Prayer for today

Almighty and ever-living God,
your generosity exceeds what we deserve
and even what we ask for in prayer.

Pour out your compassion on us:

forgive whatever is weighing on our consciences,

and grant us gifts that we would not even dare to pray for.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

God for ever and ever.

Amen.

Collect of the day - Roman Office.

Yes, this makes sense to me!

And this:

He truly is a rare and marvellous work of heavenly grace,
who when he comes into the din and tumult of the world,
can view things just as he calmly contemplated them
in the distance, before the time of action came.

John Henry Newman.

Meetings in hell!

2 committee meetings in a day is bad. But when one of them is in a hall where you have a 70 piece symphony orchestra rehearsing next door, a samba band practicing upstairs and grumpy historians to be evicted from the room they occupied without consultation before you can even start, then bad acquires a whole new depth of meaning! There was something faintly appropriate however in the enforced soundtrack: we started to "Jesus Christ Superstar" and at the most boring bit of the agenda were serenaded by Glinka's "Night on the Bare Mountain". Light in even the most unlikely darkness!

Yesterday had a good spot in a meeting with a godly sister who I went to talk about my prayer life with. I was surprised to be told that I know something about spiritual poverty! In a good way! I'm happier now with enough from God rather than trying to grab everything or demanding it. Progress of sorts I think.

Time to eat now. Baked tatties for supper. Yum!

A night to remember.

No, not the old film about the Titanic with Kenneth More doing that stiff upper lip thing he did so well, but Monday night at the Fringe. I popped along to listen to +Gene Robinson at St John's Princes Street. Never condemn a controversial figure until you have heard what they have to say and can offer a honest reflection is the way I like to work. GR was impressive: modest, funny, forgiving and human. And also refreshingly normal and theologically orthodox. Not some mad radical who wants us to worship Gaia and call it Anglican, but a human being with his faults seeking to love and serve the Lord whilst being truly open and honest. I am now officially a fan.

Then it was off to Nitekirk to do a bit of anointing. Whilst there, I had one of those rare but utterly compelling conversations when you are simply totally aware of the presence of God and the Holy Spirit moving and working. The nice lady who stopped to chat was an RC sister based in Stirling and we began to talk about prayer and the presence of God. Which led into one of the deepest conversations I've had about prayer in a long time. I had to catch a later train as I lost track of time. But we swapped phone numbers and agreed to continue the conversation at another time. Marvellous.