• Sermon preached on 15 July 2012

    A few months ago, I decided to have my kitchen decorated. As many of you know, I don’t live in a church property – I live in my own flat. So it was the first time that I got to make all the decisions and all the mistakes for myself without having to negotiate with a church committee about it.

    Quite often it is difficult to get church property committees to agree to anything terribly exciting as there is always the thought in mind that one day someone else will come along and the consequent presumption that it would be better to have a colour that can be foisted on someone else rather than have a room redecorated for them.

    I remember a priest friend I knew who retired and said his hobby was going to be painting his retirement home in garish colours. After all, he said, he’d lived with (more…)

2 responses to “Carmen from the wings”

  1. Elizabeth Avatar
    Elizabeth

    A week already? Bother. Saw the notification, meant to listen/watch all week. Haven’t. Sigh. (previous five sentences describe phd-student life generally, I suspect, lack of grammar included).

  2. Rev Ruth Avatar

    Imagine if our little flocks could see behind the scenes at church on a Sunday morning. Would they be surprised to see the thurifer on his/her knees blowing frantically on the charcoal, swinging the thurible through 360 degrees to get it going? Would they be surprised to see the MC rummaging through the pile of paper looking for that Collect which has just been asked for? Would they be surprised to see the Altar Servers giggling and larking around before processing out sedately?

    These things are best left unseen too, I suspect.

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