Joyful and sometimes scary!

Easter morning! And Christ is risen. I woke full of joy and also full of memories. The one that made me weep appeared unbidden in the stream of consciousness. The first anniversary of my husband's death fell on Easter Sunday. I had put lilies on the altar at Gerrans the day before but walking into the small beautiful church and smelling the fragrance and seeing all the flowers made me burst into tears. Just as well I hadn't been ordained at that point. I could sniffle quietly, unobserved.
The first two Easters after my priesting were terrifying. There was so much to remember! The joy carried me through relatively unscathed.
The really scary one was during the interregnum at St Just in Roseland. I had already done another mass and got there just in time to robe and get on with it.
When the moment came to climb up into the pulpit I looked down and there sitting right in front of me was Jeremy Paxman. My mind went into overdrive! Had I put anything controversial in the sermon? Too late to worry now I thought and off I went. I need not have worried. His face relaxed. He laughed at my jokes and was very kind afterwards. But it was a bad moment for an Easter day. He joined in the egg hunt afterwards!
We get a lot of noteworthy people at our little church here, standing on the banks of a creek so it was a pleasure to take the eight o clock service this morning as the creek was filling with water and thankfully there were no stern critics present. It looked and smelled wonderful, full of flowers with sun streaming through the stained glass. thank you God.



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