Categories: uncategorized
Date: 19 September 2004 20:22:31
Now then, God, what are you playing at? What precisely are you calling me to do? As if the Church of Fools wasn't enough, you now go and stick a pin in me just at the right moment so I jump up and volunteer to lead the worship in my own church on the day when we haven't got a minister or local preacher available. I ask you - I didn't even wait until I was prompted by guilt to volunteer, I just opened my mouth and the words "M and I will do it between us, won't we M?". Mind you, he got less chance to refuse than I did. At least I have only myself to blame.
The service was a challenge. The Gospel reading was a real puzzler - and then as a worship leader I am not allowed to give a sermon so even when I had come to some understanding of what the passage was driving at, I wasn't allowed to share my thoughts directly with the congregation. So I had to find ways around that.. and also find ways to fill the fifteen minutes or more of service time which the sermon usually takes up quite nicely!!! I find it quite funny, actually, that we're not allowed to do a sermon. I mean, that's about the least dangerous thing we can be let loose with. A lot more damage can be done in leading prayers or doing the children's address, I'd have thought, than in putting forward some ideas to get adults thinking. But there we go, ours not to reason why.
But somehow (well, I know precisely how, don't I God?) everything just fell into place. I found myself with enough material to make the service ten minutes longer than anticipated. Luckily M had managed to lose the sheet with his meditation on so we were able to cut that out of the order of service without any qualms about whether we should really restrict our worship to a set time limit. I upset the ladies who do the coffee, mind, initially by arriving with some fairly traded beverages just as they'd finished setting up the cups with some bog-standard cheapo supermarket blend. (You could taste the difference, though. Boy, could you taste the difference!) But the service went really well and I think the message went home quite strongly, judging by the number of nodding heads. Lord, are you dropping heavy hints again? Don't you know I'm far too busy caring for my family and the otherwise-neglected children I teach?
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Dad's feeling slightly better and generally brighter and even made it to church this morning. News from the Caribbean is that my nephew and his fiancee on Grand Cayman have survived Hurricane Ivan, although their home is now bobbing about somewhere in the Atlantic. And the bad family news is that my sister's mother-in--law who's always been a bit of a grandmother to me has been rushed into hospital and faces yet another urgent operation on her stomach. At about 92 and with Alzheimer's, she's going to have to be a tough cookie to survive this one. There again, we've said that before.
And back in the caravan the back room is now an ... er... interesting shade of purple. I've been to B&Q to buy a paler shade of paint in the hope of rectifying the situation tomorrow afternoon. Either that or provide sunglasses to the children working in there. We raided the storeroom in search of two decent tables to put in there and came away with a new desk for me and a new tray cabinet as well as furnishing the little room. Amazing what you can come by when you're on the scrounge :D
Now I need to think of a way to pass an hour and a half before I lead prayers in the CoF. Should I finish my paperwork for school or do the ironing?