L4/44-50 Bringing it all home at Easter

Not a bad approach and landing. Flunked 46 and 47, but managed most of the others; although the day job that helped with some tasks didn’t seem to help with others, and made one completely impossible:

44. Help someone carry a burden
Talking through job applications with a colleague or drumming up cash for historic church buildings could be seen as this, or are these activities too metaphorical? Carried the bag back to the car after our weekly shop at Sainsbury’s, just in case...

45. Forgive someone
Hard to think of anyone who’s wronged me really, but I forgive them anyway! As someone more sinning than sinned against, I’ve wondered down the years, about the difference between saying “sorry” (where the wrongdoer retains control) and “please forgive me” (where control passes to the person who was wronged.) Why is forgiveness such a dying art? perhaps many people are just so angry so much of the time, they just can’t focus on anything else?

46. Make Easter Card for a neighbour
Failed. Dong. I always love to get them from the select few friends who bother, and feel I ought to bother, and maybe we should make more of Easter Cards than Christmas cards, but never get round to it...

47. Polish someone’s shoes for them
Only bishop in England not doing this today. Next year? I miss it from parish life, though it was always difficult to get people to consent to having their feet washed. Maybe we’re just too prissy for this stuff in England...

48. Five Minutes Silence at 12 noon
Impossible, since I was kicking off a three hours service at exactly 12 noon, and if I’d fallen into total silence at that point someone would have called an ambulance.

49. Watch a film about Jesus Life
I need to admit that filmic Jesus seldom floats my boat. In the first century they had real problems accepting Jesus’ full humanity, but those are nothing compared to fifties Hollywood. Monty Python’s Life of Brian, pretty much a spoof of Hollywood Jesus, had a point. Mel Gibson was gross and schlocky, with a few shafts of light, but I couldn’t watch Casualty for months afterwards. So I settled for The Jesus of Montreal, which accepts Jesus’ basic humanity and is true to what it purports to be rather than creating a silly Disney world.

50. Celebrate Easter
Did that, round the fire first thing, in the snow at Coleshill, and at Buckinghamshire’s smallest parish church — Little Hampden.

PS Lucy’s and my chocolate fast did happen this year, though there was one party at which we were uncertain whether a brown smudge on a cream slice did or didn’t contain Chocolate. I resolved the situation by issuing a Rabbinic style decision that it didn’t. Perhaps I'm beginning to get the hang of this religion thing...