Categories: uncategorized
Date: 03 October 2004 19:49:13
After a traumatic week, the week-end wasn't much better. Needing to ask seriously what is, and what is not possible. There was a church prayer meeting on Friday evening, which daughter and son attended with me. I somehow suspect that the meeting was not intended for young children, and while it was remarked how well they behaved, I have to say that for me the focus of the meeting was on making sure that they were happy. I do have some ambivalence regarding prayer meetings - Jesus' own advice seemed to suggest that prayer should be a private thing, between oneself and God. Prayer in public seems to me to be inescapably corrupt - one has to be giving some thought, at least, to what other people are thinking about what one is saying.
There was one remarkable coincidence, though, which seemed to be saying that God does have a hand in what's happening. On Friday morning, I was reading Delia Smith's "A Journey into God", and she used a metaphor which involved a boat, being propelled initially rather ineffectually by oars, and then more purposefully by the wind - the former representing our own efforts, of course, and the latter God's Spirit. On Friday evening, our Rector related a conversation with one of the Toronto pastors (people may remember a phenomenon known as the 'Toronto Blessing'), where he used essentially the same picture, to show the contrast between 'before' and 'during' the 'blessing'. No mention of 'after'.
But perhaps on Saturday we paid for the late night on Friday. On two occasions I found myself deeply upset by difficulties which we do encounter quite often. I'm just too tired to respond positively to the challenges of family life.
I stayed away from church this morning. Son had announced that he wanted to stay at home with his dad, and I didn't have the energy or the inclination to argue. We had a fruitful morning. I listened to a performance of the Berg Violin Concerto on the radio (which I found particularly interesting because it was the recording chosen the previous day on CD Review, which I had also listened to), and then son and I went outside to do some tidying up in the garden. But the matter of whether son should be allowed to drink the wine at Communion remains unresolved.