Ty Mawr Associates in their element

Up early for me on a Saturday, to drive over to Ty Mawr Convent for the Associates' day meeting at the community's Michaelgarth house of hospitality. There were more than two dozen of us present to hear Mary Lewis speak to the theme of Creation and Christian Spirituality. Mary is a priest who was ordained in the diocese of Swansea & Brecon, who now lives on the Outer Hebridean island of North Uist, as far north as you can go and still be in Great Britain. She ministers there to the small Episcopalian congregation of the island. Her talk was a fruit of deep learning and reflection added to her experience of life on that bare island out in the North Atlantic.

I was particularly touched by her account of the visit of a BBC wildlife photography crew who arrived and established themselves quite close to her house, to film golden eagles that make their home in this wild environment, devoid of trees and bushes. She said that they stayed in silence all day long, cameras at the ready, waiting in hope of spotting the birds and being able to film them. She regarded this activity as a metaphor for the work of contemplative prayer, seeking the presence of divine life in the created order.  This struck a chord with me. Often, I think we fail to realise  how scientists and artists discipline their lives around searching for truth in seeing what's there. Rather than laying interpretation on to an environment, they wait and let the environment speak to them and give them insight into the truth.

After a picnic lunch, we were given several exercises to attempt, inviting us to look carefully at nature around us, in this most beautiful rural Gwent setting and respond to it an some creative way, drawing or writing. One of the exercises was to look at the sky and write three lines about it. At the time there was low white cloud from one horizon to another. I felt this was the kind of challenge I would find less uncomfortable than having to tray and draw something. It always takes me ages to feel at ease with a pencil and paper to hand, whereas it's hard to stop words bouncing off the world, whizzing around in my head and gathering up into phrases in ways that are occasionally worth writing down. 

After forty minutes my three line written observation and reflection grew into three Haiku verses.

Overcast sky - a random tapestry

filaments of white and grey

Sombre does no justice to the mood

when heaven's glory is concealed

Not in the cloud, but
underneath

is where we wait

consoled by errant sunbeams

That's something I've not done for a while - a pleasure indeed. I took some photographs too. You'll find them here.

I value my connection with Ty Mawr greatly. The community is half the size now that it was when I went there first in the late seventies, yet it's still attracting vocations. Today was most memorable for me as it was the first time I had been there when a priest member of the community celebrated the Eucharist. It's not a sign that Ty Mawr is becoming in any way self-sufficient, but rather that it has embraced and welcomed the reality of people with vocations in the contemporary church of which it is a pivotal part. It's one of the religious communities which is most open to honest compassionate understanding of the modern world it's possible to find anywhere. It remains a key place for the future life and mission of the Church in Wales.

I return from a tranquil day to learn more from the news about yesterday's incidents involving a van driver running down passers by in a series of locations in Cardiff West before being apprehended outside Asda in Leckwith. The eyes of the media are on the Parish of the Resurrection, Glanely tonight, where the one fatal victim of this outrage lived, as well as some of the injured. I feel for my friend and colleague Jan Gould who is in the thick of it, and will be throughout the weekend and beyond.