Shifting Sands

I haven't said much lately although there has been a considerable change in the parish with the departure of our curate to her new charge in the Diocese of Norwich. Of course there was a big farewell service on Sunday and the traditional party afterwards. I only hope the vestment carrying case we bought her from Vanpoulles is worth the extraordinary amount they charged for it! If you bought your tat from Vanpoulles as well, the vestments would be worth rather less than the case you put them in ...
This ought to mark a huge change in my life in the parish, not only, or even primarily, because I will now have a lot less slack in my schedule and will have to be rather more determined and efficient (not something that comes very easily!). I'm certain it will be difficult not to have a colleague to work with on an equal basis (Mrs Curate was rather older and more experienced than me, and had been in the parish for nearly two years when I arrived, so it was never a normal training incumbent-curate relationship), but how that actually plays out isn't clear yet. I'm most concerned at the moment with not letting the saying of the Office decline into a cursory observance rather than a proper spiritual discipline and offering as it was when either she was leading it for us, or I was and having to batter my thoughts into some coherent form in order to pray.