The organist librarian

liz returned safely on Tuesday. Quality control had a lot ot say about how little had been done in her absence so got on with putting up tree lights and decorations which is after all a major task and best done together any way. One set of 100 tree lights took 2 hours to unravel! Little Dorrit came to a fine conclusion and a happy ending! The review meeting with Vickie proved to be quite critical but on Sunday she was keen to affirm my position which is good. Quite what happens in the New Year is uncertain so it's all systems go for Christmas and today Sunday I practised for over an hour. Wednesday to chorus with Edward. Thursday to Christian's for the organists supper - not many there, excellent food. Friday to Jane Allen's retirement party at Balham library hall. Chris Lally, Elaine and Victor there and a good turnout. Excellent eats and champagne! The speeches went on for ages and she ended up thanking everyone. I could not leave till the speeches were over which meant I...

It does seem to me that priests are actually managing volunteers and we could learn a lot from the volunteer bureaux who organise excellent training on this. I know in my job as a librarian how important it is for me to speak to and appreciate the volunteers who help us. Also vital is when someone volunteers I must say "Yes that's great" first and then discuss later what is required by the library. People are so easily put off! Fr Michael mentioned the move to other places like monasteries for spirituality and we need to bring this into parish life. Suggestions - Christians spend far too much time in meetings so a good idea is to start the meeting with the gospel for the Sunday or the day with a short lectio divina. It's amazing how one's one agenda items fade into unimportance! If a meeting is not advancing the mission of the church why hold it? Send emails or phone! Encourage weeks of guided prayer and half-days of reflection in parishes. Our priests need to nu...

Congratulations to deacon Peter Simpson on the 10th anniversary of his ordination. See Chapel of the resurrection for some fine thoughts and photos! I served at Mass this evening and Mgr Mark congratulated Peter. He preached a fine homily on the sacrifice of Abraham. When I was waiting for the bus to go to chorus, a lady said "Is he going to become a priest?" Why can't people accept deacons as permanently in that state? I was late for chorus - Beethoven 9 again from memory for the first night of the Proms on the 13th. The men are to be in black shirts again, no ties and jackets - I hate that! Robert finished early. Liz did not come as Mum wasn't feeling good. This morning I only swam 18 lengths as had to be at St Mark's centre, Battersea for 8am breakfast meeting where we saw presentations about plans for Clapham Junction and the traffic around it. Very interesting and at last there will be disabled access to the station!