Morning Prayer reverted to the original time of 8 a.m. today. This was welcomed by most, not least by those who are not early morning people and had found the 7:30 a.m. start a tad too early.
During the experimental earlier start, numbers had dropped, but so had numbers attending breakfast, even more so, in fact.
Imagine my delight when, this morning, I found myself busy in the kitchen cooking eggs, making toast for nine, and for the first time in six or seven weeks running out of, rather than throwing out, coffee. My spirits were lifted on seeing lively discussions around and about the breakfast table on a wide range of topics. It was great to see "M" back following an absence, looking well and instructing me how to cook the eggs. "C" had a headache(?), but still managed to be his incorrigible self, "Big S" was planning to remove his weather-beaten tent and replace it with another, new model, in the same spot. “Mick,” he shouts, “I need to borrow your car. I’m moving today and have some furniture to shift”.
Following these past weeks, when on some mornings we had none of the guys in for breakfast, I was struggling with the feeling of “what are we doing wrong?” What I realize now is that in switching the Morning Prayer time and the consequential earlier start for breakfast, we did not take in the feelings of all our community.
St. Joe’s is a community for those both inside and outside the buildings. Would we have told our family at home that “breakfast is now at 8, not 7:30?” Of course not. We would have asked them what they felt about the change. Lesson learned. Thank you guys, you contribute to my life more that I sometimes admit.
Mick
