Thursday 4 August 2011

Back from the outlaws!

Love is the extra effort we make in our dealings with those whom we do not like and, once you understand that, you understand all. This idea that love overtakes you is nonsense. This is but a polite manifestation of sex. To love another you have to undertake some fragment of their destiny.
Quentin Crisp

A fair bit of truth in that - certainly undertaking some fragment of the beloveds destiny.  "In sickness and in health" for example.  Or commitment to be prosaic.  Old QC (The Naked Civil Servant) has neatly delineated the difference between "caritas" and "Eros", the former being at least in part an act of will.  Which brings me to the weekend spent meeting Rachel's clan at a gathering or Bar B Q as it is known.

Meeting (and impressing) such a crowd might not come naturally to me Asperger's and all, but I forswore the suggested tin helmet and instead donned a kilt of the Gordon tartan (well, it worked liked a dream on the Afghan's at Dargai!).  All seemed fine and we even managed a Sung Eucharist in Rochester Cathedral (where her Grandad was Dean after ceasing to be Heid Chaplain of the Royal Navy!) on the Sunday morning.  (OK but Common Worship is just that -"common" in comparison to any Scottish Liturgy)  Flank on in a aisle to a "nave" altar we saw little, heard it well and generally got fed by a decent sermon, good music and intercessions involving the "Ave" which only the intercessor recited, suggesting that it was one of the Congregation's pet spike's being given a wee run off the leash, rather than an integral part of the congregation's spirituality.  Still the weather was lovely and we enjoyed a few days together which was brill!  And so back to work for a week before 2 weeks of proper annual leave!

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