Imposition of Swatches

Dear Readers, I have had a stressful evening.

Some have accused the Christian Religion of becoming overly feminised. And I have always denied that accusation. After all, I say - look at the Revised Common Lectionary. Only a man thoroughly versed in the deciphering of old train timetables could have the faintest chance of understanding what reading should be used when the 3nd Sunday after Epiphany co-incides with Candlemas (or Imbolc, if you're Eileen) and the Sunday Next before Lent when Year A is a Leap Year. I suspect women, more used to being practical and just getting on with things rather than worrying about precision, would just pick one at random - or, if it were Eileen, the "nicest one".

But this evening, Eileen decided to "subvert Lent" by holding an "Imposition of Swatches". She wants to purchase new curtains for the Moot House, and has decided that she would do this by holding up each fabric in turn and asking the men of the Community what they think.

I thought, before attending, that it would be more free-form, with ad-hoc contributions from the floor. I had certainly not expected that we would each be expected to give a 30-second "thought" on the theological, moral and aesthetic reasons why we preferred one swatch to another. I also had not realised that, after each man had given his opinion, Eileen or Charlii would then explain why they were precisely wrong and the opposite was the truth to what he had said - even if the previous man had said the opposite.

This isn't behaviour I normally expect of Eileen. She normally goes for tie-dye in most domestic fabrics. Nor would I expect her to be backed up so vociferously by Charlii, who generally just seems to like khaki. I was going to accuse them, at the end of what turned out to be a very long meeting, of using psychological techniques to impose a feeling of hopelessness, frustration, fear, cognitive dissonance and melancholy - in other words, a suitable set of emotions for early Lent, in Eileen's world-view. And I was going to point out that I'd got them rumbled. But in the end I decided not to say anything - Eileen wouldn't have listened, she would have fired some more confusing questions at me, then she would have got angry, and finally daffodils. Gosh I'm feeling sad.