Scratch

Here you will find older scratches, musings and other detritus that once were located on the front pages, but have now faded.

Filed away here to collect dust and cobwwwebs in perpetuity, links may break, facts may change and data may corrupt.

On occasion I may come down here to tidy, but for the most, I prefer to leave the past where it lies.

 

A Godly Con

Given I have a mainly agnostic view of religion, churches aren't places I often find myself. True, the buildings themselves I find amazing, hence why there are often so many photos of them when I come back from holiday, but the actual practising of religion I find somewhat, whats the word, sinister. This would be one of the reasons why I have never attended Catholic mass.

Well, until yesterday.

Now I wish to point out that it wasn't actually of my volition, more like circumstances beyond my control and before I realised what was happening it was too late. At 5am we got up in the pissing rain to traipse across London on a patchy mass transit system get to Leigh on Sea in time for a 9.30am Christening. Ironically, even with buses, the first Tube and a modicum of walking before we even got to Fenchurch Street, we somehow managed to be early and get the train ahead of the one aimed for, and ended up being in the aptly named Leigh-on-Sea at 8:15.

A further traipse but this time accompanied by not only the rain, but the wind whipping in from the sea, we managed to find a small bagel cafe to kill some time and prevent us from getting wetter, if that was possible. A few coffees and a bacon and cheese bagel and I was ready to face a Christening.

Walking in through the doors, we were greeted by the parents and child, and as we took our seats, there was a nagging doubt in my mind that something wasn't right. Whilst, there seemed to be a higher proportion of silver hair than I would have expected, I put this down to lots of elderly relatives. Everyone seemed to have kids of varying ages (except us) but it was a Christening so that was expected. Then it struck me, well not literally, hanging upon every cross, was Jesus in all his suffering. Although my thought processes geared up, I couldn't see this as being too much of a problem, afterall, a Catholic baptism couldn't be that different from other Christenings I had attended. Although as a related note, it was a bit strange that baby #2 was to be baptised when baby #1 got a naming ceremony, but thats by the by.

Of course, what I hadn't considered was that on the day of Pentecost, in a Catholic church, that the baptism wasn't going to be an exclusive thing, and Sunday Mass would be proceeding as normal. And to be fair, I wasn't wrong. Now, all credit to the priest for his ability to talk/sing/chant over the constantly crying babies and children for the entire hour and a half, although I think he only had himself to blame as the incense didn't help, nor did the uneartly chanting. Or the subject matter of death and dying. But hey, everyones a critic.

Given that I/we hadn't been to mass before, I think we coped well, with the only problem being that the 34 page service guide, was more akin to a Fighting Fantasy Gamebook with its 'if there is a baptism please go to page 18, if not continue to page 24' rules. The only particular points of note, were we obviously had a sinful aura that was immeadiately discernable to all practising Catholics and this was evident for several reasons. First, noone sat next to us. Secondly, the priest kept looking at me (although to be fair I did forget to shave, which was probably symptomatic of my sinful life). Thirdly, and this might be just my paranoia, but I am sure my hands were smoking when I was cluthcing the hymnbook. Lastly, and this probably compounded it, that we didn't get up for Communion, and the benches around us were deserted, even the tumbleweed seemed to shy away from us. Occasionally, people would glance at 'the heathens' on their way back, with righteous indignation, which was oddly warming. The only other bit of note was the requirement to 'exchange signs of peace', where everyone suddenly turning and began shaking hands with other people. That was particularly interesting as random strangers walked up and limply shook my hand. I did wonder whether we had to shake hands with everyone else in the church and whether there was someone keeping tabs, but luckily not.

With the event over, we bid ourfarewells, headed out into the rain and returned to London for the other important event of the day, getting plastered in Soho.

28 May 2007 10:34 | (1) comment | Things | Thoughts

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