Every body needs an arse

I am currently languishing in a bucolic evironment just south of Hemel Hemstead. I am here with others like me (well, they are my peer group of Curates - that is as far as the brush-tarring ought to go) to embark on a course devoted to Developing Servant Leaders - for that is what we meant to be, dear readers.

Among the wide array of break-out chats, navel gazing, theological ponderance, helpful debate, input, caffiene and bonhomie that fills our time here, we were directed to extract from Scripture those ways in which Jesus embodied servant leadership. It was a wholly helpful exercise, but the passage from the Letter of the Ephesians that featured on that list got me thinking. It spoke of the many parts of the body as metaphor for the different ways that we can be members of the same body of the church. It says that some are called (and gifted) to be teachers, some pastors, some healers and so on. My first instinct was - 'that is all well and good, but what about an arse like me?'

This isn't false modesty - I do not have time for that affected clap-trap - but I am broadly least among the pious, educated, articulate, reverent, 'good with God' curates - and that is how I feel. They are all far better at doing that stuff than I am, truly.

However, there are times when the Good Lord slaps one across the chops with a wet haddock, in a bid to make a point. No sooner had I thunk the thought about me being an arse did the very thought jump into my mind that actually, every body needs an arse. I presented this notion to the group, who tittered generously, and even enagaged with it. They even took the wet haddock that was plastered across my mush by His Godness and worked with it - with n'er a smirk or a flinch. Never let it be said that Christians are not resilient.

The point is this - and I am being serious in all of this, so stop sniggering - that it makes no difference how we percieve ourselves within the context of the Church or the Body of Christ on Earth; we all have a place, an important place. With this in mind, and in the certain belief that you are pondering the viability of my hypothesis - how would life be if you lost one lung? Then ask how life would be if you lost one bum.