I spent yesterday travelling - from Glasgow to Lomdon and then from Heathrow to Baltimore USA. Some 17 hours travelling!
After clearing Passport Control and Customs, it was such a relief to see familiar faces right at the place I exited the clearing hall.
One of the questions I was asked by Homeland Security at Baltimore airport was: "How do you know these friends you are visiting in the USA?" That wasn't the time to go into an explanation of how Martha and Kathryn had been part of my supportive online community for the past 10 years. Or of how I first met them in real life by a hotel pool in Florida right before we went on one of the RevGalBlogPals Continuing Ed cruises. I just said that I knew them from church - which is also true.
But, as I enjoy hospitality here and participate in the PCUSA Next Church Conference, I give thanks for these and the other women who have been supportive through all the ups and downs of ministry. Women who simply get what it means to be a woman in ministry and to lead in a patriarchical institution with all the peculiar challenges that that presents.
And I give thanks for the grace to receive and extend hospitality to one another in person and virtually in the name of Christ.
