Categories: church
Date: 04 April 2010 17:14:51
I'm every bit as tired this year as I have been every other year, and "all" I've done is turn up to everything on offer in my parish church. (Yes, that one I said I wasn't going to go to any more as I'd found another option, which hasn't quite come off - long story, may tell you another time.) It's not involved me in late nights, early mornings, or extraneous work by way of organ/music practise, choir/choir rehearsing, preaching/liturgical organising, yet I am exhausted still.
What I have been able to do this year is immerse myself in the whole week in a totally different way, and let the whole thing permeate my being, my feeling and my thinking in a way I'm not necessarily able to when I'm involved in the logistics, in whatever way. It's been a very different experience.
I think, on the whole, this is part of what's been happening Sunday by Sunday. When I've been the organist/musician, or in the choir, or preaching, or doing anything like reading or interceding, or leading services, I've had to act in a professional manner, and remember I'm doing this on everyone's behalf. I can't let the words of hymns get to me, because I have to keep playing or singing. Yet, almost every time I've been to church for months now, some hymn or other has had me crying, or set off a trail of unhelpful thoughts or memories.
I don't think I've ever been a member of the congregation for longer than a few weeks, maybe three or four months, before being asked to do something, or I've volunteered to get it over and done with. In fact, it seems I've come to associate church with a place where I'm not wanted unless I'm doing something useful. Which is kind of unhelpful, and I know it's not true, but it's how I feel about it.
I was desperately worried I would get to Easter Day this year with no sense of the Risen Christ at all, no sense of hope, no sense of joyfulness. That's definitely not happened - though it's a subdued sense of it all. However, I've come out of this week with a far better understanding of why it's all so difficult at the moment, and why I can't just walk away from it all, as I've been so tempted to do for weeks.