the adventures of retirement
Here is a United Reformed Church which has now been sold…
And here is a colossal cruise ship, the Ventura, parked at Greenock…
The activity belonging to which of these places do you think is more attractive to people you know?… to you? The answer I’d give might not be the same as that of many other people.
The day started with this at about half past four in the morning with this…
Then back to sleep and woke again at half past five to hear the Calmac ferry Argyll Flyer going past the window on its way out of James Watt Dock. Then back to sleep again.
Later, properly awake, I saw this on a wall at Bridge of Weir…
… “If you did as you should, you might have as you would.” – i.e. you get what you deserve, something that was spectacularly untrue of Jesus, who did right, and was executed for his trouble. This, and the conversation tonight at the restaurant, where someone quoted, “sometimes karma comes back and bites you on the arse”, and musing n the difference between right wing and left wing views about people, got me thinking. Anyway, the thinking is ongoing.
Let’s face it, thinking is never done with, is it?
Found the Co-op in Beith this morning…nice size, not as tiny as most. Just like sixteen years ago, it’s great that co-op and similar shops keep going in small communities (Beith is not that small, hence the bigger co-op).
Janet’s back on an old railway, and here’s a passenger ramp at Kilbarchan Station repurposed as an access point to the cycle track…
Churches, like shops, find it harder to survive in small communities. Unlike shops, sometimes they find find it hard to survive full stop. The bad effects of this hollowing out of small communities include the exclusion of people without car access, and increased use of cars etc.
As Jesus knew the villages of Galilee and the city of Jerusalem, so we too recall and pray for places large and small…
The next three days will be almost all on offroad cycle path (two old railways), and a good job too, because this recent run of road walking has become tiresome for Janet. And after the three days, a ferry will take her across the Firth of Clyde and into the hills and lochs. We are now staying at a place in Greenock. Maybe this sky holds some promise…
God of all the universe,
we long for you to part the clouds
and come down
and flood our lives with your light.
And too often we see nothing.
God give us the grace, give us the understanding,
to see you alongside us in our lives,
in the suffering Jesus,
in the energising Spirit,
in the opening of minds
to needs beyond our own.