Technically, I’ve got until tomorrow before I have to mask up when I attended a live church service as a congregant (there is a dispensation exempting leaders in those settings, as long as they can maintain good distancing). However, I decided to mask up for this evening’s ‘parish prayer’ service at Thorpe Acre to see what it felt like.

Physically, it wasn’t a problem even on this, the hottest day of the year so far. For most people, without skin or breathing issues, it shouldn’t be a problem. I did find it made me feel more distanced from what was going on. Among the small number of people there tonight, it was easy enough to shrug that off and participate despite being masked and at a distance but I think this is something we will need to work with when we have larger events and everybody can’t be clearly heard from behind their mask.

A worthwhile experiment though, to spend some time behind the mask and make myself better prepared when I stand in the position of a service leader.