On-line Advent

We've seen a heartening increase in the number of parents with children at St Catherine's recently but this morning there were fewer, as there's a Christingle service at St John's this afternoon, booked to the full capacity allowed of eighty people. Now that's encouraging to know in these tough times! Mother Frances is on leave for the rest of this week, and has been busy attending to necessary details to cover in her absence - tiring in itself. She sent me a briefing email on safety protocols for church based funeral services, as I have my first one in St John's twelve days hence. 

Funerals directors must provide a list of mourners and contact numbers in their family groups who'll be attending, so that the verger can check them in on their arrival. I don't know if the same applies at crem funerals governed as they are by public health regulations. A list may need to be provided, but I've never seen a attendant checking mourners into the crem chapel. Some enter beforehand, others follow behind the coffin. 

Life is more complex when it comes to church services, as the dioceses are eager to impose strict safety conditions to minimise  contagion spread.  It's true that there are instances of funerals, weddings and other church services being 'superspreader' events before contagion dynamics were properly understood, and since then by groups wilfully, if not piously putting God to the test by denying the problem and ignoring the dangers, but these are the exception rather than the norm. 

Anglican traditional culture has long emphasised the importance of everything being done 'decently and in good order', despite the risk of seeming conventional and dull. Being a safe and stable foundation for communities of faith, innovating and adapting carefully, perhaps too slowly for the impulsive natured believer, has seen us weather centuries of harsh and hostile times of expansion and decline.

I'm surprised it's taken so long for church leaders to complain publicly about the government closure of churches during lock-down. It's in the interests of justice to demand evidence that stricter church service management regimes add to local contagion statistics, especially when churches actively support Track and Trace mechanisms properly with a steward signing worshippers into services. A one size fits all closure approach does nothing to help identify and sanction churches that don't comply. It is of course impossible to do anything to control the behaviour of worshippers once they have left church grounds where they are free to obey or break the rules and risk infection any way they want to, but it is vital that Parish congregations continue to act in an exemplary manner, for the common good.

Talking of church regulations, when I walked to the Cathedral straight after lunch today, I saw a notice displayed on the board outside about a petition for a Faculty (the church recognised equivalent to civil planning permission) to install cameras at four points in the Cathedral whose purpose will be to record or live stream worship services. Bravo, at last! This would have been beneficial earlier in the century, but video technology is so much more sophisticated, affordable and acceptable now that the pandemic forced so many more people throughout the world to rely on new technologies to communicate, socially, domestically, scientifically and economically. 

I remember meeting Fr Mark in the Cathedral one Sunday afternoon, and him talking about learning to record a Sunday Eucharist for on-line consumption during lock-down. What this revealed was the enthusiastic reception for the Cathedral's offering by a range of people, duty bound or housebound and unable to attend, plus extending the ability of ministry to reach out to a new audience ordinarily out of range. I hope we'll see this kind of initiative taken up at Parish level, the more affordable it becomes.

I got back from my walk early enough to listen to Evensong on Radio 3, except that it was an Advent procession of Carols  live from St John's College Cambridge, beautifully sung. In fact, as I was a couple of minutes late, I found the programme on BBC iPlayer on my Blackberry, rolled it back to the start, and listened with the phone plugged in to the dining room hi-fi. A lovely treat.

After supper, I accidentally came across a surprise music programme on Sky Arts, all about a London concert in 1985 by Rockabilly legend Carl Perkins and his band. He wrote and performed several songs which were huge hits for Elvis Presley, including 'Blue Suede Shoes'. The event seems to have been set up by South Walian rocker and music entrepreneur Dave Edmunds, brother of Ricky Dee who deejayed the parish discos at St Andrew's Penyrheol in the late sixties early seventies. Dave was there performing on stage as a guest star along with Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton and George Harrison. An amazing hour of music which took me back to my early teens and got me on my feet trying to sing along to lyrics half remembered, to fantastic live versions of songs unlike those on the '78 or '45 recordings of my youth. 

An unusual way to begin Advent indeed!