Anniversaries...

A year today I pulled up outside the Rectory in Dunoon. I was in a people carrier loaded to the gunwhales, with a trailer loaded to its gunwhales. I had just driven from Gloucester to Dunoon via Arrochar and the Rest-and-be-thankful.

It was very early in the morning, on the 21st of May.

We had just moved from England to Scotland, from the Church of England to the Scottish Episcopal Church. It's still a few days more until the anniversary of my licensing up here, but it's good to have a few days to reflect on the first year of ministry in a new place.

And its still a new place, with people to learn about, new ways of doing and being and a different culture and context. And that's from me, born and brought up in Scotland, living here until I was 32. It's all very different. Religion is different to religion in England. Being an Episcopalian is not the same as being an Anglican (although to nail either of those is beyond the best minds in the land). And to make either of those grow and flourish and zing - well, there's a challenge for us all.

So a few reflections will follow over the next little while on being one year in.