Today has felt better than yesterday did. I got some work done in the morning, not as much as I should have done but more than yesterday! I saw a friend for lunch and another for an afternoon walk. I haven't had to take any painkillers.
Went to Leafy Suburb Church this evening.
There was no choir or choir director as it's a weekday. For someone who sings all the good bits of worship and sings all the bits that feel awkward, having an almost entirely spoken service was really very odd and rather hard work. But there was still a resonance to it that I can't explain.
The Eucharist seems strange and familiar to me, at the same time. The blessings over the bread and wine are near word-for-word translations of the equivalent Jewish brachot and I found that comforting for some reason. I keep coming back to what The Ostrich said about Eucharist and it sort of makes sense in a way I can't quite articulate. Maybe I'll get it eventually, maybe I'll even take communion at some point. But going up for a blessing seemed right, this evening.
I love having the Summary of the Law as part of worship. I think maybe I just need to print it out and stick it in my small prayer book and start saying it along with my other prayers.
The Peace, always a favourite part of childhood services, remains a favourite, and I was struck again by how welcoming the congregation there is.
I spoke to the Vicar briefly about the Sekr1t Pr0ject. I'll e-mail her, next week after everything is a bit calmer. Can't say more without risking giving the secret away--mentioning it at all is a bit dodgy in fact.
I find myself praying tonight for clergy. Deacon Friend has a lot to deal with and Holy Week is in some ways the worst time to deal with it, and in other ways perhaps the best. Various other clergy I know, online or in person, well or as acquaintances, are struggling with various things right now. And it's a tough week, a lot of hard work, trying to enable or facilitate or lead meaningful worship for others without losing sight of the important things themselves, trying to move Heaven and Earth and also trying to hold them together. I pray that the clergy I know and the clergy I don't know are granted the stamina and courage to get through this week. I pray that they will be offered help and support wherever it is needed, and be able to accept it. I pray that they are able to draw comfort and strength from the message of resurrection, unconditional love and eternal life that they are called to preach. I'm just a confused monotheist, but I care and I pray.
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2 comments:
Thank you - prayers both needed & appreciated - & I so know what you mean about the discomforty of saying the bits that should be sung.
Prayer for you and others have been continuing.
I think it was the said psalmody that really felt strange. I sing the psalms in my private prayer, they're generally sung or chanted in the Jewish tradition, the services I've been attending most often have been Evensong... I don't remember what we did when I was a child, but many of my favourite anthems were definitely psalm-based. I knew intellectually that the psalms would be said but on some other level it just hadn't occur to me.
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