Though the focus this past Sunday was / is Peace, after the service, a friend renamed it “Glitch Sunday”. And it well and truly was.
It got me to thinking about the time I’ve spent earning a degree in Theology and all the pulpit supply posts I enjoyed. And now, since Covid/lockdown when we were forced to use the technology of recording and editing the various parts of the service to bring together a semblance of an experience people had attended Church in person prior to these times. What we cobbled together was shorter, more succinct and simple. During, before and since, I have attended many online services that brought me peace and joy. These were most often the simpler ones rather than the ones that looked like a Hollywood production. And so it is…
Before I even donned my alb I read from a colleague at seminary that where he lived his services and lessons had to be by candlelight because 3 transformers had exploded and knocked out hydro for a large swath of territory. Then my own service was “narked” by so many technological difficulties that I regretted that the experience would give any peace of joy. Then I watched the service that appeared online! Yeow! It was dodgier than I could have imagined being present to the live service.
My Powerpoint for the Territorial Announcement seemed impossible to display on our 3 screens in the Sanctuary. So I spoke words that I had written as a preamble and we just let it be.
and on and on… nothing worked according to plan. Not an image I put into the techies appeared on the screens.
Later in the evening another service popped up. It was my old Parish so I decided to watch it and see how well that went. OMGeeeee. Not 10 minutes into the service there began an echolaic audio track … it wasn’t in sync and it appeared to be cleaned up. But it was impossible to listen for long and so we gave up with deep sighs.
We weren’t the only ones it seemed.
So Glitch Sunday it was and is.
The lesson I take from all this is, in future services, to keep it streamlined, succinct and substantial and give over inserting any technological frills that aren’t absolutely essential, say for a responsive prayer.
But I can’t just let it be, so here is the Territorial Acknowledgement
And later, the Moment of Wonder we share with the younger set.
First we talked about all kinds of labyrinths…
Then I shared my own body prayer/meditation from Thich Nhat Hanh’s book “A Handful of Quiet: Happiness in Four Pebbles”
MOUNTAIN
Jeff and I on one of our favourite lookouts in Bruce County’s Bruce Trail…
This slide was especially for my friend, Joyce who wanted to see my hat that attracted dragonflies and bats. Here you go, gurl!
FLOWER
MOVING WATER
SPACE
With each pebble I demonstrated how to stand and be the mountain, flower, moving water, space. I’ll leave that to your imagination. Unless, of course, you were there in the Sanctuary, then you know.
And since WordPress posted only part of this post at first, I need to go and do all of those right now to find my own inner peace.
All photos are attributed to Jeff Suchak at http://mythiclandscape.com
Be peace. and keep curious!
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