Happy Easter to you all, and may in some small way in the coming weeks the experience of the resurrection become real to you.
I forgot to tell you last week of the resident who got a shock due to the clocks going forward. At about quarter to ten last Sunday a fox decided it would take its normal route to a safe eating place around the old Jessop's hospital, presuming that as previous Sundays at this time nobody would be around. It came around the front of the hire car I was using only to be faced with me less than two feet away trying to get in. It stopped in amazement for a few seconds before heading across the University car park opposite and under the fence to where the new practice rooms for the Music Department are.
The week has been busy but the rhythm has been different. Monday I had to be in for 9:00 as we had a Customers Services section away day. The department is split into three sections: technical services, business services and customer services. The lines of course blur in all sorts of ways but that is how the boss decided to structure it. The away day was, as those reading last week will have noted, called at short notice. There were deliberate absentee-ism from people who loathe these events. Then there was a personality test based on shapes, the actual work was produced by Susan Dellinger and I am surprised how good it was, given that all we had to do was pick a shape. The questionnaire on the website gives me a different answer but then it picks up the other part of my brain by using words. Intriguing I suspected that one guy and I would end up with opposite personalities, we often are on opposite sides with things. That was exactly what happened and not just that, whereas I did it before the guy was finished, he took a long time over it.
Then Monday to Friday at 7:00 pm there has been a service for the Herringthorpe congregation. Pauline held a half hour meditation service on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, Thursday was a Maundy Thursday service at Broom Methodists, and they came to the Good Friday service held at Herringthorpe. The services led by Pauline were fine, small attendance between 12 and 20 for the meditations and upto about fifty for the Good Friday service. She had bothered to prepare something and involved people in readings. The one at Broom was not. There were comments at the start by Herringthorpe people on the lack of turn out, which was blamed on the weather. However if the present minister has produced such poor quality services in past years I wonder if that has driven people away. Right my problems include that he decided to use hand washing, which might just be something ship of Fools has sensitised me to, but I also have chapped knuckles at present and do not want my hands washed more often than is necessary. Secondly he adapted the Methodist Maundy Thursday service which is both a foot washing and an eucharistic service. Now if he had done this properly I would have no objections but if you are not doing eucharist on Maundy Thursday it behoves you to remove the Eucharistic language in the service even if that does mean altering the prayers. Then he asked us to leave in silence the chapel and to wait until in the entrance hall to exchange greetings and hugs. I'm sorry, you have guest at this worship, the effect of that is to make them leave quickly so as not to observe the displays of affections of the hosts. Given than he also relied totally on himself to lead and did all the readings (Herringthorpe could easily have provided a reader from those that were there even at short notice). It felt ill prepared.
As a result of having these in the evening, I took the mornings off for the rest of the week. This gave me time to write up the evening services, and I did not have to spend the whole of Good Friday trying to recall what had happened the previous week. Instead I ended up having a fairly quiet day. The morning was spent largely doing nothing, well I slept to 11:00 a.m. so there was not much of the morning left once I had done this but the afternoon I managed to get to Waitrose. Indeed every morning has had its task as well as writing up: tuesday-meet Cliff to sort the sound system hum, Wednesday - go to Tescos as I was getting very short on a couple of things, Thursday - go to Carsons to get some scanning done (only the machine was broke so I could not) but I met Justyna there and learnt that she had got her PhD and been commended for the statistics.
Saturday was a day off, out of the business of life. I spent most of the time writing up a piece on Kirkmadrine for the Galloway Pilgrimage website Morag and I are slowly developing. A very small part of the site may go on line in may. If and this is the big if we can get the first set of webpages together. The next task is to try and get a walk written up as a walk. It can only be an example as really the only walk we have done so far is part of a much longer circular walk. We have the notes of the walk it is just that we have not done the entirety. There is at least another pilgrim site to add for that walk as well. I also put on a chicken, and catalan sausage casserole into the slow cooker. Unfortunately the temperature gauge has broken and I was not thinking too much so I left it on high while I went into town. It was not burnt but too much of the liquid had evaporated. I made the mistake of adding more stock instead of water and so the dish is slightly too salty for my liking.
Today I was back at Herringthorp for their Easter service. Pauline described the communion elements as pure symbols, I had to point out to her afterwards that there was no such thing as a "pure symbol" for a symbol to be a symbol it has to reference something else (normally bigger), to illustrate this I used the toilet symbols of man and woman, and pointed out they were only symbols, but very few men would walk through a door with the woman sign on it. The other way around is not as taboo, women are allowed in to clean and do other tasks! The only pure symbols there are, are those that have lost their association some of which are religious. I came home from there, ate lunch and slept for at least an hour and a half. Since then been pootering, writing this and chatting with my parents on the phone.
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