1 am

‘sunday funday’

I haven’t had a decent night’s sleep on a Saturday since I was ordained. I have mentioned this curiously localised insomnia to Father Julian, only to be met with a torrent of what I take to be innuendo: ‘Oh we all get pre-performance anxiety, dear’ he cackled. I asked Pippa whether she thought that this might be true, only to be told that it ‘wasn’t a very Gospel-orientated question’ and that ‘we’re not having the performance discussion again’.

Julian’s penchant for smut does worry me. Apparently, they learn it at the High Church theological colleges where they give each other feminised nicknames. I learnt that Julian’s was ‘Gloria’; recalling what little Latin I’d managed at my own, less ancient college, I asked if it was ‘Gloria as in mundi?’, only to be told, ‘no, as in hole, dear’.

I must confess my Latin wasn’t up to working out the joke. Anyway, in the fitful hours lying awake last night I managed a prayer for him, and the rest of the deanery. Hours is perhaps an exaggeration – but I certainly remembered them to God while the second episode of Narcos was buffering. After the third episode, I returned to bed to find Pippa’s earplugs and eyemask – a necessity if you insist on an 11pm bedtime in Stoke Newington on a Saturday evening – firmly in place, suggesting the malaise is a clerical one and stopping any chance of re-igniting a practical demonstration of the performance discussion. When we first met as trainees at PWC, we might manage moments of intimacy up to three whole times a week – now we might know one another (now that is Biblical language) monthly at best. In fairness, two out of those three times a week were on a Sunday afternoon, which, as a result of clerical insomnia, has now become sacrosanct as nap time. Maybe Father Julian is right and we did overstep things at the Reformation – celibacy doesn’t seem quite the intellectual stretch it once was.

After an hour or so of snatched sleep, I awoke from a terrifying dream about the Archbishop of York and checked my phone. 3.07 am. I decided to have a look at the St Ewold’s Instagram account, which I set up a couple of weeks ago in the hope that we might surf the wave of social media. There were thirteen (13) likes for my post of the churchwardens picking up hypodermic needles from the porch and a lengthy comment from Mrs Bikram, who had the app installed on her tablet by her granddaughter, which contained precisely no punctuation. While trying to decipher exactly what she meant, I noted that Devin, my friend from the Rectory Road coffee shop had added to his story. It was a video of him twirling in a circle with pulsating music in the background and the text ‘Sunday Funday’ over the top. If only he knew what my Sunday was like. I shall make sure to tell him next time I pop into his coffee place for a decaf latte.

8am

thou and thee

‘The body of our Lord Jesus, which was given for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life.’ I repeated it several times in the shower in preparation for the eight o’clock communion. The 1662 Book of Common Prayer, all thees and thous. When I arrived two months ago I put it at such an ungodly hour in the hope (God forgive me) that nobody would come and I could cancel it after a few weeks, giving me time of a morning to enjoy the radio, maybe even catch the start of Marr. No such luck. This morning it was the normal crowd of the elderly but doggedly alive, until at 7.59am, two men and a woman – all definitely under 30, one with dyed short hair snuck into the back of the side chapel.

Possibilities rushed through my mind. Extremists? Was I to be martyred while stuttering over a thine? No. I don’t think the mujahideen tend to wear clothing from Urban Outfitters. On a comedown? That’s definitely happened before. We all just thought he had a cold until he solemnly placed half a stale Subway sandwich on the collection plate and announced that he wasn’t hungry anymore. One of the Prayer Books still has the baptism pages stuck together from that poor lad’s runny nose.

Suddenly it clicked – they must be here for the Open Church service (a new imagining of church – based I must confess, on what I’d observed Matt do at Holy Trinity, Clapton, now known as GOD³ – set to launch at 8 PM). There it was – the blame laid squarely and justifiably at my door; three people were now going to be lost to the Gospel because my (admittedly very well designed) Instagram post earlier this week had simply said ‘8’, causing these poor young would-be disciples to get out of bed for nothing.

With only a minute ’til the service started, I didn’t have much longer to ponder, but it played on my mind throughout. So much so, that when I came to give communion to Mrs Hamilton, a lady of impeccable morals who came here on the Windrush and knows the Prayer Book inside out, I stumbled and said ‘preserve thy soddy and bowl’. That’ll be another will changed I should imagine. Leaving the ladies to their tidying up, I bounded over to the three and spoke without pause for 30 seconds.