I was not amused as I had checked the website before leaving and the previous night when I planned to go. The Guide leader I promised I'd collect them for wasn't too happy when I sent her a photo and a text saying I hadn't been able to complete the task.
I emailed both of them on the day Ma MC died. Neither replied. I noticed three days later, and re-sent the message, saying: "Did you get this?" One of them sent back a grovel and: "See you when you get back." I've been back for two weeks. Not so much as an email, let alone anyone picking up the phone to check in.
So this is the sum total of the pastoral response from my home church community. I don't want to be that ecclesiastical cliche - the congregant who moans: "You didn't visit me in hospital!" When no-one knew they were in hospital. But, I told them my mum had died. I would think that would raise some sort of response, whether from the actual clergy, or a lay delegate (I used to be on the pastoral visiting team, but I'm not even sure that's going any longer. I had to give it up to retrain.)
I have a theory about the reason for this oversight. No matter all the fine words we say in our gaff, women are still easy to overlook. One of the creatures I emailed has form for this, and I was uncomfortably reminded of a very annoying meeting he was involved in. There are just lots of things to do, and one woman, bereavement notwithstanding, might as well be invisible. It's not the first time it's happened, and it won't be the last, but it's the most hurtful.
In other news, I am brewing a bollocking so ruinous it will shake the rock on which Embru castle stands.
When I was diagnosed with a brain tumour, and had to retire from church life, and a few months later had to go into hospital, Father Fuckwit assumed I'd vanished off the face of the earth. No phone calls, no visits, nothing. He was heard, however, to complain that he'd have to do various jobs that I had been in the habit of doing...and that they would be 'something else I'm not paid for'...
I'm afraid I consigned this self-centred apology for a priest to Outer Darkness a long time ago.
The much-needed pastoral care came from various members of the church, I'm happy to report, so I was not entirely bereft. Blessings be upon all who rallied round!
I have just experienced something similar. Although our rector is undergoing significant stress due to her husband's mental health issues, I would have thought two pastoral visits over a period of six weeks to her warden, namely me, following my recent cardiac arrest, was less than optimal. Parishioners and friends from community groups have however been proactive in checking in.
I have just experienced something similar. Although our rector is undergoing significant stress due to her husband's mental health issues, I would have thought two pastoral visits over a period of six weeks to her warden, namely me, following my recent cardiac arrest, was less than optimal. Parishioners and friends from community groups have however been proactive in checking in.
LoL
Try NO pastoral visits to your Organist in 7 years following the death of their partner, leaving Organist and 18 year-old children (taking 'A' levels at the time) bereft.
And since then both CWs have had joint replacement surgery - no visits.
Is it just me who would CTH people who pay serious money ( >£100, so serious in my book) to attend a concert at Wembley Stadium (the Eagles, no less) and then treat the whole event like a night out at the pub? Getting up to go out and get beer. Yakking to each other and cooing over pictures of some unnamed pooch, on their phones. Not coincidentally, getting up to go to the loo. And doing all this, just in front of me!
I know, it was loud enough for me not to hear what they were saying, and the Eagles weren't going to notice. But why pay all that money when you could stay home and listen to your CDs? There were super AV projections to look at, but clearly not as good as the doggie pictures.
On the way home my family were reminding me of all the lines I'd used in the past - 'I hope you're not going to talk all through this concert', 'Can it wait until after the play?', 'I paid to listen to the band, not you nattering', and my favourite -
'This is mime - it does not require a voice-over!'
@The Intrepid Mrs S the Eagles didn't sell out or sell that well: I was offered virtually free tickets late on Saturday afternoon (so without enough time to get there)*. So maybe your boors didn't pay that much.
* I pay for this privilege - to be offered tickets that haven't sold out
Ha. We had FOUR deaths last year plus one freaking stroke (Mr. L) and got no communication that I can remember, let alone a visit. When I specifically collared the incoming senior pastor at coffee hour and made it clear that Mr. Lamb required some kind of personal contact, being very distressed, we got a selection of grief tracts--by mail.
Mr. Lamb is a pastor. On their pastoral team. Such as it is.
I don't know how to explain why so many pastors seem to suck at this.
Meanwhile we carry on visiting and calling people when their canaries die... (okay, slight exaggeration, but it seems like all our ministry is sometimes is visitation)
My sympathy on your loss, but I'm curious as to why you didn't telephone rather than e-mail.
I was replying to an email chain, in which I'd sent a request for Ma to be added to the prayers list as she hadn't long to go, to which the Rector replied (promptly!!) copying in the other creature.
Interesting to think of who I rang and who I emailed. I'd phoned friends earlier in the day, and I think I'd run out of juice by the time I got to them. Email adds distance, so there's that. Also, the Rector is cover during our interregnum and doesn't know who I am, although it would not be hard to find out. I've hardly been lurking in the shadows.
Of the people who have rallied round, none is from church. People just don't know what to do, so they do nothing, fearful of causing more pain. We forgive.... after a good rant and a few frank but carefully chosen words.
I think I've had two pastoral visits in my entire life, both after minor eye surgeries. The second was immediately after said surgery: I'd not long woken up from the anaesthetic, and probably didn't make very much sense when trying to converse with the vicar.
ISTM that if you're a regular attender (which, being in the choir, I always was) you're maybe less likely to get a visit because they're always used to you being there.
I think I've had two pastoral visits in my entire life, both after minor eye surgeries. The second was immediately after said surgery: I'd not long woken up from the anaesthetic, and probably didn't make very much sense when trying to converse with the vicar.
ISTM that if you're a regular attender (which, being in the choir, I always was) you're maybe less likely to get a visit because they're always used to you being there.
I'm wondering/hoping that someone (priestly or otherwise - I'm easy) might get in touch after I was back for the first time in six weeks on Sunday morning. Perhaps they might notice that that there was that caterwaul again, leading the introit? Did we have that last week? Perhaps they might put the lately-added name in the RIP list together with the alto swaying slightly in the end stall??
"Dear Lord and Father" was the first hymn on Sunday, and at Ma's funeral. What are the chances...? Luckily, our first hymn is processional, so I was able to keep it together up to the last verse by needing most of my brain for not falling over.
I wonder too if the "do-ers of the congregation don't get overlooked precisely because their minds (such as they are) sort you automatically into the category of care provider, never receiver-- much as the local emergency room people just assumed my husband was there to interpret for someone, despite his visibly broken collar bone. Though once they are TOLD, they should snap to it!
TICTH unmindful clergy. ...Not so much as an email, let alone anyone picking up the phone to check in. ...
Last fall, while dear friends of mine and I were in London (they'd been there two weeks; I had just arrived), her mother died. (We had to go right home, making the trip The Most Expensive Evensong At Westminster Abbey Ever from my perspective.)
At my friend's request, I immediately emailed the church office and clergy, informing them of her mother's death. I followed up when we got home. She heard nothing.
When she continued to hear nothing and was feeling severely hurt, I wrote them a rather scorching email. The rector then called and left her a message. The assistant did nothing. A few days later, I reminded them again; he called back, and spoke briefly to my friend. The assistant still did nothing. When I saw her next, I told her that the lack of contact had been hurtful to my friend; she said to me, "Well, (the rector) called her." Really? That's all you've got?
That same week, the college sophomore son of another family in the parish died in a car accident, and they were all over it. I understand that those tragic circumstances were time-consuming and exhausting. But if you have to be nagged to place a simple telephone call to a 25-year regular (and choir member) who has just lost her mother unexpectedly, are you really doing your job properly?
@The Intrepid Mrs S the Eagles didn't sell out or sell that well: I was offered virtually free tickets late on Saturday afternoon (so without enough time to get there)*. So maybe your boors didn't pay that much.
* I pay for this privilege - to be offered tickets that haven't sold out
Oh believe me, Curiosity killed, they were in the seats my brother would have bought months ago had they been available, and there was no doubt that they were devoted fans, really - just no idea how to behave. I saw the same with BB King years ago and I thought 'hell, he's well over 80 and he's paying attention, while all you lot can do is drink (and pee!)'
There were still seats available, I grant you, but it was pretty full (and really good in spite of the attendees) so I'm still glad I went.
I once paid good money to attend an outdoor production of Carmen while in Jerusalem and was shocked to see that there was a burger van at the back of the seating which was open and doing good trade during the performance. The seating was wooden so there was a constant loud noise of feet on planks and people just talked throughout. Our neighbours were French (they had asked to borrow our English programme earlier when they heard our English accents) and were equally baffled at the lack of respect. The Opera House it was not!
OTOH, all that sitting still and paying attention is quite a modern phenomenon.
A couple of years ago, we went to a very reduced production of Tosca (half a dozen singers, and an “orchestra” consisting of piano, violin, cello and clarinet) in an underground ruin in Rome. They handed out wine and snacks before it started, and informed us that munching through the performance is the old-fashioned Roman way and how it was done when the opera was written.
Which is not to say I don’t get ticked off with the uncouthness of certain spectators in Europe’s great opera houses. Particularly tourists with the “Europe is a big museum” mentality.
Or back in the day the audience paid so much attention that when they heard a bit they liked (in the middle of the performance, mind) it would loudly clamor until the company played the bit again. Right then.
TICTH unmindful clergy. ...Not so much as an email, let alone anyone picking up the phone to check in. ...
Last fall, while dear friends of mine and I were in London (they'd been there two weeks; I had just arrived), her mother died. (We had to go right home, making the trip The Most Expensive Evensong At Westminster Abbey Ever from my perspective.)
.......
That same week, the college sophomore son of another family in the parish died in a car accident, and they were all over it. I understand that those tragic circumstances were time-consuming and exhausting. But if you have to be nagged to place a simple telephone call to a 25-year regular (and choir member) who has just lost her mother unexpectedly, are you really doing your job properly?
I have to counter the non-visit accounts with what happened to my mother in hospital. This was shortly after our Congregational church (with a number of Presbyterians even among the deacons) had cast her out for some unspecified offence in such a way that she walked through the town weeping, not going home so as to avoid my father going down and giving them ****. When it came to filling in the admission form she refused to identify her denomination and stated she wanted no visit from any chaplain. She actually had a string of ecclesiastical visitors offering comfort - mostly accounted for, it must be said, by the brothers of our Catholic Irish neighbour, three or four of them. But others, as well. She was appreciative of it.
About 40 years ago admitted to hospital in Wellington. In those days it seemed that Tuesday night was when most Anglican clergy did their hospital visiting (I was unaware of this) I was visited by quite a number of them and became worried that I was actually more sick than I had been led to believe.
Back in the day I can remember some eejit trying to chat to his girlfriend while The Byrds were on at Hammersmith Palace - they were nearly lynched.
Old organist, very envious that you got to see The Eagles.
If you talk over the music without very good reason in Ronnie Scott's Club, you get very short shrift. You get information on the website, on your ticket and on entry.
Bollocking initiated. Much toned down from the initial Wrath Level - Radioactive.
Now standing at Wrath Level - Justified Vexation, with a side of Disappointed Face.
Expected response is Grovelling On Unprecedented Scale, but there's still time for the usual church SNAFU. There's ALWAYS time for the usual church SNAFU!
I imagine it can withstand Justified Vexation. I might begin to worry if that doesn't elicit a satisfactory response though ...
TICTH Microsoft Word - specifically its inability to justify two bits of the same line differently (something Word Perfect has been able to manage for the last 30 years). I'm formatting a thesis for a friend, and getting the numbers in the contents table to right-justify without f***ing up the beginning of the line is driving me to drink.
OTOH, all that sitting still and paying attention is quite a modern phenomenon.
A couple of years ago, we went to a very reduced production of Tosca (half a dozen singers, and an “orchestra” consisting of piano, violin, cello and clarinet) in an underground ruin in Rome. They handed out wine and snacks before it started, and informed us that munching through the performance is the old-fashioned Roman way and how it was done when the opera was written. ...
Ahhh... no. Opera was like that in the 17th, 18th, and early 19th centuries, but it changed with Richard Wagner (1813-1883). Wagner insisted that the theater be darkened during performances, and that patrons sit down and shut up while the music was playing, and bless him for that. His influence spread quickly throughout Europe. Puccini (1858-1924) would not have put up with it either.
And Wagner audiences are still the best behaved audiences, at least in the U.S. One would be foolish to invoke the wrath of a Wagnerite by whispering or rattling a candy wrapper!
TICTH Microsoft Word - specifically its inability to justify two bits of the same line differently (something Word Perfect has been able to manage for the last 30 years). I'm formatting a thesis for a friend, and getting the numbers in the contents table to right-justify without f***ing up the beginning of the line is driving me to drink.
I’m no advocate for MS Word and don’t use it so this advice maybe crap, or it may fall into ‘how to suck eggs’ territory, but would a possible workaround be to use a right tab stop at the end of the line?
Piglet, if I were doing it I'd create a table with two columns, left-justify one and right-justify the other? Then set the borders to 'invisible' and job's a good 'un.
The other way of doing it is to set the page to justify and use dots to space across, a space after the number forces a line break rather than use return.
TICTH Microsoft Word - specifically its inability to justify two bits of the same line differently (something Word Perfect has been able to manage for the last 30 years). I'm formatting a thesis for a friend, and getting the numbers in the contents table to right-justify without f***ing up the beginning of the line is driving me to drink.
I lend my curses to yours!!! It sounds blood vessel popping!
There are dot leaders; I tried right-justifying the page numbers, but that pulled the beginnings of the lines out of kilter - there were various tab stops at the beginning of the line to indicate sub-headings and so on.
I'm planning on giving it back this evening (it's on a memory stick, and I'm not doing the printing), but I might see if I can have another crack at it depending on how the printed version looks.
I confess I've never used a ToC function - I've never had to.
I was also a firm believer in Word Perfect over Word. It was so much better in so many ways and long before Word tried to add in some of the better features. I did have someone show me how to fix the page numbers in Word one time but I can't remember what the fix was. I still lament the loss of Word Perfect.
Me too. I wondered if Microsoft stitched them up - it was much, much more stable than Word, but the file sizes always ended up many times as big.
(This all takes me back to the day when a Korean postgrad uninstalled all the software on our shared lab 286, so he could install Korean fonts on WP5.1. He was a bit like that.)
And Wagner audiences are still the best behaved audiences, at least in the U.S. One would be foolish to invoke the wrath of a Wagnerite by whispering or rattling a candy wrapper!
The evening I spent in the Richard-Wagner-Festspielhaus in Bayreuth was perhaps the best ever from that angle. It was really lovely - perfectly silent in the auditorium, and not a single mobile phone going off... <sigh>
Me three. I used to be able to place an indent in the middle of a line, and have it affect only the text following the code--which was a lovely thing for certain layout necessities. Can't do that in Word, not even twenty years later.
I’m no advocate for MS Word and don’t use it so this advice maybe crap, or it may fall into ‘how to suck eggs’ territory...
I use MS Word 7 for work. I thought this particular problem had long since been binned, but this morning I did something and that damned talking paperclip suddenly appeared. Microsoft is preparing to dump even the office version of 7 (oh, please, don't let them inflict Word 10 on me, with its horrible supersaturated photos on the opening page that you can't delete!), so the help is not much help.
Comments
Pointless chucking him overboard - sufficiently portly for his natural buoyancy to keep him afloat till eternity.
Now a few hours kip before the morning service
I emailed both of them on the day Ma MC died. Neither replied. I noticed three days later, and re-sent the message, saying: "Did you get this?" One of them sent back a grovel and: "See you when you get back." I've been back for two weeks. Not so much as an email, let alone anyone picking up the phone to check in.
So this is the sum total of the pastoral response from my home church community. I don't want to be that ecclesiastical cliche - the congregant who moans: "You didn't visit me in hospital!" When no-one knew they were in hospital. But, I told them my mum had died. I would think that would raise some sort of response, whether from the actual clergy, or a lay delegate (I used to be on the pastoral visiting team, but I'm not even sure that's going any longer. I had to give it up to retrain.)
I have a theory about the reason for this oversight. No matter all the fine words we say in our gaff, women are still easy to overlook. One of the creatures I emailed has form for this, and I was uncomfortably reminded of a very annoying meeting he was involved in. There are just lots of things to do, and one woman, bereavement notwithstanding, might as well be invisible. It's not the first time it's happened, and it won't be the last, but it's the most hurtful.
In other news, I am brewing a bollocking so ruinous it will shake the rock on which Embru castle stands.
When I was diagnosed with a brain tumour, and had to retire from church life, and a few months later had to go into hospital, Father Fuckwit assumed I'd vanished off the face of the earth. No phone calls, no visits, nothing. He was heard, however, to complain that he'd have to do various jobs that I had been in the habit of doing...and that they would be 'something else I'm not paid for'...
I'm afraid I consigned this self-centred apology for a priest to Outer Darkness a long time ago.
The much-needed pastoral care came from various members of the church, I'm happy to report, so I was not entirely bereft. Blessings be upon all who rallied round!
Or a full immersion baptism, like what I had (though indoors!). Would that make him a fundamentalist Protestant? Of an American flavor, no less!
LoL
Try NO pastoral visits to your Organist in 7 years following the death of their partner, leaving Organist and 18 year-old children (taking 'A' levels at the time) bereft.
And since then both CWs have had joint replacement surgery - no visits.
Is it just me who would CTH people who pay serious money ( >£100, so serious in my book) to attend a concert at Wembley Stadium (the Eagles, no less) and then treat the whole event like a night out at the pub? Getting up to go out and get beer. Yakking to each other and cooing over pictures of some unnamed pooch, on their phones. Not coincidentally, getting up to go to the loo. And doing all this, just in front of me!
I know, it was loud enough for me not to hear what they were saying, and the Eagles weren't going to notice. But why pay all that money when you could stay home and listen to your CDs? There were super AV projections to look at, but clearly not as good as the doggie pictures.
On the way home my family were reminding me of all the lines I'd used in the past - 'I hope you're not going to talk all through this concert', 'Can it wait until after the play?', 'I paid to listen to the band, not you nattering', and my favourite -
'This is mime - it does not require a voice-over!'
Mrs. S, old and crotchety
* I pay for this privilege - to be offered tickets that haven't sold out
Mr. Lamb is a pastor. On their pastoral team. Such as it is.
I don't know how to explain why so many pastors seem to suck at this.
Meanwhile we carry on visiting and calling people when their canaries die... (okay, slight exaggeration, but it seems like all our ministry is sometimes is visitation)
// LC, jealous of our own care recipients
I was replying to an email chain, in which I'd sent a request for Ma to be added to the prayers list as she hadn't long to go, to which the Rector replied (promptly!!) copying in the other creature.
Interesting to think of who I rang and who I emailed. I'd phoned friends earlier in the day, and I think I'd run out of juice by the time I got to them. Email adds distance, so there's that. Also, the Rector is cover during our interregnum and doesn't know who I am, although it would not be hard to find out. I've hardly been lurking in the shadows.
Of the people who have rallied round, none is from church. People just don't know what to do, so they do nothing, fearful of causing more pain. We forgive.... after a good rant and a few frank but carefully chosen words.
ISTM that if you're a regular attender (which, being in the choir, I always was) you're maybe less likely to get a visit because they're always used to you being there.
I'm wondering/hoping that someone (priestly or otherwise - I'm easy) might get in touch after I was back for the first time in six weeks on Sunday morning. Perhaps they might notice that that there was that caterwaul again, leading the introit? Did we have that last week? Perhaps they might put the lately-added name in the RIP list together with the alto swaying slightly in the end stall??
"Dear Lord and Father" was the first hymn on Sunday, and at Ma's funeral. What are the chances...? Luckily, our first hymn is processional, so I was able to keep it together up to the last verse by needing most of my brain for not falling over.
I wonder too if the "do-ers of the congregation don't get overlooked precisely because their minds (such as they are) sort you automatically into the category of care provider, never receiver-- much as the local emergency room people just assumed my husband was there to interpret for someone, despite his visibly broken collar bone. Though once they are TOLD, they should snap to it!
At my friend's request, I immediately emailed the church office and clergy, informing them of her mother's death. I followed up when we got home. She heard nothing.
When she continued to hear nothing and was feeling severely hurt, I wrote them a rather scorching email. The rector then called and left her a message. The assistant did nothing. A few days later, I reminded them again; he called back, and spoke briefly to my friend. The assistant still did nothing. When I saw her next, I told her that the lack of contact had been hurtful to my friend; she said to me, "Well, (the rector) called her." Really? That's all you've got?
That same week, the college sophomore son of another family in the parish died in a car accident, and they were all over it. I understand that those tragic circumstances were time-consuming and exhausting. But if you have to be nagged to place a simple telephone call to a 25-year regular (and choir member) who has just lost her mother unexpectedly, are you really doing your job properly?
Oh believe me, Curiosity killed, they were in the seats my brother would have bought months ago had they been available, and there was no doubt that they were devoted fans, really - just no idea how to behave. I saw the same with BB King years ago and I thought 'hell, he's well over 80 and he's paying attention, while all you lot can do is drink (and pee!)'
There were still seats available, I grant you, but it was pretty full (and really good in spite of the attendees) so I'm still glad I went.
Mrs. S, still crotchety
A couple of years ago, we went to a very reduced production of Tosca (half a dozen singers, and an “orchestra” consisting of piano, violin, cello and clarinet) in an underground ruin in Rome. They handed out wine and snacks before it started, and informed us that munching through the performance is the old-fashioned Roman way and how it was done when the opera was written.
Which is not to say I don’t get ticked off with the uncouthness of certain spectators in Europe’s great opera houses. Particularly tourists with the “Europe is a big museum” mentality.
Old organist, very envious that you got to see The Eagles.
Shocking!
They really were worth it all
Mrs. S, very envious that you saw the Byrds!
HMRC
That is all
If you talk over the music without very good reason in Ronnie Scott's Club, you get very short shrift. You get information on the website, on your ticket and on entry.
Now standing at Wrath Level - Justified Vexation, with a side of Disappointed Face.
Expected response is Grovelling On Unprecedented Scale, but there's still time for the usual church SNAFU. There's ALWAYS time for the usual church SNAFU!
TICTH Microsoft Word - specifically its inability to justify two bits of the same line differently (something Word Perfect has been able to manage for the last 30 years). I'm formatting a thesis for a friend, and getting the numbers in the contents table to right-justify without f***ing up the beginning of the line is driving me to drink.
Ooh, lovely!
[Unpacks popcorn, munches.]
If you go on tour, will you stop by St. Louis?
(same comments as BroJames, above)
[Twitches curtain] Yes. Our cultural heritage and dependent tourists are safe for today.
Grovelling On A Suitably Impressive Scale delivered via telephone, promptly, last night. Visit offered and accepted.
I need a lie down.
I lend my curses to yours!!! It sounds blood vessel popping!
I'm planning on giving it back this evening (it's on a memory stick, and I'm not doing the printing), but I might see if I can have another crack at it depending on how the printed version looks.
I confess I've never used a ToC function - I've never had to.
(This all takes me back to the day when a Korean postgrad uninstalled all the software on our shared lab 286, so he could install Korean fonts on WP5.1. He was a bit like that.)
Please, someone, tell me: How do I kill Clippie?