John 17:1-11 & Summer is coming

Yesterday, I preached on John 17:1-11. This is Jesus' 'high priestly' prayer, or at least a part of it. The lectionary is a strange thing indeed. You can read the text here, although there is no recording, because it was an evening service. Having lead at the 10:00am service, there was not much left of the day to do very much with. As usual I came home from church with loads of papers, and haven't read them all yet.

Today is our public holiday in lieu of May Day (1st May). We had decided yesterday that we would have Mon day prayers anyway. I'm not sure what the regular practice is, so decided to go ahead. The reading we had from Numbers 26 was about Baalam. He is a really odd guy. There he is beating his donkey because it won't go the way he wants, and it speaks to him. His reaction? He just replied. It could have been his best friend talking (perhaps it was?). If I was riding a donkey and it spoke to me I might just be VERY surprised.

At the start of May we are used to seeing the garden begin to grow vigorously. The May trees - Hawthorns are already loosing their blooms, so summer is advancing at a pace. Our Azaelia is also in full bloom, which rarely happens before the middle of May. The bluebells are also in full flower, and if the weather is nice tomorrow we will go and look at the in the local nature reserve. These are a small clump from our back garden.