The second Kirk Session meeting in these early months of being in a new place and it’s good to know that just as each Kirk Session carries similar characters, a new set of people don’t change the patterns of a minister.

Prior to the meeting, there are the usual routines.   Finding an appropriate reading; considering the prayer – sometimes written in notes, sometimes taking a favoured book for support, sometimes knowing that when it comes to the moment the words will appear; sitting with the agenda and methodically working through what bits of information you need to take with you.   Slowly the sense of unknown grows in the imagination, as the thought of what might be debated floats around.   This sense of fear of the unknown never seems to diminish no matter how well known the elders who will sit before you, because a Kirk Session meeting is always a surprise.

Setting off from the Manse to the Hall, the pile carefully placed upon the floor to go with you is moved to the back seat of the car, and then once at the hall transferred onto the table and carefully laid out so that at the right moment the correct piece of paper or book will come swiftly to hand.   Thank goodness for Session Clerks, who will always have the bit of paper you didn’t think to bring.

It’s probably just as well that no elder can read a minister’s mind during a session, as they might encounter the waves that move from “keep talking” to “why am I talking nonsense” to “I’m sure I said that was last word” to “where did the time go”.

Finally the ordeal is over.   Some nights its worse than expected, other times the sense of heading in a positive direction prevails.   No matter what, at home the head is filled with revisiting bits of the meeting.   Questions are pondered over, silence is examined.   It would be good if the pulling apart of the evening took just a matter of minutes, but sometimes there are little corners that thought they had been missed, that need to be peered into.

Eventually sleep will come.