photo: s. r. p. credit: s.r.p.
(Note: this is an excerpt from my forthcoming book, Grand Mal, which is about epilepsy and is a memoir. This section deals with religion and how it is filtered by many with temporal lobe epilepsy... it is a bit long for the Web. This follows the earlier Fugues & Fireflies published here a short while ago.) Thanks. S.R.P.
I feel about my evening prayer vestments the way Nabokov felt about his Lolita; strangely and perversely turned on, which I imagine is not the way one should feel in a cassock. I feel like the purified and Mikvah’d bride of Jesus, even though a Mikvah is for Jewish women and I’m Episcopalian, it doesn’t matter. I feel blessed and light as air when I wear it.
My cassock is light cotton and black with buttons up the side, not the usual middle. The arms flare out more than the norm for cassocks and when I walk, they fold and unfold, flapping out behind me like batwings or an umbrella folding in and out, a bellows pumping. A mixed metaphor.
There is a cincture. I love this word cincture, the way it feels on my tongue. I love saying it and go about asking if anyone has seen my “cincture” even though I know darn well where it is. I want them to know I am an acolyte. I want them to see how holy I am. The cincture is a black belt with tassels and a knot on each end. You loop it in a special way around the waist and then hook the end through. I become expert at tying my cincture.
I dutifully run the Evening Vespers/Evening Prayer at 5:30, the time of sundown every day and although it changes with the seasons, sundown, it always feels to me that the true end of the day is 5:30.
Evening Prayers lasts about a half hour. On some days, a priest accompanies me, but usually not. Vespers is my service, my crowd.
A small group attends with regularity among them a couple who will fall in love and marry – I watch as they pray together. It is their courtship. They giggle and kneel and clasp their hands together. I envy them. Wish I had the feeling they seem to have.
I read from the Black Anglican Service Book, beginning on Page 64:
“Let my prayer be set forth in thy sight as an evening sacrifice, and let the lifting of my hands be an offering for the whole world to see.”
Article comments
1 - Joseph
I loved this. It sucked me in and I couldn't stop reading it. I (being the Metho-Anglican that I am) do want to know the prayers for ringing the bells. :-)
2 - sadi ranson-polizzotti
Hi Joseph... and thanks for reading this. It's part of a forthcoming book i've written called Grand Mal. I don't want to publish too many excerpts for obvious reasons, but i believe there is one more on here that is called "Of Fuges and Fireflies" if you want to read it... or maybe it's on the BBC.. If you Google my name with Fugues and Fireflies "Sadi Ranson Fugues and Fireflies BBC" that would probably pull it up if you're interested, tho you may not be... either way okay...: )
Your comment really made my day.... i'm so glad to hear that it kept you reading. that's exactly the sort of thing that any author who is selling a book wants to hear. My agent is handling the book and it's currently out at the big houses (Pantheon, Random House, etc) and hopefully, one of them will bite... i'll post here if and when they do tho it takes months before you even get an answer!!!
The prayer for the bells is a prayer call to service (to the mass, tho we do not use the word mass usually, we say "service"). I cannot remember the prayer exactly but i do know that "we ring these bells as a summon to worship and to the glory of god" That is at least part of the prayer... the rest i cannot remember since i didn't read it outloud for the group - i just rang my bell (i was usually the 5th bell, a heavy alto).
Church bells are heavy... but they're balanced, so you have be trained to ring, but it's a smooth process. The balance of the bell makes it seem less heavy so even i, a 5'6" woman can ring a two ton bell because of the way it is balanced and the method we use to ring.
Your comment really made my day. I've written a lot about epilepsy and to read more, do visit my own blog at tant mieux for more.
So many thanks to you again - thank you....
s.r.p.