Thanks to Danwell for leading this afternoon's Worship in the Etruscan Style. In case we ever make the mistake of doing it again, some learnings I feel we should take from the event.
Yes, the Etruscans were from Etruria. That's not the suburb of Stoke. And even if it were, welcoming everyone in an attempted Brummie accent was not "sensitive to context." People from Stoke are not Brummies. They're more like Mancs, if you ask me.
The 'Etruscan Hymn Book' was very creative. But the Etruscans didn't use cuneiform as far as I'm aware. That was the Sumerians.
Even if the Etruscans had used cuneiform, that wasn't cuneiform. It was a load of triangular marks made by poking a stick in lumps of clay.
Lumps of clay that were still wet.
Lumps of wet clay that were dug out of the brook. It was filthy.
The sermon was not in "authentic ancient Etruscan." It was kind of Dutch. The kind of Dutch you might rip off Duolingo. I think I recognised the phrase "an important duck" at one point.
When a riot breaks out during an act of worship involving lumps of wet clay, a golf umbrella is a good idea. Once they've run out of clay, you can hit people with it.
Other than that, yeah - pretty authentic.
Sounds more exciting than the usual family service. Mind you if they dug mud out of our church garden, they might be mixed with human ashes that are interred there. Commmunng with ancestors takes on a whole new meaning.
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