In Which Our Heroine Ponders the Symbolism Inherent in Things
After another long day of violating the sixth? Seveth? Third? commandment - which ever one it is that involves remembering the Sabbath day and keeping it holy, even though no one can quite decide which day is the Sabbath Day, although various points in the weekend seem to prove popular with many prominent faiths - by grinding it out in the library (although I did pick up some copies of two books by Lord Denning for recreational reading), I headed my fat butt to church for a spiritual check in. I arrived to a little weirdness, as they inaugurated the brand new longstanding tradition of "Commitment Sunday." They're only doing this for the evening service apparently, and it was very nice. For starters, there was a much larger congregation than normal, and the choir had really gone all out with music, and thrown in a couple of excellent trumpets and an oboe. Then they changed many of the key parts of the service. It is certainly the first time I had gone to church and heard the lesson as "A Reading From Elizabeth Barrett Browning." This is Trinity, we're not one of them liberal churches like. But never mind, it was all very beautiful, if just slightly unusual. Then, as usual for the evening service, the congregation gathered around the altar for the communion portion of the evening. As we did so, something fluttering made me look up. I suddenly realized there was a bird soaring around above our heads. I glanced again. I"ve spent too many evenings outside on a country evening. That wasn't a bird. That was a bat. Conveniently, most people being more devout than I am, their eyes were pitched down in prayer so they didn't see it. The only other person who seemed to notice was the verger, standing directly opposite me. We were both stifling giggles for the rest of the service, arguably not the best mindset for comunion. But to my mind, arguably the best mindset for communion. Anyway, the bat just kept doing huge loops through the church, occasionally coming pretty low. Still, amazingly no one noticed.

I started to ponder the symbolism of it all. But really couldn't come up with it. The thing about symbolism is that you need more context to interpret it. Otherwise, it could be anything from a harbinger of the forthcoming war, to an invocation against changing the service, or even the church as church. Or it could *even* just be a bat nesting up in the church because it is warm and dry in there, making it a handy place for a bat to be spending its non-flying time.

I guess the symbolism will reveal itself eventually. Which is more than I can say for the book I read on the train out to town this morning. I just grabbed it off my bookshelf. I had read it before, and didn't remember it being particularly great but thought more in a sort of "chick flick" kind of novel way. This book only aspires to such heights. It is called "Almost Engaged" and is supposed to be some frothy bit of fluff about what goes through a woman's mind when she actually gets engaged to get married. The writing is good enough in itself in that there are some good lines in the book, but the overall plot unfolds as such that you're jumping for joy when her fiancee considers calling off the wedding, and want to throw the book through the window when she actually does get married. In short, the main character is the epitome of the kind of girl I can't stand anyway, and find it difficult to get sympathy for when she's hoisted by her own petard. All this in a book it takes under two hours to read. Avoid it like the plague.
Love,
Anne