A small group of us had a planning meeting recently for the Palm Sunday Service of the Word – (non-Eucharistic service, mostly lay led except me). I was intrigued by this idea we (but mostly they) came up with and thought I’d share for the benefit of people like me who sit up late into the evening googling for service ideas.

It is quite a simple idea (and may have been done before, but I’m not intentionally stealing it from somewhere else). At the beginning of the service, we are all going to have palm branches to wave in accompaniment to shouting Hosanna. After the reading of the entrance into Jerusalem, the people will go up in small groups to the altar rail and lay down the palm branches. A short time of silent confession will be encouraged, before receiving the assurance of forgiveness (would be absolution if a priest was present), along with the traditional palm cross. The service will then move into the Passion narrative.

What do you think?

So, last time I blogged was the end of half term. A couple of busy weeks later and here we are. I’ve just got back from Mums and Tots (who knows where the apostrophes are meant to go in there?) group and have about half an hour before evening prayer. Rusk loves being around groups of other kids. Today there was only one big tumble, two sharing er incidents and one hand covered in orange ink from the rubber stamp set. Successful I think. There are a couple of new families there so a fairly full room. I do like that it counts as work for me. So many things I do for work I really enjoy.

I’m off on a training day on Wednesday – preparing for priesthood. Not quite sure what it is going to cover, but it should be interesting. It’ll be nice to have a reunion with all the people I was deaconed with last year. Our diocese is quite large and we don’t see each other very often. After that (and Lent group in the evening) on Thursday I’m going back to school for the day. I am doing a bit of work in school regularly with collective worship, but I wanted to get more of a feel for how the school day works, hence spending a day there.

Today the task is to get the bulk of the work for Sunday done. One sermon – to be used twice – and one all age talk. Mothering Sunday – should be able to find something to say for that. Tricky to know how to strike a balance between Mothering Sunday being a celebration and yet being a very painful experience for the bereaved or those who had bad experiences of mothers.

In other news, here is what I did for the Ravelympics, the knitters’ attempt to justify lots of sitting in front of winter sports:

They were completed by the end of the olympics and so I qualify for  medals:

The first one is the team medal for completing a project.

The second one is the event medal. I competed in Sock Hockey with some crochet socks. I also attempted the Lace Luge with a lace stole, but this will be a longer term project due to the faffiness of lace!

In case anyone was wondering, they aren’t meant to be a matching pair as far as colours go. Who said socks have to match anyway?

I’ve now moved on to making a scarf and am currently at the black hole stage of knitting, where you knit and knit and knit for an hour, yet the piece seems no longer. Ah well, it will pass eventually.

Back to the sermons I think.

So we are all off out to one of my churches for a party.

I have many happy memories of village pancake parties in my youth so I hope I can pass that on to some of the people here. One particular memory is the vicar walking round waving a frying pan in a rather menacing manner, trying to get people to enter the pancake-tossing competition. I shall attempt the same!

Lent-wise, I’m intending to read Maggi Dawn’s new book – Giving it up. I’ll let you know how I find it. Interesting discussion with my incumbent today about how to burn palm crosses to make ash.

In knitting news, I’m working on a stole (of the shawl type, not the clergy type) as my contribution to the knitting olympics on Ravelry. Slow going, but enjoyable.

Just popping my head over the parapet to affirm that there is life after the dissertation…

I always knew Advent was going to be busy in parochial ministry. Now I really KNOW it is busy.

That being said, I have a relatively clear day today. The Vicar and I are off to the local old people’s home this afternoon to bring seasonal cheer and the Sacrament, but after that (and evening prayer), I think I may have a free evening. Tomorrow we make the Christingles (with the help of the Brownies and Guides – eep!) and then Christmas Eve.

Christmas Eve is a bit of a marathon. Two of the Churches have joined together for their evening service, but that still leaves three ‘midnight’ services running from 8.30pm to 12.30am. The Christingle is at 4.30pm and may be the biggest service of the year. The puzzling thing round here is that people don’t want a Christmas morning service. We only have one Christmas Day service, at 9.30am and then that is it.

Advent has been lovely – watching the candles in the Advent rings light one by one, (I think we lit the pink one in the wrong week, but no-one seems to mind), going through advent reflections and services. The really jarring note has been all the Christmas services and concerts – I love Christmas carols and definitely value the integration with the community, but it is the mental effort to return to an advent frame of mind over and over again that is the struggle. It is sort of like – “He’s here” “No he’s not” “Yes, here again” “Still waiting for Him”. But then on a larger scale, I suppose that is what happens with every turn of the season. Bit different when it happens twice a day for a month.

What can we do as a Church? Do we give in and announce Christmas early? Put the twelve days of Christmas starting on the 14th? If we ban all Christmas carols and celebrations until after the 25th then it becomes difficult for people to see the joy of Christmas within all the ’stop that’. A previous incumbent here tried that approach and it did not go down well. There is part of me that wants to object that Christmas is ‘ours’ – it belongs to the Christians. In reality, of course, the midwinter feasting is probably older than Christianity, so the secular celebrations are as valid, if not more so. The only way that I can see to be Christian about it all is to join in, be glad that people still ask ‘the Church’ to be involved in celebrations and take the opportunity to share the good news. Waiting for Jesus is not meant to be easy.

I took a cursory glance into my baking cupboard before sending Mr F out to the supermarket this morning, but discovered later there were some key ingredients missing for making Nigella’s Chocolate Guinness Cake (very easy cake – from Feast). No Guinness and very little cocoa powder. Not to worry, I have improvised. Half a bottle of Old Peculiar replaced the Guinness then I replaced the dry weight of cocoa powder that was missing with extra flour, then grated in some dark Divine chocolate to add extra chocolate flavour. The cake is now cooling and I am drinking the other half of the OP to avoid wastage. It seems to be OK. I’ll keep you posted.

I’ve been tinkering with a post on the Roman Catholic announcement this week, but I think I’ve decided some things are better left unsaid. I will just have a quick link: Dave Walker (@davewalker) drew my attention to this article by Frank Skinner in the Times. Very interesting point of view. Go have a quick peruse.

The other thing going around the web today is the whole BNP – Question Time thing. I’m sure most things have been said but, having stayed up to watch it last night, I was left wondering at the use (overuse?) of one particular word: elite. The “politcal elite” was mentioned by the BNP leader more than a few times, meant in a derogatory way. What does it mean? Presumably those in the main political parties. Do you know what? I think I want the country to be run by the political elite – those who are best at it, those with the skill, experience and talent to sort things out. Inverse political snobbery perhaps on his part. There are of course many other reasons for not voting for them.

There is some irony in having spent an afternoon this week in a ‘caring for self’ session and then having a preliminary to-do list of 10 items that absolutely must be done today before it turns into the study day it is meant to be. This is of course because the time I would normally do a good many of these things was the afternoon I spent in that session. Ah well. It was a good session and I was reminded of much interesting and useful information (such as the benefits of setting aside time to study). Still a little frustrating.

In case you were wondering, blogging is not on the list of 10 things. I am doing that as a nice extra, since 5 of the 10 things are done or delegated.

Today would also be the day that my copy of the new Diana Gabaldon book, An Echo in the Bone, arrived. Despite not being published here until January, there was a deal with the UK publishers that if you pre-ordered a copy from Amazon or similar  and sent them your receipt, they would send an export copy at the same time that it was published in the US. There is absolutely no chance of getting to read it today (well maybe if I write 500 words of dissertation this afternoon I might read a chapter or two… or three).

So knitting – Daisy asked for a picture of the hat. This will be forthcoming in due course, as will a work in progress picture of my Strictly socks. Not socks to be worn while watching Strictly Come Dancing, but socks to be knit in the bits where you don’t actually need to watch it. With half an hour of Strictly It Takes Two to watch every weekday, as well as the weekend shows, these are growing nicely and the Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock is doing something very pretty and spirally with the colour variations.

While on the subject of Strictly, my favourite Strictly results site has moved to here: http://bit.ly/VhoCR. Why not go and have a look?

Update on No-Cake Month. One cake of pastoral necessity eaten and three biscuits (including one malted milk that I was tricked into eating). I think I might make it – only 4 days to go.

OK back to sorting out things for Church tomorrow. I have just ordered a book of intercessions that has emergency intercessions written for each Sunday, all tying into the lectionary Gospel reading. This will make last minute changes of plan and personnel easier to cope with, but will not help with the intercessions for Sunday evening since a) there are no more postal deliveries before then and b) I am not using the lectionary reading. Lord, in your mercy…

I was alerted to this post by a post on the Church Times Blog. The post is written by a C of E pioneer minister, but is relevant to those of us who do not have the pioneer label.

My sitting in the pub, sitting in the coffee shops, wandering around the High Street is not pioneering as I understand it. What I am doing is, I think, what the traditional parish priest used to do – which was to be in the community and be available…

…I am starting to wonder if the establishment as such also needs to give permission to parish clergy to be out in their communities and so making themselves available to the people.

I didn’t think the establishment was against parish clergy actually being in the parish. I think I had always assumed that it was part of the role. Indeed, at my welcoming service here, the incumbent asked me to exercise my role as a deacon particularly by bringing to the Church the needs of the parishes, by searching out the non-churchgoers and finding out what they are doing, their needs and concerns. It is, however, good to have a bit of a reminder. To be honest, I’m struggling a bit to figure out where to start (other than organised groups and activities). I think the Shiny Headed Prophet has a point – I need to find somewhere to go regularly, just to hang out. So where then?

In thinking about this, I’ve realised that there isn’t a cafe in any of the parishes, (except some distance from the village centres in tourist attractions), so nowhere for the locals to hang out and chat for a bit. Oh hang on, yes there is – the bakery has a counter with three chairs there. That is a possibility. Then there are the pubs. Maybe I just need to get over my aversion to sitting in pubs on my own – in my head it is fine for blokes to go to pubs on their own, but a little odd for girls.

A related note: when we are called to be full time ministers, we are called as ourselves. College doesn’t turn us into any stranger beings than we already were. If we were interested in gardening or art before, then we will probably find them useful in ministry. If not, then although we might end up doing a bit of gardening or art, there is probably some skill or enthusiasm that it is more obvious to use.

A question: what are my skills and where can they fit in the parishes? I’ll keep thinking.

Now as I understand it, the aim of a curate going on holiday is to maximize the time away, while minimizing the number of Sundays away (only allowed 4 per year). We tried out this theory, taking a Monday to Saturday the week following holiday. I fear that this may not be a sensible strategy in future.

I knew that all I was doing on the Sunday was leading the prayers at 2 services, but which two? Convinced it was the 8am and mid-morning services, I duly prepared them on Saturday evening, before checking my diary. D’oh – the mid-morning and the evening. Ah well, but the alarm clock still went off in time for the 8am.

Having an accidental pre-mid-morning snooze left little time for preparation for the mid-morning service. Result – standing in the Gospel procession, unable to remember whether to lead it back to the altar or reverse order and follow the others. (Turns out it was the latter – I of course chose the former). Not to worry – all these things are minor.

Come the end of the day, sitting down for tea at 5.45pm, something just niggled. Was I really sure that the service was at 6.30pm? Should I check? The first mouthful of lasagne teasing the taste buds, I reached for my diary for peace of mind. Nooooooooo. Church 3 miles away, service at 6pm. An hour later, I was back at home, finally eating lasagne – not a meal I recommend interrupting after one mouthful.

A bit of a blonde day.

On the plus side, turns out I won some champagne in the raffle that was drawn while I was away. I wonder how many raffle prizes it is polite to win? I wouldn’t want to become the family that everyone hates because they always win.

Before I went back to tag my previous post, I had a list of various things to post about, but they have now all escaped my mind. Here are some things I wasn’t going to post about, due to lack of interest.

• Raisins are a very good strategy for getting your toddler through the quiet bits of church
• My baby sling still works with Rusk, but climbing hills is not a trivial matter
• Does a toddler make a specified amount of noise per day? Having kept quiet in church, Rusk then shouted very loudly through lunch to make up for it
• For the liturgy geeks among you – spotted a rather clever use of the versicles and responses in mattins – using them as responses at the end of longer intercessions
• Every time I type something my sister (whose room I am using to avoid waking R) stirs in her sleep. Time for bed methinks

My task for the day is to get the bulk of my sermon for Sunday written. Having been for a brisk walk down to the cliff tops earlier, I now have various ideas milling around. The ideas seem to be resolving themselves into a theological reflection on flower festivals in the light of Sunday’s lectionary readings. I should probably tread quite carefully, since the dangers of annoying the flower arrangers in the first month of curacy are probably more than one might think.

My main question is: what are flower festivals for?

Celebration of creation?
Using gifts of the congregation?
Fundraiser?

I have various other answers to the question (some more cynical than others), but was wondering if you have any yourselves. Is the flower festival an international thing, or is it essentially a British institution? What do they involve? Do you like them? Have you discerned any theology behind them?