Of Diggers, Gowns, Dreams and a Garage.

"It has been a quiet week in Lake Woebegon"... so spoke Garrison Keillor as his introduction to every laid back portrait of life in the fictional American Mid-West - but it certainly doesn't apply in my parts of East Midlands University Town!

It may well be that time of year when you might expect life to be slowing down a little for the summer (with the possible exception of weddings), but actually both Uni and Parish have got busier. I'm told that tiredness and lethargy are normal signs of bereavement, but that can't be the whole answer. Even shifting 2000+ inherited CDs feels like only a small part of it! There's simply a lot going on.

In the world of Higher Education there has been the delight of a Team Building Day Jolly at the local agricultural college. Lots of clay pigeon shooting, agricultural fork-lift driving, caterpillar-tracked diggers and an All Terrain Vehicle carefully rigged to ensure you went the opposite way to the one you steered! I'm not quite sure how, but our team won decisively on the day. (Note to Bishop: I hereby recommend that all stressed clergy should be given one free day a year of shooting, digging, lifting and driving in a similar way - an ideal pick-me-up!)

Then there was the fun of graduation, including managing to get a free lunch from the Management Centre (verdict: good, but could do better) and the exercise of my prerogative as a member of staff to robe up and process! So out came the scarlet and grey doctoral gown and the obligatory silly hat with tassel. I was interested to note that some of my fellow robed rogues looked somewhat uncomfortable in their regalia (so there is a benefit to robing in church on Sundays!) and even more interested to note that I appeared better qualified than at least two of the geographers with whom I was processing. (Memo to institution: find money to enable them to do more research, it will pay dividends!)

Add to that the unexpected invitation a couple of months back to apply for funding for Chaplaincy work and it has not only made a serious difference to the amount of money for projects (and hence need for management) but also the amount of time required for paperwork in putting together funding bids - which it would appear are not actually going to be read, so desperate was the division concerned to use up their budget at the end of their financial year! I'm just a little bemused at how much they seem to be throwing about, even to the extent of questioning half-seriously whether there's enough for the place to pick up a half-time Chaplaincy post cost...

Parish stuff is similarly busy - good weather, or the expectation of it, has brought to the fore a number of Saturday events: school fetes, churchyard cleaning parties, church garden parties. All of which have their place, but all of which squeeze the available hours tighter, especially as I try to be Daddy and Husband. I suppose I should also add Son to that and so cover a trip with LM on the train to Mum's to collect Dad's car, which I have inherited. I don't wish to sound ungrateful, and I know we will use it occasionally for holidays and long journeys, but if I wasn't inheriting some money too I wouldn't be able to run it. Still, I'm in no danger of leaving my little car unused - Big Blue is an automatic, and I really don't like automatics. Practical, sensible, hopefully reliable, dependable and all sorts of other things ending in -ible, but also dull.

In fact more than once I've wondered whether I'm beginning to have a little mid-life crisis. All I want to do is spend money that don't have, on things that I don't need and might never have the time to use. Humph.

Still, in my way of leaving the best, or at least the intended topic, until last... Yesterday I had a further piece of conclusive evidence of the existence and intervention of God. The church council meeting, which I felt not quite prepared for, and which would touch on areas I thought might be difficult. I was ready for a "full and frank exchange of views" as diplomatic communiques would put it. Well, I think there was, and it was far more constructive and far-reaching than I had expected. To go into discussion with questions about relatively minor issues about how to be most welcoming to visitors, as well as rather larger legal implications of making church accessible (that's physically accessible as in ramps etc rather than linguistically accessible) and to look for a coherent feel of direction for the future, well they're all potentially emotive and difficult issues.

All I can say is that God must have been at work, both then and in the past months, because out popped a resolution to move towards significant changes. I want to write more, but mustn't. Simply let the reader of ecclesiastical persuasion understand and apply their Faculties.

Recently our lectionary readings have had Jesus exhorting those who have ears to hear. I think we have. To one another, to those around us, and to him. And I am sure that my half-formed prayers have been heard, and my dreams and visions may just after all have not been the imaginings of my fevered brain.

The only immediate questions I need answered are what to do with all those CDs... and how on earth to get Big Blue in the garage. But if God can bring us, his people, together like he did yesterday, surely those are trivial.