I failed to communicate again.
‘We leave in silence’ is not a sufficient rubric for Maundy Thursday. It simply led to everyone stopping outside the church door to chat after the morning service.
Next year — ‘we disperse without speaking’ perhaps?
Or — ‘You are a frightened disciple. Flee.’
Since I’m sure you all have so much time to spare right now, I have a real question for you to play with in comments. And it is this:
How important is the crib/ crèche to you in worship and why?
And a subset of questions for those who can be bothered: does it matter to you where the crib is in the church? when does the Christ child ‘appear’ in your church, and does it happen when you think it should?
All this comes because a member of the congregation convinced me that I was wrong to try to move the crib away from the door. After several conversations, I realised that others seem to care more about the location of the crib than I do, but less about the timing of the ‘arrival’. So, we will compromise: their location, my timing, and a pile of booklets which won’t be quite right but that I haven’t the energy to fix.
Let us just relish the irony of the booklets needing to be changed the first ever time I got them done early…
There are clearly too many liturgies floating round my head right now. I found myself in a long queue at HMV, automatically half stepping to match the person in front when he set off on his left foot and I set off on my right.
wonderful exchange 