Today was the first day back after a fortnight of study leave and holiday.

The Study Leave has been a good experience and offered so much to think about that in the next fortnight I will sit down and write a piece for myself and possibly the Kirk Session to have to reflect upon.   The holiday allowed me to chill out and forget what day I had got to, and instead enjoy sometimes just doing nothing.

Thrown in at the deep end this morning I headed up for our Bereavement Support, expecting to have to play a part – only to find out that I was not needed as the other all had it in hand.   Instead a Session Clerk appeared to catch up on what had happened and was still to come, and offering an outing for a coffee.   So instead we moseyed into town, and chatted through the previous fortnight from both sides, and worked out how family was.

Returning to the office an elder caught me to ask about a new couple they were to visit.   I exchanged what I knew, trusting that new perspective on a situation could enrich a sometimes difficult situation for a previous visitor.   There was other news exchanged of others, and then a casual comment about someone who now only comes when they know a man is preaching.   With my being off they had been afforded this opportunity twice over.

I asked if there was something that could be done to change that situation, but apparently not, they have decided that they only want to hear men and are part of a small group who feel the same.   So for most of the year they don’t come, but wait for a visiting man and then reappear.

I’m long enough in the tooth to know that people are people and they do daft things for daft reasons, and there is an element of having to live with it.   The cantankerous part of me is tempted to only invite women to preach whenever I am off from now on, but the reality of that even in a church approaching 50 years of women’s ordination is difficult.   It has made me more determined to ensure that at least half of those I invite should be women.

The soft part of me is hurt, but not because the person doesn’t come.   Instead because the elder didn’t challenge them, didn’t stand up for the role of the minister whoever that might be.   Instead they (probably much like me) sat and listened and let the person think that that was an okay choice to make.