After a Baptism

I am going to try highlights but I am trying to recall what has happened and not finding it that easy. I think this is possibly because things have been dominated quite a bit by thesis writing. The weekend before I rather got distracted. I had a recalled a quote from Lord of the Rings for my thesis and I needed to trace it. It took longer than I imagined to find it but I ended up spending quite a bit of the Saturday reacquainting myself with Lord of the Rings. I had forgotten what a rollicking good story J.R.R. Tolkien can be and would decide to read a page to check for the quote and then realise I had read twenty pages without stopping. This weekend I am at the changeover point on my second chapter. Upto now I have been writing in the current chapter the easy bits, which are the detailed description of what went on that I see as important. The big challenge with this is the selection of material. There really is far too much stuff there and that is without dealing in detail with the interviews. From the few times I have done in depth analysis on the interviews, as opposed to simple reviewing there has been tons of stuff just below the surface, at least enough for another thesis and I am having to keep myself from being distracted by it. I am however moving into doing the theory for this section. I seem to suffer a loss of confidence as I approach this, yet once I am really writing it I am able to do so. This may be the legacy of having moved so much out of the areas where I know I am capable into an area which I still feel a novice in. I have at least got through the totally terrible first draft (did not even both computerising it) but have started computerising a second draft. This coming week is going to be interesting as I try and redraft that section so that it is ready for me to fit the chapter together next weekend, all but the last section which is relating the stuff talked about back to Reformed Piety.

Meanwhile Fleur sent me a flyer on a meeting at Westminster College on the topic of Reformed Spirituality . Now it is organised by the by the United Reformed Retreat Group So I spent quite a bit of time sorting that out. I know I really should apply to the retreat group but have not got around to doing it yet and I had to pay Westminster up front.

Work wise it has been busy, the senior bosses have this last week caught onto the fact that the move is happening in the immediate future (this weekend and next) and have therefore been driving the secretaries batty with , have you thought of X. The normal reply was “Yes six weeks ago”. On Wednesday evening I was given my bit of it when one of them saw me leaving work. The fact that I had sorted out to my satisfaction most of it two weeks ago and that I knew I had lots to throw out but apart from that and packing most things were sorted, just had not occurred to him. The fact being that if things weren’t sorted by now I would be feeling very threatened given the way things were set up originally. I am jolly glad that people lower down the department have done the organising.

Last Friday as I returned from doing some shopping after the Broomhall Breakfast I spotted the police helicopter hovering over the church, this made me nervous, not because I thought there was anything going on in the church but there had been a bit of a to-do with a couple of Breakfasters and talk of sorting it out in the car-park afterwards. Any I went back to the church then walked with Mary home while Sarah I presume deliberately went the other direction. The helicopter left as we set off and there was no trouble.

I don’t think I would recall this but that evening Ship of Fools learnt of the death of Genevieve, now Ship of Fools knows it can mourn a death, and Genevieve was a shipmate who I respected hugely although with little contact. She seemed wise and intelligent. However I am realising that the circumstances of her death (she was shot in church in USA by someone the church had been helping) in close proximity to the incident in the morning just unsettled me.

Otherwise another paper has been published in work and I think another three have or are about to be submitted. I have been busy filling in forms and such. Otherwise I have been dealing with doctoral students in landscape or such with a few foreign language students thrown in for interest. There is more than enough to do.

Today was the baptism of Theo Wheat and also of Annual Church Meeting. The baptism went well and the crowd that came for the Baptism filled the church. The comments afterwards were appreciative and St Andrews members are a disciplined lot who got back to church meeting on time despite the chocolate rich tea biscuits. Sarah is impressive in her management of church meeting and managed to get through the whole ACM procedure and introduce the Church Life Review in under an hour! This is in marked contrast with the meetings I recall as a teenager which could take up a full afternoon as each committee gave their report verbally. The big problem was that as it was a small church everyone went to everything so we really did not need a report on it.