More tea vicar?

Actually, we drank coffee and the vicar was host, but I’m old enough to remember when a visit by the vicar was an opportunity to bring out the best tea cups and make some dainty cakes. And of course ‘more tea vicar’ has another meaning, and so always makes me smile.

Our new home is yards from Leiston’s parish church and vicarage so I introduced myself via email and that led to an invitation to visit. I was keen to be a good neighbour, and make sure huge lorries don’t rumble past the church just as a coffin is unloaded and mourners are gathered by the gate.

Both my parents had their funerals at this church, and in my mid teens, when my father was a churchwarden, I was an altar server at the 8am Sunday service. I shared this duty with an old man called Fred, who one Sunday when it was his turn, lit the candles in the sanctuary, sat down in the front pew and died. Perhaps I’ve reached an age when I attend more funerals than weddings, although I have yet to view them as welcome social gatherings.

Thinking about it, I always choose a seat at Leiston’s Quaker Meeting from which I can look out at the burial ground. Remembering the dead always strikes me as an important part of worship, as it reminds us of our mortality, and the need to make the most of each and every day.

I’m also now a trustee of Suffolk’s Quaker Area Meeting charity, so have an even greater interest in how places of worship can evolve and remain relevant in our fast changing world. Some now hold community shops, others become music venues. Both a good ways to bring new people into an otherwise underused building, and this can prompt curiosity and a return one Sunday to learn more about the purpose for which the place was built.

Our conversation with Richard the vicar was fascinating, wide ranging and enlightening. I’d not realised that what I’d taken for Richard Garrett’s tomb was in fact a memorial and he is buried elsewhere. I look forward to when our new home is built, and we can invite the vicar round for tea.