I had two Eucharists to cover for holidaying parish clergy yesterday morning. I celebrated the Transfiguration a day early, for small congregations at St Luke's and Catherines. It's a feast that has meant so much to me for several different reasons, the most important being that Clare and I married on the 6th August. This morning we went together to St John's for the Eucharist, and sat together in the congregation as Fr Jesse Smith was scheduled to celebrate. A rare treat.
Then Clare and Rachel went off for a swim. I pottered around, then went into the office for a while. We didn't do anything else to mark the day, except savour the delight of last Saturday's family celebration, to add to the multitude of memories of forty-nine years together. It's time to start planning a Golden Wedding fiesta for this time next year. I've decided I'm going to make a photo sequence of all the years to display on the day. Thankfully, I made a start on digitising old family albums a decade ago. There's still more to do, to obtain a fuller picture. Many of the best moments, of course, could never be captured, no matter how vivid they remain in memory.
Today is the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, suitably recalled in the news and at ground zero. With Cold War confrontation hanging over our youthful years, and blighting them with subliminal anxiety, it seemed right that we should marry on this day, because it is also one the feast days of Christ, and the transforming power of his grace. A small gesture, stating that we we were chosing life in the shadow of extermination.
The numbers of nuclear warheads is now a tenth of what it once was, but more nations possess nuclear armaments, so the risk of catastrophe is as high as ever, compounded by possible use of fissile material for a 'dirty bomb' by terrorists. So many people are still choosing ways that lead to death rather than life. Have we got any further than living with the Bomb, rather than creating conditions in which it serves no further purpose and can be disposed of, as we now frequently do with outdated technologies.
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