Peace

I’m not sure when it became standard practice in the Church of England to offer each other a sign of peace – I don’t remember doing it as a child, but nowadays it seems to be everywhere. I think it’s a lovely idea in principle, but when you think about it further, it’s fatally flawed. This is the Church of England, after all, and we English are well known for our stiff upper lips and horror of ‘making a show’. Shaking hands and smiling at perfect strangers is not really in our repertoire. Add to that fact that, in my Church, we are Londoners, possibly the most antisocial people in the world, and you have a recipe for a most uncomfortable few minutes at about 10.45 every Sunday morning. Everyone tries hard, on the face of it, and you have people milling about all over the church, madly shaking hands with everyone that they meet, but when you actually look harder at the ritual, you realise that everyone is merely grinning and bearing it.

First, you have the people who shake hands with the people immediately surrounding them, along with anyone else who shoves a hand in their direction as they go past. These people will shake hands firmly, look the other person in the eye, smile and remember to say the words, ‘peace be with you’ when a hand is offered, but they wait for others to come to them and will not stray from their pew.

Secondly, you have the people who take this opportunity to cross the church and have a good old gossip with their next door neighbour about Aunt Gladys’s dodgy knee. They are likely to look askance at anyone else who tries to enter their circle of influence and are far less interested in offering peace than in juicy titbits of scurrilous gossip.

Lastly, you have the people who are making it their mission to shake hands with as many different people as possible. There are no smiles or eye contact from these people, merely a hand shoved limply in your direction as they cast their eye around the pews to calculate how many people there are left to greet. It’s a numbers game for them.

I confess I am one of the first group of people. It’s partly that my English reserve forbids me from shaking hands with too many strangers in one go; but really, for me, it comes down to quality, not quantity. The people that smile, make eye contact, and speak directly to me are the people that make my day better, and that’s the feeling that I want to pass on.

Peace be with you.