Church today was funny (now there’s an opening line). It’s Pentecost and a lot of the readings were about tongues of fire and the Holy Spirit and the voice of a strong wind and so on. Every time one of these themes would come up, there would be a rumble of thunder. There were several perfectly timed violent thunderclaps during our priest’s talk with the kids from church school, putting a very strong emphasis on everything he said.

The church school had some sort of project today, so they had popcorn and watched a video about Noah before they came upstairs to join us. This point was not lost on Father, who opined that given the choice between incense and popcorn, he thought popcorn smells better. and ba-DOOOM-boom, there was a tremendous flash of light and a mighty thunderclap.

At the end of the service, we had several hymns to sing – the thunder got louder and scarier, and as a joke I sidled over to stand closer to Susan and discreetly pretend to cower. We were singing as loud as we could (within reason and the bounds of musical propriety) to be heard over the din.

I realize now, humbly, that this may have been God’s judgement of our efforts.

Everybody’s a critic.

Anyway, when I arrived, these ducks were there waiting to take possession of a very nice little puddle, which became a friggin’ HUGE puddle after the service. Note the steeple otherwise known as a “a bit of vaguely religious ironmongery” – during the height of the lightning storm, Fr. Lundberg expressed the hope that it’s well grounded, especially since he stands directly under it in the sanctuary.

Thunderclap – ba DOOOM boom. And so it went.