I’m back in for a brief moment before the day begins properly. Like many of my days at the moment, this one is packed with a variety of activities both in the diary and in my head. Work begins in 25 minutes with a pastoral coffee in town. Then I’ll rush home for a quick membership class with someone who can’t make Sunday’s last class. This afternoon there is a wedding rehearsal. And in the gaps in between there is worship for Saturday prayers and Sunday morning worship to be prepared. Lest I forget, there are still two ladies I would like to pop in and see before the week ends.

The day began with the usual family frenzy, and then because this is a music lesson day I dropped some small people near their schools. As they disappear off on their roads I like to watch their movement. The eldest small person exhibits the pre-teen way of life. With slumped shoulders and scurry, there are signs of the reluctance to conform to parental ambitions and the desire to fit with the new crowd to be encountered. The youngest demonstrates the carefree nature of their world. Skipping towards the gates, you can revel in the freedom of life. Friendships that are based upon the hopes of who has the best idea for a game, and the knowledge that at the moment life’s decisions are in the hands of others.

I miss skipping. Every so often, you get the opportunity to join in and skip along. It’s a magical activity to take part in, for in the movement there is a real sense of worries being thrown from your shoulders and instead a new lightness of being enters into the blood stream. Freedom of movement giving way to freedom of thought. The old ways being lost as the new rush in.

My day begins with a skip. For after several weeks of struggling to think of where to begin a sermon, this morning I awake and from the experience of the passing weeks find that I have a page of notes of where I hope to end. The beginning will come as I wonder today. But there is a skip to be had, as the worry of lacking connection seems to have given way, to new understanding (if only for myself).