A long day's night

The Saturday after Good Friday is always a strange day - at least, if one spends any time reflecting on the origins of this holiday weekend, as it was tactfully called by a Channel 4 news anchor last evening. After all the heaped emotion of the last few days, it's always felt like a day off - until the evening comes, and the Resurrection is celebrated for the first time. (I know it's not a day off for people who do flowers, who clean brasses, who create Easter Gardens - all things that make church special for Easter Day...)

We took some time off; it was a beautiful morning and after having coffee in the garden (two mornings in a row - cor!) we went down to walk along the coast road at Toward, largely to keep away from trees as much as possible, as the tree pollen is officially "very high" just now and I've had a sore head and streaming eyes for days. Then we came home and had dinner with the sun streaming in (I tried to tell myself I was in a pavement café somewhere warm) so that I would be able to sing adequately later. Just like choir practice days, in fact.

The evening saw us back at church. I've tried to give a snapshot of some of the elements of the extraordinary service that I first experienced as a spontaneous idea on the part of the bishop when visiting the Cathedral of The Isles exactly 50 years ago this Easter. We arrived into the unlit church, and that's how the readings were heard, as the dusk grew outside and we could barely see our service sheets. Then we all processed out into the garden, where a fire was lit and from it the Paschal Candle, which was then carried back into the church with us all strung out behind it, having our own candles lit as we arrived ...

My main part in this service was to sing the Paschal Proclamation - over 10 minutes of uninterrupted plainsong. Each year now I think I'll be too old to sustain it, but this wasn't that time yet! Then the lights go on, there is the renewal of baptismal vows, with water splashed over all of us, and a normal Eucharist to follow, with the added treat of incense ( I love incense). And then we had fizz (you might say fizz in both kinds, as half of us were driving) and hilarity, and Hoy the collie had praise lavished on him for being good, and we piled out into the darkness like new people.

And here I am, at 1am, far too full of life to go to sleep, except that we need to get up in the morning because ... church is at 10.30am. Goodnight!