Two by Two

This week's post is a bit personal.  I apologise for that; if you don't like personal, feel free to walk away for now and come back next week.

This week's post is a bit religious.  I apologise for that; if you don't like religious, feel free to walk away for now and come back next week.

Now, for those of you who are left, let me reminisce a little.  This week has included sunshine and daffodils.  Somehow they go together and, in my mind, they also go along with Holy Week and Easter.  I was reminded on Monday evening of a particular Holy Week; it must have been thirty-three years ago.  Gosh! - that's half a lifetime away!

First, a bit of background.  Our vicars, a husband-and-wife team, look after two churches and have sought to get us, different as we are, to co-operate and work with each other.  Apart from being good for us, it also makes the vicars' lives a bit easier if we know what's going on down the road and are willing from time to time to join together with things.  Each of the churches has two Readers - lay ministers if you prefer that expression - who take a regular part in the worship as well as other pastoral duties.

During the first three days of Holy Week, it's the custom in many churches to hold short services each evening, and in our own churches here it seems to be a tradition that these services are led by the Readers, with two of them held in our church and one at the smaller medieval church in the village.  On Monday evening, the man who was leading our service had persuaded his wife to read the Bible verses that formed the focus of his talk and the meditations of us all.  I was reminded of two situations all those years ago when I served as a Reader in the village where I then lived.

I had been licensed almost two years at the time, and my colleague a year less.  Suddenly that January we found ourselves without a priest, and we quickly learned - with the willing help of the Rural Dean - what we could and couldn't do for ourselves, and what could and could not be expected of us, I having a full-time job and a young family and he being retired and not enjoying the best of health.  We decided that Easter that we would follow that pattern of short services each evening.  It was a new venture, not only for us but for that church as well, and we were surprised and pleased by the level of interest that resulted.

As part of that same exercise of memory this week, I recalled another event from those times.  My friend and I had decided that, given our respective skills and availability, he would focus on pastoral work, and I on administration.  As part of these responsibilities, I arranged for one of a team of organists to be present for each service.  One summer evening no organist was available and I was left with a stark choice: either we attempt to sing all the hymns and psalms unaccompanied - no mean feat for the small congregation that we expected - or we opt for a said service, which would leave the majority somewhat deflated.  I hit on a third alternative.

Although she attended a church of a different denomination, my wife was an accomplished musician and regularly played the organ there.  I decided to ask her if, on this one occasion, she would play for us.  She was reluctant because of being unfamiliar with the instrument, and even more so because of the musical styles that weren't part of her own tradition but, seeing the need, she allowed herself to be persuaded.

This recollection set me thinking about relationships and the reciprocal duties of husband and wife ... a topic that has been no stranger to my contemplations in recent years.  I saw before me the willingness of a wife to join her husband in leading worship (later in the week I saw the opposite situation, too, when a husband performed the same service for his wife, the other Reader in our church), and I recalled a wife who had agreed to co-operate with me in a similar way.  I found myself wondering whether co-operation would have been so forthcoming had the roles been reversed.  I realised that a lot more would have depended on whether I would, personally, have enjoyed the task than on any feeling of duty to my wife.  In the possibility, however unlikely, that she will be reading this, I have to say now, in respect of all such occasions, "Maria, I'm sorry!"

The more I dig into this, the deeper the hole I feel trapped in.  There have been so many areas of life where I've been unintentionally selfish - not through a specific desire for personal gain, but simply through lack of thought for another party - and I put this down to being an only child.  In my formative years, there was never another individual to be considered; if I couldn't have something, it wasn't because someone else was getting it, it was a matter between me and the provider - usually my parents - and either I could persuade them by argument or tantrum ... or I couldn't.  There was no question of compromise or sharing with a sibling.  It's a shortcoming that has caused me some difficulty in adult life, but one I've had to live with, and even now am still learning to deal with.

Confession is good for the soul, they say, and traditionally it's specially called for at Easter.  So my wish for all my readers, but especially for my siblingless readers, is, "A Happy Easter to one and all."

Back to normal next week ... and it looks like being a busy one!