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Published: December 12th 2010
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Today being Sunday, I planned to attend services at Christchurch Cathedral. They normally have a Book of Common Prayer Evensong, but it was cancelled today due to an ordination ceremony, so I attended a New Zealand Prayer Book Choral Eucharist.
I got myself to the free shuttle bus stop in good order by 9:15, even running a bit to make sure I'd be on time, only to find that the free bus runs much less often on Sundays, and doesn't start at all till 10 a.m. -- which was the time of the service. I set wildly off to try to walk to the cathedral, and really I think I might have done it, if I had known where to go.
As it was, I turned around after a few blocks, at 9:30, and walked back to the shuttle stop. I figured I would go and just be late. But then the Lord sent a taxicab, which pulled up quite near me (I was sitting in front of the Christchurch Casino, which is probably why) and I asked the driver how much it would cost to go to Christchurch Cathedral.
She said $7-$8, and in the event it
Christchurch Cathedral
I was seated way at the back. was $8. I scurried through the door at 9:58.
It was a curious service. There were two officiating priests, a man and a woman. The man seemed to be the more traditional of the two and the prayers he said were at least reminiscent of the BCP. The woman, who preached a sermon on how much she hated to see the church getting so narrow and rigid when God was love and change was nothing to be feared, used prayers that were completely unfamiliar to me.
In general the more traditional part of it was somewhere between the Episcopalian Rite I and Rite II. The Creed was in Maori. I began coughing when the censer came by; at first I ran out of the church to have my cough out, but then, when it just wouldn't quit, I came back in and just coughed as unobtrusively as possible, which I'm afraid wasn't very, at least for those sitting around me.
At Communion time they divided us into four groups which each took Communion in a different quadrant of the church. The bulletin said that one of them would allow kneeling to receive the bread and wine, and
I tried to get in that line, but I guessed wrong.
I did feel that I had had Communion, but it was all very strange, especially the divided Communion. Surely all should gather together to receive the bread and wine!
Kneeling at our seats was possible -- there were some very pretty free-standing kneelers, embroidered with designs -- and the bulletin indicated that kneeling was permissible at appropriate points in the service, but I was the only one I saw doing it.
The choir was nothing to write home about; very high-pitched soprano and treble. I was so far away from the altar that I couldn't see the choristers, except during the processional and recessional. Most of its songs were in Latin, which was nice, though I was coughing so frequently that I really couldn't appreciate them.
I wandered into the Visitors' Center attached to the Cathedral after the service, and someone offered me coffee. I drank a little of it, hoping it would help my cough. I think it did, a bit.
After that I went out into the public park just outside the cathedral ("Cathedral close" doesn't seem to fit.) A street preacher
was drawing quite a crowd over in one corner of the park, but I didn't pay much attention to him. Presently, though, I found two men just beginning a chess game with large plastic pieces -- the kings and queens came to the players' hips and the other pieces were scaled accordingly.
I watched the whole game. In the end, both sides were left with nothing but pawns and Black won by advancing one of his pawns to the last row. At that point Red conceded. Neither player was especially good but it was great fun to watch. I had expected Black to win more easily than he did; he seemed the better player -- though it was very hard to follow strategy on such a huge board.
I tried to find and board the free shuttle to return to Dorset House, but when I eventually found it I found it by spotting its tail-lights disappearing in the distance. I looked around, saw that there was nowhere to sit down, saw too that I recognized where I was (near the liquor store I'd tried to visit yesterday) and decided to walk back.
I stopped by the bookstore,
Sculpture
I'm not sure of what, but definitely a sculpture. which to my mild surprise was open, and asked them whether shipping books to the U.S. would be prohibitively expensive. They replied, simply but with assurance, "Yes." So that was that.
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