the cheek

A small church, Prestwick, South Ayrshire, Scotland:

Minister: Good morning, and welcome. [small joke, too weak to be remembered]
Congregation (simperingly): Aha ha ha.
M: Thanks for coming here today to praise the Lord Jesus, and welcome also to a few people who look slightly uncomfortable and out of place who are probably only here due to being invited for the baptism of that baby over there by the baby's parents who look slightly more familiar as they live locally and had a religion-mediated wedding. I'd like to make the strangers even more uncomfortable still by phrasing it "thanks to the n00bs for coming to worship with us today" as if merely by entering the building we're assuming that they believe in this religion stuff. Say hello to the person sitting next to you in case it's not the person who sits next to you every Sunday.
C: Hello! (small laugh)
M: We'll now sing the first of the worryingly long list of hymns on the schedule for this service.
Organist: Plod... plod... plod... plod...
C (mumbling): [hymn of vaguely familiar wordage but unrecogniseable tune]
Atheist Guests of Baptismal Target's Parents: [silence]
M: Now let us pray.
C: [bows heads]
AG: [maintains normal stance with eyes open and deepening scowl]
M: We really don't deserve to be alive, snivelling little wretches that we are. Thanks, God, for not killing us immediately, for creating us and letting us live in this lovely world you have here which you all like totally made from scratch and that. Amen.
C: Amen.
M: We'll now sing another hymn, this time one where the words are completly unfamiliar (though obviously incredibly similar to every other hymn of this type) but where the tune is quite clearly 'Edelweiss' from The Sound of Music.
O: Deeeeeeeee... deeeee deeeeeeeeeeee...
C: Laaaaaaaa... laaaaa laaaaaaaaaaaah...
AG: [silence]
M: There might have been another prayer at this point. There was also a fairly meaningless little reading by one of the old women on the other side of the altar.
Old Woman: Today's reading come from the Book of Bobbins, Chapter 28, verses 12 to 16 from the King James Hogwash Version. And the Lord spakest, that, in order to travelst alongwise of the road it is oft-times necessitative to walk along a road. And lo, by walkingst alongwise a road, a man can travel from one place to another. And by travelling along a road from one place to another, one reaches a New Place. And one dost findeth onesself in a different place than that in which the journey beganst.
M: And now we come to the baptism of the baby over there, too young to be able to protest either by walking away or politely requesting not to be submitted to a ceremony effectively assuming his compliance and that of his parents and EVERYONE ELSE HERE in raising him to accept the irrational beliefs of a religion founded on supposition and hearsay rather than any actual evidence. Please note that the decision of the parents to undergo this procedure is binding and that the church offers no cancellation option in case of failure of the child to accept the beliefs we will attempt to impose upon it. This does not affect your statutory rights. Forward, child-parents.
Child's Parents: [stand up and step forward]
M: Child-parents... do you believe in all this rubbish?
CP: We do.
M: Do you promise to bring your child up to believe in All This Stuff, despite the fact that in order to be able to whole-heartedly believeth therein it will be necessary to either withhold explanation of well-established theories supported by scientifically-tested empirical evidence concerning the origins of the physical and biological worlds we inhabit or to so severely impair the judgment mechanisms of the child so that it fails to question the beliefs here espoused?
CP: We do.
M: Congregation... do you promise to help these people bring up their child in the ways of the church and direct it down the path of the Lord without even waiting for it to be old or informed enough to express its own opinion on the matter?
C: Yep.
AG: [slight grinding noise]
M: We will now signify our intention to knowingly lie to this child by standing up. For the benefit of anyone planning to stand up extremely slowly just to make the point that they don't agree to do this, please signify that you think God created the world and everything in it by breathing at some point over the next, say, four minutes.
[muttering and splashing noises, though no audible crying]
M: I now baptise you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, so help you. We'll now remain standing and you lot will sing something else whilst I waft the baby up and down the aisle for old women to simper at.
[singing and simpering noises]
M: Now, let us pray. Again.
C: [bows]
M: Erm... Dear Lord, thanks for lending us that Jesus for a bit. Amen.
C: Amen.
M: Now, although I'm really quite bad at speaking (odd, for someone employed to do so frequently) I'll now attempt to make a few weak jokes whilst still maintaining the whole religious-belief thing via the magic of links so creakingly hideous that even disc jockeys from 1988 would have turned them down for being too clunky. The left-hand window behind me (which used to be on the other side of the church, back before the management of this place was taken on by the church itself rather than the one down the road, and before they built the extension) um... shows that Solomon bloke saying something or other. Now that Solomon bloke built a temple or something which was really big. In Jerusalem? Erm, and it was really big because Solomon was loaded and wanted to build somewhere big enough to God to be in all the time. Some other historical personage turned up and was literally speechless at the sight of it. But God or possibly Jesus said something about not wanting to hang around somewhere with so much bling and ostentation on show and that elsewhere in the bible it says something about not worshipping idols or icons [ignoring the various crosses on show and in particular the gilded sheep hanging on the back wall between the windows] and instead just worshipping God. And, erm, then Solomon said something else and God was OK about it really and there's still a really big temple complex in Jerusalem (though obviously not the same one). Erm. The other window has some other sort of picture in it. And Jesus and his disciples were wandering around somewhere in the desert and the disciples were arguing about who was the best disciple so Jesus washed their feet. The disciples' feet, not his own. Erm. And he didn't do it in any particular order (though it must, had it taken place, have taken place in some sort of sequence rather than simultaneously) and (despite me saying it was in the desert) found enough water to wash eleven pairs of feet with. Erm. And this proved something or other. Erm. Time for another hymn?
O: Peeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep... peeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep
[at this point, two of the guest atheists' friends use the excuse that they're taking their children to the cr?che to disappear, somehow failing to return when the delivery was completed]
C: Drooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooone...
M: We will now sing the Lord's Prayer to a tune really not designed to have the Lord's Prayer sung over the top of it in a stilted and painful-sounding rhythm. Remember to duplicate the 'Amen' at the end.
C: Our etc.
M: The old woman who read something out a couple of hymns back will now read something equally meaningless.
OW: [..............................................]
M: The organist will now play something generically soporific whilst we hand round these little baskets for what we term 'the offering' to disguise the fact that it's outright solicitation and that people would really frown at the guest atheists if they didn't throw anything in, though luckily they found twenty penceworth of coppers in their wallet on their way here.

etc

***

I'm not quite sure if the child-parents are really into this stuff or not... their parents have certainly exhibited religion-related behaviour and there were three other parents of the people present at last night's meal in the choir. Welcome to the 21st century, Ayrshire-style. However, the Parent of the Enchristened said later on (at the reception, which was in, of all the places possibly worse than a church to have to go to after having to go to a church, a golf club) that they'd done the cursory turn-up-to-a-couple-of-services-prior-to-getting-the-ceremony-organised which implied that they do not habitually turn up to church. However, they are at least willing to get up, stand up and say yes to the questions asked by the vicar prior to handing over their firstborn to have its forehead splashed. As was the case with my parents, I believe some people might force their child to have this wrought upon it due to pressure from their own parents, raised during slightly less well-informed times. It didn't help that my mum's best friend as a child was the child of the local vicar, nor that my maternal grandmother possibly-did-actually-believe-we'd-burn-in-hell-if-not-christened but I'm disappointed at my dad and uncle for not preventing my day-older cousin and I from being simultaneously subjected to something they evidently considered a ceremony of lies. The three children who were used as a means of escape by their fathers during the droning-hymn were also dipped at today's church but almost certainly primarily because their grandparents are churchy enough to be in the choir. One of the fathers was present at the ceremony but (respect to the principle-sticking) did not participate; it was quite fun seeing the uncomfortable way with which the (same as today) minister described the situation. I hope he similarly noted that not everyone present today was participating fully in the spirit of the occasion. He turned up at the reception but fortunately didn't harrass us on his journey round the tables.

After getting back and ridding myself of my suit and changing the menu language of my father-in-law's printer to English from Spanish (whither he claimed his wife had set it) we popped to Culzean for a trundle, potter and poke at the plants. All very nice but there are better places to end up in the early evening than next to a pond beside a wood; not had many midge-bites so far this year but I expect to see a few tomorrow...