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My mouth was OK for most of the day in the office - then I got home and the pain just slammed into my jaw out of nowhere. It calmed down again, and husband both cooked and washed up (bless him <3), but it bloody well hurt for a while!

I promise there are other things for me to talk about. I know it's not like other people don't have their own shit going on - but a) it's kind of top of my thoughts at the moment and b) it's quite a novelty for me to be ill in any way, shape or form :D

Evening prayer was a bit longer than usual because we're using the last Tuesday of the month as an opportunity to think more broadly about the Parish and about our new Rector - whoever they are. They're out there, somewhere, waiting for us to strike like a lucky bolt of lightning. Yes, our new Rector is Charlie Bucket! :D Tonight we thought about Incarnational theology that celebrates the physical as well as the spiritual. One of its famous proponents was Evelyn Underhill, a modern mystic. The one quote of hers I remember is that I only love God as much as the person I love least. At the moment, that's probably Benjamin Netanyahu. Or Keir Starmer. It's a close thing...

We also talked about whether our buildings help or hinder people seeking spirituality. All three of our buildings are beautiful in their own way, whilst also challenging! All the sites also have very practical, very rooted projects attached to them. We feed people both physically and spiritually. But arguments could be made for the closure of any one - or even two - of the buildings, at least as places of worship.

A longer service meant I didn't have time to tackle the final puzzle in Hephaestus' Vault, so that's tomorrow's treat :)

In work, a rather strange project request has come in that has managed to bypass the relevant exec sponsor, as well as being mostly handled by the Helpdesk Manager. EPC and I are working on the concept of creating a workflow for the early part of the project process - making sure every request is signed off by the exec seems like a no-brainer to include!

Tomorrow, husband has his eye exam at Aintree - a 20 or so minute drive away. At 9am. We'll need to get our skates on in the morning!
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 On the face of it, most of the people at my church have it pretty much together.  We're largely white, straight, middle class professionals.  Typical church folk.  But all of us have some experience of living at the edge, of not quite fitting the white, straight, middle class professional Christian mould.  We are a gathered community, formed around an ideal - that everyone is just a person and that every person is loved by God, equally, unconditionally and passionately.  Anyone is welcome and we are welcoming to everyone.  Newbies often say that that's a reason they come back - because of the loving welcome they received the first time they came.

We look like your typical white, straight, middle class professional Christians but we aren't.  We come to church because we are aware of our brokenness, not because we smugly believe we are 'holy' or 'chosen'.  God doesn't choose who to love.  God is love.  And we are trying to live that out in a small way.

I have been heard to joke that St Bride's is a church formed in my image, and when people say the lovely things they say about the place I hear my ideal self reflected back to me and I am humbled.

Of course, I am only just coming to terms with what 'every person is loved by God, equally, unconditionally and passionately' actually means.  It means Donald Trump is loved by God as much as I am, and that I am loved as much as Theresa May.  All the people whose lives are fuelled by hate and fear are loved as much as those who are driven by love and acceptance.  If everyone could see that, understand that, live as if that were true (and I don't claim to have arrived at that point myself!), how would things be?

Yes, I'm a dreamer.  But I'm not the only one.

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