Good Friday night out

Up to Radyr with 'Becca for a ten o'clock start this morning, for a short youth service at Christchurch, then a walk of witness down to the Methodist Church, where we were joined by the congregation there at the end of their service for a prayers around the cross in the public garden opposite the church. It was bitterly cold, and waiting for the rendezvous wasn't much fun, but when the brief prayers were over we went into the Methodist church hall for tea and hot cross buns. I met Aled Edwards, General Secretary of Cytun, who was worshipping with the Methodists this morning and we chatted for a while, then I went home, feeling in need of some quiet solitude before my afternoon preachment. Clare was just on her way out for the service with Bishop David at St John's Canton, so I had the place to myself.

Jenny, 'Becca and I shared the conduct of Good Friday Liturgy between us, with three dozen people in attendance. After I'd preached, 'Becca read a poetic meditation on the Cross she'd written. It was one of the first reflections she sent me after she started in College. I remembered how personally honest it had been, and was delighted she agreed to read it in a service. I felt it fitted well with the conclusion of what I had preached about. It was a fitting introduction to venerating the cross, which we then processed in with. For 'Becca this was an all-new experience. There are few occasions over forty five years when I haven't been at this liturgy and venerated the cross. It means a great deal to me.

Owain came over for an early supper, and then we went together to the Millennium Centre to watch a dance event which brought together sixteen Shaolin monks and a contemporary dance in an east-west fusion performance called 'Sutra', a Sadlers Wells production. 

Everything about it was truly amazing - the use of seventeen huge two metre tall wooden boxes as props constantly moved around on stage and used as a theatrical framework for executing a host of high speed athletic feats. They certainly deserve their reputation for being 'flying monks', they jump so spectacularly high. Many components of the movements performed I recognised from Tai Chi and Chi Gung, although delivered in the dynamic fashion of martial arts.

It was a wonderful spiritual offering from a group of calm focussed recollected young men emptied of egotism, connected to each other so tightly that their movement gave the impression of an active swarm of bees. It was moving and uplifting to watch and I loved the music by Szymon Brzoska. 

There were moments in the performance when the boxes were laid out horizontally and piled up in a four by four array, each occupied by a still performer, suggesting a funerary columbarium of the catacombs . Echoes of the Saviour's death and burial are never far away on this most holy day.