Easter

This Easter day, when I am so tired that I can barely see the screen, I'm reflecting on how fortunate I am. I've often mentioned in posts how cold it is in church, how hard to keep it dry, to keep the roof functional, the plaster from flaking onto the pews. And yet ... how we've missed it! So I shall start with this unpromising building, whose importance to us grows with every obstacle put in our way. 

Holy Trinity Dunoon was founded in 1850, and the nave extended at some point after that. It is actually an architecturally distinguished little church, described in, I think, a lottery fund application as "unspoiled Tractarian Gothic". It has a lofty roof, bare plaster walls, stone chancel arch and rear wall stripped of all paint and plaster, a tiled sanctuary and a wooden floor with only a strip of utilitarian carpet down the aisle. All this means it has a rewarding acoustic, with the potential for great dynamic range in music.

Ah, music. We're fortunate in that too. We have a gifted professional musician (ok - I'm biased: it's Mr PB) looking after the music, playing the organ that is just over a year old - an organ entirely funded by donations from members of the congregation. We have good music. Music to stir the soul - even when we're not allowed to sing hymns. And a feature of this pandemic-blighted year has been to make me realise how much the singing and the music mean to other people in the congregation. For that, I consider myself fortunate.

And people. We have quite a collection of people in this little congregation - talented flower-arrangers, gifted in the use of imaginative decoration; a pair of amazing church wardens (in church at breakfast time this morning, sanitising it before the Eucharist); organisers who can count and organisers who can write; a proper geek who runs the online publicity and sees to the microphones; servers, one of whom doubles as gardener and general handyman,  and crucifers; two lay preachers, two Lay Readers, and two priests - the Rector, and a retired priest. With the exception of the Rector, none of them is under 70. Precarious, you might think - but for now, it is more than enough.

And the unifying feature is a sense of ownership. This is our church. Yes, there are people who don't feel ready to return to physical services, but all the people I've mentioned were back on Palm Sunday, back for Easter. I've tried to represent some of that in the collage of today's photos, but really it doesn't tell the half of it. And I can't think of how I can illustrate how grateful I am that we have, yet again, a priest who can inspire and enthuse - even from behind a mask!

I'll be back to normal blipping tomorrow. I'll find something to girn about, shall I? It's going to be cold ...