Late at the Party

I enjoy parties.  But you need to be there as it gathers itself – not so good when you arrive and find it already going well and you aren’t quite part of it!

In a sense I did it twice today.

First when I turned up to preach at at the concluding Eucharist for our Provincial Lay Readers’ Conference – held at Tullyallan Police Training College near the Kincardine Bridge.  It’s vast – about to become the HQ for the unified Scottish Police Service.  Finding our modest-sized group inside it was like roaming the decks of the Marie Celeste looking for signs of life.  Their theme was ‘The Word in the World’ and this is what I offered them

Second I moved on to the closing Eucharist for the Cursillo Weekend at Kinnoul Monastery in Perth.  With Cursillo, you definitely need to be there at the beginning if you are going to be there at the end.  But I didn’t have that choice.  So I offered them a few thoughts on the Gospel – ‘Come and See’ seemed fairly appropriate.

I said this the last time I went to the Lay Readers’ Conference and I thought it again today. It also applied to the Cursillo group. What was great and refreshing was that I had to introduce myself and say a bit about the strange office which I hold. They weren’t ‘insiders’. They were deeply committed members of their congregations and glad to be so.