Lambs To The Slaughter
‘REMOVING the headphones of your new iGod, you take your usual place in church.
But whats this? The churchwarden is signalling to you. He wants you to do what? To stand up? Why? Hes coming over. Oh, its not you; its the disabled woman in the front pew.
The strains of the National Anthem has just been struck up by Mrs Miggins on the organ and we are all to rise.
But this rebel/anti-monarchist/cripple, call her what you will, wont budge. So, as the Times reports, the church worker is helping her.
The Times has seen a survey conducted by the Church Times in which readers were invited to submit to the paper examples of rudeness.
So we get the following anecdote about this disabled woman: One of the sidesmen rushed up to her, jabbed her in the arm with his finger and ordered her to get up in an extremely aggressive and unkind way. The woman began to cry. She tried to explain that she was unable to get up.
Had only a ranting evangelical preacher been there, the woman could have risen up and sang. But it was not to be.
Of course this woman was lucky she was even allowed in church. What of the parable of the wheelchair user who was told at the church door to go home because there was nowhere to put her?
And the Guardian, which has seen the same survey, tells of a vicar told by a churchwarden that new families attending a service ‘werent really our type’.
Theres the bishop who told a curate looking for a parish: ‘You have to ask yourself who would want you at your age?’ And the vicars wife who said to a woman who had just lost her newborn child: ‘Maddening, isn’t it?’
Indeed. And something that can be cured with a nice cup of tea and some cucumber sandwiches…’
Posted: 29th, December 2005 | In: Uncategorized Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
