How are you? Its been a while.
What started as a blog of a non-pilgrimage has become a non-blog of a non-pilgrimage in recent weeks. To begin with, blogging as I would have done if I'd been on Sabbatical, seemed like a creative response to the world changed; making the best of a bad job. Eventually, however, the blog seemed to underline the Sabbatical that wasn't happening; salt in the wound rather than balm for the soul. Anyway, there are only so many different ways in which you can remark on the number of people you've seen wearing masks in the park.
Masks are definitely a thing now. I've bought some. I'm sure you'll agree that I looked tremendously handsome, and safe.
Yesterday we had our first act of public worship in All Saints in over three months. Fittingly, it was a baptism - a celebration of new life, new beginnings. At a couple of points in the liturgy, where distancing simply wasn't possible, I slipped on my mask and prayed through the fabric. It felt less odd than I'd expected, but still something I'll be happy not to get too used to.
In an odd coincidence, I realized that the last service held in church before we closed to the public was a funeral.
When I re-started writing this blog properly, I counted forward twelve weeks - the length of time that the Sabbatical was due to last. The final day would be July 12th; in another coincidence, that was the Sunday we'd planned to have our leaving service here; instead its the Sunday on which we'll upload a leaving service to YouTube. We'll lay this blog to rest on the 12th too.
The church has been open for private prayer for a couple of weeks; every hour or two I pop across the churchyard to see that everything's okay. Last week I met an older man in church who asked for food. We'd had a foodbank box in church, and after a bit of searching I found it; it contained a solitary box of cereal. Apologetically I gave the man the box; he ripped the lid off, tore open the bag inside, and hungrily began scooping the dry cereal into his mouth.
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