Pumpkin Time

Eaton centre
Originally uploaded by Sarah Hamilton.

This time last year I was in Canada and was reminded of that fact today by the most ridiculous thing. I was sitting in Blackwell's in Oxford with a view of the Sheldonian and the Bodleian and yet I was looking at a coffee and a butternut squash panino (yum!) and it reminded me of the spiced pumpkin latte I grew somewhat fond of at the Starbucks in the Indigo bookshop in the Eaton Centre where I waited to meet Kerry from work so we good catch the streetcar home together (sigh!).

Actually I think I should be banned from book shops as I was "just popping in" to purhase A Short Introduction to Theology whih is on my CYM students' reading list but which I've not read (not that I don't KNOW some... but you know!) so as I was in the theology section at Blackwells...



FAR too many books later I sat in Caffe Nero with said coffee and panino (there were caramelised onions too - hmmm) about to read the book I had atually carried WITH me. Which is only fair Isuppose as it was one of my main reasons for being there. I was having a BIG VISION and planning session. I've found myself rather caught up with (very necessary) minutiae recently and felt the need to step back and reassess the programme and all that jazz. The book in question, Kenda Creasey Dean's, Praticing Passion has particular relevance for two reasons. Firstly it is a book which is all about foussing our efforts on the theology or "why? factor" of our ministry rather than the programme. Secondly I needed to find a passage I wanted to slip inot the first blog post of Fem in YM which is going up at the end of this week one it has final editorial approval from the both of us!

Somewhat ironically I ended up working out the programme for the next eighteen months but, in many ways, that isn't ABOUT programme as about balance and finding the spaces to do training sessions which sometimes get squeezed out if I don't plan ahead.