The first farewell

Ed and I had our first farewell service yesterday morning. With six churches, we now have three weeks of farewells, prior to the the big farewell on August 23rd.

The church was satisfyingly full (although it has to be admitted that with a medieval church the size of an aircraft hangar, ‘satisfyingly full’ refers only to about ten rows of the middle section) so I did find myself wondering why so many could come to see me off when they seldom managed to come week by week…

It was a good service and I enjoyed it. At the end, when I was about to escape, they presented me with a gorgeous bouquet of roses and a handsome voucher to buy roses for our new garden. Apparently words had been had with Ed, who had suggested a standard rose, but they have left us to choose our own. There was also a card signed by everyone and coffee and cakes to follow the service.

But it’s so emotional saying goodbye to all these friends. Not sure how I shall survive the next few weeks.

In the evening we had a Deanery service at which the Bishop preached. Our deanery (the UK is divided into dioceses, each diocese is divided into deaneries, each deanery is divided into benefices, each benefice is divided into parishes. Our deanery has seven benefices with thirty one parishes. My benefice has six parishes. You get the picture?) has been running a ‘sunflower’ initiative since Easter. We delivered a glossy brochure with a packet of sunflower seeds attached to it to every house in the deanery. The brochure talked about sunflowers, how to grow them, how their seeds can be used etc. and related all this to God’s gifts to us – turning towards the source of being as the sunflower turns to the sun, and so on.

Many parishes held imaginative competitions to do with sunflowers and one of our parishes had a Sunflower Day, with a free BBQ, fun and games.

So last night was a service for the whole deanery to celebrate the sunflower initiative. It was fun and the Bishop spoke well, wringing just about every last word possible out of sunflowers and the Bible. Actually, he was hard put to find sunflowers mentioned in the Bible, so settled for gardens and lilies of the field instead.

So that’s Sunday over for another week. Just now I’m sitting here blogging, waiting for a Broadband man to show up and fix my excruciatingly slow speed, which is beyond the pale even for rural Norfolk. I think.

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