Late in december (but just before Christmas, I think) we realised that these snowdrops were showing white. This morning, as we were leaving for Church, we realised that they were in flower so took the above snap.
I'd been asked, by John Smith, our organist, who takes any services the new vicar can't do, to read the Old Testament lesson. It was from the 60th chapter of Isaiah (the first six verses). Part of it reads "darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people;" Later in the service, during the sermon, John asked whether anyone knew the difference between 'darkness' and 'gross darkness', and as there were no replies to this, John went on to tell us that gross darkness was one hundred and forty four times darker than darkness. After Ann had relayed this down my ear trumpet I spent the rest of the sermon giggling quietly to meself. After the service I told John that I always learn something from his sermons (this is true enough) and this time I'd learnt how to distinguish between darkness and gross darkness.
I should perhaps (in the new Vicar's defence) explain that he has five parishes to cover , so John also has to cover four out of five Sunday morning services. I don't think anyone really minds this because John's sermons are always fun.
Goodnight, everyone.
3 comments:
I like John's style, but question Isaiah's grasp of quantum electrodynamics. I suppose he is differentiating between the face of the Earth (singular) which one darkness could cover comfortably and the people (plural) who would need lots of darknesses since they wouldn't want to share anybody else's darkness in case they caught something nasty from it????
Our Rector before last always used to start his sermons with a joke. We always enjoyed it, whether we laughed or groaned.
Dear Z. Your ex-Rector sounds fun - which can't be said of all of them. Our new man at Aldham was a school Chaplain, so his jokes really do tend to be 'schoolboy' jokes, and are none the worse for that. They have to be watched out for though.
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