Making a mark

It's very odd to think that this will be my last Christmas at St M's, - but what a privilege to know this, rather than simply continuing in the everyday confidence that nothing will ever change (a particular feature of this season, with so many traditions in churches, schools and families to lull us into an illusion of unbroken continuity) - until one day, quite suddenly, change it does.

It's too early for serious stock-taking, and on the whole it's not up to me anyway to evaluate what difference my being here may have made...but there are things that I'm happy about, things I'll remember on wet Wednesdays when I'm really needing encouragement. I even have a special box (a brainwave from my very good friend the Canon, who seems to be too busy being wonderful to blog at all these days,) where I can keep tangible reminders of valued people, important connections made and recognised. The box itself was a gift from top daughter Hattie Gandhi, who found it, a splendid example of Indian carving, complete with secret catch, in the Fair Trade shop in Cardiff. I love the idea that these are my private confidence boosts, my secret evidence that sometimes I've been enabled to join in a corner of kingdom work.


I guess it's natural to want some sort of record. What else, after all, is this blog?
Recently I found myself in part of a much loved public building that isn't usually accessible to the public - and found alot of evidence from others who had been there before me. It amused me that though they wanted to make their mark, their public declaration "I was here" had been made in semi- privacy. Not quite the same as my "Kingdom box" but still...