Making much of my Sundays

My church, a community

My church, the cathedral in my city, serves as a community where I find fellowship and friendship. While I have been a steward, I have not resumed that function since I went for treatment, my energy levels are much better now, not at the stage where I could be an effective steward.

The more public activity is when one does one of the readings, the last time I was scheduled to do the reading, in December, I had to give up my place as I was going to be away in Cape Town.

The first version of the rota published a few weeks ago had me scheduled to read the only reading for Palm Sunday, I carried that in my bosom until I reviewed the updated rota, a more prominent person had supplanted me.

At church with improvements

Whether I had my natural voice back or not, I was determined that I would attend whatever readings I was scheduled for with electronic amplification for my frail voice. Each service I attend shows some improvements, such as not needing to use the conveniences until after the service or being able to fully participate in the standing parts of the sung eucharist.

The more obvious one is that I can walk the distance from home to church and back, whereas before I travelled, I needed assistance because I lacked the strength to do so.

The other Sunday, I arrived as the processional hymn was being sung, it is quite unusual for me to arrive late to church so I sat in a different place close to the children’s corner. What I racket they made; it was impossible to concentrate. Then last week, the Racial Justice Sunday had York visiting, I sat in the same row as his wife and the dean’s spouse. As in the Archbishop of York.

How things are developing

The row behind us as a child and his parents, they chuntered through the whole service, my backward glances did nothing to moderate the disturbance. The same garrulous troupe was there today, I do not know what informed them to move towards the more adequate children’s section before the service commenced.

One of the hymns had quite a discordant tune. I could not follow it until the fourth verse, and it was still a struggle. I sing all alright, but I do lag in the recitations and singing, too. In the end, I plumped for the decaffeinated coffee. Since decaffeinated tea is rarely available, I had to get on a bus for a 30-minute ride to a big supermarket to replenish my stock of decaffeinated Earl Grey tea.

The last Village Church service I met in the middle of the homily, my nap ended a few minutes before the start, and just as I thought of taking a rain check, I got a message from a friend asking if I was attending. I dressed up and rushed out; it was just around the corner from my place.

The Lord’s Prayer in Yoruba, I wrote that out this morning with all the essential diacritical marks, it is what I recite when it comes to the time for prayer. I might be doing that on a recording of it for a week of the recitations of the Lord’s Prayer in other languages at a church event in May.

Church is a community I enjoy.

Àdúrà Olúwa

Baba wa tí ńbẹ ní ọ̀run,
Kí á bọ̀wọ̀ fún orúkọ rẹ,
Kí ìjọba ìrẹ dé,
Ìfẹ̀ẹ tìrẹ ni kí á ṣe ní aiyé,
Bí wọ́n ti ńṣe ní ọ̀run,
Fún wa l'óúnjẹ òjọ́ wa l'óòní,
Dárí ẹ̀ṣẹ̀ wa jì wá,
Bí a tí ń dárí ẹ̀ṣẹ̀ ji àwọn tí ó ṣẹ̀ wá,
Má fà wá sínú ìdánwò,
Ṣùgbón gbà wá lọ́wọ́ bìlísì,
Nítorí ìjọba ni tìrẹ, agbára ni tìrẹ, ògo ni tìrẹ,
Láí Láí,
Àmín.

Knowing not to be confident in your incompetence

So, you think you are good?

When you think about it and discretion prevents you from speaking the truth just to spare their blushes or a feeling of despondency, many people are not as good at what they think they are good at. Aspects of expression or demonstration that they deploy can be so bad that if you do not have the form of words of a gentle let down, you endure the spectacle and move on.

Talk about dancing and everyone has a way they believe they can move to the music and too many of us do think we are good dancers with dare I say, a sense of rhythm, but when observed by someone else that has an idea of what dancing is about, they probably would not shove you off the dancefloor, even if what they are observing might haunt them thereafter.

In confidence, we perform

This kind of thinking comes with a sense of bravado or even confidence, but confidence is not expertise even as expertise might well exude confidence. Like when a colleague demonstrated a scenario to Microsoft to refocus our minds on what we were trying to resolve, I was more than impressed by the clarity of expression, the detail of the process, and the explanation of the issue that no one could be in any doubt about what we wanted doing. This man is good, I thought, he knows what he is doing, and he is doing it well.

Then I think of certain other situations like when someone was approached in a sauna by a quite self-assured masseuse, or so they thought, then whatever informed the person to take the offer I cannot tell, but from the first touch, as was narrated to me, there was nothing in the realm of all possible massage techniques in what they did, the hands were rough and might well have been attuned to masonry or at a smithery, but not on any human body, a polite and abrupt stop was called for.

If I were in that situation and that person could read my mind, and I am glad my mind is not such an open book when it should be, the person would have sought therapy at the ready excoriation that could have proceeded from my lips, and that would have been tempered with structure and consideration because my sobriety to a large extent bridles my tongue.

The conceit of stupid

It leads me to another aspect of confidence which is in fact, folly, and this is of people who use their phones whilst in control of a vehicle or when walking in a crowded area. Too many think they can concentrate on one thing while doing another.

Whether it is writing or reading messages on a phone, or listening to and participating in a conversation, these are serious distractions from driving and walking through a crowd that requires high levels of concentration and spatial awareness these other activities divide your concentration and might consequentially make you bad at all the activities, even if excellence could be demonstrated in your doing one activity at any one time.

I prefer to concentrate

Maybe people are good at multitasking, or they believe they are, I would rather time slice, apportioning time to one activity and then the next, frequently reviewing what I am doing and gauging the progress, keeping tabs on how much is accomplished for each of the things being done. I prefer to concentrate and that is why when I am out and about, I would only take calls on my phone if I have found a place to sit down.

On my walks too, I see a lot of people with their headphones or earbuds on, music going into their ears at volumes that exclude externalities they will encounter whilst jogging. As I have seen too many inconsiderate road users, drivers, cyclists, those on e-scooters and even plain pedestrians totally unaware of who is around them or what is happening around them, accidents happen.

I stopped wearing headphones and listening to music whilst out walking a long time ago, because I needed to know, see, and hear what was going on around me for my own safety and in consideration of others.

In a world of the world

Even when riding bicycles in The Netherlands, I only had an earpiece in one ear, for the same reason that I wanted to know what was happening around me. You cannot just feel you are in a world of your own when you are out in the world.

We all have mutual public space responsibilities to prevent walking into each other along with preventing other mishaps. I commend those who have amazing abilities, but I would err on the side of caution, when I see overconfidence, that person is probably prone to error and invariably puts us all at risk. 

We should get better at what we claim to be able to do, but also understand the limits of our abilities, however, more pertinently, seeking to impress when what you do is hardly impressive, neither helps you nor the others you are trying to impress. In jocular or informal and private settings, maybe, but otherwise, in public, formal, professional, or serious situations where lives and much else could be impacted, curtail and curb your enthusiasm.