730 things — Days 121 and 122 of 365

 It's Sunday. What's happening in your neck of the woods about church? 

Where we are, the churches have opened up for worship again but you have to phone ahead and book to say you'll be there — they have restriction on numbers, no singing, restrictions around receiving the elements of the Eucharist, social distancing, and cautions around using the bathrooms.

From what I have read online, it seems to me that church congregations have been careful, determined and imaginative in their approach to re-opening.

It's been a long time, hasn't it? Online worship of one kind or another, the old routines suspended for so long that new patterns have begun to form.

Where are you with church now? Are you still attending — at all? a new church? online?

How do you feel about things now? What's changed in your heart, and in the patterns of your observance of faith?

I have begun the tedious task (this is nothing to do with church) of sorting out my boxes of DIY bits and pieces that have travelled with me over the years, periodically added to as I went along.

I didn't post yesterday, so today I have four things to go.

Yesterday's items are a very much the worse for wear muffin tin and some disposable gloves.

The tin is not really fit for baking — it's too burnt and scratched — but it is just possible someone might use it for sorting craft stuff or starting off seeds or something, so I'll give it a go on Freegle before putting it out for recycling.

The gloves — when we went into lockdown, some of us had to continue working because their place of work is an essential service, which put them at the front line for infection. So we provided ourselves with small just-in-case boxes of things, so that if we had to isolate we'd have everything we needed to barrier nurse etc. But we didn't get ill, and we never use latex gloves for anything else. I'll put them on Freegle — they were never opened.

Then the items for today — some lengths of stretchy cord for hanging net curtains. 

In the past I've used such things many times, but as I no longer live in my own house but am part of a shared house that doesn't belong to me, though my housemates always indulge my bright ideas I tend to restrict myself to my own room as a target for my feverish imagination. I no longer put things up on walls or make shelves, or anything like that any more.