Tuesday 3 April 2007

Euchathingy

OK, so I went to the Eucharist at the school. Well when I say I went, I mean I turned up for a bit of it.

Hannah starts school at 8:45 and the Euchathingy starts at 9:15. That means lots of parents and some small children and babies standing outside the school in the cold drizzle for about 25 minutes. I wasn't feeling very spiritual after that.

We then squished into the main hall where there were seats for about half of the parents. The remainder were left standing at the back of the room. So although I could have felt smug at having a seat, I actually felt guilty because I had a pretty good idea I wasn't going to stay the course. Having said that I wasn't giving up my seat. I did give up Ethan's though and he sat on my lap.

Father Bob was actually funny for about 15 seconds. He had been explaining about Palm Sunday and Jesus on a donkey and waving palms and how we recreate that waving palm leaves and palm crosses for a short procession.

He explained that this year a donkey wouldn't be present. Apparently in a previous year there had been a donkey involved which had been unfortunate. Unfortunate because the donkey was stubborn and also suffered from flatulence. This was embarrassing particularly as the Bishop was concerned that the crowds may think that he was the flatulent one.

That was the end of the humour and before long we were hearing about a slow agonising death in too much detail for small children, in my opinion.

Anyway, as things got gory Ethan filled his nappy. I think this was just an unhappy coincidence rather than a brown trouser moment. Anyway, the resulting offensive smell, my lack of nappies to hand and the fact we were going to be late for Ethan's swimming lesson gave me my exit strategy.

This gave me the opportunity to leave before blood and body bit. Thanks to Denis I now understand this a bit more about Eucharists. I still, however, think that the idea of consuming Christ's body and blood is just a bit weird.

So Hannah was happy because she saw me turn up. The school was happy because Hannah and I had baked some yummy muffins. Ethan was happy because we made it to swimming on time.

4 comments:

northernlight said...

The flatulent donkey is funny. Shame they have to spoil it with all the religious bollocks..

Anonymous said...

Sounds like you're slowly turning happy clappy to me, just in denial.
Big AL

Ann Cardus said...

I know. Was a bit surprised at Father Bob. He's normally a bit grumpy.

Ann Cardus said...

And as for Happy Clappy - get lost!