There is a great idea for sending Christmas cards to your friends in church which goes like this. You send ONE card to all your friends in church and it gets pinned up at the back of the church so all can see it. If you have saved lots of money (not to mention a rainforest or two) you put the money saved in a jar and it can go to church funds or even buy a goat for a family in Africa. Does it sound like a good idea to you? Yes, I thought so too.

There is nothing worse, in my opinion, than piles and piles of cards cluttering up the back of a church until February because some folk have gone away and not picked them up. And there is nothing more demoralising if you are the new person in church to look forlornly to see if there is one card for you, only to find dozens for the popular people and oldtimers and nothing for you. And then there's that problem where you pick up your cards and find one from someone you've not sent one to, so you've got to dash home and buy another packet.

Well I thought it was a good idea. I've done it before in past churches and it looked lovely to have all these cards up, and we sent all sorts of creatures to Africa too. Didn't go down so well at the Vestry meeting last night though. It seems that people like to get LOTS of cards and one staying in church just wouldn't do at all. My suggestion that if they really wanted to send cards to friends and did so privately was met with disappointed faces. So it looks like I have to get a vote on it.

Oh well, it seemed like a good idea.

Church cleaning this morning and a good turn out of busy bees scouring, dusting and hoovering. Only one more cleaning day till Christmass.

Then I went to the Early Learning Centre for a bubble machine for tomorrow's baptism. (If you want to know why, you have to be there!) I did have one but I think I gave it away in a moment of generosity (or to keep some child quiet, more like). The last one I got was very cheap in their store in McArthur Glen. This one was not so cheap in the Kinnaird Park branch. Then I had to buy batteries too.

Got home and decided we'd better try it out first. Always a good idea if you are preaching with props. It did say that the bubble liquid might stain which was a bit alarming. But I needn't have worried because there was no bubble liquid in it. What a swizz! No mention of that on the box. So we had to use Fairy Liquid and it worked fine.

Poor show, Early Learning Centre.

I had a lovely email from our delicious Communications Officer to tell me that Daily Prayer (the blue one) is being reprinted and revised. They are updating and adding further information eg further listings in “variable psalms”.

And apologies for castigating the I&C Board - I should have been having a go at the Liturgy Committee.

I can't wait, can you?

Down in the Borders yesterday visiting a friend. More and more I come to the conclusion that I do like the countryside and nature... from behind double glazing. And in short bursts.

It was lovely to see the colours of the trees, and amusing to see the tups on the hills doing what comes naturally, and to hear the wind and rain battering the roof while one is cosy inside with a log burning stove. All rather picturesque and gorgeous.

But when my friend's cat brought in a mouse to play with before crunching it to death (head first for those of you interested - and spits the bile duct out) then I draw the line. Keep nature outside, I say.

In fact, now that I come to think of it - this is ridiculous. We had a group shouting about saving our 1929 Scottish Prayer Book and it has been reprinted. Plenty copies of that in the Cornerstone.

But did they have a copy of our current Daily Prayer book? No. Nada. Not one. And its been out of print for ages. How mad is this?

Come on SEC! Get a grip. Or I am going to form a protest group to save our current Prayer Book. Blimey, its not enough that we have to put up with a pathetic spiral bound temporary looking affair, unlike the 1929 afficienados who get a lovely bound book. But we can't even get copies of the wee spiral thing either.

So let's write to our Bishops and Information and Communication Board. SDP! Save Daily Prayer. Now!

Visited the Cornerstone Bookshop this morning to get some bits and pieces for a baptism on Sunday. Tried also to get a copy of Daily Prayer for a friend down south who had asked for one but it is out of print and has been for some time. How can that happen?

Lots of Advent and Christmas material around and I picked up Candles & Conifers (Resources for All Saints' and Advent) by Ruth Burgess. It is one of those Iona books with all sorts of material in it: wee poems and prayers; liturgies for all sorts of things; dramatic readings and plays; and songs. It covers All Saints and Souls, Christ the King, World Aids Day, Sundays in Advent, Advent candle ceremonies, the Cat's Advent Calendar (!), The Jesse Tree, Last things, Journeying through Advent, Christingle service, Christmas eve and others.

If you are familiar with the Iona stuff then you'll know what to expect. But there is a lot of good material in this book which can easily be adapted for your own services.

There is a companion book called Hay & Stardust which covers Christmas eve to Candlemas. But I shall have to save up for that one. They are £14.99 each.

Whenever I feel blue, I start breathing again.

Very busy weekend at church. On Saturday it was our Annual Advent Fair, then on Sunday it was our AGM. Needless to say, fate decreed that I should get a stinky cold and sore throat just to see me through it all.

The Sale went well I thought and we raised nearly £1200. I won a car-wash kit in the Tombola which may find its way back into a future Tombola. I also won 2 bottles of wine in the Raffle which will not be going back. Sadly I did not win the luxury food hamper but it went to a good home.

The AGM went well too and lasted only 32 minutes which I believe is a record. But we cleverly tabled all our reports beforehand so that cut down a lot of time. And I was asked no questions at all which was nothing short of a miracle.

Thanks to all who helped this weekend. We couldn't have done it without you, as I wasn't much use at all. Now, I am going back to bed to suffer noisily with a box of tissues and copious quantities of Olbas products.

I got lots of lovely book tokens for my birthday in September which was great in one respect and tortuous in the other as I can't read very well just now. However I did find one with nice big print in hardback and have just finished it.

finding sanctuary by Abbot Christopher Jamison
(from the TV series The Monastery)

The subtitle is 'Monastic Steps for Everyday Life' and it does what it says on the cover. It is simple and easy to read (not just in terms of the size of the print) and only seldomly refers to the men who entered the monastery. Abbot Christopher takes the Rule of Benedict and applies it to everyday situations for those of us not living in community.

He starts off asking how did we get so busy in our everyday lives? Then goes on to offer suggestions like Silence, Comtemplation, Obedience, Humility, Community, Spirituality and Hope. I think anyone could read this book and derive some pointers from it that they could use. It might even make a good Lent study book.

The definition of a 'pillar of the church' is one who holds things up.

I do love a good funeral story so was delighted to come across this...

Susie Webster-Toleno of Westminster West, Vermont writes about a conversation with her five-year-old son. “We were driving past a local church, where the parking lot was overflowing in the middle of the weekday afternoon.
"Mommy,” he asked. “Why are all the cars there today?"
“They are probably having a funeral – or perhaps a memorial service.”
“What’s a memorial service?”
“It's like a funeral, but the casket's not right there in the room with the mourners.”
"You mean, the dead guy's just lyin' there on the floor?!"

“From Ralph Milton's RUMORS, a free Internet ‘e-zine’ for Christians with a sense of humor."

We had two Remembrance Day services yesterday at St Mark's. The early lot (8.30am) complained that they always miss out on the big services so we processed to the Requiem Altar and read out the names of fallen members of St M's from both wars, and kept two minutes silence.

At 10.30am we were joined by a guest organist because I felt that on this day you really need the organ and not CDs. Andrew did us proud and it was glorious to hear the organ played confidently and fittingly.

I was a bit concerned about the 11am thing because it meant I had to preach while keeping my eye on the clock to make sure we had time to process (again) to the Requiem altar and keep the silence. But God was on our side and it all fitted in beautifully.

The Sunday school went out just before 11am (to help our silence) and laid a wreath on Sheila's brother's grave and kept a wee bit of silence themselves.

It was just one of those mornings where everything worked as it should. Emotions ran high but there was hope in the air.

Tomorrow's gospel is the widow's mite and in a lot of churches it marks Stewardship Sunday. Not for us - we are keeping Remembrance Sunday instead. However, I did come across this website where you put your annual salary in and it tells you how rich you are compared to the rest of the world.

I'm loaded.
It's official.
I'm the 230,939,966 richest person on earth!
I'm in the top 3.84% in the world.

http://www.globalrichlist.com/

I was very surprised to be up there with the high earners. But I know what it's like to be poor too - I've been there. But I suspect poor in the UK is not quite like poor in Angola. (I couldnt get the link to work for the UK figures.)

Looks like I'll be putting a penny in the charity box tomorrow then.

So, what did the Diocese of Edinburgh Clergy discuss while they were away in Pitlochry earlier this week?

Power in the Church.

We were ably assisted in our discussions by Bishop David Chillingworth and Bishop Stephen Sykes.

Here are some of the topics covered:

power of the bishop (having to say 'no');
power of the clergy - whether we want it or not;
power of the Vestry, power of the flower ladies, power of the matriarchs and patriarchs, power of the manipulative;
misuse and abuse of power;
how to be a servant and still use power wisely;
is the use of power accepted when there is love and trust?

Then we moved on to discuss the current dilemma in the Anglican Communion. Who holds the power in the debate? Those who sing loudest?

Was ECUSA wrong in consecrating a homosexual man in a relationship or were they merely using the power that every province has/had in making its own decisions?

Who holds the power in Anglican Theological Colleges around the world? Those who provide the material which is read and studied. And in some developing world countries these books come as a gift from the conservative parts of the USA. And they are certainly not the material that we might use in the UK and elsewhere.

If ECUSA are not invited to Lambeth, does this make for a healthy debate or listening process as promised in the Windsor Report?

Have we sufficiently listened and debated this in our own diocese? (The feeling was No.)

Is the root of all this trouble because the CofE allowed alternative episcopal oversight after the ordination of women? Other provinces now think that they can do it too because their 'Mother Church' has done it.

Are we not all 'evangelical'? And some of us don't like the label 'liberal' because it seems to imply wishy-washy and sitting on the fence. Some would prefer 'radical'. (I always fancied myself as a Catholic Socialist!)

So there you have it. That is what we discussed while looking out the window at the most beautiful scenery - trees of golden hue. The log fires crackled as we sat on large squashy sofas in between lectures. The food was good, the bishop was generous with wine, and the cooked breakfasts went down a treat.

A good conference - thought provoking, uncomfortable at times, and enlightening. As ever, the craic was excellent and sometimes that's the main thing. Roll on next year.

Just back from the Clergy Conference in Pitlochry. I shall report on that at a later date when I am unpacked and have caught up on lost sleep. These theological discussions do tend to go on long into the night. Long after the bar closed, in fact.

The biggest sacrifice was missing the Archers for a day or two at such a crucial stage. However, I was delighted to tune in on my way home this afternoon in time to hear Ruth say that she couldn't go through with it. Thank goodness. She must have heard me yelling at the radio.

The Scene : The Crypt chapel
Occasion : All Souls Requiem
The Cast : 12 old biddies and me

Me: Would someone like to read this morning?

Them: Oh no! We don't like to read in case there are hard words.

Me: There are no hard words. And what's the worse that could happen? You make a mistake? So what? You are amongst friends. Come on - someone could do it. It's a short reading.

One of them: OK, I'll do it.

(Reads through Lamentations 3:17-26 with lips moving.)

One of them: Psst, Ruth. How do you pronounce this word?

Me: Ya-way.
(figure we can live without the Hebrew Yach-way pronounciation for simplicity's sake)

One of them: Ya-way. Ya-way. OK.

Later, during the service...

One of them: Yahoo’s love abides unceasingly...“My portion is Yahoo"...Yahoo is good to those who hope in him...

(Not a flicker passed my lips. But I think Yahoo is a pretty good name for God anyway!)

Well, an ex-nun to be perfectly honest.

The conversation went like this:

"If I tell you something do you promise not to laugh or put it on your blog?"

"Oh you know I can't promise not to laugh. As to the blog posting, well we'll see."

"OK, but no names then."

So, what did she do? Only stood with one foot on the flimsy plastic toilet seat and one foot on the bath to reach something. And yes, you guessed it - the toilet seat broke and her foot went down the toilet and got stuck. Not only that, but the toilet was full of bleach because she has a cleaning fetish. She then fell back and hit her head and couldn't get up because the leg was stuck.

Actually, when I read it now it doesn't seem nearly so funny but quite tragic really. And she has had to use crutches to get around with all the soft tissue damage. But she does tell such a good story in that lovely Geordie accent. The washing off of the bleach, the struggling to get the foot out... it was hilarious. If only there had been a video camera I could have made a fortune on that programme which Harry Hill narrates. Why do we laugh at other people's misfortunes?

Three candidates have been short-listed for the post of Bishop of Aberdeen (one of seven Dioceses of the Scottish Episcopal Church) which became vacant in July following the retirement of the Rt Rev Bruce Cameron who served the diocese of Aberdeen as Bishop for 14 years.

The candidates have been selected by a committee of twelve people, chaired by the Primus, of clergy and church members representing the Diocese of Aberdeen and the wider Church. The next stage in the selection process is a meeting of each of the candidates with members of an Electoral Synod (representatives of clergy and lay church members from the Aberdeen diocese only). That meeting will take place on 9 December, with the election of the successful candidate taking place on 16 December.

The candidates are :

· The Rev Canon Dr Emsley Nimmo, Rector of St Margaret’s, Aberdeen, and Canon of St Andrew’s Cathedral, Aberdeen

· The Rev Canon Dr Philip Noble , Rector of St Ninian’s, Prestwick and Canon of St Mary’s Cathedral, Glasgow

· The Very Rev Canon Kevin Pearson, Dean of Edinburgh and Rector of St Michael & All Saints, Edinburgh

Commenting on this stage of the selection process the Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church, the Most Rev Dr Idris Jones, says “We have three good candidates who have been chosen from a larger list of candidates of a high calibre. Each candidate brings a wide range of skills and significant experience within the Scottish Episcopal Church”

1. The function of the committee chaired by The Primus (known as the Preparatory Committee) has been to receive suggestions of candidates from anyone within the Church who wished to propose a name for consideration. From those suggestions, the committee produced a short list of candidates for the Electoral Synod, following a series of interviews.

2. Full biographical details of candidates (in accordance with Crockford’s Clerical Directory):-

Canon Alexander Emsley Nimmo b.1953. Aberdeen University BD76 PhD97. Edinburgh University Mphilosophy83. Fellow, Society of AntiquariesScot93. Edinburgh Theological College76. Deaconed78, Priested79 Precentor St Andrews Cathedral, Inverness 78-81. Priest in Charge Stornoway 81-83; Rector Aberdeen St Margaret from 90; Canon St Andrews Cathedral from 96. Synod Clerk from 01

Canon Philip David Noble b.1946. Glasow University BSc 67; Edinburgh University BD70. Edinburgh Theological College 67. Deaconed 70, Priested 71. Curate Edin 70-72. Papua New Guinea 72-75 Rector Cambuslang Glasow 76-83. Rector Uddingston 76-83 Evangelist Prestwick from 83; Rector Prestwick from 85; Canon St Mary’s Cathedral from 99.

The Very Rev Kevin Pearson, b 1954. Leeds University BA75. Edinburgh University BD79. Edinburgh Theological Collge 76. Deacon 79. Priest 80. Curate Horden, Durham 79-81. Chaplain Leeds University 81-87. Rector Edinburgh St Salvador 87-93. Chaplain Napier University 88-94. Diocesan Director of Ordinands 90-95. Provincial Director of Ordinands from 91. Associate Rector Edinburgh Old St Paul 93-94. Priest in charge Linlithgow 94-95. Rector Edinburgh St Michaal & All Saints from 95. Canon St Mary’s Cathedral from 03. Dean of Edinburgh from 2004.

(From the SEC website)

Please pray that the right candidate will be elected.