GA DAY 3 – Sat 23rd

DAY 3 – Sat 23^rd May

 aaaaaarg what a hectic day.

 After another 5 hours sleep, worship, breakfast, dash to taxis feeling not very awake, a surfeit of leaflets in my Box and Assembly worship. Wasn’t nearly as good as the incredible “Ye Gates” coda during Communion and I didn’t get a whole lot from it. This could be because I was feeling knackered all morning and didn’t have my head in gear for any of the reports or business at all.

 However, Kenny & I got together to write a new section calling for the Assembly to recognise Invisible Children and condemn the use of child soldiers. Thank God Kenny was so up for it because I would otherwise have dozed away and totally missed the opportunity to bring this, and I know how much I would have regretted that!

 It passed, a-woop woop. Hoskins did really well too and it made me laugh to see how eagerly the motion was seconded by our big clump of youth reps up in the gallery.

However, then it was the trek back to hotel and faffing about with a shower and hair and make up and finding un-laddered tights and into a dress. It looked better than I had thought it would, but I’m just not comfortable in something I would never choose to wear normally. Halterneck bras are the devil’s own, bloody things.

So off we went to the Queen’s Garden Party. It was incredibly surreal – pipe bands, palace guards wandering about in tailcoats carrying big silver tubes and swords, very small sandwiches, and cakes with the Queen’s crest on them?! What a waste of time. Everybody was swanning about in incredibly fancy outfits – which is fine if you are a middle-aged woman and can wear the flowery-skirt-and-jacket-and-pearls-and-hat combo. Or if you are male you can go for suit or kilt – either way it’s bloody simple. I was ridiculously worked up about trying to find something appropriate to wear from my wardrobe, with neither money to buy something new nor any desire whatsoever to go shopping. And all of that to just leave the Palace after about an hour.

 

WHY bother. If we must spend the precious little free time we have in the Queen’s garden, just take me as I am, dressed in something less alien, and let’s all go play frisbee.

 

So then it was another trek back to the hotel, trying to find taxis in the rain, then changed and straight off to the Youth Night. Rooney and I got hopelessly lost and eventually arrived at St George’s West at ten past six – I was cold, hungry, in possession of a crap and freezing pizza and in a total momentum rut. Grumpy Kim. However, Chris was there, YAY.

Youth Night was properly great. And I got to talk to Mackay and some of the lovely MaxMearns lot, and a few short but valuable kisses with Chris! We’ve been so fortunate lately in being able to spend so much time together that it has been odd not seeing him.

Later Claire, Joy and I walked back to hotel, navigating both roadworks and drunk Dubliners with arms full of candles and bedsheets. Bizarre. Then news of the GA voting to dismiss the complaint, meaning Mr Rennie keeps his job.

When everyone came back the first thing loads of people did was ask about how the Youth Night had gone, which was really lovely. A whole load of us ended up sitting in Katie and Ashley’s room and oh. my. word. The banter was incredible.

By the time I got back to my room it was 2am and having spoken to Chris I just sat and prayed for ages. So, so thankful – for the graceful manner of the debate, for the incredible leadership shown tonight by the former Mods, (David Lunan – RESPECT – now I understand why we bow at the Moderator. Wow.), for the fact that the Overture is postponed so now I actually get to be part of it, for how well the youth night went, for how much the young people appreciated it, for being able to see friends and loved ones, and for the banter. God is so good.

GA DAY 2 – Fri 22nd

Well. Yesterday I was up and down like a Jack-in-the-box with all the “will you please rise” or “please be seated” nonsense. Today was very similar, only less in terms of hamstrings and more of emotions!

Assembly today was…. great. I adored “Ye Gates” during Communion, but the rest of it was bizarre and, I felt, overly ritualistic. Spent ages in uncomfortable silence which could perhaps have been really simply alleviated by quiet organ in the background. Well – maybe – we do this at Holy City and it’s brilliant and has totally challenged my prejudice against organs, but maybe that’s just down to Stuart being so damn good, improvising away so it doesn’t sound organ-y at all! Anyway, the point that is I think some music softly in the background would have changed the atmosphere completely – it would have been a time of prayer, reflection, silence, rather than uncomfortably waiting for everyone to get fed and watered. Maybe that’s just me!

Church and Society report was very interesting – this is where the church is actually working – engaging with real people, real countries, real times, real issues. Not some abstract piece of finance where I haven’t a clue what’s being decided, but real and relevant things. Also BIG respect for Ian Galloway, the Convenor – fantastic extempore answers and a really logical presentation of the longest report in the Blue Book.

And hey, I spoke! Grandma will be proud.

For me the single most arresting feature of the whole Church&Soc report was the statistics from the Growing Up In Scotland report. I can’t believe that a girl born in Calton has a life expectancy of 54.

However, most of the deliverances didn’t actually address these issues. I wanted to try and address the lack of addressing (!) so I said something like…

“According to our government, the single most important positive factor of positive influence in the life of a young person is the constant presence of a caring adult. The church, predominantly through our youthwork, can be, and already is in many cases, this constant caring presence. I feel it’s important that we both recognise this and realise its potential. Through our youthwork we can, in a very direct way, help to combat some of the statistics.”

 

I got a round of applause, the convenor was happy, the Assembly voted, the section was added. Woop woop!

That said, the cynic in the back of my head thinks that the Assembly stamping it’s collective feet is one thing, it’s another for this positive view and affirmation of the importance of youthwork to percolate down to congregational level across Scotland!

 

Lunch was very disappointing with the baked potato that I’d been so eagerly anticipating not really living up to my hopes. Good company however!

Afternoon less riveting all the way through – must confess to sitting on floor twittering and sending some emails during Legal Questions. Also went for a walk when it got too hot in the balcony and ended up in a lovely empty wee courtyard where the sun was shining. I stood and talked to God for a while then went back in for more! The HIV Report I enjoyed lots and again spoke since the CofS HIV Project has actually inadvertently been the reason I’m here anyway!

Dinner was quite simply superb – the banter with Iain Majcher (pronounce it like ‘My-er’ or he’ll hunt you down), Emma and David was SO good. They had me in hysterics, good good good chat.

Later on ran into a couple of friends whom I haven’t seen in ages, was lovely. Then prep and arrival of Petra and Pete, yay! The discussions were again interesting but then we talked about all of the possible outcomes for Saturday night’s case… and it made me feel really sad.

 

Part of me wants to trust in God and to know that even if the GA messes this up royally, it’s ok, God reigns and is more than capable of making up for our failings – I trust that things will be alright in the end. However, lots of me is terrified that the church will tear itself apart tomorrow night.

 Jesus commanded us to love. Everyone. Even people whose opinions, lives, beliefs we find it hard to comprehend or countenance. That’s our job. Someone said tonight that we could decide to walk together as a church, and accept the fact that all families are messed up and difficult to get along with, and take loads of effort to make things work with sometimes. Just because something is difficult is never a reason to stop trying to get it done.

 

So I hope and pray for an answer that will cause few tears, that will keep people together, that will mean we can wake up on Sunday morning and still be God’s people. I hope and pray that Mr Rennie and all those who know and love him can get back as soon as possible to normal life and cease having to endure the hounding of the press. I hope and pray that tomorrow will give me hope in my church, hope for the future, and ultimately that I will be able to be proud to be part of the CofS – right now I am less than sure.

 

And most of all, I hope someone will keep me updated on proceedings while I’m helping at the Youth Night!!

GA DAY 1 – Thurs 21st May

 

This is Thursday, but it feels like a Monday. Very odd and disorientating.

 

Hmmm. First impressions of the day: it was undoubtedly bizarre. It was a very long day. And a long day of what didn’t seem to amount to much of substance – all the faffing about in the morning and then all the admin stuff… I recognise it’s necessary for the proper functioning of any body of people that we have to contend with these kind of issues – still doesn’t make them interesting.

 

I am, however, absolutely LOVING the worship sessions with Mark. It’s so cool that, given Mark is my Chris’ flatmate now, here is someone I have been spending relatively lots of time with over the past wee while, and we have been getting to know one another. I had loads of time for Mark before coming here, but now my respect for him has taken a huge leap up – what a brilliant guy. He just puts things in such an accessible way. He is also overwhelmingly positive without straying beyond the ‘cheesy ‘ boundary. I especially liked the web metaphor this morning – he was saying that we have all these different aspects to us – say, Emotions; Beliefs; Opinions; Faith; History as well as Family, Job, Church, Life etc etc ad infinitum…

 

And we can get away with thinking of these different aspects as being just that – different. Separate. Discrete.

 

But hey, it’s not that simple – so instead of being separate entities, all the areas of our lives are interconnected. We are whole people, we do not have Private Lives or Personal Lives and then Professional Life. So it’s like a spider’s web – and if you start to tug on one of the threads in the web, it’s not just that bit that moves. Applying pressure on one part causes the whole web to change shape.

 

So what I think I got from it was that it’s maybe not that helpful just to blindly react to things – perhaps instead we could be thinking about why we are feeling this way. Our emotions are roused not by dint of just being emotions – strong feelings (whether positive or negative) are there because someone or something is tugging on that thread and it’s pulling on the other fibres – maybe stuff from your past, maybe your opinions, maybe your beliefs… I think maybe the point is if we try and think what’s behind our isolated emotions, it might help us to make more sense of them. Rather than being controlled by our feelings, we could take the reigns and control them – and in the light of how eager Commissioners were today in trying to talk about Saturday night already, I sense this might be no bad thing!

 

Mark explained that a whole lot better than I am able to, but the point is just that I liked it. It made sense for me.

 

So, to précis DAY 1 at my first GA: worship – BIG thumbs up, business – thumbs wavering to the downwards.

 

But yes, then we had prep – and I really, really appreciated the chat. The time we have as youth reps to look at the next day’s business together is such a privilege and I want to keep reminding myself that as the week goes on and we slip into comfort zones. We can talk things through, ask questions, find out about what everyone else is thinking. I have no idea how the Commissioners would be able to afford (in terms of money and personal time commitment to being away from home and work) a similar arrangement – suffice to say in the meantime we are damn lucky and I appreciate it.

 

Also – I am really enjoying the chat from people I don’t see too often or, obviously, those whom I’ve never met before. The prep debate and feedback last night really made me happy – it was great to listen to such eloquently-made points of view – the youth reps, I am quite chuffed to say, are an articulate, informed and passionate bunch! Woop!

Hola all…

Hey. So, Kim has a blog, woop de woop!

I’ve wanted to do this for a while but wireless has been sketchy. Anyway, here we are.

I will write something a bit more suitable for a Very First Post at some point. However, right now I am at the CofS General Assembly and it’s almost all that’s on my mind – gonna post some of my musings so far…