Wild goose chase

17th July 2013

In some respects a fairly quiet day (apart from the enjoyable madness of VBS)Though the day started off with an interesting conversation with one of the church team. She asked me how I'd enjoyed the lake yesterday and the conversation went on about the lake. And she mentioned how at one time there used to be a sunrise service held on the lake shore on Easter Day. She said it was very moving though sometime the geese made their presence felt.

I told her how in Celtic Christiniaity the Wild Goose was used as a symbol of the Holy Spirit rather than the dove. And at this she looked quite shocked. She explained how for several years a business she and her husband had run struggled but they kept faith with it (and eventually it did well.) And one thing that kept them going was seeing the geese on the lake. The geese alwys seemed an encouragement.

This morning I finished preparation for Sunday and then we had the weekly staff meeting. So that was all routine.

Then this afternoon I had a pre-arranged meeting with a church member. It was a really interesting conversation. She told me how she’d been challenged by last Sunday’s sermon “Called to be an innkeeper?” And she had this nagging feeling she was being challenged by God to do something else with her life. We had a long conversation about that and I shared my own experience of eventually being called to ministry but also the time leading up to this when I had felt for a long time that I wanted to change career but nothing felt right until this call came along.

She asked me how things were going and I felt able to say that one thing that was surprising is how refreshing the exchange was. How I was being nourished by it in the spiritual sense (though with all the North Carolina barbecue in the physical sense too!)

There was much more but it is not appropriate to mention here. But a really interesting conversation.

So this is a very brief blog. But as the blog is as much an aide memoire for me as anything it has served its purpose.
Had a Skype with Anne and Skype is a wonderful thing. She’s now left the flat she’d been loaned by friends and is spending a couple of days with her mum before flying out on Friday. So it was good to check that Skype worked there too. We’ve Skyped most days and that has made such a difference. To hear the other person’s “real” voice as opposed to the distortion of a phone is great. We’ve tended not to use the video as the connection at Anne’s end was not that stable. But video is even more amazing.

Just one VBS comment so I don’t forget. The evening ended with a drama which included a very sensitive account of the Crucifixion and Resurrection. As the actor playing Jesus came in carrying the cross, one of the kids me said excitedly “It’s Jesus! It’s Jesus!” Before saying “Well, I think it’s Jesus?”

Finally, a thank you to a good friend of mine who reads the blog every day and then contacts me with various minor corrections. I tend to write these late at night when I’m tired so sometimes make grammatical errors or miss out words. And I find I can never proof read anything off the screen and I don’t have easy access to a printer at the parsonage. So thank you my friend. You know who you are!