Weathering wnter

This last few days the weather has been unusually bad, overcast with rain and winds driving up the lake, producing white crested waves from time to time. I've walked each day into town to shop for food, but not felt inclined to spend much more time outdoors. 

Tuesday afternoon Monica invited a small group of us to her house above Fontanivet for afternoon coffee and cake, and a discussion about matters of faith and discipleship which emerge for daily life. It's meant to be a bible study, and while we refer to biblical themes, getting around to consulting scripture is a more elusive task. It seems to me that often what people need to wrestle with is clarifying the questions confronting them and need to take to a study of scripture.

This set me off remembering and telling about the Geneva adult Christian education programme established before my time as Chaplain there, and apparently still continuing today - The Atelier Oecumenique de Théologie. This two year course invites participants to set the agenda for learning and enquiry, identify together the issues of faith, and then explore them from whatever angle will help discussion and understanding. Participants develop their own expertise, as well as being helped by the course facilitators, and over the course of time, it covers everything you'd expect a course of Christian catechesis to cover, though not necessarily in any expected order. 

I think this is what reliance on the Spirit of Truth leading us into all Truth really means. I'd love to be with a group of learners for long enough to work with this experimental educational model, but as I don't settle in any community for long enough these days, the opportunities are no longer there. Inevitably, old age is full of hindsight!

This morning, none of the regulars were able to come for the midweek BCP Holy Communion, but a celebration was nevertheless possible because a lady who used to attend regularly who now lives the other side of Lausanne arrived, having come on one of the less than frequent trains which stop at Territet gare. There's something to be said for being there and available in case of the unexpected arrival of someone who wants to worship, even if this happens only very occasionally. Being a priest is about having the time to be available, opening and listening, even if most often its a matter of just being there listening to God, listening for God.