge ever to go back. Mind you, it's not really designed for my age group and, as I say, the kids had a ball. I went on a rollercoaster or two (even going on Thunder Mountain - see photo - twice), but I drew the line at the Tower of Terror. The stunt show in the Studios was fab.

Droids on tour, part 2.

We rented a one bedroom flat on the east side of Paris but within the Route Peripherique. The living room had two sofa beds so it was a bit like caravanning. We're used to changing living room to bedroom in the caravan so it was fine. Incidentally the apartment is for sale so if you're interested, and your taste runs to navy blue velour walls in your bedroom and a black bathroom suite...

The apartment was just south of the world famous Pere Lachaise cemetery, where lie the earthly remains of some extremely famous people including, in no particular order, Marcel Marceau, Marcel Proust, Edith Piaf, Jim Morrison, Gertrude Stein, and Oscar Wilde. To our British eyes it's a strange looking place. It's still used. A group were just leaving after a funeral as we arrived. The photo below the photo below was taken there and shows the beautiful autumn weather we enjoyed all week.

Also near our apartment, on the Saturday, was a market. It wasn't a tourist thing, but really French, and really fab.

Droids on tour, part 1.

Our trip was the children's first experience on a plane. They were very excited, and we're grateful that we were able to facilitate it and enjoy their wonder, particularly since we witnessed a stunning sunrise on the outward journey.

Porte Dauphine metro station which we used on our first day has, according to Wikipaedia (so it must be true) "one of the only two remaining aedicules originally designed by Hector Guimard (1867–1942), the Art Nouveau architect who was originally commissioned by the Compagnie du Métropolitain de Paris (CMP) in 1899 to design the entrances for the Métropolitain stations". I couldn't have told you what an aedicule was but it's one of those things the Droids are standing beneath. I liked it.

On the first evening we went up the Eiffel Tower and had a look at the view. When we came back down it was beginning to get dark. I reckon the tower looks better at night (see picture in last post). During the day it's like a slightly-more-substantial-than-usual electricity pylon (but don't tell it I said so).

Nous sommes back in Blighty.

We're safely home, all of us humans. The puppy had a whale of a time with Grandma and Grandpa and their dog and has slept deeply and committedly since she got home. We've had a good holiday, a REALLY good holiday and I may get to tell you all about it through the week. I've a second washing to go and unload though and it's early bed as tomorrow's my Big Long Day at work - I usually have one longer day at work each week. So it might be Tuesday before I get back to blogging. Disappointing for you, I know. I can imagine how much you want to see the 975 pictures I've just downloaded onto the computer. I missed my boys though and I'm looking forward to going back to work. An additional reason for looking forward to going back to work is that there's still the second week of school holidays to go (if it were up to me they wouldn't even get weekends). Nae luck, Him Indoors.

Job Done

.Him Indoors has married many other women over the fifteen years he's been married to me. I have come to accept this. Often these are women I don't know. Today he married my friend... to her husband. They are both in "ra polis" (or "the police" for those who're not from Scotland). They round them up and arrest them and then I chaplain them later. We've popped back to the house for a coffee, for me to have temporary respite from the high heels, and for Him Indoors to replace the clerical shirt he only wears at weddings and funerals with civilian clothing. Then we're off to the reception. Time to spare though to post my warmest wishes to this family for a long and happy marriage. Lots of love from us guys to you guys.

Joyeuses fêtes à nous

We are very excited chez Droid. Nous sommes tres heureux. In the early hours of Monday morning we're heading off for a short break to Paris.

(C'est juste dommage que je ne peux pas parler le français très bien. Ce paragraphe est courtoisie de Google Translate).

This will be the first time our kids have been abroad and the first time they've been on a plane. It's the first time I've been abroad since 1991! Before then, and it's now Saturday morning, I've to fit in going to a wedding today, preaching tomorrow morning, getting Penultimate child to two parties for which we have not yet bought the presents, and finishing the packing, as well as doing the usual housework. So why am I sitting here at my blog?

Joy and jail.

One of the most frequently repeated commands in the Bible is "rejoice!" It's often struck me that on the face of it this seems a funny thing for God to command people to do. Surely rejoicing is a reactive emotion which strikes us when we have something to rejoice about, and which it is unfair to expect of those who are in difficult circumstances? Yet there it is, over and over again. The command is to rejoice. And there are lots of remarkable examples of God's people rejoicing in the midst of hard times. I have come to the conclusion that God is not so mean as to command us to do something which is impossible for us, or at least that if it's naturally impossible then along with the command he's offering us his help to fulfil it.

I had to list in an email today the various aspects of what I do in the prison, and the meetings I have to attend, and I in a moment of shocking pride I was absurdly pleased to see the length of the list. Mind you a few of the roles on that list refer to meetings that only take place two or three times a year! The bread-and-butter day-in-and-day-out majority of my job is the emotional support of prisoners (and staff) of all religions and none on a generic basis. That's why I have a man-sized box of tissues on the desk! I'm thinking of having a "tea and sympathy" sign made for the door...

However almost as important to me (maybe deep down more important, I'm not sure) is the task of getting behind those of the prisoners who are professing Christians and encouraging them, teaching them, building them up and generally supporting them as they grow in their (usually quite new) faith.

There aren't a big group of them so I get to know them pretty well and some keep in touch by text messages when they get released. It struck me today what a lot of laughing we do together. And yet they're in jail, and some of them have very complex messy life histories outside and face the challenge of going out of jail with that new Christian identity which their old associates will be unlikely to understand at all. There's so much that could - even should - make them miserable and worried, and of course we do have some very sombre and serious conversations, but by and large they're a happy bunch! I saw this cartoon on t'internet and it made me think of them and smile.