I truly enjoy being able to take as much time as I need to retrieve and print off the church bulletin for Sunday, and then sit and work at my sermon for the week. I can write something from scratch if an insight grabs me, or trawl through my web archive to see if ideas from anything I've preached and uploaded over the past twelve years will serve as a starting point. Even if it's worth saying again, it's usually a matter of editing and re-writing to adapt the thoughts to a different context. This takes just as long as having to start from scratch. Even so, I find it's an enjoyable creative enterprise.
Its not that much different from any artist exploring motifs and symbols through the use of a variety of physical media. My model for working on a sermon is still that of BBC's radio correspondents, whose words are models of conciseness as well as insight. Having something of value to say is one thing. Getting it across before your audience loses its concentration is another.
My afternoon outing was to Frigiliana, by car, getting petrol on the way out and food supplies from the Lidl store nearby on the way back. The last time I visited this pueblo blanco dating back to the 11th century kingdom of the Moors was four years ago at this time, with Clare. Photos I took then say it was in May, as the town was festooned as now with mayoral election banners. It's a lovely place, and it's understandable so many expats want to live there or take holidays there.
Zut! I didn't take a photo of the first slot machine on the main square which I encountered. Perhaps I remembered that I'd done so before. But this time it was algo diferente. On the table, in a domestic scene portrayed, was a little netbook. I noticed it, but didn't take a picture. When I checked my web archive from four years ago, the table was bare. Bother, I'll have to return for a photo. Not exactly a penance, as it's a place that offers so many different and attractive perspectives to visitors.
After shopping at Lidl's on the way back, it was impossible not to notice a one legged man in a wheel chair at the gate, begging. He was positioned in such a way that incomers wouldn't notice him. As for outgoers, only a car with a passenger might easily be able to stop and offer alms. I wondered how new he might be to this. I stopped, got out of the car, and gave him what spare change I had, and received a huge smile for my few words, as inadequate as my dineros.
Yesterday, begging by the Balcon de Europa were a man missing his left arm and a girl, barely twenty by the looks of her. So many poor people here, for whatever reason falling out of the social support system, or not getting enough from it to survive. Tourists give. Rarely does anyone who give have the language ability to find out why they are there.
Back in Cardiff, I rarely give to beggars. Some in the city centre I know have been there as long as I have. Many behave and appear as if they are supporting drug habits by begging, rather than a family, not coping with serious disability the state cannot provide for. In any society there will be begging professionals, getting a living from tourists.
How can anyone distinguish the really needy from chancers when the circumstances of need vary so greatly? Is there an answer?
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