Deceptive?

You could be forgiven for thinking today's blip shows a sunny day; in fact it's a trick of the colouring from the yellow azalea and the worn patch of grass in the foreground which were enough to give the impression of brightness even to the naked eye. In fact it was still drizzling slightly, here at the village in Glen Massan, as a substantial shower finished its passage down the glen.

A very routine day which found me thinking about the whole institution of the Church. I'd been reading a blog post (American, I think) which was very trenchant on why churches are declining at such a rate despite all their attempts to "modernise". Today I witnessed some of the benefits to those within the institution - the sense of community, of caring for people not necessarily in the kind of orbit one might normally inhabit - but wondered still about the outward-facing role of the church in the increasingly unpleasant atmosphere generated by current politics. 

Trouble is, we don't speak with the same voice. I can think of so many areas where I'm miles away from other people who call themselves Christians: gender equality, abortion, politics in the conventional sense, nuclear weapons, the Union ... If I want the church to speak with a strong voice, whose voice will we hear? And what at the root informs such voices? 

And wrestling with these and other matters, a spot of cuckoo-serenaded brightness was just what I needed this afternoon.