Sunday.....

I have commented to several people in the last week that it is all too easy at the moment to lose track of days. The regular structure of my week is gone, and days can easily slide into one another. It matters more to me that the weather enables me to get into the garden for part of a day, that what the name of that day actually is! 

Except for Sunday.  Somehow, Sunday still stands out. Despite not being able to go to church, or meet people, Sunday is still the day when I feel closest to you all.  Each Saturday evening I become aware of the fact that I’m not getting ready for the next day in the way I usually would - making sure my robes are ready, checking my sermon, saying the prayers and reading the Psalms that prepare me for leading worship. Gradually though, I have rebuilt my structures; the prayers and the Psalms came back in, though altered slightly to reflect the different way we ‘meet’ now, and I mark Sundays at home in small ways that keep you all especially in my prayers.

In the last weeks I’ve found it important to build structure into my days, my weeks, so that they don’t all merge into one haze of either ‘what shall I do now?’ or constant business. The latter being an unforeseen pitfall of these strange times. That way, even if I don’t always know instantly exactly which day it is, I do at least know what I am meant to be doing in the space I have within that day.

Today, Sunday, I shall say Morning Prayer online with the Ministry Team;  I shall spend some time with the resources on our website and then reflect on the readings of the day for myself.  I shall eat lunch with my son - a roast today, it is Sunday after all.  We will watch a film this afternoon - amid much debate over whose choice it is, I will ring my elder son whom I am missing hugely, and then I’ll say Compline and record it for our Facebook page. 

It might not be the most exciting of days, but it will be a day spent with God, with you, with my sons and it will remind me once again that I am not alone, all is not lost, God is present and I am safe.