Monday

The process of rebuilding myself on a Monday morning doesn't get any easier. In trying to insert things into myself that may encourage not just waking up (I've done that) but being alive I've tried:

Match of the Day 2 video. Dull.
The Independent advanced sudoku. Simple.
Breakfast. Over-cooked due to tiredness. Fruit nice. Shouldn't have tried cooking so early.
Reading blogs. Richard Sudworth put me on to Dissonant Bible which was interesting and I will return to again and again.

It's always nice, as an intuitive personality, when something you read backs up something you have already decided without evidence. Dissonant Bible aims to point up bits of scripture we may just blast across without paying attention. Last night I preached on David's farewell speech to Solomon (his son) in 1 Kings 2. Observant readers will know that 2 Samuel 23 has another (more public?) farewell speech so this is the family one. David says:

Keep the law
Hang on to the promises
Use your own wisdom and judgement but make sure our enemies have an unpleasant time whilst our friends remain our friends

David the man is much more interesting than David the Jesus-type. David the man got scared, oggled women (more than in Bathsheba's case), made his enemies suffer and told his son to do likewise. Solomon himself was the consequence of David stealing another man's wife. Yet the judgement of history is that David's heart for God was what mattered.

Inserting theology into me seems to have helped.

Last night a fine, Christian woman who comes to church expressed surprise that I, as a minister, would say I related to the comment in 1 Samuel 3 that 'in those days the word of the Lord was rare, there were not many visions' because she heard the Lord speaking to her 'all the time' and all her friends did too. Told her she and all her friends were fortunate and very unusual but it got me wondering. Is the conversation constantly going on in my head, which I interpret as my own inner voices sorting out what I should think/do, the same as what she describes as the Lord?

I know I should be be pleased that a member of my church hears God speaking to her all the time but I don't. I feel something is wrong.

Opening up the church premises for a group of Belgian language students had to refund £1 from the malfunctioning pay-phone and put tape round it. Was about to write 'out of order' when I realised what a strange expression that might sound to someone for whom English was not first tongue. Eventually wrote, 'phone not working.'