St.Margaret's News September 2020 September 2020 | Page 9

Illegal Singing Alert
A nightmare of David Hunt
The persistence of the Covid-19 pandemic seems to have triggered the emergence
of a new crime wave - in churches of all places! It is not the sometime
fashionable and popular felony of pinching the silver candlestick holders or communion
sets - or stealing lead from church roofs (regrettably common in England).
Each time, the scene of the crime is a church which has resumed face-to-face
services minus hymn singing. Exultant sounds pierce the quiet introspective
sanctity of divine worship. Appalling! In protest against the ban (and with a contemptuous
disregard for the reputed germ-spreading potential of singing), groups
of highly organised and thoroughly rehearsed choristers enter surreptitiously and
launch into rousing and robust renditions of erstwhile popular hymns, filling the
building to its rafters with glorious worshipful sound. Disgusting! Then, as suddenly
as they came, they steal silently away, leaving behind stunned parishioners
with shattered nerves and eardrums reverberating with the echoes of strident alleluias.
These vocal outlaws are suspected of having Methodist links, largely because of
their demonstrated preference for a number of Charles Wesley’s greatest hits
and veritable showstoppers. Suspicion has already fallen on a new evangelical
terrorist group known as the Methodist Musical Mafia. Some members are old
lags, serial offenders, who are believed to have sinned repeatedly by illegally
chorusing amens threefold or even sevenfold.
One church treasurer was heard to observe:
“Ah dinna ken why ye canna be gaun ta pass the collection plate aroound while
they still be a-singin’. They might be minded to make a wee contribution”.
(We Scots talk like that when roused).
Perhaps he reasoned that the interlopers looked affluent enough, having reevaluated
the wisdom of waiting to store up treasures in heaven.
There is no reported case of the coronavirus having been contracted as a consequence
of these incursions; however, several people are reputed to have caught
religion, a condition marked by a tendency to babble in foreign tongues. This
must be stopped! If allowed to proceed unchecked we could have a revival on
our hands! Quelle horreur!
Enquiries are continuing. Anybody with information that may be of assistance
should contact:
JOY-STOPPERS
on
6(n) 6(o)
7(s) 4(i) 6(n) 4(g) 4(ii) 6(n) 4(g)
St Margaret’s News 9 September 2020