sheep and stones

Two Sundays ago the readings were about Jesus as a shepherd. At Cotheridge and Wilden we thought about first century Palestinian shepherds who didn't have the the advantages of hedges and walls & who had to lead their sheep from pasture to pasture. It was a very much closer relationship & the role of the shepherd was very tough. One commentator recently said it's bad enough the many modern western Christians have cuddly images of sheep. It's even worse that they have cuddly images of shepherds. Jesus & cuddly don't go together!

Last week was a certain amount of reviewing where I am - a meeting with my spiritual director, another with my line manager. The week also included meetings about the Three Counties Show, celebrating different ethnic groups, preparing bids for funding from the English Rural Development Plan and being after dinner speaker at Tenbury NFU annual dinner.

This Sunday I was at Bishampton and Knightwick and we focussed on the reading in 1Peter where he talks about being built together as living stones. It always strikes me as a wonderful image of both individuality (& that we're all different) and community (that we belong together) having different complementary roles.