Funerals, Roses and Friends

A long and very busy day today.  Thom was up at 7.30 a.m. for his paper round and I also got up early as I knew I had quite a busy day ahead of me.  Today saw the end of my Spring Term academic classroom work with all day tutorials at Sarum College - in the morning we completed the Funeral ministry module and in the afternoon the one on Intercessions leaving me to write up two more essays (one for each subject) by 5th April (Intercessions) and 25th April (Funerals).  Although this may seem extremely strange, I have really enjoyed my training for funeral ministry - something I suspect I will need to do quite a bit of if, as anticipated, I become the Freemason's chaplain for Wiltshire.  Tom Clammer, the Precentor of the Cathedral, has been excellent tutor and I really do enjoy his down to earth, practical and at time very humorous style on what could be a very dour subject.  So many useful tips.  I now need to gain some practical experiences of dealing with real live funerals as part of the "on-the-job" practical training.  The afternoon session was taken up with the theology of Intercessions and we looked closely at the opposing views of two well known theologians - Nicky Gumbel and Mike Higton (Mike had actually been one of my "inquisitors" at Alresford on Tuesday!). Interesting discussions but not quite as interesting as funerals!  I decided that after such a heavy day I would end my stay in the Cathedral Close with attending Evensong at the Cathedral. Before this I quickly called into  the Pound Shop and bought a few climbing roses which Sara had seen and wanted to plant in the garden. I arrived at the Cathedral early and managed to secure a place towards the front.  The service was taken by the same Tom Clammer as had been my tutor in the morning.  After the service, and I was gathering myself together to leave I cause a glimpse of David B. and his new lady.  David is an old friend who was at Liverpool with me in the 1970s - one of my oldest friends and so, after a quick thank you to Tom, I sprinted after them and we had a lovely conversation in the cathedral side aisle.  He remarked that the last time we had been together in the Cathedral had been for my licensing as a minister. We strolled out of the cathedral together promising to meet up again very soon.  A lazy night tonight following my re-checking of my sermon for tomorrow morning.