A day of contrasts: a funeral in the morning and a wedding this afternoon.

The funeral took us down to Douglas in deepest Lanarkshire for the burial. On the way to the cemetery I was told that we had now entered "God's own country", and with the weather finally holding off for today (so far, anyway) it really was beautiful. Surrounding the cemetery are fields with sheep gently grazing. 

Not a great picture above, as I had to resort to the phone, but you will get the idea.

One of the strange things (among many) about being a minister is that you start to look at cemeteries in a different light. This one was immaculately kept and truly a peaceful place.

At the moment Wednesdays are just crazy in the Johnston household. Once everyone is back from school, there are 45 minutes before the start of drama class for the oldest three, then back home for an hour before Rainbows for Katherine, Anchor Boys for Andrew, and then gymnastics for Katherine in Cumbernauld... It is manic. We're just back home from that, thankfully to a quiet house with everyone else in bed.

However, I must admit I am quite relishing the hour sitting in the car outside Broadwood Gymanstics Academy on a Wednesday night. Peace and quiet and a book. I was hoping to finish the book I am currently reading, Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine, but 20 mins cat nap threw that in disarray.

The service is all planned for Sunday when we are doing an all-age communion service. The theme will be the wedding at Cana and the super-abundance of God's love as measured in bottles of vino!

For that, I added another verse picking up on Cana to a wee tune that we are going to do on Sunday. There is something so wonderful about that over-spilling of generosity as we find it in Cana and also in the story of the extraordinary stretching power of five loaves and two fish - better than watering down your stew!

Andrew just got back from having his first lunch at school and he was jumping with excitement... why? He got chocolate milkshake... truly my son!

I'm trying to get a module for this site setup that will allow comments to be posted to this blog, but so far... grrrr!

It's been a long but rewarding day.

In to the new church office in the morning to leave some work for Gill, our administrator. A brief blether with Rev Keith Ross as he picked up 1,000 booklets that were delivered yesterday for the presbytery meeting tonight - they arrived just in time. I'm very pleased with the quality of the print. The booklets have been  produced for presbytery showcasing all the various courses that the Adult Education Team running out of the committee I convene have available to congregations. I hope it brings some inspiration.

Then a very interesting conversation on the doorstep with two Jehovah Witnesses. Lovely women, but I found myself a little frustrated with all the talk about how the world is so terrible and how many people are scared of bringing up their children into this world. I just don't see it. I'm so excited by the prospects that my children have today, even if they don't realise just how good they have it.