Blog Traffic Jam, Part 4 of 5: Lost in (and Slightly Because of) Evening Prayer

On Saturday we visited Dover & Canterbury. Photos are here, but one incident avoided photography. …Well, lots of stuff avoided photography (conversations, lunch in Canterbury, a stop by an Army surplus store, sleeping on the bus), and for those things that’s good, but one thing stands out. For me, anyway.

After we toured the Canterbury Cathedral, the seat of the Anglican Communion, we could wander around the town as we pleased until 4 p.m. I and a few other people lied outside the church in the grass, taking a quick nap or getting some sun or simply relaxing. I fell into the third group, until I thought of sitting in on evening prayer. It would start at 3:15, but because it was a Saturday night (and the night before Pentecost, even), it would last longer than usual (4:15). I made sure a few people knew where I was in case I returned to the bus late, and I made my way into the church.

I’ve done evening prayer before. Even before a small group of us did evening prayer at St. Paul’s last weekend, I had prayed the Catholic liturgy of the hours off and on for the past three years. (Admittedly, it was more “on” during senior year of high school and more “off” in my first two years at IU, but even now I sneak it in once in a while.) I knew the basic outline of such a service: an invocation, a couple psalms, a New Testament canticle, a reading, intercessions, one of three more special canticles (Benedictus, Magnificat, Nunc Dimittis), and a closing prayer. (Roughly. It depends on what time of day.) I felt pretty prepared.

I’ve never done evening prayer like this. Everyone was ornate and ornamental and… slow. Three things account for my inexperience: I was always by myself and able to control the tempo when doing these prayers, whereas this was in Canter-freakin’-bury Cathedral; I always said the psalms etc. to myself, whereas there was a boys’ choir doing everything (I mean everything. We didn’t sing or say anything at all.); I was always in my room, whereas… this was in Canter-freakin’-bury Cathedral. It was a slightly moving experience, “slightly” because I would have gotten more out of it if I could participate.

Because the group was leaving at 4, however, I resolved to leave at 3:45. That brought me through the entrance (with about 20 boys of the choir and five to ten adult celebrants), four psalms (twice as many as I expected!), two readings, the Magnificat, and the Our Father. I skimmed the rest of the schedule during one of the longer psalms, and I found I was going to miss a full page of intercessions.

Oh, well. Interceding was not as important as making sure the bus didn’t leave me in Canterbury. I slipped out the door at 3:45. That was all well and good, making sure that I left early enough to get to the bus on time…

…Assuming, of course, that I knew where the bus was. Unfortunately, I hadn’t figured that out before heading into the service, so I had to rely on my photographic memory to return me to the group. And that failed me. I started down the right road, but two wrong turns later I texted someone and asked where I was supposed to go. He said the coach parking lot was at the top of the map, so I started my way north after I had been walking south after I had been walking north after I had made the second wrong turn. I made it, fifteen minutes late (even though I ran a little). I walked up to the bus, and I saw the driver waiting outside. I asked, “I guess everyone else is here, right?” He said, “Yah!” I walked onto the bus, and someone said (jokingly), “Boo that man!” Then the group leader asked (jokingly, again), “Was she pretty?”

Well, the church was pretty, I thought. I sat down and slept a bit on the way home, the 150th Psalm running through my head.