Anno Domini nostri Jesu Christi 2023-24

A course not corrected

I find it interesting that my blogging process has still not changed 20 years and a month since I started a blog. The last blog I wrote started on a different premise, I was thinking of writing about how the last year ended and the new began.

Then I guess rather than adopt a course correction based on original intent, I usually allow the organic flow to whatever reach and extent that blog veers to as I write. If this were a professional rather than a personal blog, I might need a bit more discipline by keeping my writing within the confines of the topic of my intent, yet the freeform has its uses.

It is like where would the mind take you to where imagination and imagery is given free rein, untrammelled by style, use, or expression? That is where Brian would suggest that some blogs I have written have sprung from just one word said in passing, the seed from which paragraphs and blogs become a harvest to publish.

Christmas and anniversaries

The highlight of Christmas Day was in the Sung Eucharist at Manchester Cathedral, which was televised and broadcast live, my seat inadvertently secured by the chief steward eventually gave me a bit of prominence at the gospel reading and at other times. To that, I can only say that since I have begun volunteering as a church steward, I have been more blessed in serving than I could have imagined. [BBC iPlayer: Christmas Morning Service from Manchester Cathedral]

It was quiet and reflective though made memorable by the insistence of my neighbours who persuaded me to join them for a late evening of festivities. Brian and I marked the 5^th anniversary of my relationship in the same week as I began to think of what I needed to do to usher in the New Year.

However, there was another Sunday to face where I was scheduled to give the first reading at church, the Sunday falling on New Year’s Eve. I was given a reading from the Book of Isaiah to review only to find out as I checked the lectern before the service that the reading had been changed to a New Testament reading from Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians. The passage was familiar enough, I only had to deal with the dread of hearing my voice amplified. Apparently, the cadence and my voice were good.

An elderly fellowship into 2024

Having received a text message from a charismatic church I attended in the summer; usually an evening service rather than the main one, they were having a New Year’s Eve service to see in the New Year and without priced tickets too.

I must have been the only guest in the congregation as everyone else seemed to know each other. I was welcomed by many and held in conversation with some who took more than a cursory interest. I was also acknowledged as an elder, I guess I have not helped my youthful cause by the use of a walking cane, though my facial features might belie some passage of time.

We had a diverse buffet before the praise, worship, and prayer session ushering in the year 2024. It was a blessing to find such a company of saints to fellowship with. 2024 has begun in earnest and before us is the opportunity to write new stories.

Celebrating 75 Years of the NHS

A steward at the table

I was being wooed and propositioned in an unrelenting recruitment drive to become a church steward for over a year. It was last weekend that I had a baptism of fire as it were. It was a weekend of ordinations of priests and deacons known as the Petertide in the Anglican Church calendar.

With a church brimming with high clergy, the ordinands, well-wishers, and visitors, I was to collect the offertory from a section of the seating in the church and then direct congregants to a communion station away from the altar. It was managed even if a bit chaotic.

Though these assignments were out of rota, I had volunteered as more hands were needed than what was required for regular church services. Today, I presented myself to steward the service of Thanksgiving for 75 Years of the NHS.

The programme pamphlet for the service celebrating 75 Years of the NHS.

Attending to attendees

As there was no offertory or communion, this was a civic service, and it became apparent that we needed fewer stewards. There were a few things to do, including putting inserts in the programme pamphlet that required attendees to write a reflection about the role of the NHS.

After that, I stood with fellow stewards at the door to hand out the pamphlet to arrivals for the service informing them of the insert for their reflections. It was not a crowded gathering, and it did seem we had a fair share of NHS chaplains attending, we all might have felt out of place and of sorts without a dog collar.

The service began

Just before the start of the service, Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester arrived, I handed him the programme and informed him of the insert, he was smiling, engaging, and appreciative before the Canon Pastor led him to his seat and the service began.

There was one other act to steward, the collection of the inserts after people had scribbled down their reflections, I stood at the end of one row waiting as one congregant wrote on both sides of the card, as if a whole thesis of thoughts needed an urgent revealing.

My reflections

I had written my own reflection early because of the duty I was assigned to the effect: “I was born on a Tuesday morning unexpectedly at 26.5 weeks, the NHS facilitated my transfer for incubation in a major city. I was the size of a hamster in the hand of my father.

At 57, I stand taller, much taller than my parents. I owe my existence then and daily now to the amazing NHS, the people whose humanity makes a difference to many lives.”

My reflections on the NHS.

Andy Burnham who was the last Labour government Secretary of Health gave an address before representatives of faiths rose to give a talk, there was a homily, a hymn and then the sending out by the Canon Pastor.

As the event was quite passive, I began to wilt, when I got home, I was ready for bed and there ensued a long afternoon nap.