Phew

That's Christmas over at Swanvale Halt. We got in roughly the same numbers as last year: over 300 at the Crib Service, 100 at the Midnight Mass, a dozen at 8 this morning, and 90 at 10am. We had a spot of smoke at the Midnight, and most people remarked how sweet and unsmoky the perfume was (because I used the Orthodox stuff from the abbey not far away). But I was more worried about stopping the cope I was persuaded to wear for the first part of the service from slipping away. Off-the-shoulder vestments are so inelegant.

Apparently at Hornington next door they employed incense as well; the celebrant, much to his surprise, was censed with a total of 27 swings of the censer, nine in front, and nine to either side. I thought six (three 'doubles') was the standard. There'll be none of that high-church nonsense for Swanvale Halt, obviously.

I was exhausted, but had agreed to help at the Christmas Lunch for the Otherwise Alone at Hornington, in the capacity of nosh-wallah and dishwasher, under the impression that all the local clergy turn out for this ecumenical effort. 'Oh yes', one of the older hands informed me yesterday, 'All the new incumbents think that, and then discover that nobody else is there at all'. Then when I arrived I was assigned not to the kitchen but to a table instead: facing another three hours of social interaction, of trying to think of things to say, of performance on top of all the performance of the previous day, week in fact, and not quite four hours' sleep. I locked myself in the lavatory to cry for a minute, and then gritted my teeth and got on with it. You might expect the outcome to be that I enjoyed myself after all, but it wouldn't be true. I only hope Jesus is grateful, because I'm not doing it for any other reason.

At college my S.D. thought it was a good sign that when I needed to scream I went to the Chapel. And this Christmas Day my response was to go to the church and say Evening Prayer, very early. At a toddlers' service a week ago I got the families to write prayers on paper stars, after we'd all told my old bear, Tedwin, the Christmas story. So I sat with the prayer stars, prayed through them and burned them one by one, until I came across the star that read, obviously an adult writing for a child, 'That Tedwin goes to the Angel's house'. I am fond of Tedwin, and was more than touched that a child decided to pray for him - though I'm not completely sure what the angel's house is. This isn't the first time a childish act of kindness has shot through just at the darkest moment.