Feeling a bit more Christmassy now

Was supposed to have coffee this afternoon with the priest from my new church. But when I got there, they were busy preparing the church for Christmas, so I stayed to help out. (Don't tell The Girl that I left the sofa and did cleaning... oh.) They let me dust the choir stalls! In Heaven I will always get to dust the choir stalls. All day long. Yes indeed.

Anyway, the church looked lovely, so pictures are above. They were taken on my phone, therefore not that clear, but you get the idea. Here's another:



That's the pulpit, where the Word of God is carrying a small present. It got worse - the priest then decorated the statue of Our Lord and His Blessed Mother with baubles. I said this was sacrilegious, but was ignored. Hmph. (I could not get pictures of the Blessed Lady with bauble earrings, alas.)

Had a nice chat to the priest while I was dusting and he was putting up lights. We established that I am from an evangelical background, gay and in a relationship with a non-Christian. His biggest concern out of these three was the evangelical thing. Why, he wanted to know, had I been attending an evangelical church? I said I'd need an awful lot longer if he wanted that question answered. It's an extremely accepting church with regards to the gay thing, and generally very liberal. I knew this before, but it was really nice to see it in practice. It's going to be a lovely relief to be able to talk openly about my life and family. :)

Priest asked me when I'm going to be ordained. I said, "Uh, what?" Apparently he asks everyone and then gauges their reaction. I said I had thought about being a lay reader, very occasionally. He seemed pleased (that the gay girl with evangelical leanings who has appeared in his church out of nowhere and started complaining about baubles on the Virgin Mary might want to learn how to preach in his church). Then we all got fits of giggles for the last hour, and I transmogrified into Old Churchy Lady and started moaning about how badly the brass had been polished and did it again myself, while everyone else sat around staring at the hypnotic lights (see above). It's a strange church. I'm going to fit right in.

In entirely unrelated news, I have an electric heating pad! This is hugely exciting. And good, as I have been unbelievably tired since coming back from church. An hour of very light cleaning has used up all my spoons*. I am concerned about going back to work, to say the least. I'm trying it out tomorrow morning. It's only a half day and then they close the college, plus no one will be around as it's the holidays for students, so it's a good time to try and sort out my big pile of admin. I also need to talk to Human Resources about my job, and whether they can make reasonable adjustments. Hmm...


*For an explanation of the 'spoon' reference, you might be interested to check out The Spoon Theory. It has been keeping me (relatively) sane over the past few months.