On this day in 1980, the ASB was born.
An exercise in the elimination of poetry, the ASB encapsulated modernity. That is, it was well-meaning but ugly, and soon obsolete.
We in the Alternative Service Book Society have the following Rule:
1. To use the ASB once a month, so we remember why we shouldn't.
2. To turn Anglican members of the ASBS in to the police, to remind them why religious establishment is a bad idea.
3. To wish it was still 1967.
4. To regret allowing that Anglo-Catholic Eucharistic Prayer in. It only encouraged them.
The Alternative Service Book Society (a sod-all-ity) meets fortnightly in a brutalist cubic church made from asbestos sheets and reinforced concrete, in the outskirts of Harlow.
We have no idea why.
It only gets us down.
I actually bought my own copy of the ASB. God knows why.
ReplyDeleteI asked for the Series 3 booklets as a school prize winning gift. Mea culpa! (And indeed bought myself a copy of the NEB (with 'apocrypha').
ReplyDeleteSeries 2 though; now there was an order for Holy Communion!
A pity not to call it the Alternative Service Book Organization. ASBO has a certain ring, doesn't it?
ReplyDelete