Forgiveness is divine and so I woke up one morning a few weeks ago and suddenly saw that was what I needed to do. How could I preech the sermon about divine things this Sunday without trying to be a bit divine myself and doing some forgiving.

But the odd thing about forgiving is that once you decide to do so it is very hard to remember why you were so angry to start with and what you had to forgive. That was how I felt and when I talked to my friend who I thought had been very unkind to me, I realised that she hadn't and that therefore I had erred (by which I mean I had been wrong).

But then she was also able to forgive me which I am glad to say she did and also her friend who turned out to be just a friend who helped her demolish a wall also forgave me and we had a nice afternoon in which I dug some ice lollies out of the freezer where they have been since last year.

I don't really eat ice lollies very often - I buy them for the sunday school, but they were very nice because it has been so hot recently and we all enjoyed them on the lawn of the rectory where my friend was helping me to replant some grass and kill off the moss. The other lady was there too and she seemed very nice I must say and must more interesting than I had thought so she stayed on afterwards and we talked about art together which is also very interesting.

So I would like you to think about forgiving someone and then when you have decided to do so to think about whether in fact you have the right to do so and whether it would be more divine to eat an ice lolly with them instead.

And talking about forgiving. I have to decide this month whether to forgive the lady who has made such a lot of fuss about the editor's policy on this paper and who I was rather annoyed with when she tried to use after service morning tea to talk people (including me) into supporting her or whether I need to forgive the editor (Francesca) for doing all the things that that lady said she had done with the paper. It is very difficult.