I hope when I die I am mourned more by the poor than by the rich.
I hope my coffin is carried by friends and not by soldiers.
I hope the clocks keep chiming for the world only spins forwards.
I hope that money is not wasted on my obsequies which could be better spent on doing good.
I hope that an Easter mass is celebrated not state-sanctioned pomp and pride.
Oh suppose the sleep over! The bible readings to read – the stories to tell! The living re-tellings it would invite.
And suppose the exhaustion on Easter Day… and Monday
Thanks Rosemary.
BTW, after you had finished polishing the eagle this morning and had gone, I discovered that we have a pelican.
The pelican has not been polished, however, Rosemary, none of us being quite that tall.
I do suspect I would like the all night vigil if we ever did it.
Where is the pelican??!! Up somewhere?? Oh, I would love to polish a pelican.
I’d love to sit up half the night reading aloud and telling stories – but I fear the exhaustion. But I would never, ever resist if invited. As long I was invited and allowed to read and tell stories. It could be so fabulous. Unique. Deep. Newsworthy. (and those are all the lures I have to throw.)
You do realise my first words are now liable to be not ‘alithos anesti’ but ‘where is the blessed pelican?’
I think that those of us who know where the Pelican is must keep our counsel and give Rosemary the pleasure of Pelican Spotting on Easter Day.
What treat could be more lovely?
Still pelican searching – it is tough on those N rather than S – if you see me with my monocular don’t laugh – oh. all right then, go on, do laugh!
Ooh, is it a Pelican in its Piety, which I gather was a popular Christ-symbol in medieval europe and also amongst the Larry Graysons?
Not only is she a Pelican in her Piety but I actually found that we have two.
I also found that it’s possible to Pelicans in their Piety right under Rosemary’s nose and she won’t necessarily see them.
Someone suggested to me a while ago that we should have an inventory of the flaura and fauna represented in the iconography of St Mary’s. I suspect such a task would be a revelation. There’s a badger, for example, which few see but me.
I am chronically unobservant – I notoriously fail to see things right under my nose. Last week I failed to see the pepper grater. It was upright on a table of less than two foot diameter. There was a table lamp, a plate and the pepper grater. I could not see it. It is sad on one whose speciality is religious architecture, isn’t it? But Low Sunday shall be find the pelican day.
Rosemary, I’d have nudged you in the right direction yesterday morning if I hadn’t rudely run off just as our conversation got to pelicans. (The pleasure of the hunt is all well and good, but it can get to the point of being an exercise in frustration.)
O Lord and Ruler of the House of Israel, who appeared to Moses in the flame of the burning bush and gave him the law on Sinai: come, and redeem us with outstretched arms. Amen. We have lost sight of the fact that ruling is a holy responsibility. For those who have decisions to make…
O Wisdom, who came from the mouth of the Most High, reaching from end to end and ordering all things mightily and sweetly: come, and teach us the way of prudence. O Wisdom, poor Wisdom, what a year you have had. How many times have you been snubbed this year? When prisoners are mistreated by…
1 Bringing an unloved altar from a dank room in Perthshire to Bridge of Allan.2 Photocopying (as though it were an Olympic event).3 Young Church Party.
Helen Percy has won her legal case, gaining the right, as a former Church of Scotland minister to challenge the way she left her post on the grounds of sex discrimination. As it happens I was at college with Helen, when she was famous in those days merely for keeping a pig and wearing the…
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