My day off flipped around this week, so off I went to Edinburgh to see some friends.
It was a good day, catching up on news, sharing stories, pondering the demise of hobbies and the meta-congnitive functions revealed in the ordering of bookshelves.
I have been blessed with more than my share of good friends over the years — many of whom put up with dreadful neglect and know to measure patterns of contact in years, not days. But forming ‘new’ friendships is a tricky thing in a priest’s life. We are never really off duty. We are never not-a-priest and never wholly free to form friendships with those for whom we are ‘priest’.
So how is it that these two slipped under the cracks, I wonder?
I’ve known others to go through a ‘category shift’ (from ‘parishioner’ to ‘friend’ when our geography changed) but these two just landed in the ‘friends’ list as if by chance.
And although I forget all about the usual distinctions when I am with them, I am sure that the me I find when I am with them is the one who was first called and ordained.
I am grateful for it.
wonderful exchange 
The mix of roles when we have official responsibility is always a tricky thing – I have to say though that I suppose I almost never, or totally never, feel quite off duty with anybody despite not being a priest. Any friend, any stranger may need help and support any time. And honestly with anybody I always feel, well, a need to be a spokesperson for the Christian faith – which sounds impossibly pi, and probably is – but a need to keep certain values of forgiveness and love and thankfulness in the screen and not just say anything for the sake of going along with the company.
And when one thinks of my left foot and how often it finds myself in my mouth, that is laughable!
It will get easier in time…….. enjoy people for who and what they are