O Sapientia

After celebrating yesterday morning's Eucharist at St German's, I met with a lovely young couple whose wedding service I will be conducting on Holy Innocents Day, to get to know them before meeting with the rest of their families at the rehearsal next week. He's a soldier specialising in electronic warfare - making sense of battlefield communications - and she's at Glamorgan Uni studying sound engineering, so unusually, they both have listening as a core interest and skill. He's just come back from a week of training exercises with a month's leave to get wed before deployment. Theirs will be the first wedding I've done since the month I retired. I hope I won't get nervous like I used to when conductign weddings.

After lunch, Clare and I went for a walk around Llandaff Fields, almost empty as everyone's in town shopping. It was windy and cold. By the time we got to Blackweir Bridge it started to rain, although the sun was shining through fast moving clouds. We took refuge in the Bant a la Carte deli on Cathedral Road for coffee and cake before heading home. There was no sermon to prepare, as I'm only officiating at carol services in the Vale this afternoon. So, I cooked supper, somewhat nervously, using for the first time an unfamiliar new electric stove, delivered Tuesday last and installed Thursday. Getting used to different controls and the response time of electric hobs will take some time. Thankfully, I didn't ruin any food on my first attempt, but cooking was hardly a relaxed affair.

Last night was the final double episode of 'The Killing II', as fast paced and with as many twists and turns as a downhill alpine cycle race. The political dimension to the drama as as complex and surprising to follow as the murder mystery element and the two interlocked brilliantly, as in series one. Both have proved to be outstanding works of modern television drama, casting a stark light upon the presumptions and prejudices which accompany every aspect of contemporary life, and the dire consequences of failing to hold them in check, no matter how much any of us believe we're objective, detached and working only with factual evidence.  

Lund, the detective heroine develops throughout as she learns by suffering the consequences of any unwarranted supposition. Her relentless obsessive pursuit of unvarnished fact in her investigations grows, and breeds discomfort in her relationships with everyone else involved. When she's proved right, there's not even the hint of a smile of triumph on her face, if anything it's a suggestion of relief we see in her passionless gaze, as she is freed from the torture of uncertainty that accompanies her when not knowing what really happened.

On the political side of the drama, the character of Buchs, the new Justice minister develops in a similar way, as he finds strength and courage to pursue dark secrets in high places of government which he doesn't seem to possess at the outset. A third drama series is promised. Where else can it take us, and get us thinking about violence, the use and abuse of power in today's world?

O Sapientia, Wisdom holding all things together - understood as factual know-how, insight or experience in discernment is not only about knowledge possessed. It's also about the right and holy desire for truth that sets us free, enabling us to know who and what we are as children of the Most High.