As often happens when you get a collection of clergy (is that a 'collect' I wonder?) stories of things that have happened to, and been done by, those in a Church setting come to the fore.
The last month has seen some quite amusing little tales, some of which I am sure are almost up there in the urban myth category and others are just plain understandable, believable (often because we've been there or thereabouts) and funny. Here's a couple of them:
I loved the story of the visiting priest who having been given a pretty ghastly mince pie with his, as ever, insipid and tepid tea used his usual tack of 'dropping' the offending culinary disaster down the side of the chair in the knowledge that the resident dog would hoover it up and cover his transgression. A few days after the visit our heroic cleric met a mutual friend who told him how sad the visited lady was that the dog had died a couple of weeks before! To date the bereaved and culinary-challenged parishioner hasn't mentioned the mince pie but be assured it hangs over his head a la Damocles' sword!
Before Christmas, during a particularly bad spell of rain, a certain cleric was engaged in an interment in the sloping corner of the graveyard and the family had chosen to bear the coffin. As the minister led the way to the graveside one of the family slipped on the wet and muddy ground and fell causing the others to take the weight, momentarily, and then lose the coffin! The result was that the coffin passed the cleric and, via a headstone or two, ended up with a 'hole in one' which caused the comment, "He never managed that when he was on the course," and tension broken, a round of laughter. Not sure about this but I can believe it as I've had one of the undertaker's men, chickens, and a handbag in with the coffin (did I ever tell you about the large woman?). Either way the image and the responses ate attractive!
Who ever said being a Vicar was boring?
Pax
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