Categories: uncategorized
Date: 23 April 2006 19:45:06
Our St. George's celebrations began the previous night with supper in the parish centre. We were greeted at the door by St. George in full armour plus sword and shield - very striking he looked too. To follow was a huge blow-out supper of roast beef and veg. with red wine and sherry trifle with clotted cream, and a toast to the Queen. I shall never forget the sight of St. George striding off home at the end of the evening, past some very unsurprised late-night revellers (no doubt putting him in the same category as the flying pink elephants they were simultaneously witnessing).
This morning's service included a sermon about St. George's, Baghdad by one of our retired priests who has contacts there. It certainly focussed the mind being made to think about attending church behind barbed wire with regular body searches and very real bomb threats. Whereas we had nothing more difficult to encounter this morning than an early morning awakening by alarm clock and a stray ewe and her lamb wandering around on the main road. And the most unnerving thing I had to encounter during the service was the fact that the altos now have to process before the tenors and basses rather than after them (a throwback from the days when the female altos had to be heard but not seen, hidden behind the boys and men). During the administration we sang, 'Deep Peace of the Running Wave to you' (Rutter), known the world over as well as in our choir vestry as 'The Garlic Dressing'. Although we sang the hymns very solemnly, our faces broke into grins during the recession to March, by Le Febure-Wely. It is still the Easter season, after all.