hot cross buns! hot cross buns!

This morning, during the BBC World Service live broadcast at Guru Tegh Bahadur Gurdwara, Urban Canon Barry Naylor mentioned he'd be involved in an Easter activity at lunchtime in the city centre, handing out hot cross buns in Leicester Market.

There's a gazebo in the market, with a number of folk from the church under it, offering freshly warmed (and buttered) hot cross buns to passers by. I recognise Revd Pete Hobson and Bishop Tim exercising generosity to the passing shoppers.

I know this isn't exactly on the scale of Leicester's celebration of Diwali or Vaisakhi, but I've heard a lot of ill-informed comment over the past few weeks that the prominence of other faith communities in Leicester has meant the downgrading of the place of the church in the public life of our city. I just wanted to put this in to show that that's not necessarilly the case. Chatting with Barry earlier today, I expressed my thoughts that one could look on what's going on at Leicester Cathedral as being the church's innovation unit - by which I mean Cathedral AM, Street Pastors, the Workplace Chaplaincy (add to that the forthcoming development of the old Grammar School). These are ways of serving the whole community with practical acts of love, compassion and kindness.

And I recently heard someone say that if the traditional song is correct ("Hot cross buns! Hot cross buns! One a penny, two a penny, hot cross buns!") then they were the first recorded BOGOF promotion: Buy One Get One Free.