Inappropriate

This morning I stood in for Fr Dean Atkins, celebrating and preaching the Parish Mass at St Saviour's Splott. Dean is in the Holy Land this week. Over forty people were present, a fifth of them children. The church's central heating wasn't on, and I really admired the congregation's stoicism faced with adversity on this bright and frosty morning.

I was conscious this morning of taking my time as I prayed through the service. Although I know the words and moves off by heart, changing back from being on the receiving end i worship to leading it raises a different kind of awareness of what you're doing. You don't forget what to do, but it's not as semi-automatic an effort as it was when taking half a dozen services a week. In me this now evokes deliberation, reflection, pondering, savouring the precious moment - something that's easier when you're on the receiving end as a worshipper, which doesn't always fit with being an officiating minister.

Today will probably be the last time I'll celebrate or preach until well into the New Year. I think I'm starting to miss doing this regularly. Or maybe I just haven't found my feet spiritually speaking with the contemplative freedom I hungered for over many years and now have in retirement.

*****

Kath, Anto and Rhiannon came down yesterday afternoon for an overnight stay. I cooked a seafood paella for supper. Owain came and joined us, then reappeared for lunch again today, so that we could all travel to the Millennium Centre together for an afternoon performance of the hit musical 'Mamma Mia' - Kath and Anto's Christmas present to us all.

The auditorium was full and the performance superb, with the audience on their feet for the final few ensemble routines. A large number of children (mainly girls, to judge by the long queues for the loos) from five to fifteen were present with their parents. The plot and the manner of the performance was to my mind, a lot better suited to adults than to a family audience. The film was certainly less explicit in its expression of sexuality. It wouldn't have got past the censors in many countries and sold so well if it hadn't been so. 

It's not good enough to assert that most of this aspect the performance is lost on children, mostly caught up with the songs and dancing. The insensitivity of the production to the kind of audience it evidently attracts contributes to the on-going sexualisation of childhood - a disturbing feature of today's culture. 

Also if the same kids have heard every other sentence spoken on stage in the opening sequence contain the expletive 'bloody',what's the point in primary school teachers hauling children into the head's office for 'inappropriate' language in the classroom? OK, I know, it could have been much worse, and the children hear much worse in the street, if not on TV, but does this actually add any value to the performance, or the lives of the audience?