Monday, November 11, 2013

Being Ronald Blythe with a Plastic Bag Brain

I set an alarm on Sunday but am always up before it sounds. I carry it downstairs and find my glasses to disable it. Otherwise I can never be sure that the single press has been hard enough to turn it off and I can't see the icon without assistance.

I make fresh coffee using a stove pot and while it is brewing print off my service order for the morning service.

There is a brown and white cat in the garden. I walk towards the conservatory window and, once eye-balled, the creature shoots back under the fence aware of how unwelcome it is. Two pleasantly plump wood pigeons appear and perch on the stone bird-bath. I have their backs.

I take the coffee back up to bed and finish yesterday's Guardian.

It is Remembrance Sunday. A church that meets in a school has no war memorials on which to lay wreaths. We have a normal service, communion as it is the second Sunday of the month, and we take the two minutes silence at 11.00 whenever we have reached in the service. We allow it to interrupt our flow. Today it falls between two worship songs and feels entirely appropriate. Our congregation often grows on this Sunday to include renegades from other churches with a more formal approach to the day. I recall my father's tears and turning off the TV. He hated remembering.

I have a cold, an inflamed ganglion and a bad mouth ulcer. Any one of them would be annoying but as a trio they are making me miserable. It helps me to run a service with a sombre atmosphere. An ordinand preaches. She does well and I communicate mal de vie perfectly.

Children join us at The Peace and we use our own little liturgy and break bread together. The kids enjoy participating and grabbing a grape instead of alcohol. For us it is all about inclusivity not maturity. Two thirds or more of our eighty strong congregation stay for coffee and some delicious home-made biscuits which have appeared out of the blue. Next week we are offering breakfast before church.

That's me done for the day. Sunday is not my busiest day of the week nor should it be for anyone missional in 2013. I sit in the conservatory keeping the throat lubricated, pausing from time to time to hurl stones at the fence just above the cat encroachment area.

I ponder the words of Ghostpoet:

I am here
Standing by the window
Maybe I'm just shallow?
Wonder where you are

The ghosts of clergy past tut magnificently.

No comments: