Taking the Service Off

The mistake I made, in retrospect, was thinking that today it would be a good idea to sit back, be ministered to rather than ministering. Just kick off the spiritual shoes, so to speak, sit at the back and let it all flow over me.

You know how it is - you can't help it when it's your job. You pick up on all the little frayed edges. The way the segue from"Orinoco Flow" to "Abide With Me" went through that unnecessary diminished chord. What were the band thinking of?

Hnaef and his "Quire from Scratch" performed a beautiful polyphonic version of "Abba Father", of course. But what was Charlii doing, standing to Hnaef's left at an angle of 65° instead of the standard 45°? And Marston's hi-viz was a real mess - the left side a good 3 inches lower than the right.

As ever when things are just that little slap-dash, it was the tea lights that really let them down. Six white, but the seventh was slightly beige. It had spent a while in the Worship Cupboard, clearly And was it my imagination, or was the fourth candle just slightly more than the regulation 4 inches behind the third and fifth?

All in all I didn't relax at all there. I'm obviously going to have to put more time into making sure things are just right in future. Maybe I'll take another service off in six months, once I've got them all better organised.