A Pause in Lent #2

I need a pause today – I have had an even busier week than usual, four full days in school and a plethora of evening meetings. I love that word  plethora – not so keen on meetings though.

[Plethora comes from the Greek, and means fullness.]

Along the way, I managed to miss a few important things -two birthdays almost overlooked,

Thursday was St Patrick’s Day,

Friday was marked by many people as a blogger’s day Of Silence for Japan [see Floss’s post] 

My Lent Bible readings have got out of step and some evenings I’ve listened to 2 chunks in order to catch up

And I haven’t had much opportunity to catch up with friend’s blogs as I usually do, or answer comments.

So today I want to pause, and focus, and just think about Jesus.

In my post about knitting, last Saturday, I quoted the words of John the Baptist, “He must increase but I must decrease” and they have been buzzing in my head all week. Then Mags’ post on Thursday set me thinking about “St Patrick's Breastplate.”

I found the full text online [see here] and realised that there were in fact eight verses following the initial four-line introduction – I had only ever known the four listed in the old green Baptist Hymn Book.

One verse of the Breastplate seems in harmony with my reflections…

Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me,
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

If I am to use Lent as a time to get my spiritual house in order, then I need to acknowledge it’s all about Jesus, and develop “The Practice of The Presence Of God” as Brother Lawrence called it.

Following Thursday night’s meeting at which I met one Bishop, on Friday night I was at a meeting with two bishops, so I got to chat with another one!

And I am not even Anglican.

Afterwards I was talking to a lady about the “Ladies’ Fellowship” at her church, and she was asking about our meetings. “And do you also speak at meetings?” she asked. “Errmm, yes..” I said hesitantly

“And do you have a specialist subject? Only last month we had Rev XX, who gave us a lovely talk about Robertson’s Jams”

“Well, actually, I do quite a lot of preaching on Sundays, and if I do Ladies Meetings it tends to be about a Bible Passage”

“Oh. I usually don’t announce the name, if the next month’s speaker is a minister, as a lot stay away if they think it might be religious”

[so I don’t think I’m going to get invited to speak at her place!]

I was telling Bob when I got home. He said I should have replied

“Oh yes, I have a specialist subject – I talk about JESUS”