Things I Could Have Done (This Weekend)

Well, I could have done quite a lot of things this weekend just gone, though not all at the same time, of course. The main thing that stopped me from doing most of them was the fact that I worked on the Saturday-not being able to get the time off.

The first of these was my friend Richard's ordination as a priest. I missed his first ordination (as a deacon) due to my own incompetence, and I would really have liked to have been able to be there at this one; but, alas, it was not to be. I saw him the other day, and he seemed to think it went okay. He said the actual cathedral service was just going with the flow, as it were. The thing he was more concerned about was his first Holy Communion-him taking the service, I mean. And everyone else seemed to think that went okay, so I think he's got nothing to worry about. And if you want to read about it all in his own words, you can do that here.

Richard's first communion-he lives in a rural parish, so they thought this appropriate. Photo by Nick Eden.

And the other big and important thing I could have done this weekend was help out at the ALPHA weekend away. I have done this before, and, although it's always very tiring, it's always great fun, and very rewarding. Even helping with the catering, which is what I have done mostly, it is still amazing to get some sense of what God is doing there and then in people's lives. From what I could make out from what was put up on Facebook, it was an absolutely fantastic weekend, as is to be expected from past experience.

Other things I didn't do on Saturday were to meet up with a friend in town; though that wasn't my fault. I tried to get in touch with him, and he didn't reply, so that was a no-go. And I did think about going to the theatre with another friend Saturday evening, but when it came to it, we were both just too tired. I also relaxed pretty much Sunday during the day, but in the evening was the culmination of the ALPHA weekend, in a way, baptisms at church. And I was definitely there for that. That was an emotional time, as there were a couple of people I know who I didn't know were getting baptised; so that was wonderful.