Scotland on Sunday

“And can anyone tell me what THESE are?” the Methodist minister asked in that overly bright voice some people use to talk to children. “Anyone?” She walked around the room, holding up a vial full of seeds.

Unfortunately, the eyes following her movements during the children’s story at church were primarily adult. There were all of two children in the whole church, and they were too small to know much about seeds.

“Anyone?” the woman’s voice grew higher, and a little desperate. “Right then, how about you adults?”*

Well, at the service we attended this week, the children would have given that desperate woman a run for her money. This week’s Tour of Churches made us honorary Episcopals, and we met the phenomenon that is St. Silas.

St. Silas is on the far side of a nice walk through the park. We detoured through a bike-a-thon and around a big hill instead of climbing over it, so that we could arrive sans sweat, but the extra ten minutes were a good exchange. The sky was overcast, but we decided against bringing an umbrella, as it was humid and warmish, and “sure to clear up.” (“Hope springs eternal” and all of that.)

We were greeted at the door with a firm handshake, and walked into a sort of cheery chaos. A band was on stage, doing sound checks, families stood in bunches chatting, as their children raced around the room. A fair trade stall in the back displayed chocolates and jams for sale, the sound booth was running some last minute PowerPoint fine tuning. There was noise and action and life, and we sort of stood for a moment, transfixed, as little people ran around us in dizzying circles. Goodness, we thought. Look at all the kids.

Wow, what can we say. Child-friendly is sort of an understatement. We attended a church where the parents whisked their children out into the foyer if they were screeching and kicking, where the pastor would pause and interrupt himself and comment in a genial (…!) manner until the small transgressor was hauled away. THIS service would have given him hives. A good third of the congregation is under two feet tall and in constant motion. St. Silas is full — burstingly full — of families.

We made our way to seats, dodging marauding packs of toddlers. We wondered if we had somehow blundered into the parent’s section, as everyone in the immediate vicinity had double strollers and diaper bags in hand. We looked in vain for some kind of sign that we were in the wrong place, but found none. We did, however, receive a new and undiluted dose of The Stare.

The two wee girls on the row ahead of us turned around, and, with their chins resting on the top of their seats, simply gawped at us. It was particularly unnerving, as they would not smile or respond to conversation. (Which brings us to another little aside: What IS IT with people STARING!? We have been stared at so often in this city by adults who one would think would know better. When we greet these people — as one must, as it seems rude not to acknowledge a person two feet from you, openly gawking, they abruptly …turn away. As if they were perhaps just trying to assess our humanity? Do we look like mannequins? What is UP with that?!) Anyway, were a little relieved when the service started.

St. Silas is …Episcopal, which meant something different to us. We expected a much more structured service, with lessons and responses and such, but this one was very informal, and energetic. The band played, and people sang at the tops of their lungs, and bounced their kids. The speakers were all women, and the minister had to sort of bellow his prayers over the ambient noise of ninety little kids all grizzling and squealing and chatterboxing, but he didn’t seem to mind. We were pretty surprised.

So far, the Tour of Churches has been pretty conservative. I mean, Sandyford had what they called a “band,” but it was a couple of guys with guitars and a “fiddle” (We are reliably informed that it was not a violin.) The people were very nice, predominantly in their late forties, conservatively dressed, and a bit subdued; even the kids sidled off to Sunday School quietly, and returned the same way. The three other churches we’ve toured were definitely on the older/subdued side, and the Methodist church had a pump organ that was probably as old as the building. How St. Silas manages to be different, we don’t know.

As it was a special back-to-school service that unleashed the thundering wee hordes on the church, we’ll have to go back another time to get a real picture of how the church usually works, but we did get tracked down by the associate pastor (a burly rugby player with a very firm handshake) before we even left the building, and that’s never happened anywhere. We didn’t stay for coffee, but walked back through the park just in time to get rained on a bit! Fortunately the sun came out immediately and made the ground steam. A fairly good tour, this time.

Every once in awhile, D. will run across something in the various corner markets which he feels the need to bring home for a bizarre show-and-tell moment. This week’s wee treats were Kinder Bueno, and Poppets – candies made, apparently, of tasty children. The Poppets were T’s choice — chocolate covered raisins are decent anytime, and she decided no children were harmed in the making of the dessert. But the Bueno was filled with a sweet hazelnut mixture and covered in sweet milk chocolate — a bad choice for someone who prefers their chocolate 75% cocoa and above. T. was twitching from the sugar content, so D. happily finished that one, crunchy child cookie bits and all. Minstrel are dubiously named, but the milk chocolate shell over milk chocolate reminded us of milky M&M’s. Also too sweet for T., but reasonable in an emergency. Not nearly as much fun as the Swedish candies from the Ikea shop — T. is still inspired by her jar of Bjõrnekulla Apelsein & Fläderblom Ekologisk Marmelad. A lovely orange marmalade flavored with elderflower. “Ekologisk” just means organic, but it’s just a lot more fun to say.

It seems the rain has started up again, and “daylight” lamps have been procured, just in time. Keep a good thought for the Hobbits as they race deadlines and hopefully get novel and thesis pounded into shape within the next two weeks.

– D & T

*None of the adults could identify them either, except for us. They were mustard seeds. Yes, you knew that without even seeing them. Apparently they’re a specialty item here; no one had even ever seen them. !

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