Wednesday, January 06, 2010

Happy New Pencil

Sean was driving home from a funeral in Southampton yesterday (his third over Christmas) and knew he'd struggle to get back in time for Zac's so he asked me to do 10 minutes on resolutions or something. I decided I'd adapt the pencil meditation from last Sunday in Linden.

It was a grim night so there weren't many of us at Zac's, which was probably just as well as it turned out.

Let me tell you it's one thing to talk about pencils in a quiet meditative atmosphere in a Sunday morning service full of the sort of people who go to Sunday morning services and quite another to talk about pencils in Zac's.

What with Steve trying to clean his ear with his pencil, Jonathan sniggering about rubbers and Ric muttering about having lead in his pencil, it wasn't exactly the contemplative event I'd hoped for.

But it was Zac's and it was great. What was especially brilliant was that April, one of the long-time rough sleepers, stayed with us and joined in and opened up very enthusiastically and honestly about her hopes for the new year. (God, you know what they are; please help her.)

But it'll be good to have Sean back next week!

6 comments:

Unknown said...

Yep. In the summer between my first and second years of seminary I pastored 2 yoked churches in southern Illinois. One building was huge, old, very dark (it had large stained-glass windows), with high ceiling,and a pulpit almost up to the ceiling German Evangelical congregation. (I had nightmares of falling down from that pulpit). It's congregation was small and elderly, all of whom sat in the last 4 pews leaving the front 21 empty.

The other building was a small, wooden structure, painted whit,e with many clear glass windows, and a pulpit on the level of the congregation, which was Presbyterian and much younger. They filled all of the pews. There were even adolescents who sat on the floor immediately in front of the pulpit.

To save me time, it was agreed that both congregations would use the same liturgy, although because of different hymnals, different hymns. Of course, I preached the same sermon at both.

Not surprisingly, the services at the huge German Evangelical church always seemed (to me) to come off as dark and a bit sad while the same services at the Presbyterian church were light and joyful. Of course, those two services were almost the same.

Anonymous said...

I must admit, I would have been one of the sniggery ones too lol. Happy New Year, sounds like a wonderful evening Liz.

NitWit1 said...

I admire your fortitude in that setting, trying to teach, or have a rational discussion.

I hope next week goes better.

Lia said...

Oh you are funny, I can just picture it all.
I'd be one of the ones at the back making silly comments and sniggering as well.
I hope April gets to fulfill her hopes and dreams.
Much love
Lia
xx

CherryPie said...

I didn't know pencils had so many uses...

Rose said...

You had a tough audience, to be sure, Liz, but I'm sure you reached some of them. Did they understand the point about "the dust of the rabbit"?:) I'm sorry, but that line struck me as so funny in your earlier post. If I were sitting in the meeting/congregation listening to one of your talks, I would be on the edge of my seat, making sure I didn't miss a bit of your wit. And I know I would be inspired by the message as well!