As we resolved to encourage United Reformed congregations “to observe the Feast of Creation in Christ on the first Sunday in September from 2026”, we focused on God’s creation and how deeply we belong within it; our lives inextricably and wonderfully part of all life on Earth.

We warmly welcomed the global ecumenical focus upon the importance of creation care and the suggestion that we mark the first Sunday of September each year with special attention in our worship upon creation and all it means to belong within it. This can lead on into whatever ways this theme can be explored locally in subsequent weeks.

In the light of recent heatwaves and the unfolding of climate and ecological crises, there could hardly be a more critical time for us to bring out this profound theme within our theology and our reading of scripture.

I was kindly invited to write something for as this year’s Season of Creation approaches. I hope this meditation might also speak more widely…

You speak, and the stars begin their burning.
You speak, and lands emerge from the waters of chaos.
You speak, and the emerald greens of plants beyond number dance in fresh breeze.
You speak, and the seasons begin to weave their rhythms.
You speak, and the oceans and rivers team with amazing life.
You speak, and the stunning flocks fly free across a dazzling sky.
You speak, and the myriad creatures roam within the gardens of your glory.
You speak, and we arrive.

You see the intricate beauty and delicate balances, the interconnection that brings life to a world of wonders; everything depending upon the flourishing of everything else.
And you see that it is good.

We want to see as you see.

We want to listen to the heartbeats of your world, feel the beauty as much as see it, love the fragility and the splendour as you do.

Let us touch your Earth gently.
Teach us the wisdom we risk forgetting;
that life is made from sharing,
restoring what is damaged begins with understanding,
understanding our powerful selfishness is humbling…

humbling and transforming.

Transforming, because we find the place you always made for us:
our home within creation’s sanctuary,
our work with the wonders of your world of generosity,
our peace in treasuring the gifts of your abundance,
our life within the sharing.

You speak, and long for us to listen.

Image: Sudipta Mondal | Pexels

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To kick things off, I recently spent two days with the Woking 91�������� Youth Camp, and the experience was amazing. When I asked them what mattered most about Woking, every single person gave the same answer: the strong sense of community, genuine welcome, and safety.

At its best, church is defined by how safe, accepted, and valued people feel when they gather together. The Woking camp was a wonderful picture of true Christian fellowship – a place where people hold each other up and share their lives.

Our prayer is that this blog becomes an extension of that same spirit across the wider 91��������. We want this to be more than a place where we share scheduled updates; we want a space where we share our hope, encourage one another, and highlight the love and good deeds happening across 91�������� Youth and beyond.

sums up what I saw at camp and what Alex and I hope to build here.

– Kacie

Hi all!

The last month since General Assembly has been a busy one for me. The response to, and engagement with, Kacie and my “Mods on Tour” project has been fantastic. Because of this, I have bounced around East Midlands Synod a bit this month, visiting Bulwell with the East Midlands CYDO Richard, and Gainsborough with the Synod team: the support for the project from the Synod has been a source of huge encouragement for me.

Kacie and I are committed to reaching churches that are very distant from Church House or Synod offices. So, I was up in Glasgow for a weekend to visit Rutherglen 91�������� and to attend an ecumenical service of prayer at St Andrew’s Roman Catholic Cathedral. The welcome from Rutherglen and the cathedral was more than I could have expected, and more generally the welcome I have felt from the Church in the role of Moderator Elect has been overwhelming.

Finally, at the end of July, I was invited to a Churches Together in England reception in London, hosted by the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Thyateira and Great Britain. The Archdiocesan Chapel (pictured above) was beautiful, and the enthusiasm for ecumenism among young leaders across the denominations was obvious. This is something I look forward to exploring further with the contacts I made at the event.

– Alex

Main image: Mike Bird | Pexels

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Lord, do you choke as the smoke turns the sky dark and smothers the sun? Do you feel the heat that rises in waves from soil baked hard as rock? Do you see the leaves igniting? Do you hear seeds popping and explode as generations yet to be die? Does the fierce wind blow at your command in judgement and disgust at our carelessness? Do you hate what we are making of Eden?

Dear God, you have given us over to the havoc of a world that burns. The horrors and losses hem us in. We are caught and fearful like the badgers sensing a glowing disaster they cannot outrun. The horizon is red. Clouds rise in a wall ascending.

Creator, are you also destroyer?

So much lost; centuries undone in days. Such precious cargo…

Woodland and Heathland and Dartford Warblers and Night Jars and Red Deer and Ant Lions and Meadow Pipits and Red-Footed Falcons and Skylarks and Stonechats and Whitethroats and Grayling Butterflies and Norfolk Hawker Dragonflies and Rabbits and Beauty and Work and Treasure and Hope and…

We sit in the silence after the storm; walk amidst the ruins of so many lives, smell the smoke that still rises from a blistered ground, see ash floating like snow, know that death has visited. We can record the loss. Can we ever calculate the cost?

Do not close your eyes and ears, Lord.

In your mercy, help us.

Teach us of more.

Because of the Lord’s great love, we are not consumed. Your compassion never fails. New each morning is your love. Restore us to yourself, Lord, that we may return. Renew our days.

* Towards the end of July and on into the start of August, wild fires raged across more than 350 acres of Dunwich Heath on the Suffolk coast, destroying one of the only remaining areas of such habitat in the UK, the only place in which some rare species have flourished.

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Much resonated: smaller and aging congregations of deep faithfulness increasingly stretched by demands of compliance; worries about too few ministers; an ending for a beloved institution (Fulneck School in West Yorkshire, opened in 1753); seeking financial stability; re-imaging structures and staffing; renewing commitments to outreach. We have so much in common. There was a deep desire to journey together with ecumenical partners, like us, wrestling with such comparable agendas. The 91�������� shares in four local congregations with Moravians.

I was a little stunned to be welcomed as coming from a big Church; a new experience! As of 2025 there were 28 British Moravian congregations, with a total of 919 members. Each congregation was represented at the Synod, which meets every two years. We all had our names at our places and a seating plan showing who everyone was. This felt to be a very real family gathering, with everyone addressed as “Sister” or “Brother,” including their two bishops.

But that Fulnek date tells a story. The Moravians are the oldest in the Protestant family. John Hus, professor in Prague, challenged Roman Catholicism. He was burned for heresy on 6 July, 1415. His followers regrouped and, by 1457, established the Unitas Fratrum (the Unity of the Brethren): the Moravian Church. That’s 60 years before Martin Luther’s first public acts of reform! By 1517 they numbered 200,000 with over 400 parishes across Bohemia and Moravia.

Brutal persecutions followed. In 1722 many found sanctuary on the lands of Count Nicholas Ludwig von Zinzendorf in Saxony. Moravians created the community of Herrnhut and, from here, established settlements across the world. It was while worshipping at the Moravian church in Fetter Lane, London, that John Wesley felt his heart “strangely warmed” and thus began the journey that would give rise to Methodism. Today, there are over one million Moravians, mostly in eastern Africa, the Caribbean, Honduras, Nicaragua and South Africa.

Fulneck was established as a Moravian settlement after Zinzendorf visited the area in 1743; deep roots indeed.

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The Revd Neil Thorogood, Minister of Thornbury and Trinity-Henleaze 91��������s��in��South��Western��Synod, who will serve as General Assembly Moderator 2026-2027, called the role an��“honour”.����

Born in Sydney, Australia,��while his parents were serving as missionaries in the Cook Islands, Neil was ordained in 1992 at the age of 28. He served in local churches in Halifax and Welwyn Garden City before serving as Director of Pastoral Studies and then Principal of Westminster College in Cambridge.����

A��visual artist and writer,��Neil��returned to local ministry in Bristol and Thornbury in 2020.��

He regularly contributes to the 91��������’s Daily Devotions,��the��annual��91����������Prayer Handbook, and��Reformed��magazine. During the Covid lockdown, Neil made small sketches each day and published them on Twitter (now X). These pictures were the basis of his book��, published by the 91�������� in 2023.����

He was inducted��as Moderator at the 91��������’s 2026 meeting of General Assembly, the denomination’s key-decision making body,��held at the Hayes Conference Centre in Swanwick,��Derbyshire, on��3–6 July.��

Neil said: “I’m very conscious of the privilege of being elected Moderator of the General Assembly and hope I can fulfil this new chapter of ministry in ways that can be a blessing for everyone I share with.”��

A theme he hopes to explore throughout his term in office is “Christ’s conspiracy of goodness”.����

Neil explains: “It is inspired by a book about mission written by an American Methodist which has spoken to me ever since reading it in the 1990s.”��The book takes inspiration from rural French Christian communities who protected Jews from the Nazis during the��Second��World��War; undermining evil with faithful goodness.��

As well as��representing��the 91�������� at significant ecumenical and national events and gatherings, Neil��adds: “I��aim to visit many parts of the 91�������� and discover more of the amazing mosaic of faith and action that is our life together.”����

The Revd Dr Susan Durber,��a 91�������� minister��who serves as President of the European Region of the World Council of Churches, was elected��as��General Assembly Moderator-Elect��and will��serve��in the role from July��2027-2028.��

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We met in the where St Mark’s 91�������� in Amble now worships. It was good opportunity to catch up on the activities of the churches in the town, including their involvement in an upcoming variety show.

Saturday was a day encouraging reflection. In the morning I visited and joined morning prayers led by the Revd Kay Blackwell (pictured). Among those with us were some visitors to the island and a minister staying in the Bothy, the cosy converted former vestry.

The Centre often hosts artists in residence who work with visitors to help them explore their relationship with God through art. It is easy to see why artists are attracted to spend time on Lindisfarne. We were blessed with beautiful weather, and the spread of sea, sands and land were entrancing. The Centre encourages reflection within a pilgrimage garden surrounding it, focussing on the life of St Cuthbert.

Visitors to the island are attracted to the Centre by the beautiful mosaic on an outside wall, showing the causeway leading to Lindisfarne crowned by a sun containing a St Cuthbert’s cross. I was amused by the seal’s head poking up in one corner. Although the island was quite busy while we were there, the causeway would close later in the day, giving peace and more time for solitary reflection for those who stayed. I would encourage those who are visiting Northumberland or who are looking for somewhere to spend a few days of reflection to visit the St Cuthbert’s Centre.

Back on the mainland, has created a labyrinth to aid those who would like to spend time focussing on their prayer. We worshipped in a short service, enjoying the sun pouring down on us, then I was able to walk the labyrinth. It gave me a time of peaceful contemplation as I wound steadily back and forth, sometimes seeming to come close to the centre, then finding myself out at the edges again.

I was then welcomed into the church for afternoon tea, and to meet church’s mascot, Wooly the Sheep.

While Sunday’s weather may not have been as sunny the previous day, the welcomes remained as warm. I was able to join the congregation of Rothbury, together with some others from the local group of churches for morning worship. The group, like many others around the country, is beginning to contemplate how they will work together with one minister and considerable distances between the churches.

My weekend was rounded off by fellowship and food at St James’ in Alnwick. An enjoyable time here ended a joyous weekend learning how the local churches are very much part of their communities. On my return home, when I mentioned to a colleague, who is not a church goer but works remotely from that area, his immediate response was to comment how active St James’ in Alnwick is.

Catriona Wheeler

Catriona is the current 91�������� General Assembly Moderator (2025-2026). Read more on the General Assembly Moderator’s Blog.

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On 31 January 2026 I took part in a service which was long expected but still seemed to rush up in the final week. The closing service of the church in which I was member, Elder and Church Secretary – Trinity 91�������� in Lincoln.

In some ways it was not a sad event – we were able celebrate the years of the life and work of our church with 130 members, friends and family of the church; to reminisce, to catch up with people who had travelled to be with us. It was though, the end of a chapter. A chapter that left questions and “what ifs”. When I heard people talking about the thriving clubs there used to be, how important it had been to get to the Christmas Eve service early if you wanted a seat, how they used to come to junior church when they were young it led to the question of why had things changed? Each church that closes has its own story. For us, it was partly younger generations moving away and all the members living at a distance from a city centre church whose only close housing is a gated community. We remained a friendly, welcoming church and older people who came to us would stay and become members, but we recognised some time ago that we had the problem that in the commercial world is known as succession planning. A capable and engaged membership and eldership were growing older and weary, not able to give as much energy to the church, not able to pick up tasks that others had done before them, feeling guilty about it and longing to come to church simply for worship.

The Elders started carrying out risk assessments during Covid and included financial and age-related matters. Those were the areas that continued to stay in red on our assessment. We gave much prayerful consideration to our future, took matters to the Church Meeting which also considered our future prayerfully and had the help and guidance of our Synod Transitional Minister. We reluctantly came to the conclusion that an orderly closure now, while we still had the resources and capability of doing so was the best course.

A great fear that our members had was the loss of contact with each other. While a good many of us are joining the Local Ecumenical Partnership in Lincoln – St Columba’s – a United Reformed, Methodist and Anglican partnership who are well known to us, and good friends, others will worship in the churches in the villages where they live. We will no longer have the weekly, or more, time to catch up with each other and that connection cannot and should not be lost. We still feel a pastoral responsibility for each other no matter where we worship. Monthly meetings have been arranged, and people will be able to meet each other with fresh news of their new churches and of the new chapters in their worship journey. As Trinity has come to an end the seeds have been scattered around Lincoln, and Lincolnshire, and we will still have much to offer the in service of the Lord.

Catriona Wheeler

Catriona is the current 91�������� General Assembly Moderator (2025-2026). Read more on the General Assembly Moderator’s Blog.

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A difficult question – I had only recently purchased a new bible and had spent some time choosing a translation I liked in a format which I felt would be easiest for reading during services. The bible I chose then was a New International Version, which has the bonus of beautiful illustrations by Hannah Dunnett.

As part of the Stepwise course I had prepared an Excel sheet with various pages setting out my resources. One of the tabs listed quite a number of translations. Should I choose yet another so I could better compare texts, or should I request another commentary?

Bible journalling

I drifted round the internet looking for inspiration and discovered the world of bible journalling. I have heard of journalling before – for those who have not come across it, it is more than merely keeping a diary. Many of those who journal illustrate their notes, or create beautiful books in which to keep a record. Some will write or keep copies of poems or words of inspiration. I had not however come across bible journalling. I discovered that this is used as a way of studying and reflecting on bible passages or themes. Those who are artistic may add illustrations in the margins – they may be abstract, pictures or swirls expressing their emotions. Coloured highlighters and pens can be used for notes drawing on reflections on the passage, cross referencing to other passages. Each journaller will mark up their bible as best suits them.

I would admit that I am terrible at keeping a diary. As a teenager I probably had good intentions every January. By the time I reached my twenties I had long given up the thought of being so disciplined. My only real attempts at a diary in past years has been as part of the Stepwise Faith Filled Worship course. If I had not been told to keep a journal for that course I would have been unlikely to have done so. I did find it a useful way of reflecting on what I had learnt during the course and a time for directed spiritual thought.

Savour the year

The idea of a journalling bible appealed. When I became Moderator Elect, one message from a previous Moderator was to savour the year. I look forward to it as a way of meeting more people in the wider church, but I also look forward to it as a way of seeing God at work in the 91�������� and beyond. I decided that a journalling bible might be a way of focussing my reflections during the course of the year and requested one as the bible to be given me at General Assembly. It is designed for writing in – wide margins and a good quality paper. I have armed myself with a multitude of coloured fine nibbed pens, pastel highlighters and sticky tabs. I am definitely not of an artistic persuasion, so I do not expect my bible to become a thing of beauty with delicate illustrations and bold calligraphy highlighting my notes. What I have done so far is highlight the passages used in the services at the end of General Assembly, at my more recent commissioning service as a Synod Recognised Worship Leader and from a recent set of lectionary readings. I have made notes of what was said with cross references to the other passages and some of my own thoughts. I expect to use this as one of my tools when preparing for services during the course of this year. I hope to look back in a year’s time and see a bible thick with notes (which I trust will still make sense to me) that will become a resource for the future and a reminder of the year’s encounters.

I will be interested as I meet people from around the 91�������� to learn how many others do bible journalling and how they go about it.

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The day after our arrival we popped over the wall for a daytrip to East Berlin. For those of you not as old as me, essentially this meant that we had arrived in East Germany just in time to catch the aftershocks caused by the massacre at Tiananmen Square.

This trip had a profound effect on me – it was a real culture shock. So many images, and feelings are indelibly etched on my psyche. So much so that as I’m talking to you about it today, 35 years later, I can still see it like a movie in my mind. Some things were odd. The plain brick walls, buildings with no adverts on them at all, making red brick feel grey. Some things were funny. The Lada cars so scarce that there was a running gag that, before you put your newborn’s name down to register them for school, you registered them for a car. It’d take that long for one to arrive for them. And some things were unsettling. At a time before camera phones and selfie sticks, there were the cameras on every roof, at every junction – we’ve let privacy go without much thought with the advent of mobiles – still, then, it felt like a particularly ominous intrusion.

But I’m getting carried away…this isn’t a reflection about that trip. There are many things I could talk about if that was the topic. But it isn’t. This is a reflection about space. Real and imagined, ancient and new, temporary tabernacles and permanent buildings. Safe space. Welcoming space. God’s space. Church.

I wonder what comes to your mind when you look at this image?

Given the reading from Amos, you may be thinking ‘tabernacle or booth of David’.

Or, given our context, this year’s theme of Resurrection for Tim’s tenure as Moderator, your mind may be drawn to ‘tent revival’.

Or you may, like me, have just glanced at this picture with nothing particular in your head and just thought – ‘circus’.

There are some key elements to be found in all of those possibilities. There are performances, and participants observe and play roles. Most importantly, all involve the creation of a clearly demarcated area, that exists in the material world and is designated by the physical boundaries of canvas and pole, but that is actually designed to enable those enclosed within its embrace to access something transcendent.

Having a discrete area where you can go to connect with God in some way is the origin of church. For the Israelites their skene was an earthly place for interacting with God. Highly portable, it consisted of a fenced off area that contained an altar for sacrifices and, of course, the Holy of Holies, the secluded area housing the Ark of the Covenant, separated from the general congregation by a veil, and only entered by the High Priest, once a year. From here we can trace a throughline from tabernacle to Temple to synagogue to church.

Like churches, theatres can also trace their origins back to tabernacles – both are connected to the Greek word for tent or tabernacle – skene.
This meeting of religion and performance is nothing new – they’ve walked through the ages, holding hands, like mardy siblings, coming together at key moments in history and then periodically squabbling over which one is the most useful, the prettiest, the most welcoming…

As you will all know, theatre’s origin story in the UK derives directly from the Catholic church’s desire to communicate Biblical stories to congregations only able to access the Latin mass in church. Conversely, Shakespeare’s Richard III, one of our best theatrical villains, has his origins in portrayals of Herod in Medieval Mystery Cycles. And today? Well, like churches, many theatres are now under existential threat.

The booth of David is in ruins…

As Rupert Shortt suggests in his recent book, The Eclipse of Christianity, in this country at least – we are living through a recession of a profoundly Christian nature.

Elsewhere, where Christians are being heard the loudest, they represent a very different form of the faith than our own. Substituting dogmatism for dogma, they present an image of Christianity armoured in certainty; its boundaries asserted loudly, angrily, intolerantly. The Christian of popular culture is viewed as, at best, irrelevant, and at worst, as an Evolution-denying, human rights oppressing bigot, whose hierarchical worldview remains grounded in Bronze Age fantasy stories. Like Paul and Barnabas in Iconium, truly it could be said that we live in unkind times, where short form video content and online echo chambers have led us to a place where our tolerance levels for uncertainty have never been lower.

And that leads us to tighten ourselves culturally and religiously. To become more dogmatic, more authoritarian, expressing views with unfounded confidence and certainty, loudly and quickly, before anyone spots the enormous, fearful elephant in the room…

And so, it is this authoritarian cultural turn that leads me back to East Berlin. 5th June 1989, just a few short months before the Berlin Wall is pulled down. The East German state is in its death throes and its enforcers, the Stasi, are much more dangerous as a consequence.

And there, in the midst of all of this, is a space. It exists in the real world and in the imagined. Kirche. Church.

During our initial meeting with the church community in East Berlin, one of the ministers apologised because he had to leave us. He had to go to his church to speak to some people who were gathering there to protest against the events that had occurred in Tiananmen Square. The minister had to warn them that the police were intending to use water cannon on them, should they take to the streets. But, he told us, they would be safe in church.

Talking to the church’s youth group afterwards, they talked of church as a place where they could be themselves, where they could dissent and express themselves freely. Because of that, they had chosen church freely, refusing to sign up to the Communist Party as required, a decision they were told would be to their own detriment.

They were proud of their church as a space that could offer the consolation that came from the acknowledgement of the difficulties of their lives as they experienced it. They could trust the church because it was a place of safety. They felt it offered hope in spite of those difficulties – or maybe because of them. Church for them offered a space for reflection to everyone and anyone in that complicated, authoritarian, angry, scary world.

And what’s that got to do with circuses, I hear you cry?

Students of Greek will amongst you will know that the word that speaks to both theatre and church origins is skene – tent.

Reading Amos and Acts, I was reflecting on how we can go about creating a social sacred space, for today’s Iconium? What should our newly raised booth look like?

And this led me to the reflect on the idea of a Circus of Faith…

Less a building, more a metaphor, I wonder if we should join the circus…

A circus consists of a diverse company of performers – jugglers, trapeze artists, clowns, magicians, hoopers, trained animals. Each offering themselves, their ‘act’ as they are. Each act gets its own space and is celebrated for its difference.

The Circus Tent is a space that contains a multivocal, multitalented collection of people, in safety and enjoyment, seeking transcendence.

What could be more church-like than that?

Links to information about Kirchentag:

The with details of this year’s Kirchentag in Hannover

(don’t worry if you don’t speak German, you’ll be offered a translation into English as you access the site)

The

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The idea behind the game is that you get into twos, you propose an idea, it can be something simple: ‘Let’s ski down the Alps…’ and your partner yes ‘Yes and then we can…’ and then says the first thing that comes into their head. No planning, no filter. It can be anything as long as it is the first thing that has come into their head. Each time an action is described: ‘Let’s ski down the Alps’ the two partners also act out the action physically with full commitment. The longer you play the game, the weirder and more wonderfully outrageous the ideas become. If you do this with the group, the room gets loud and very busy very quickly.

When you run this exercise with a new group, what usually happens is they try to think their way through the exercise. To intellectualise themselves out of the problem to save face. They make every effort to come up with the cleverest idea. They plan in the minutest detail…

If ever there was a sentence that signals the death knell of an improvisation in Drama it’s, “I know, you say [this] and I’ll say [that] – it’ll be great!” It’s never great. It’s stilted, usually a bit banal and ultimately the absolute antithesis of creativity and originality. Crucially it demonstrates that the participant hasn’t understood the point of the game.

The point of “Yes And…” isn’t to consciously create a brilliant idea. It’s not to be funny or clever. It’s not to be the coolest person in the room. It’s not to avoid embarrassment or humiliation. The point of “ Yes And…” is to learn how to accept the offer given to you and to use that offer to launch yourself into… well… the unknown… To learn to trust that the idea will come, despite the interference of the intellect. And in doing so, to create a brilliant idea.

One of the most misunderstood elements of the creative process is its beginning. It’s assumed that artists sit around their studio – or walk, or pace moodily – planning and generating ideas, thinking their way through. And that there’s a trick to it that you can learn and improve so that, once you’ve been an artist for a long time, you can go in and CREATE. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Sure, if you want to paint an orange, well, have at it. The orange is there, away you go, but really that’s a technical exercise. Your orange may be wonderfully different from everyone else’s but still life isn’t a new idea. Nor is painting the still life of an orange. It’s a reinterpretation of an old one. No problem with that – it’s just not what I’m talking about here.

“Yes And…” for an actor, then, is the equivalent of a blank page for a writer. Terrifying! As soon as you introduce this exercise to a group not familiar with it, the levels of anxiety go through the roof. How will I know what to say? What will everyone think of me? What if my idea is rubbish? What if I die? For clarification, dying onstage is to do something embarrassingly badly – we don’t actually sacrifice them. It’s that tumbleweed moment that sees the performer left vulnerable and exposed in front of an audience. It’s the theatrical equivalent of the nightmare where you dream you’ve woken up on a platform, not knowing why you’re there, then realising you’re in charge of leading worship and you’ve forgotten your trousers…who says actors are dramatic!

So, how do you avoid this death by humiliation?

The solution is easy, actually. You commit to the physical action utterly and completely in the moment, trusting that the answer will come. And it does. Every time. Bigger, better, weirder, more original than it could ever have been if you’d planned it. It forces you to think outside your usual patterns. It forces you to come up with something completely new and never previously imagined. It forces you to create…

Because that’s the thing often misunderstood about creativity. It’s finger-nail chewing, anxiety-inducing, scream at a noise in the dark in a haunted house at Halloween terrifying! So you do plan. But when you plan, you don’t plan for the inspiration, the artefact, the concept for the painting, the idea for the play script, the sculpture, rather you try to create the perfect environment then you open yourself up, and wait. And in doing so, you are trusting that something, as yet unknowable, will appear.

If it doesn’t…well, now you know why we’re all so darn temperamental!

So an experienced artist is not so much practised at consciously coming up with ideas. Instead they are well-practised at living with ambiguity, uncertainty, with not knowing. With experience, they learn to control their response to anxiety. They don’t lose the fear, but they learn to manage it so that it doesn’t interfere with their process. They learn to walk off the cliff trusting that something, anything, will catch them on the way down. And, if it doesn’t, then everything gets smashed and destroyed when it hits the ground. And they rise and start again. From scratch. From somewhere new.

So, my question for you to ponder this fine morning is: do you believe in resurrection? Do you trust the process?

I could talk about our scripture reading this morning in terms of this being Christ’s first miracle. We could debate whether we believe it happened as described here. I could talk about it as being the moment Jesus reveals himself to his disciples or it representing the fulfilment of the passage from Amos we heard on Monday…

But I think it’s simpler than that. Mundane even. This story is about a son having a good time with his mates at a wedding until his Mum comes in and tells him its time for him to get to work. Jesus replies: “My hour has not yet come!” Jesus knows that taking this step – performing this miracle – will force him to step off the cliff, to begin a process he can’t come back from…

You can almost picture Mary rolling her eyes as, ignoring him, she turns to the servants and instructs them to do what Jesus tells them to do. She knows Jesus is comfortable, enjoying the company of his friends, doing the busy-work, maybe, but not quite fully committing to the process. Yet. So she gives him a nudge.

And when God gives us a nudge, the “Yes and…” well that’s our job. Because, when we’re nudged, our task is to jump into the playing area with both feet, fully committed, with an open heart and a sense of joy, secure in the knowledge that we are loved and cared for, that God has a plan and that the time is right because he says it is.

Anything after “Yes and…” well that’s God’s bit and it’s bound to be better than anything we could come up with!

(image courtesy of )

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