The amazing thing about my job as the Bookshop Boss of Unicorn Tree Books in Lincoln Central Market is that although I'm no midwife, GP, nurse, vicar, or formal minister, is the sheer connection I have with a great number of families and how in a small way I get to be part of the lives of them... From excited grandparents to expectant parents at the earliest of points and throughout the growing journey to birth, then into christendom, be it baptisms, christenings, naming days or dedications, and still on through toddler years, and starting school, and all the way, in some cases now these days, into the teens and coming of ages! It's amazing and glorious and beautiful and humbling that this Bookshop Boss gets to take that journey in some small, but real, way with so very many families and people! Amazing really isn't it - and that's just the babies and birth stories I share in all because of being in a Bookshop - Talk about being a place of community! There's also the meeting and romancing and wedding planning that often goes before - or just is and of itself... Amazing how much community I get to be part of just being a Bookshop Boss. I'm not a priest or a deacon, but I don't doubt I am a servant of God nonetheless, and in many ways it feels there's a loose passing nod to a diaconal 'servants' ministry found here in the ministry of the bookshop, because as well as meeting in the sharing of experiences of baptism, and marriages, we offer space at the edges, stand at the door of welcome to those perhaps afraid to otherwise come in to a 'church' place - or even aware that they could. We are a liminal space, a safe space, a place of words - and also silence; A place of books - and images; a place of answers - and questions... And we do the walk into the shadows too, the journey through illness, and into the loss and bereavement with so many, and we are often there for the lonely too. It's a joy really to serve in this bookshop... It's without doubt where God has called this Bookshop Boss to serve my ministry through this time and place. MC

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