Friday Five...

Reflecting on how early Easter is, how early the switch to Daylight Saving Time has been, and how out of synch many of us are feeling as a result -- A fine Friday Five from Mother Laura over at RevGalBlogPals:

If you could travel to any historical time period, which would it be, and why?

I've seen some great answers in other Gals' posts -- maybe Bach's Leipzig, Mozart's Vienna...or Regency England; or the first 10 years of the twentieth century, here in North America (if we could skip "The Hard Winter of Ought-Six" (it's a Prairie Thing). My problem is I keep remembering all the things we DON'T have to contend with, things like preventable illnesses, that darkened those times and places, and I somehow wind up thinking that "right now" is the best yet!

2. What futuristic/science fiction development would you most like to see?

Teleportation would be nice so that we could see the people we love oftener without leaving obscene carbon footprints!

3. Which do you enjoy more: remembering the past, or dreaming for the future?

I find I remember my own past much more than I dream about the future; as somebody has already said, of course I have a lot more past than future at this point!

4. What do you find most memorable about this year's Lent?

Extreme cold temperatures, perhaps...

5. How will you spend your time during this upcoming Holy Week? What part do you look forward to most?

I celebrate an additional daytime Eucharist MTW, at different times of the day: noon on Monday, early evening on Tuesday, crack-of-dawn on Wednesday.
The regular ten a.m. Holy Communion on Thursday, and then supper, footwashing, last Eucharist, stripping the altar on Thursday evening.
Children's Way of the Cross on Friday morning (our teens may go downtown to walk the inner-city one); Solemn Devotions at noon on Friday, Daughter Unit singing the Reproaches. [for personal enrichment, Serious Concert Good Friday evening -- the Rachmaninoff All-Night Vespers, concert version, i.e. NOT all night, but plenty].
A "Benedictine Morning" on Holy Saturday during which the Sanctuary Guild will clean house with hourly prayer-breaks and a potluck lunch to conclude.
The Great Vigil at 8 o'clock. LOW POINT of the entire season will be, again, lighting the Easter Fire in the Sacred Barbeque, and trying to keep the paschal candle lit in the wind. There will be wind. Trust me. HIGH POINT probably of the entire season (up to that moment) will be Daughter Unit singing the Exsultet for the first time. Wild ringing of bells at the Gloria (we ask people to bring handbells, cowbells, sleighbells, ornamental bells, school bells, whatever they have at home, and "let'er rip")...

Easter Sunday morning, two services, and the choir will sing at both. In between the services they will have a nutritious and sustaining breakfast, washed down with mimosas. The Gospel Acclamation on Easter Sunday is the Hallelujah Chorus. Yes, that one. Yes, all of it. And at the second service, full of breakfast etc., (not to mention the mimosas) I can't begin to tell you how much ATTACK the choir brings to this moment. Trumpeters, too. That will, indeed, be quite toothsome; a serious contender for High Point.

Then a mid-afternoon communion service at a seniors' residence.

And -- proving that I am irrecoverably base and carnal and irreligious if not absolutely apostate -- the real high point of the week, I fear, will be consuming the Easter Ham with the family chez Daughter Unit and SIL Unit...and collapse.