Richard's Ramblings

Our fellow shut-ins are coming up with all sorts of diversions to keep themselves sane during lockdown. Many are learning a new language, or a musical instrument. I was all for taking up the bagpipe, but Leisa pointed out that among our near neighbours are some church members. We don’t want them to move to Belgian Gardens just to escape the wail of Amazing Grace. They might not travel all the way to KUC after restrictions end. Jigsaws are a common pastime. You buy, or are given, a great big box with a lovely picture on the outside. And then you open it to find hundreds of strange little shapes which don’t look as if they could have anything to do with the beautiful scene on the box. But with care and perseverance, qualities entirely lacking from my personality, you discover how those strange shapes fit together to form a gorgeous panorama, exactly like the picture on the box. We’re like a jigsaw at KUC, except someone – something – has taken the completed picture apart and scattered

Do you remember the Wombles? Underground, overground, Wombling free The Wombles of Wimbledon Common are we Making good use of the things that we find Things that the everyday folks leave behind. I’ve been reading about unexpected “leavings behind”, scriptures dumped on an Egptian refuse tip 300km or so south of Alexandria, during the first few centuries of the Christian Era. You can read the academic paper for yourself, if you’re into that sort of thing: https://religion.princeton.edu/wp-content/uploads/Luijendijk-Sacred-Scriptures-as-Trash-VC.pdf No-one’s too sure why they were dumped, although one theory is that scribes discarded papyrii which had the ancient equivalent of our typos. Whatever, they were preserved under desert sand until the late 19thC when researchers were alerted to them, and began to retrieve and study them. Some were gnostic, or not incorporated into what is now our accepted canon, but some were variants of canonical Gospels and Apostolic letters. All hav

First, this week’s online service is provided by the Moderator, Rev David Baker. I’ll send the link out on Saturday so that you can watch from home church on Sunday morning (or whenever you like, one of the silver linings of this novel way of worshipping). And I’ll take DVDs round to internetless folk. On this topic of online stuff, I have a number of Zoomy meetings during the week. Some with Presbytery, some with Elders and CoM, with the Pastoral Care group, with a couple of other groups which I belong to. And Thursday morning sees a Zoom version of what the City’s ministers used to do in Real Life™ at Macca’s, an early prayer meeting.  Forgetting to mute my mike can be embarrassing. The dog barks her head off at a sensitive point in someone’s earnest prayer. Leisa brings me in a coffee (at which I forget to suspend video), and I thank her profusely and give a running commentary on my colleagues, including, for the AoG,   their distinctive style of extemporaneous prayer. The Unit