Day 103

It really is tiring! I did a few things yesterday. And at the moment a few things is my limit.

I had a phone call yesterday afternoon from the hospital, asking me if I could come in for a cystoscopy this afternoon. I couldn't, so now I am booked in for Sunday the 22nd February at 9:45am. Cystoscopy is the only camera I haven't had yet. It examines the bladder. There is only one way into the bladder 🥴. I am not looking forward to it. The information that comes with it doesn't help: there is a 50% chance of infection. 50% is high! There is a 100% certainty that I will be in pain and peeing blood. for a few days after.

I would say that I at least have a week to recover before I go back to work, but I have a meeting the next morning in Loddon with my Anglican friends. I'm sure they will be sympathetic.

And then on Thursday I will be going to a monthly coffee morning in Corton, and on Friday to the weekly coffee morning in Beccles. There has been the suggestion that I am not really ill because I'm not really taking off full-time (2 "reallys" for emphasis); there has also been concern that the churches have been paying for a minister who is off sick. Well I will earn my money next week by drinking tea and eating cake and biscuits with theological determinism and with as much enthusiasm as I can muster. Then I will take my first service and the following Monday I will drink more tea and eat more cake! I will show them how hard I can work! My cholesterol may go up again, but I will sacrifice for my people!!!

Seriously though, I have already been visiting people to catch up, but as I don't blow my own trumpet 🎺 no one knows how many people I visit, or what happens on those visits. It has been, the case for a long time, in the Methodist Church, that the Quarterly Plan counts more than anything else. As long as the minister doesn't take too many Sundays off no one cares what he/she does the rest of the week.

I remember when I first transferred in there was a Methodist rule that ministers were only allowed one hour off a day. I raised the question about what time we were supposed to get up and what time were were allowed to go to bed. No one had an answer, so I thought I would get up at 11am, work until 1pm, take an hour off and go to bed at 5pm. I never managed to do it, and eventually that rule was removed.

I have been aware for a while that I am (to use my wife's word) a commodity. I don't know if I am worth my weight in gold, but I have a monetary value.

I see freedom on the horizon!

I never expected it to end this way, but then prophecy never was one of my spiritual gifts.