I've been accused of trampling on the memory of the dead, sacrilege and profaning the Holy Things.
It's a strange story. When we set up the Beaker Folk, we inherited - for want of a better word - some stuff from the Extremely Primitive Methodists of Eversholt, whose chapel had just closed. These included a Bible; the Sermons of John Wesley; a pulpit carved in the shape of a pulpit; and a brass plaque regretting the return of the Minister's son from the First World War. He was a right Romeo, by all accounts - went off to the Somme leaving behind seven broken hearts and came back to a similar number of toddlers.
We also inherited some ornamental brassware, which we use for ceremonial practises the Methodists would never have dreamed; a Sunday-school picture of Jesus as a blond, blue-eyed lad in a nightie surrounded by bunnies; some of those baize collection pockets (which we stuck on bamboo canes, and use in our Roller-Quidditch games in the summer; some Beryl crockery (natch) and an old Thermos flask, which they used to carry hot water from the Manse out to the chapel for baptisms. The Extremely Primitive Methodists were a very conservative sect, and rejected all modern conveniences in their worship, including hot water in the vestry. They were a pious bunch, always digging holes to serve as the church toilets.
Anyway, the Thermos flask sprang a leak last week, as old things do, so I threw it away. Stella's absolutely livid. But in my defence - how was I to know her grandmother donated that Thermos in memory of her own grandmother, in 1967?
Do you do confessions?
ReplyDeleteSometime back at the beginning of the last century someone rearranged our Restoration pews getting rid of the extras by means of a sledgehammer. As the remains were church property they were stashed out of sight under the back pews for the best part of a century. Last week I bought a 17th c. coffer in an auction and my husband has been repairing it using some old oak he just happened to find lying around........
We don't do sin and confessions. We do "reconciliation". So as long as you can reconcile yourself to stealing the church timber, I'm sure it's fine. Do you not have a wood-burning stove?
DeleteWent to a concert recently in a building shared by URC and CofE. Coffee was served in RHS fruits of england china mugs and tea in.....Beryl.
ReplyDeleteSomehow, tea just tastes more Protestant in a nice beryl cup.
DeleteOf course we've got a wood burning stove. (Alas, the church hasn't.) I amuse American pen-friends by saying that I stand in the chimney to cook. And yes, the evidence has been disposed of.
ReplyDelete