This evening it was Ground Floor Group* and while I thought we might think about the Lord’s Prayer (having just done a school RE day based on it), the group had other ideas: ‘We haven’t done today’s action yet!’ And so we spent most of the evening sharing some of our favourite music and even downloaded some.
We hatched plots to start a very occasional informal church orchestra to go with our informal choir, Angel Voices**; we hatched further plots to meet up one evening and sing really nice music and drink wine (or eat chocolate, or both); and while we talked and listened to an astonishing range of music (Johnny Cash to Herbert Howells), we ate quite a lot of fairtrade biscuits and drank a great deal of tea. Then we said Compline together.
All in all a wonderful evening, and all the better for the fact that largely we were all able to sit and listen respectfully to each other’s musical preferences even if they were very different from our own, and spend time in companionable quiet, too.
So, thank you, Love Life Live Lent, for making sure that we didn’t have a worthy hour reflecting on the Lord’s Prayer but instead spent a thoroughly enjoyable hour and a half sharing something lovely. And I do feel more peaceful…
* The Ground Floor Group is a home group which started four years ago as the Foundations Group, as in ‘Christian Foundations’, for those new to the faith or wanting a refresher course on the basics. After two years and showing no signs of fizzling out or drawing to any kind of conclusion, we renamed ourselves the Ground Floor Group, and we’re gradually moving upwards. Next term we will become the Mezzanine Group. Really.
**Angel Voices is a genuinely all age group of people who are led by one of the Ground Floor members and her husband and who in turn lead the music at our monthly all age service. The youngest member is 6 and we don’t ask how old our oldest member is.
reverendally.org 