Eagles and Paperclips



Eagles and Paperclips
In church the lessons may be read from the lectern or from the pulpit, from the center aisle, or conceivably by a lector standing up and reading from among the congregation. A rubric (BCP 406) does say that lessons should be treated and read respectfully.
A sure sign that you are in an Episcopal church is when you see a large brass or wooden eagle up front. That is the lectern: the lessons are read from there. Tradition holds the eagle as a symbol of St. John the Evangelist and many Church of England parishes have an eagle lectern. In the days of Morning Prayer all the lessons were read from the eagle lectern, which contained a large Bible. 
At Trinity, Apalachicola there was no eagle lectern, the lessons were read from a speaker’s podium. When we bought a grand piano it competed with the lectern for space so I removed the lectern and we started reading the lessons from the pulpit. We placed the lectern Bible on the pulpit table, and it’s still there. However, the Bible is slanted, and my sermon notes would slide off onto the floor if I didn’t hold on to them, which is awkward, so I started using paperclips to hold my notes, large colored plastic paperclips.
Any time we visit Trinity, Apalachicola one of my peculiarities is noticing things that we left, things I wrote, items we left behind. Preaching in the Trinity pulpit last Sunday I noticed that my pink plastic paperclip was still there and still in use. I thought of exchanging it for one of the yellow paperclips that I had brought along. But it’s probably been there twenty years or more, and title has passed, so I left it.
Linda has always loved magnolia trees and enjoyed using their huge grandiflora blossoms in Altar arrangements and also in our home. The fragrance is wonderful. Years ago I planted a sapling magnolia tree in the front yard of the rectory for her, and on every visit I notice that it has matured, spread and grown larger. 
Brand new since we last visited, Trinity, Apalachicola has the loveliest memorial garden I have ever seen.
At St. Andrew’s, Panama City in my growing up years, the lectern was a large wooden eagle that my grandparents had given in the 1920s as a memorial to their son, my uncle, Alfred Daniel Weller, Jr. Seeing the eagle there meant a great deal to my grandfather. When the church building was moved and the new modern church built in the 1960s the eagle was tossed because it didn’t fit the decor of the new building. My father said he thought one of the local Masonic or other lodges had picked it up, and the loss of it was a great sadness to him. 
While there is no Bible on it, I was delighted when the brass eagle lectern was brought into Holy Nativity. To me it proclaims large, “ANGLICAN: THIS IS AN EPISCOPAL CHURCH.”
TW+