The Long Bright Tea-time of the Soul

It's a weird feeling for this time of a Sunday. Going down to the Moot House this morning for Pouring-out of Beakers, I found all the Beaker Folk fast asleep where I'd left them last night. When I told them to wake up, as we'd got an act of worship to perform, one of them mumbled something about "just another ten minutes Mum. And it's only R.E. first thing." So naturally I poured the beakers out over a few of them, and left them all to it.

But it's given me an odd kind of Sunday. Sure, I went off and meditated on the wind blowing the trees around - with so much less effect on them in their current, leafless state. The way trees lose their leaves before the Winter storms begin, you could almost believe in Design. But my sermon on "Mountain Top Experiences", complete with Powerpoint presentation, remains unprojected. Which is possibly just as well, as it mostly consisted of photos of people in woolly hats and warm coats, gazing hopelessly into thick fog and clinging onto cliff edges.

Yet not having preached today has left me feeling rather good. Sure, I've not enjoyed that buzz you get from rousing everybody's spirits. But on the other hand I'm not currently in that state of  spiritually coming-down that follows. For once, I'm not sat here having realised that everybody completely missed my point. I'm not recalling that I dropped an entire page of notes without anyone noticing. I'm not fretting that nobody's life was dramatically changed. I'm not panicking that all anyone said to me afterwards was "nice sermon, Archdruid."

In short, I'm not feeling washed-out and desolate, gazing out the window in a state of torpor and letting my coffee go cold.

I've just been for a walk, and recognised Drayton Parslow for the child of God that he is, instead of the menace to shipping that I normally regard him as. I asked him whether he ever feels deflated on Sunday afternoons. And he said yes, and he believed that, when that happens, it's because the Spirit, having spoken through him to others, has now left him to consider his own failings. An interesting thought. But I'll still put it down to a drop in adrenaline.

Still, the afternoon is sunny and clear, I've managed to get the ESPN licence renewed and, out in the kitchen garden, Beaker Folk refreshed after their long sleep are digging the beds ready for the early plantings. It's all bright till tea-time. What a refreshing Sunday this is.