We just got an email from someone commenting (among other things) on this blog. The person concerned flattered us by saying that ‘I applaud the principle of blogging occasionally but thoughfully’. Well, if only we actually were that disciplined and well organized … dream on!
The silence of the last week though has not been about our lack of discipline. We’ve been in Ireland for a conference on leadership, and just didn’t have the time to read emails, let alone blog here. Highlights of the event itself included spending more time with Graham Cray, who was the other main speaker – and discovering that, without any prior conversations, not only were the three of us very firmly on the same ecclesiastical and theological page, but we even had many of the same words on our powerpoints! And some of them were very specific, like insisting we should be incarnational rather than ‘relevant’. Of course, we did take some time out – to visit this place, which was everything its website promised. Not just the treatments either, but the welcome they gave us and the care they took of us exuded spiritual presence and sensitivity.
We took the car to Ireland (all 1038 miles of it), and by the time we were leaving our family were texting us like mad because they had just seen this. Lucky for us, we were booked on a different route altogether, which meant we made it back to Scotland in time to spend a couple of days helping our daughter and husband to move house. And then eventually, back to Aberdeenshire on the day the biggest snow for twenty years hit the UK.
So an adventurous trip all round. We really enjoyed our conference, and came home with only one question (which isn’t bad, because we often have more!). For three days, 120 people sat around tables for all the sessions, which made for excellent interaction and conversation. Then the final act was communion and, guess what: the entire furniture was rearranged so as to dump the tables and we all sat in rows facing the front. We had a long discussion on the way home about why you would scrap the tables for the only bit of the entire event that, quite literally, started life at a meal, and a table. But then, others don’t always see what we imagine is really obvious!
