Thanks to all who took part in the second Midge-bites & Candlelight tonight. Much more relaxed and more fun than last time — not least because the rector’s warden has figured out how to keep the rector calm. Congregation to friends & visitors ratio much improved. Sausage to Spaniel ratio not bad either.
(next time would someone please remind me to take pictures once it actually starts.)
I arrived home to find a note from Scottish Electric telling me that power would be cut off next Friday to enable tree maintenance. It began:
Dear Sir(s) or Madam,
Do you suppose they knew it was the piskie church?
Those of you who are familiar with the enneagram may remember the initial skepticism that comes when someone tells you that human nature can be described in terms of nine basic types. I was utterly convinced that my enigmatic friends wouldn’t yield to such descriptions — but of course, they did, and I relished the uncanny descriptions that made sense of so many mysteries.
Today, I have had a similar experience of skepticism shattering. Chris made a throw away comment after the eucharist about her new Wee Me avatar, and said they had the perfect hair for me. Surely not, I thought. There is no way that a mass market cartoon character is going to end up looking like long-skirted, dog-collared, untrendy me.
Well, I was wrong. It was Molly they couldn’t manage.
We haven’t had a poem for a while. So — following the apophatic dash– Adrienne Rich’s Love Poem (XIII):
The rules break like a thermometer,
quicksilver spills across the charted systems,
we’re out in a country that has no language
no laws, we’re chasing the raven and the wren
through the gorges unexplored since dawn
whatever we do together is pure invention
the maps they have us were out of date
by years…we’re driving through the desert
wondering if the water will hold out
the hallucinations turn to simple villages
the music on the radio comes clear —
neither Rosenkavalier nor Gotterdammerung
but a woman’s voice singing old songs
with new words, with a quiet bass, a flute
plucked and fingered by women outside the law.in The Dream of a Common Language
wonderful exchange 