Now I'm Here

No, I haven't fallen off the edge of a cliff. Two weeks holiday, then two weeks catching up from the holiday, and here I am in Mid November - postless as an ugly kid on Valentine's Day.

Yesterday I had a little time to slow down when I attended an Alternativity event in Kintore run by Maggie Lunan. Among other exercises, Maggie got us each to choose a figure from the Nativity Scene and 'have a conversation with it'. (Try that at General Assembly Morning Worship, Moderator Elect...!)

If we were given the opportunity to ask one question of that person, what would it be? I went for a King. And being inclined to excess, asked him three questions:

1) What on earth took you all the way from your home, and that network of relationships and responsibilities, to go looking for God knows what on the tenuous advice of a flighty star?

2) Were you disappointed when you discovered the child was in a cave/stable rather than a palace?

3) How did you explain what happened when you got back home?

That in itself was food for thought. But then Maggie then asked us how these questions spoke into our lives and I found myself wondering, with Protestant guilt, whether there was anything even remotely strong enough about my desire for God to make me up sticks and leave home as these men had done.

That thought sat inside me heavily like too-much home baked brown bread, 'til later in the day when another voice reminded me gently that in choosing the path of ministry, I'm already on a similar journey - walking by faith; following the glimmers of light that illuminate my path; making tough choices about how to spend not just my time but my life; struggling on in pursuit of something (or someone) I've only the faintest notions of. Sometimes the desire is faint and flickering; sometimes almost extinguished; but here I am on the road - far from home; and the miles I've put in speak more truthfully about my desire to follow and find than any words I can muster.