Today’s task is to being a journal to document the next 39 days. Well, I think I’ll do that here, and be a bit more faithful to the blog in the process.
We had some visitors today to the church: two folks undertaking a gargantuan task of visiting every church of Scotland in Scotland and cataloguing their communion silverware and plate. They’ve done 900 churches so far, with an estimated 400-odd still to go. They’ve made some interesting discoveries along the way they tell me.
This morning was the turn of our church to have our communion-ware catalogued, measured, weighed and photographed. Out came the vessels from their locked store, then the locked boxes were unsealed. Each item was removed from its green cloth protective liner bag and then unsealed from its inner plastic lining and laid on the table to await cataloguing. The Session Clerk and I waited with baited breath… for… Well. Nothing, as it transpired. No intake of breath from the assessor. No gasp revealing the fact that our communion-ware was some long-lost Jacobean relic or some pre-reformation antiquity.
“First up” quoth he, to she, “Silver cup. 220mm tall, plain base, slightly turned lip, base 80mm diameter” “Next!”. Scribbles were made and the next item brought for learned opinion. And so it continued in that fashion. A pretty, but otherwise unremarkable set of silver communion-ware.
The only glimmer of exception was when he remarked about our flaggon (my New-Word-For-The-Day) was almost as tall as another he had seen which merited much more conversation than ours.
It’s at this point that the good old fallback of, “of course, it’s not the value, or rarity, that we’re interested it. It’s of tremendous ‘family’ value to our congregation” And so in in that deflated Antiques Roadshow vein.
Why tell you all this? At the end of the process the examiner asked, is there anything else? A baptismal bowl perhaps? “It’s just a bronze dish” says the Session Clerk. The tall man with white cloth gloves on dropped his shoulders and showed himself to be clearly a “silver” man. For some reason I thought I would fetch it anyway. It was not in the baptismal font, where I went first to look, but in the cupboard behind it, underneath mic cables, three SM58s (this is a semi-tech blog you know!) and a 1970s curly stereo extension cable.
“Gushing” would not begin to describe this man’s excitement as he turned it over and over in his hands. “It’s fabulous” he exclaimed and showed it to his cataloguing partner, who happened to be his wife as well. “Arts and Crafts” he commented and proceeded to photograph it with the remark that certain folks on his committee would be delighted to see it.
As we replaced all the silver back into their double-bag liners, then their locked box, and finally back into secure locked storage, we put the baptimsal bowl back from whence it came: this time on top of the mic cables.
Acts 4:11
“He is the stone which was rejected by you, the builders, but which became the chief cornerstone.”
So I’ve decided to take a rain-check on this challenge and wait until Jesus taps me on the shoulder unexpectedly and invites me for a walk. I’ll write again after our stroll together.
