I’m just noticing that the primary, front-of-house, questions that have been surfacing and which I’m toying with are being stealthily flipped over. It’s as if, whilst not looking, someone has switched meal plates. I feel like I’m in the middle of a Clouseau/Pink Panther film. So, to what shall I put my shoulder? is altered to What’s knocking on my door? Am I equal to this task in the week ahead? is morphed into What or who carries me; the image of a river before and behind is invoked. What can we expect, of resurrection life? is re-formed into What degree of harmony exists between me and God, between his good and perfect will and my intentions and desires?

What's the subject?

In each of the first questions I’m on the front foot, I am the subject. In the second question of each pair I am on the backfoot the pressure lifted and the question is more open and also Other centred. It reminds me of the poet Rainer Maria Rilke’s lines: What we fight is so small, what wrestles with us is so great. Is this indicative of one of the manoeuvres of God, to flip us over into a more gracious space than we might initially and automatically assume? And into a more God-centred than a me-centred outlook?