Rotas, social networking & meditation standing up

Monday was an office day for me in both places - CBS at Motorpoint and in College. I still have work to complete for arranging the stakeholder review meeting for this Friday. Two dozen people invited and no idea how many will turn up until the day.

I also made a start on creating a chapel ministry rota for the two terms ahead of us. Last years' template on the College network didn't easily reveal its secrets when I tried to edit it, due to my ignorance of MS Word 2007 gizmos. Getting the dates correct by switching back and forth to the relevant MS Outlook took more attention to detail than I am used to or find enjoyable. Thank goodness I'm ahead of schedule with this, and with inviting the next group of Lent Evensong preachers. Satisfaction with this kind of work only comes when it's completed and delivering the goods.

I was up at the crack of dawn on Tuesday to be in College to conduct Matins and give a brief address. I chose to follow on from the last one given by Andrew Todd before Reading Week. He guided us through a session of silent meditation seated. I gave an brief introduction to meditation standing up. I'm not sure what most people made of it as I received only a couple of comments afterwards. I gave a copy to Christie our Tai Chi teacher after our evening class, confident that she'd recognise some of the phrases I'd borrowed from her. She emailed later to say that it had made her smile.

I also said the afternoon Mass in Welsh again, to cover for an absent staff member. Clare came along, increasing numbers to six. This week two of my tutees are away from College recovering from serious maladies. This threw out our session plan, so we we had a free ranging discussion instead about how ideas of community and meeting as church had changed due to social networking. We talked about the pastoral value of 'virtual church' for isolated and housebound people, about the challenges of keeping it all stable, secure and up to date, about including people who have trouble with maintaining any kind of computer use, due to age or disability. It's great that students see such potential, but I wonder if they see the sustainability problems as clearly as I do.