The start of November has always come with a bit of self-pressure to try and do NaNoWriMo. Not this year. This year, I’m attempting the Poem-A-Day challenge from Writer’s Digest. 📝

this is home

This is the town where I live and serve as the pastor of a small church. It is a place in great need. There are high levels of deprivation. There are high levels of drug and alcohol related deaths. During the summer, the population swells and shrinks daily as cruise ships bring tourists looking for the train to Glasgow. It’s a place where the gospel witness is small but deeply rooted.

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🎵If jazz piano/trio is your thing, I highly recommend this Tiny Desk Korea session with 송영주 트리오.

Finished reading: How to Build a Boat by Elaine Feeney 📚

Last session of Christianity Explored tonight. Looking forward to running it again next year.

“Can you so much as dream of a better friend than he has been to you?”

Charles Spurgeon in Morning & Evening

This is the desperation coffee setup.

My Clever Dripper got dropped by someone in the house and it broke. In a fit of desperation I tried using a Melitta-style filter paper in a sieve over a metal bowl with a regular, electric kettle to brew a makeshift pour-over and it is far from the worst coffee I’ve ever had. ☕️

Another script written. I’m quite far behind on reading for my training course so I’m looking forward to having a guest preacher for the last week of October. In the meantime, I’m really excited to preach the genealogy in Genesis 5.

It’s one of those autumn days where no amount of waterproof clothing can keep you from getting drenched on the walk home. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

This article by Adsum Try Ravenhill is really helpful for thinking through how to speak of what is going on in the world right now.

Autumn is the best time for writing

It felt like a proper autumn day today. Cold, windy, occasionally raining heavily while the sun still shone. It was also sermon-writing day. Each week I preach, I write anywhere between 2500 and 3500 words for my script (excluding readings). Today I did over 3600 but managed to trim back a couple hundred words that were a bit less than helpful. Writing happened in the local Wetherspoons (free refills on coffee!

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For the very first time, I have managed to get a coffee stain on one of my commentaries. I guess now I know how to tell if it’s my copy of Wenham on Genesis 1-15 or someone else.

Nothing against Lewis Capaldi but I feel like his music is a bit dramatic for a porridge oats advert…

I’m about a third of the way through this (reading for a book club with folks who have been on the same training course as me) and really enjoying it.

Crying in H Mart

Finished reading: Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner 📚 As a fan of Japanese Breakfast and as someone who has recently been going through a process of finally seeing myself as Asian American (even as I find my national identity changing further as I spend longer in the UK), there were many things here that I could remember feeling. This book was heartbreaking but absolutely worth it. I’m so glad it was available at my library.

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Sermon prep this week

Preparing to preach Genesis 3. I’ve got a Traveler’s Notebook for initial observations, an ESV Genesis scripture journal for highlights and some structure stuff, and commentaries by Calvin, Wenham, Kidner, and a pre-published one by another pastor here in Scotland. Eventually this all makes its way into my Obsidian vault. Then it becomes a script written using Ulysses.

It’s 1 October and I’ve ordered our Christmas pudding already.

It feels like a proper autumn evening.