State of Alarm - day Forty Four

An episcopal encyclical arrived with yesterday's emails, detailing carefully the measures and safety procedures which will need to be implemented when public worship can be resumed. Already a few chaplaincies of the diocese in Europe have this prospect approaching quite soon. Sadly, not while I'm in Spain, I think. More than half of the chaplaincy members I won't get around to meeting let alone celebrating with, live in church. The state must first decide it's possible to manage a modest degree of free movement, and resume select business activities to get the economy moving, then conditions may be safe enough to start risk minimised public worship. 

Once congregations are given permission to gather again publicly by government and the Bishop, Churchwardens and sides-persons will have their work cut out to plan and make arrangements for a sanitized liturgical environment, complying with social distancing. What will hit congregations hard is the extreme restriction if not actual banning of collective singing, even in socially distanced environments. This is to minimise exhaled air vapour carrying coronavirus particles far enough for another to inhale them. Bio-security clearance certificates for worshippers wanting to gather is also contemplated, along with several smaller services with people more spread out. With many people getting used to watching on-line services, and finding they have a choice of offerings to suit their taste, deterrents to traditional forms of church service are fast stacking up.

Preparation for any church worship gathering will be a really big effort that no cleric could manage on their own. This was often the norm before covid19 when priests regularly took several services a day, supported by a minimum of church officers, either in the same or other venues, so the faithful could conveniently be served with Word and Sacrament. That's just how it was, the status quo coram plaga. It'll be quite a while before things could be the same again. Maybe they never will be the same again. The impact on how Christians worship and share faith is now changing at a pace unimaginable in the fifty years since churches worldwide were rocked by radical liturgical change and innovation for the first time since the Reformation five centuries ago.

At the same time we face again the same kind of issues as were current then. Fear of contagion even before law enforcement has prevented people from attending public worship and receiving Communion. During lock-down, watching services on-line has served as a replacement, and people have had to get used to the idea of receiving spiritual communion instead. That's how it was before the Reformation, watching services performed up in the sanctuary behind a screen from the distance of the nave!

Frequent reception of Communion may have started to wane when Christianity became a religio licita of the Empire in Constantine's day, and worship in public buildings on a big scale became the norm. Plagues happened in those days too, and Communion in the form of wine from the chalice began to be restricted or modified by using intinction instead, before eventually Communion from the Cup was limited to officiating clergy.  

Withholding the chalice from the laity may be less to do with the presumed assertion of clerical privileged status than an early health and safety precaution. At the Reformation, however, restoring the Cup the the laity was regarded by some as a key issue, along with restoring frequent Communion as in the primitive church. Changes in the pattern of worship to facilitate easier access to Communion in both kinds took place, but it didn't result in a resumption of the ancient church status quo, despite the exhortations of many reformers. 

Rather than celebrate the Eucharist with only a priest and maybe his assistant communicating,  a service of the Word became the Sunday norm for reformed churches. Several Communion Sundays were designated in the year, and these were made obligatory to attend by state if not church law.  This didn't work either. The idea of the sacrament expressing the 'sacred in the ordinary' which had been part of its Jewish origins had been corrupted by a persistent pagan idea of sacred things with magical powers. Biblical and historical scholarship made possible a return to ancient practice in the 19th century. First the Roman Catholic Church began an movement encouraging more frequent Communion, then Anglicans followed in the early 20th century with the introduction of the Parish Communion as the Sunday worship norm. After four centuries of delay the reformers' ambitions were finally realised. 

By the 1970s  radical demise of all services of the Word set in, not just due to the desire for more frequent Communion. Evening telly put an end to Parish Evensong, Matins was replaced by the Eucharist. Ironically, at the same time, decline in vocations led to fewer priests being obliged to take more Communion services. This is still the case, despite non-stipendiary and women clergy redressing the balance to some extent. The law of unintended consequences led us to a point where the church is over dependent on clergy expertise and sacramental liturgy.  

Now the pandemic has put us in a position where churches have to revert to services of the Word without sacramental communion being possible or just making people spectators of liturgical ritual, as happened before the reformation - as it may have been for maybe the greater part of Christian history. What a strange turn of affairs! Where do we go from here? If desire to attend frequent public worship and receive sacramental Communion is supplanted by habitual consumption of worship services on-line, where will this lead God's people? "In the 21st century" said Karl Rahner in my youth "Christians will either be mystics, or they will be nothing at all." I wonder what he would have made of internet consumer religion?

Well, pondering on these things and writing about them on a warm sunny day meant that it was gone three when I finally stepped out on to the terrace to start my day's walk. With more interruptions and an unexpected spell of snoozing mid-afternoon, it was after sunset before I finished. I hope I can summon enough energy to stay the course and get home. It's a bit like hitting 'the wall' when running a marathon. I've been there twice before. Glad it's forty years since then, and not my next challenge!

State of Alarm - day Forty Three

I was working on pastoral stuff until late last night, and realised I hadn't completed my daily 10k so at 11.30pm, so I went outdoors and walked around in darkness The sky was clear and starlit. Only after a while did I see the crescent moon on its descent towards the horizon, and Venus twinkling brightly on the edge of the skyline before it disappearing.

It was a wonderful refreshing pre-sleep treat, except that it stimulated me to draft a poem before settling down for the night, so it was one o'clock before the lights went out, and half past eight when I woke up to warmth and Spring sunshine. Rosie messaged me to say that migrating bee-eaters have arrived and to keep a lookout for them around the arroyo next to the house.

I should have been flying home today. Twenty four days to go, and that means three more Sundays and Bible Studies on-line to prepare, unless church meeting restrictions are lifted, which might just happen for the 17th, though I have my doubts given the perpetual uncertainties surrounding the plan to get economies moving again across Europe and elsewhere.

I had a look at the readings for next Sunday and immediately had a ideas for a sermon. Rather than waste the thoughts I got busy, and had a draft ready by lunchtime. Early in the week for me. Later I made a start on another batch of marmalade, mostly lemon, but with couple of oranges for variety as well. It's all experimental, and fun to see how it turns out. I made four full jars, tasting nice and bitter, the way I most enjoy it.

While I was out walking this evening a flock of about thirty small birds flew into the pine trees in the field opposite, grey undersides, with wings unlike those of swifts or swallows, but more fan like, able to swoop and glide on air currents. I didn't get a good closeup view, but I am intrigued as to what they could be.  Then, as the sun set swifts and swallows did arrive, hunting insects displaying their aerobatic skills against a backdrop of orange tinted clouds - enchanting.

Rose emailed me to ask the dimensions of my case for the baggage hold on the return trip. I couldn't find a tape measure, so I had to use a sheet of A4 as a measuring guide, but had to google the actual size of a sheet as it's not the sort of factoid my memory can be bothered to retain. Perhaps I should measure the dimensions of all our cases and write them somewhere on their insides for reference.

When I get home to two weeks quarantine I'll be confined to the house, Clare and I working out ways to avoid each other while living together. How I get my 10k a day routine walk done I have no idea. The garden is small and the back lane hardly fifty metres. I can see myself sneaking off to the park in the dead of night, once the street light go out to avoid enforcers if there are any. There ought be a common sense solution, I'm not convinced there things are thought through in consultation with sensible end users, equally concerned for the common good.

A lovely ending to the day with a transeuropean transatlantic family chat on Zoom, and then a look at the clear night sky with a warmer night breeze than we've had over the past two months. Let's hope there's more to come in my remaining weeks here.
   

    

State of Alarm - day Forty Two

I didn't sleep too well last night. I'm not exactly excited at the prospect of going home in three and a half weeks time and straight into quarantine. The weeks of self isolation to protect self and others have been necessary, staying safe has become habitual. Travelling home means having to think a lot more about how to stay safe and be on the alert in an open social context, a responsibility which I haven't had to think much about for the past two months. Resetting one's mind to take conscious precautions en route isn't a worry, but does inevitable has to be thought through so that I don't get caught out and come to grief.

Cooler and cloudy again today, but no rain. Much of the day I spent preparing and recording the Bible Study to upload for tomorrow, plus a couple of hours on the phone, plus two hours walking. And then it was bed-time. Time slips by so quickly.

This afternoon I had a call from a lady speaking Spanish but with the odd trace of Italian accent and vocabulary, enquiring about an interview to book a wedding. I explained to her that nothing was for the moment possible because of the Estadio de Alarma, but that en email at the end of May would be the best way to ensure a meeting could be arranged. I was delighted that she understood me and that I didn't need to repeat myself or say 'no entiendo'. It's the first time I've used Spanish since I was overnight in Palma at the start of this Spanish sojourn. How ironic!

St Catherine's Churchwarden Hilary sent me some photos of the churchyard garden. She, husband Clive and Gareth have been spending many lock down hours social distancing while clearing new patches of ground, pruning and sprouting plants this past few weeks. A wonderful prophetic sign of hope and renewal, giving God a hand instead of feeling helpless. It makes me feel guilt about the jungle outside I walk around daily. The weather hasn't been great, I wait for it to dry up a bit, then it rains, but I really must get the strimmer out and do some tidying. Soon.

    

State of Alarm - day Forty One

Clouds and rain gave way to sunshine this morning and nice long warm day. After Morning Prayer, I listened to the Sunday programme on BBC Radio 4. This ended with a poem written by a surgeon on in a Lancashire hospital Intensive Care Unit, entitled 'I just called to say ...' It wasn't a homage to the Stevie Wonder song of the same name, but an account of his telephone pastoral ministry to the next of kin of patients under his care on ventilation. Half of his day is spent on the phone updating those who wait at home, for better or for worse. The poem spoke of what he has to tell someone at each stage, eagerly awaiting news, unprepared for how long it takes, either for recovery or to death. It was moving and powerful, and gave an insight into the anguish of the healer when all that can be done has been done, and all that's left to do is wait.

The broadcast Morning service, which I listened to over breakfast centred around the Emmaus Road story, today's Gospel. Worship was led by the chaplain and staff members of a hospice, and turned around the journeys people make at the end of their lives. In my sermon for this week, I mentioned that several places lay claim to be the original Emmaus village just outside of West Jerusalem. The preacher, principal of Mansfield College Oxford took it a step further, speaking of several possible roads to Emmaus, all of them different, one hidden, one overgrown and neglected, one dangerous, along a landmine strewn border and so on. It's an imaginative fugue on the narrative, showing how rich are the possibilities for feeding on the Word.   

I read Ante-Communion and prayed at the usual service time. Valuable and inspiring though many on-line liturgies can be, sometime I find that I just need to read the texts rather than listen to them, and then be silent, either sitting or walking. There's no substitute for fellowship, for human contact, but the empty space can be re-purposed for waiting on God. Co-incidentally, Roy over in Alicante sent me a quotation from T S Eliot's Four Quartets which speaks profoundly of the mystery of God and the humankind beholding the mystery

'I said to my soul, be still and wait without hope, 

for hope would be hope for the wrong thing; 

wait without love, for love would be love of the wrong thing; 

there is yet faith, but the faith and the love are all in the waiting. 

Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought: 

So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.'

Out in the garden, I caught my first daytime sight of the house gecko on a wall, and took a photo which I'm proud of. Then I saw a pair of small grew birds acting as if  they were looking for a nesting site. As one of them rested on top of the big garden cactus I took a photo which Rosi later identified as a Spotted Flycatcher. I remember Mother Doreen pointing out one in the forest near her home up on the inland border of Malaga province but that wasd fifty metres away, impossible to snap. So this was another first!

In the evening Rosi called me about booking a flight home, on the 22nd May, as a couple of direct flights to London have been advertised on the BA website., one to London City and one to Gatwick. A quick chat with Kath confirmed she'd be willing to collect me and take me home, and within an hour I had the flight confirmation document. It was booked by Rose from the UK. She was stranded there on a return trip from Ibiza where she has made her home. Decisive action was needed and taken on my behalf, for which I am very grateful. But my hopes won't really begin to rise until this flight proposal is confirmed. Any deterioration here or in UK could change the best made plans. One step at a time on this road. The old order has changed, perhaps irrevocably, who knows yet?

The inbound flight will be mostly of stranded returnees, with fewer people this soon after lock-down wanting to go to London, except for business, or people who missed out on the emergency flights in March, and didn't need to return. It will be good to go home, though there will be far less for me to do there than there has been here, except carry on waiting for that final round of surgery. Clare says that 'elective' surgery is to be re-started soon, though I suspect I'll still have another six months to wait for that.

This morning I saw a man out walking with his young teenage daughter dragging her feet behind, taking advantage of the easing of restrictions on children. I could imagine a girl of her age saying "Oh Dad, must I go out with you, you're so embarrassing."  In the afternoon I heard several children's voices out on the road, and through the trees saw three naughty youngsters out together, no parent, no dog in sight. Well, one can expect the young to push the boundaries, having been pent up at home for so long. Good for their mental health, as it's bad for the blood pressure of law enforcers.

State of Alarm - day Forty

How disappointing to wake up to overcast skies and rain after such a lovely day yesterday. Farmers may welcome the rain, but how demoralising the cold and damp is! Ah well, plenty to busy myself with, getting this Sunday's service completed and ready to send to Dave for uploading.

Clare sent me a link to a video of Max Boyce reciting a 'lock-down' poem he's recently written in keeping with many other poets in Britain and doubtless across the world at this time. 'When only the tide went out' is moving and reflectively serious, yet not without a dash of humour in the best Welsh bardic tradition. It moved me to tears 'hiraeth'. You'll find it here on YouTube. Thanks Max.

Talking of YouTube, I found a wonderful rendering of the Taize canticle 'In resurrectionem tuam'

played by a virtual choir of fifty singers and musicians all over the world, appearing on screen in vignettes saying who they are and where they are. The video is beautifully crafted, and the sound editing precise, demonstrating a true digital native's mastery of the technology, whether Zoom or something else, I have no idea. Seeing so many joyful young faces from all around the world is a truly Gospel message in its own right. It's great to listen to but really must be seen here for this to have its inspirational impact.

I spent some time after my walk listening to a couple of thoughtful pastoral Bible studies by Simon Ponsonby for the ICS annual conference conducted for the first time ever this year using Zoom and then posted on YouTube. Co-incidentally on the page running the live stream I spotted a live video stream about to start of Vespers and Mass broadcast from the Church of St Gervais in Paris. As I'd finished Simon's talk, I then listened to Vespers while I cooked supper. A French Catholic internet channel has been showing services from there for at least a decade as I recall, and occasionally in times past I have dipped into them. 

The singing sisters at St Gervais are part of the Communaute de Jerusalem. Many of those under vows, men and women work in the area, and worship together twice a day. Are they flouting lock-down law, I wondered? It was clear from the conduct of the liturgy that social distancing is part of the everyday norm for the sisters. They don't bunch up in choir stalls, but use the generous expanse of floor space offered by the Gothic choir of the church with its exquisite acoustic. It allows them to flatten themselves on the ground in adoration without getting in each other's way, and may help their excellent varied choral singing not to be positioned so closely together. Kath rang for a chat while I was watching and cooking, so we agreed I'd ring back when I'd eaten. We then had a lovely conversation on WhatsApp while she was making supper. 

Late this evening, Spanish Prime Minister Sanchez is speaking of the prospect off people being allowed out their confinement for exercise on May 2nd, if there is no negative impact on rates of infection from letting under fourteens out with their parents from tomorrow. No doubt this will be hedged in by an assortment of limitations by the time that day arrives, but it will be better than how it has been now for the past forty days.

State of Alarm - day Thirty Nine

At last, a return to a sunny blue sky day with a temperature of twenty degrees from mid morning to early evening. I had Sunday's ministry of the Word to complete with files of recorded readings to add to the assortment of variables that string together to give an audio version of the liturgical text. What is so easy and natural to do standing in front of a congregation requires attention to detail to produce an acceptable final version.

Late yesterday my idea of making another short video of reflective discursive praying - example not instruction - bore fruit in a text I felt able to record. Last time I used the improvised altar set up in the dining room. This time I wanted to use the Taize Icon of Friendship, a Coptic rendering of the icon of Christ with St Menas, one of the Desert Fathers. I found a photo image on the internet that I could display on my Chromebook with the sides curtained off and a cloth over the keyboard. Then it was possible to position my Sony HX90 to focus on the image and fill most of the screen. 

With this arrangement it was a matter of pressing the camera video button and praying from behind it. This worked quite well until it came to turn off the camera. I couldn't see it clearly enough in the semi darkness to turn off without shaking the camera. This left me with a video needing the shaky silent bits trimmed off. I uploaded it to YouTube in the mistaken hope that there would be a simple video edit facility on the site. If there was, I couldn't find it. All you could edit was the information aka metadata. So I had to give up, as it was almost midnight. 

I noticed an email had just come in from sister June. Earlier she'd written to tell me that her Tesco on-line shopping order would not now be delayed several weeks as there were late night delivery slots available and she'd secured one for tonight. She wrote to let me know all was well and that friendly neighbours had helped her to take the groceries into her flat and dispose of the delivery crates. That was a nice note to go to bed on.

This morning I installed PiTiV video editor on the Linux laptop. It worked just about worked, being far too under powered for heavy duty processing. That's always the problem with video. Anyway on the powerful office PC I found a simple video editing app to use, so simple that it took me a while to figure out how to operate it and do the simple thing I wanted, which was to trim the shaky bits of the video I'd made. Eventually it gave me what I wanted, and I ended up with a three minute video clip which was half the size of the original MP4 from the camera, so it took half the time to upload. After this, I had a link to email to Dave for posting on the church website. Pleased that I was able to get this done before completing the assembly of Sunday's Ministry of the Word.

I had long WhatsApp chats with Clare, with sister in law Ann and with Mother Frances, who called to check me out. It was lovely to talk 'shop' with her and hear about the Parish. I'm also lucky that I hear from several congregation members as well, all coping with social isolation in different ways and places, and interested to know how each other is getting on. Nobody is taking community for granted. This immense threat which we're now living with is teaching us to appreciate better people around us day by day, and that is doing wonders for social health. We've all be so preoccupied and driven by pressures of work and keeping up with entertainment and social demands in recent years that a period of time out makes us realise how superficial life has become under meaningless kinds of pressure.

Maaret came by mid afternoon, as I'd asked her to fill my empty containers of filtered drinking water at the filling station she goes to in San Josep. Why don't we go together, but in two cars, she suggested brilliantly. It was just what I needed, to drive out on a familiar road on a bright sunny day, to be shown how to find and use the municipal filtered water supply filling station on the outskirts of the pueblo. 

The water station used by many people from further east on the island is on the outskirts of San Rafael, three times the distance away and tucked behind a gas station. The payment system is the same in both places, but the water supply in San Rafael is uncontrollable as water pipes have no tap attached, so juggling with water containers has to be practiced. I wasn't looking forward to doing that on my own. The San Josep pipes do have taps so filling is orderly and controllable. 

The place was empty when we arrived. In fact, the town was deserted. It was at a sunny siesta time too. We stood and chatted standing by our cars at a safe social distance for ten minutes. I noticed a big sign over the water station saying it was under CCTV surveillance. That made me feel a little nervous, but I guess it was siesta time after all ... I drove home, my morale much boosted, and we had an interesting chat about the coping strategies people develop for meeting surreptitiously with friends, maintaining social distancing, chatting from inside cars in adjacent parking spaces. 

Things seem to be a bit more relaxed now, less tense. It's been days since any new cases have been reported on Ibiza nor have there been any deaths. Maybe some relaxing of restrictions for children to go outdoors will be put in place next week, and more later if that has no adverse effects. So there is mild optimism after six weeks of total lock-down. As for international travel prospects, nothing on the horizon I suspect, until June, if not longer. Life may get easier. A return to public ministry may even be possible later in May, and that would be welcome. As for home-coming, I try not to think too much about it. I'm just grateful to be alive and well. For now.

  

State of Alarm - day Thirty Eight

It was a little warmer and not so overcast today, with longer, cheering spells of welcome sunshine. I caught sight of a lizard's head poking out into the sunshine from beneath the iron door of an outside closet used for gardening equipment. After walking past several times I got a few pleasing photos to prove what I'd seen. With the increase in warmth I've seen many more lizards, especially smaller ones, dashing across the path, in and out of the undergrowth today. Lizard populations in Ibiza are not quite 'at risk', but approaching it apparently, perhaps because of the use of toxic fertilizers in some places? It would be great to see the Chaplaincy house garden managed as a mini conservation area, as there seem to be such a lot of them around.

An email notification arrived from Peter Sedgwick about an interview on The Tortoise Podcast, an independent 'slow news' website, with Jan his wife the Vicar of Glanely's Parish Church 'The Res' in Cardiff, a place where she has done marvellous work in local youth music education, developing an orchestra on the lines of the Venezuelan 'La Sistema' model. Now she is doing marvellous pastoral work as the community is hit hard by coronavirus and the knock on impact of unemployment. 

Fourteen funerals this month, four of which were suicides of men no longer able to provide for their families, and several more of people in care homes dying of the virus. She speaks of her pain having officiating at crematorium funerals with just ten mourners when this is a community still with large extended families, and where it is normal for 'The Res' to host funeral congregations of three to five hundred. I know that's true as there are times when I've stood in for her. Glanely one of those places where the traditional pastoral model of parochial community still works. The podcast is well worth a listen. It's strong stuff. You can find Jan's interview here.

State of Alarm - day Thirty Seven

The temperature dropped a few degrees and there was wind and rain overnight and through the day into the afternoon. It was overcast and felt just the way it did a month ago. A day without cheer save for calls from Clare and Owain. There was a certain irony in seeing Clare in a summer blouse under a cloudless blue sky in our Pontcanna back garden. She told me that a local organisation is trying to organise a local sewing bee to make PPE gowns for NHS staff. 

She still has an old Singer sewing machine in good working order, and has volunteered, though she suspects good intentions may yet founder on poor planning and organisation. Whoever is trying to run the scheme asks volunteers how many gowns they think they can make in a day, without stating where the start line is. Are the workers to be given a pattern and material, or ready cut parts to sew together, or what? It seems typical of the situation we find ourselves in. 

It reflects the crisis management chaos exhibited by UK government leaders at the moment. Those in charge are lacking volumes of practical experience at juggling all the necessary demands of an overwhelming situation. They can tell you what they've done, but on times fail to join the dots, and must suffer the humiliation of being reminded of this by news media which seem to have more information at their disposal. Maybe the media could do better by making sure to pester relevant officials on the job, not on-air to entertain (or agitate) listeners.

Jayne brought me my week's grocery order, plus a  month's supply of my main blood pressure pills. I emailed our GP surgery yesterday to get the name of an equivalent to the standard diuretic pill I'm also supposed to take, but the email didn't arrive until after Jayne had been, so unfortunately that's another thing that can't yet be crossed off the 'to-do' list. If things were normal I could get some posted from home, but there are no guarantees they would arrive. I'm OK now until the beginning of June. There's no way of knowing if I'll be able to get home by then, there's such uncertaintly.

One good thing is that Jayne bought me a mascarilla, which I can wear if I need to go to a shop or the Pharmacy to collect something. I felt very awkward going into places without one, and earlier none were available, so I thought it prudent to simply avoid going up to 'Es Cuco', as I did before. Maybe I am a bit over sensitive, but I don't want to be a source of bother for anyone, and need to protect myself from the possibility of being a bother to others, even though the risk on Ibiza is very low compared to elsewhere. Clare has ordered me a new innovative anti-viral material protective hood cum mask to wear when I do eventually travel. The next question is whether it can fit into an envelope for sending in a posted letter, as any kind of parcel post is off-limits at present.

Despite the weather, I walked my 10k, but there was nothing noticeably new to take a photo of and send to Kath today. If it warms up again tomorrow, however, there might be some new flowers to notice, and lots more snails of different sizes. I did notice that the injured snail I saw being attacked by ants two days ago has entirely disappeared. Not just dead, but re-cycled without a trace. Whether by ants or some other nocturnal creature, I have no idea.

This evening I listened to a Low Sunday service broadcast on-line by Radio Suisse Romande from the Temple de Rolle on Lake Geneva. The link was sent to me by my friend Valdo in Aigle at the other end of the lake. It was a Swiss French Protestant service with some Bach organ and violin pieces and several Easter canticles sung by a local Russian Orthodox Choir - Low Sunday was their Easter Day. If that went outlive, the choir must have been tired as the Russian Orthodox keep Vigil throughout the night on Holy Saturday!

Special and well worth a listen was the address and meditations by Pasteure Isabelle Court. I was able to follow nearly all of it (except when she got really passionate and picked up speed), since her romandie French was beautifully clear, at a measured pace. My Spanish listening comprehension is not nearly as good as my French, but then I lived and worked in a francphone environment for nine years. So glad I haven't lost the ability to understand spoken Swiss French. French spoken in France is another matter altogether!

The meditations were an imaginative journey taken with Doubting Thomas's twin sister (he was after all Thomas Didymus - Thomas the Twin), from the day of the resurrection to the day when Thomas was reunited with the Lord again. Her theological and spiritual reflections made use of the typology devised by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross to describe the five stages of grief. Ir was remarkable and relevant to here and now with the pandemic loss of life, and most people's loss of freedom due to lock-down. Plenty to ponder on. You can find it here.

State of Alarm - day Thirty Six

I was awake at first light this morning, prayed the Office, then went back to sleep. This happens from time to time when I'm mulling over ideas. Later in the morning I wrote a full draft of next Sunday's sermon for recording. It'll take me several more days to concentrate it further. I'd rather do the work before I have to speak into a microphone, and hope not to exceed the listeners' attention span. It's important to me to think about this when I can't interact with a live audience. What a challenge clergy are faced with during the time of lock-down! I wonder how will history remember this time?

Today's news states that EU borders remain closed to all but essential traffic until mid-May. There won't be any international overland public transport services until then. Will flights re-start after the next phase of Spanish lock-down ends on May 9th? When will I ever get home? Thankfully, Jayne has solicited the help of one of the GPs she works with to write a medication prescription for me. My supply of pills runs out in the first week of May. It's not without its difficulties however, as the standard brand diuretic tablet I take is unknown in the Spanish pharma directory. The question in need of resolving is the Spanish brand name equivalent. UK-EU interchangeable prescription arrangements are fortunately still in place in this Brexit transition year. I think this is a key issue for negotiation of the Brexit divorce deal. This crisis time is going to teach Britons a hard lesson about what we are losing that we will have cause to regret.

This afternoon as I walked my 10k, a chill wind sprang up and the temperature dropped by several degrees turning a time of pleasant exercise into an effort. How quickly, I noticed, the house cooled down, calling for heating and an extra pullover. Still strange weather for this time.

My car insurance renewal notice arrived by email from Aviva a few days ago, and this evening I paid it on-line. The Polo is a nice little car, but I wonder how much longer we will keep it as our use of it has decreased so much over the past two years. It's there for the occasional convenience, but it would probably be cost effective to use taxis or hire an electric car when needed, rather than maintain a vehicle of our own, adding to our domestic carbon footprint and local pollution to no good purpose. With the planet in danger, this is no time to be sentimental about such things. Plus it's only a matter of time before Clare's advancing glaucoma will stop her from driving. Would I keep a car, just for myself then? Or just in case? I don't think so. The world will be a different place in any case, by the time I get home.

  

State of Alarm - Low Sunday

Another warm day, but cloudy. Lots of time today for prayer and reflection while walking my first hour. This morning I noticed that four of the six tiny snails observed gathering over the past few days have disappeared, either moved into hiding, or perhaps taken as food by a night predator. As it's a bit more humid there are several more larger snails out and about. I found one on the path with an edge of its shell broken off. It was surrounded and covered with tiny back ants, and was making an attempt to get away from their efforts to exploit its vulnerability. 

I'm fortunate enough to be in contact, one way or another, with people here and back home in Cardiff every day. I woke up this morning to another lovely round robin email from members of the St Catherine's Wednesday morning Communion group - all keen to stay in touch during lockdown and share news. I hear occasionally from Canton parish clergy too.

The times of solitude and silence in between exchanges by phone or messaging are rewarding, allowing memories and ideas to surface and provide fresh food for thought. I wish there was enough time to write about many more things from past experience I now have time to revisit. AS time goes on, I listen to less live radio daily, and listen to music instead, or just enjoy a world of silence, punctuated by occasional birdsong and a passing car.

Yesterday, Clare WhatsApp'd me a little video of a guy with a fine operatic tenor voice standing at his front gate in a street of similar appearance to ours, either in Canton or Cathays across the Taff, performing on the anthemic non-conformist devotional classic 'Arglwydd dyma fi' to the street, with a soprano lower down joining in. English translation 'Lord here I am ....etc' Perhaps you have to be a Welsh speaker or learner to appreciate this fully, but the musical energy would be recognised in any part of the world under lock-down.

Then, while I was in the garden yesterday evening, I heard a woman's operatic voice, singing loudly a wordless melody. At first I thought she might have been singing a saeta, but not so. The sound came from a house in the estate to the north of where I am, out of my sight, 4-500 metres away, reaching me as she sang from the roof of the house. The sound varied presumably when she changed direction standing there. Intriguing what occurs under lock-down. Last night there was a big global media celebrity concert of people performing from home under lock-down, but grass-roots musicians and artists performing spontaneously for people in their barrios has been happening ever since the restrictions were imposed.

I walked in silence and enjoyed the sounds of nature this morning, just to have some thinking time, then this afternoon I listened to 'Vengue', the debut album of Ojos de Brujo eighteen years ago. It was characteristic in many ways of their initial development of a Spanish electro pop fusion with some interesting songs, but the  'sound' was lighter, and didn't convey the same conspiratorial 'in yer face' sound of all their other albums. It seems that they parted from the record production company with which they made 'Vengue', probably because they could afford to go independent on the back of their success. Doing things on the bands own terms certainly reaped superb musical rewards for the rest of the time the band worked together.

This evening we had a lovely forty minute family Zoom meeting, children and granddaughters too.
Kath and Owain both knew the history of 'Vengue', probably looking it up after I said I was keen to have it to listen to out here. They all looked as healthy and in as good spirits as it's possible to be under the circumstances. A nice way to finish the day.

State of Alarm - day Thirty Four

Twenty one degrees today, sunny but cloudy, and there were rumbles of thunder in the afternoon. For the first time I noticed a procession of tiny ants along my daily walking path. That'll please the lizards I imagine. I've seen even more lizards around the place today, a dozen and a half, especially smaller, younger brown ones, agile and moving very quickly.

After breakfast, I edited together the audio files of the readings which I received for tomorrow's Ministry of the Word, and once the first half was complete, I re-recorded the half of the service that uses the words of the Eucharist, and got both off to Dave by early evening. 

I restated at the start of the Lord's supper that it's possible to let familiar words awaken prayerful imagination, when we are not gathered to share bread and wine person to person. I realise this isn't easy for some, and there are mixed messages delivered from online services. As there's no single model approach, there is a risk of confusion. 

In some cases a priest can broadcast a live Eucharist from home, or an adjacent chapel as they don't live alone. For others that's not possible, so a service of the Word is offered perhaps with prayers for making a Spiritual Communion. A service of the Word is effectively what I do too, except for using familiar eucharistic prayers slightly adapted, to guide listeners to where they can make their own act of Spiritual Communion in silence, rather than use an adopted formula. 

Churches and clergy everywhere are experimenting with this, as it's never happened before. I believe it's good for us to have to think and work outside the usual frame of reference. I'm so grateful to participate in this process, not just observe from the sidelines, as I would be if I was back home in isolation.    

This afternoon I finally got around to filling the house water cistern. This involves visiting the pump house 25m beyond the finca boundary to power up the machine which lifts up water from the artesian well and sends it across the garden through a heavy duty hose, rising over the garden path and into the cistern three metres up the wall. 

My first attempt was a failure, the machine was drawing power from the mains, but I couldn't hear it working, and when I returned to the house, could feel neither vibration from the movement of water rising in the pipe, nor the faint buzz of an electric pump. I texted Rosi, and she confirmed that I'd followed the procedure properly. 

I returned to the pump house and repeated the start routine, and this time, the ammeter needle displayed ten times the previous amount of power being drawn by the pump. Back at the house, I felt faint vibration in the hose, then the more energetic sensation of the head of water as it reached me and established a flow. Half an hour later the cistern was as full as the day I arrived. I was nervous about making a mess of it and being stranded without water, so this success made my day. 

I felt so grateful to look down into the full tank that I said a blessing prayer over the water. Well, it's the sort of thing that happens in Eastertide anyway, when remembering our baptism, so why not?

State of Alarm - day Thirty Three

Twenty degrees today, clouds and sunshine, warm enough for me to shed pullovers during the first half of my daily 10k. The lizards were out in force, chasing around, I came within half a second of snapping one biting the other's tail. It's the third time I've seen this happen. I'll get lucky sooner or later, the longer I stay here. Like snapping the elusive hoopoes in Al Andaluz. What I did manage to get photos of was a big green lizard scaling the wire netting fence. Its attention had been caught by a flying seed on a parachute stalk, resembling an insect in movement. Amazing, and over so quick!

It's as warm as I mistakenly thought it'd be when I arrived six weeks ago. Should have checked! I spent a lot of time talking on both the landline phone and WhatsApp today, but still succeeded in being productive. Last Sunday I did a short Easter video message. I wanted to try something a bit different this week, and was inspired by watching the video of Fr Jorge's discursive prayer in the little Opus Dei chapel in their Wandsworth Common house, which sister June sent me a month ago.

What I drafted as a brief reflection on life in lock-down translated easily into prayer. Rather than talk to camera, which seemed to me a bit naff - 'nothing to see here' - I set up a camera pointing at the little makeshift altar I set up for the blessing of Palms two weeks ago, and prayed from behind the camera. The sound was very good, but the lighting contrast in the video wasn't all that good. It was nice to do something different though.

Then I set about recording the components of Sunday's on-line audio service of the Word, which included the sermon, that could be done while waiting for the audio files of the readings to arrive. It was more than I expected to get done in a busy day. I'm feeling the benefit of having the Linuxed Compaq laptop available for use now. The batch of audio files I made this evening would have then taken me a fiddly hour's waiting if not longer, while converting them from M4A to MP3 formal via a Cloud app, laden with adware. I installed one little app on my Linux workhorse which did the lot in under a minute. That's what it means to have full control of your own free software device with no interference from ads and other distractions.

A satisfying day in all sorts of ways.

State of Alarm - Day thirty two

Another warmish, sunny if cloudy day to rejoice in, perfect for exercise while listening to a couple of albums sent by Owain. There seem to be a lot more snails appearing around the house, small and larger ones, all with beautiful shells. Time to start thinking about preparing Low Sunday worship and what I can offer by way of a sermon.

I was delighted to receive a phone call from Mother Doreen, ministering from home in deep rural Andalucia. She told me the Alcalde of her municipality had been out in person that day delivering mascarillas to folk in remote fincas. She's been busy giving remote digital support to St George's  Malaga and Velez Malaga congregations as well as Salinas where she is based. The chaplaincy has been without a locum priest the past two months, as the one who was scheduled to come fell ill at the last moment thankfully not with covid-19, and didn't want to take the risk. Today she's had her first request for a memorial service for a covid-19 victim, cremated with no funeral. There'll be more to come as time goes on and the impact of the epidemic is made known in a region where there have been over 900 deaths so far. Other parts of Spain have been even harder hit. Andalusia is one of Spain's poorer regions and the impact will be greater.

Long interregnums are now feature of the diocese in Europe. With impending economic crisis, more chaplaincies will end up without a chaplain for longer periods, with only occasional sacramental visits possible. It'll challenge lay people to continue in ministry and mission with scant support, the way it was for decades in underdeveloped rural Africa and Asia. It'll take some getting used to. 

It makes me think again about the writing of Roland Allen, Anglican missionary in China and East Africa at the turn of the twentieth century. He was the first to advocate voluntary ordained ministry. His thoughts about spiritual discernment and how the church propagates itself spontaneously regardless of how well trained are its 'professional' clergy, still commend themselves today. Such a pity his books have been out of print since the early 1960s. I'm only aware of them from my own study of the history of modern mission when I worked with USPG back in the 1980s.

State of Alarm - day Thirty One

A cloudy day, fairly mild, but humid enough for it to feel cooler indoors than outside. I understand now what a difference having a proper dehumidifier makes, as opposed to just having a heater. In the morning I worked on an article for the monthly chaplaincy magazine 'Ibiza Ibis'. By the time it comes out I'll have been here two months, but still no sign of when it might be possible to go home, and given that the tidal impact of covid-19 infections and deaths is still rising in Britain, it's going to be quite a while before a safe return is possible. 

Jayne came with the week's grocery order while I was out walking my 10k daily circuit after lunch. Lots of fruit and veg, and a kilo of sugar for making more lemon marmalade amongst other things.

Before supper, I made some hummus to use up the remaining chick peas, before I start preparing and cooking a new batch. Two lemons, white tahini, with olive oil and garlic. Very nice!

Another batch of interesting looking albums arrived from Owain. I'm still working my way through the first batch of seven. The SD card on my phone has nearly doubled the amount of music on it in recent days. It's nice to have quiet un-distracted time in which to enjoy listening while walking.

   

State of Alarm - day thirty

Six weeks today already since I left the UK for Mallorca on my way here. The world has changed so much in that time, and the future has shrunk to 'grateful to still be alive, just one day at a time'.

After my walk in the afternoon, I took the car, to dispose of a large box of recyclable empties to the roadside receptacles just past Es Cuco supermarket, closed for the afternoon. The area was deserted.  It was good to get out again. Now Easter is over, I think I'm relaxing and adjusting to this situation a bit more. Going out in the car didn't feel quite like an ordeal. It's not a matter of confidence, but I have been reluctant to push myself for fear of coming adrift and making mistakes - probably a legacy of a year's confinement, minimising the physical stress on my wound. Things have improved a good deal, pleasingly enough, since I have been here. Feeling less uneasy in myself is a sign of putting all that trauma behind me, and feeling more at home in myself and in my environment, uncommon though it is.

Yesterday evening, I got around to examining the redundant Compaq laptop in the study. It has been stripped of personal data, still had some software on it, but ran so terribly slowly it was unusable. It had AVG on it and flagged up virus content but struggled to rid the machine of malware. It was also a low powered consumer Windows 7 machine, unsupported now by Microsoft. With Dave's consent I tried to install a live bootable version of Linux Mint XFCE edition on it from the installation flash drive that travels in my digital tool kit. It booted to a functional desktop of sorts, but not install on the laptop.

It took me a while to remember it was a version for 64 bit devices and the Compaq is so old it's a 32 bit device very under-powered. I downloaded  a Mint 32 bit version ISO to another flash drive, then used a spare SD memory card to make a live bootable disk to use. It wouldn't book from the laptop's card reader, but I had a USB card reader in my tool kit. The live version of Mint 32 bit booted nicely from this and proceeded to install perfectly on the laptop, giving it a new lease of life as a fully working machine. It's not lightning fast, as the hard drive is slow, but it's quite usable for all but complex demanding task like video and audio editing. That too cheered me up no end.
    

State of Alarm - day rwenty nine

After a fair night of relaxed sleep, I woke up at dawn to the sound of rain. Happily the temperature and humidity at night as well as day has risen just enough to take the shiver out of life. I said the Office of Morning Prayer in bed, but then just before nine, the house lost internet connection, and that means phone too, for four hours. Not that I was expecting much digital traffic Easter Monday morning, but it's unnerving to be without a landline connection. 

The cellphone network is pretty robust, to be fair, but being of a generation brought up only on hardwired landlines and coin boxes as dependable infrastructure, it's hard to get used to anything less reliable! In fact, global reliance on the internet and all its children (much as I love it and depend on it daily) still worries me greatly as the infrastructure is so complex and reliant on even more human maintenance. I'm aware that the infrastructure is rendered more robust and secure by multiple copies of traffic servers and built in fail-safes, but that's nothing a giant radiation burst from the sun couldn't cripple. We've built an interconnected web based world, but the concept still owes much to the notion of spider's web, strong, resilient, but still fragile in the face of brute force.

When Jayne came with my birthday cake on Saturday, she also brought a lentil based cottage pie for me. I heated it up for much today. I twas delicious and a welcome change from my own cooking, although it inspired me to make a pot of Ann Marie's butternut squash, lentil and lemon soup, as the half a squash in the fridge looked sad and needed cooking. So now I have three day's ready portions in hand. Yesterday cooked and ate half of the large salmon cutlet which came in last shopping order. That will be very nice eaten cold tonight.

Among my birthday digital goodies was a couple of MP3 albums I didn't have, downloadable from her OneDrive archive. This morning Anto sent an MP3 album of Sephardi Ladino songs by Yasmin Levy, some of them of mediaeval in origin, with a decorative melodic ethos which could even have originated at the time of the Babylonian exile, and travelled west across North Africa into Southern Spain at the time of the Moors, if not earlier. I think these songs come from the tradition of women singers in Morocco and Andalusia whose ancestry was Sephardi Jewish, even though they may have lost their ancient identity. The album was recorded in Israel, and features Andalusian and Oriental instruments and musicians. It's powerful listening. 

Owain also sent me half a dozen very varied MP3 albums using a facility called 'We Transfer' I've never heard of. One of them is 'Disraeli Gears' the first album recorded by Cream in 1967, and one of the first in the 'psychedelic music ethos'. We bought a copy when it first came out, very trendy. I think Owain keeps that original disc, a valuable antique first edition nowadays. Funny how I recall the album sounding much heavier in those days. Sure we played it very loud, but it was many more years before small digital sound systems could reproduce that sound quality.

Ah memory lane! I still have in my wardrobe at home the hand made silk floral 'kipper' ties Clare made for me in those days. Apart from long hair and full beard, that was as close as I got to hippie-dom. No psychoactive substances either. Already having an active creative imagination, I never felt the need. And no regrets!

State of Alarm - Easter Day

As soon as I got up at eight, I continued work on the Easter Day audio service ready or upload. It took me far longer than I expected, so it was eleven before I was able to stop for breakfast and the Office of Morning Prayer. I was impressed to hear the Queen's very affirmative Easter message to the nation at the end of the BBC Radio Four Sunday programme. An unequivocal and exemplary Christian message of resurrection hope, from the leading lay person of the CofE and of a kind that is as unprecedented as the circumstances of the broadcast.

I had to catch up on the Archbishop of Canterbury's Easter home Communion service later in the morning to retain my concentration on the task n hand. This too was inspirational and a very well prepared  service considering the conditions. Bishop of Dover, in effect his assistant in the diocese, Rose Hudson Wilkins joined him on-line him in the service, giving a superb dramatic rendering of the John's Gospel passage about the empty tomb and Mary Magdalene. I get the impression that this crisis is bringing out the best in Christian preachers everywhere.

I've had an exchange of emails with Dr Laura Ciobanu in Romania today. She's a specialist in lung conditions among the elderly. I imagine this puts her on the front line, but she doesn't talk about her hospital work. I notice that their number of reported covid-19 deaths is 316, average 16 per million, is quite low on the countrywide scale, with 6,300 cases altogether. Few big cities, poor internal road networks and a dispersed rural agricultural population may work to their advantage.

I got most of my day's walk done in the afternoon, but again finished after sundown with light rain, almost a mist settling. Thankfully it's not been cold. While I was out after lunch, I had an idea for a short videoed Easter greeting, and broke off to write and record it for YouTube. It only took an hour for the file to upload, and then I had a link I could send to Dave, albeit a bit late in the day to be an evening message for Easter day, but never mind. I can relax now.

After eight, we had short a family Easter day gathering on Zoom to greet each other, which was very nice, and finished my walk before having a late supper treat - beans on toast! And so to bed, time to say Evening Prayer and start catching up sleep.

State of Alarm - Easter Eve

I awoke at the dawning of another mild and sunny day, and over the course of the morning a flow of birthday greetings from family, and church members here in Ibiza. This included phone calls from both my sisters, Pauline (91) and June (85). Most amazing of all was a fifteen minute YouTube video compilation of photos, music, songs performed and birthday greetings from Arizona, Bristol, Kenilworth and Cardiff, masterminded by Kath's technical mastery of current digital media. What a delight it was, such laughter, such affection, I was close to tears, realising how much effort and co-operation this had called for, just for me!

To my amazement, after lunch, churchwarden Jayne arrived with an amazing surprise birthday cake for me, which she'd baked according to a vegan recipe given her by Sarah. That one took me three weeks to finish, savouring a small slice at a time, as it was so rich. This one's bigger, and tastes just as good. What at lucky man I am!

Thinking of tonight's Paschal Vigil, for which the world church cannot gather tonight, I recorded the blessing of the light of the Paschal Candle to send to Dave for uploading with the text to the website before I started lunch. Sharing good moments of these holy days is for me one good thing I can do.

At seven, Kath organised a family party using Zoom,, linking family members together. What a lovely hour we spent together! Zoom admin decided not to cut us off after the set 40 mins, so we had that much longer to laugh and joke, and enjoy being family. It's when the dark shadow of death hangs over one's life that valuing God's most precious human treasure comes right back into focus. 

By this time it was getting too dark to do my 10k for the day, and I failed to complete for the first time since I came here with time on my hands. I also failed to do my Duo Lingo daily language drill, something which happens perhaps two or three times a year. (I need the structure in my life!), but never mind. Then I had to knuckle down and concentrate on producing tomorrow's worship and sermon. No writer's block, but I was so full of ideas that editing them all down to a sensible length before bed defeated me. 

Struggling to get audio editing done, abandoned myself to bed at a unsocial hour. As I worked,  I imagined numinous Easter Vigils, Orthodox, Latin, Anglican, Taize - all part of past fifty five years of adult discipleship. They mean so much to me. This year, the world and not just the church is in such unfamiliar territory, but the story we tell in such a different situation remains unchanged. We're the ones who'll be changed.

Christ, yesterday, today and forever. 

All time belongs to him and all eternity 

To Him be praise and glory forever.

State of Alarm - Good Friday

I woke up early with ideas for a sermon of the day, and wrote a draft before getting up for breakfast and saying Morning Prayer. I have to put together an audio act of worship for today, and because of the length of the St John Passion, it will be too long to include an address, just pandemic prayers and devotions before the cross. The address can come during a separate evening act of worship and reflection. I wanted to include suitable music, and chose meditative Taize chants to use in both, but I also used the Aria 'He was despised, and rejected, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief' from Handel's Messiah, rather than use scripture itself. The music is so eloquent in conveying the message behind the reading. 

I has intended to listen to Passion music on Radio Three, but never got around to it, with so much to do. For a second night it was dusk before I finished my walk of the day. This is always a tiring week but this year, so much more challenging because of what's happening all around us and how this is affecting the way we look at everything in life. It's amazing how it's brought out the best in so many people. The bad and selfish things naturally get highlighted by the media which loves to be outraged and scandalized, 

To me what's significant is how many people are acting self-sacrificially in the Spirit and teaching of Jesus and the Gospel, even though so few now attend church, and religion is marginalised in the public realm. The news takes an interest in how religious communities are quick to adapt and adopt digital social media for experiments in worship and fellowship. Occasionally a person will be interviewed who makes it clear how much their faith is helping them cope with crisis and if they've been sick, to recover. It's clear to me this catches the interviewers off guard, as they seem all to ready to put their own politically correct neutral secular spin into interpreting what the interviewee has said. This is a sad reflection on their own attitudes. I wonder if they realise how the faith of others, without trying, is putting them to shame?

  

State of Alarm - Maundy Thursday

A lovely warm spring day with lots to do, a Last Supper celebration and sermon to prepare for this evening and a service of readings for the Vigil of the Passion occupying most of the day apart from exercise and domestic tasks. But there was one extra special thing to fit in during the morning. The Bishop's team arranged a special diocesan liturgy making use of the Zoom app, for clergy and lay readers to re-dedicate themselves to ministerial service. Normally, this is tacked on to the Chrism Eucharist at which the diocesan holy oils are blessed, but this service has been postponed until it is possible to hold it during a Synod gathering, for which no plans can be made at the moment.

I have never been keen about the 'modern' (ie 1970s) addition of the renewal of ministerial commitments to the ancient Chrism Liturgy, dating back to the fourth century, and have usually been committed to taking a morning service, and thus unable to attend anyway. In this exceptional circumstances, I felt that I wanted to join in, and was very glad that I did. The Zoom service had 162 participants from over forty countries, with varying bandwidth capacities, some only able to be present on audio. 

It was good to see the faces of many people I only know the names for from using the diocesan prayer list daily, including Robert Donkin, retired like me from Llandaff diocese, now in a coastal town by Murcia's Mar Menor. Bishop David Hamid preached a superb relevant sermon for the occasion. I came away feeling inspired and encouraged. It helped me maintain my creative flow in producing necessary extra worship material for today. Thankfully I've escaped writer's block so far.

It did mean, however that I finished my daily walk after sunset, when it gets quite chilly. This was a bit of an effort but nevertheless worthwhile. Britain is now contemplating the possibility of a longer lock-down deaths and infections may not be on the Spanish scale, but they have yet to reach their presumed peak. Spain's rates are frightfully high but the rate of increase shows signs of slowing. We all have to be thankful for small mercies. 

Roy talks about coming over to visit me by ferry from Denia when the State of Alarm is lifted, but I wonder how long it will be before they are useable again by the public? If so that could be a return route for me to take if there flights are slow being re-established. Ibiza Denia, Alicante, Elche, Parkway and an assortment of trains back to UK. Maybe. I'm not holding my breath on this one.

State of Alarm - day twenty four

A blue sky day after the full moon slipped away not long before dawn, and up to nineteen degrees too, which is lovely. The walls of the house are starting to retain warmth you can feel when passing into shadow. After domestic tasks and chatting early with Clare, I started work on a script for a pre- Easter video message for the church website, which I'll try and do on my Blackberry, following the advice I have received from Ann, one of the Wednesday Eucharist group back in Pontcanna. She's emailed me a couple of times, as have others in the Parish, and she's followed the recordings I have had uploaded to the Ibiza chaplaincy website.

Much to my surprise, Jayne turned up with my grocery shopping order before lunch. She said that there were very long queues at Mercadona, and other supermarkets. A controlled entry policy is now in operation admitting so many people, allowing them space, and not letting anyone in until someone comes out. Heaven help you if you forget anything! 

In a flash this took me back to days before the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the DDR, when ex-Archdeacon Geoff Johnston and I led a small party of people from Halesowen where we served in ministry to the DDR to inaugurate a parish twinning with Leipzig's Stefanausgemeinde. We were in the East the night Erich Honeker resigned, but that's not the point of the story. We westerners noticed how little there was on offer in many stores, and also noticed queues outside supermarkets and bigger shops. 

We asked our hosts what this was all about, and we're told that it wasn't just a matter of scarcity of goods, but social convention. "In the west you queue to pay, then leave with your goods. Here we give people space to buy what they can afford at leisure with no need to queue to get out. If you want something, you queue to get in, like at the cinema. Nowadays this protocol is operated by big fashionable consumer and technology outlets when their latest product is launched.

Ironic that now we just need space to avoid contagion.

I was delighted with my box of supplies, including some fresh salmon for Easter Sunday lunch and a bottle of Faustino VII Rioja to toast Christ's resurrection. Jayne had just done several shopping errands for others and still had to do her own big weekend shop. I felt sorry for adding to her work load, but it's not worth putting myself at risk and maybe causing more trouble if I got sick. Since I last checked over a week ago, the confirmed number of coronavirus cases in Ibiza is 130, and there have been no new cases in 24 hours, just a death, of of eight, and over 50 in hospital. 

Proportionally, for a population of 148k, it's the least afflicted place in Spain. The overall Spanish toll is colossal but the new infection rate is levelling out now at last, though the number of deaths will continue to rise, fourteen and a half thousand to date, the highest coronavirus death rate in the world, attributed to strategic errors in allowing large mass gatherings at the outset. It's going to have a huge impact on future political and well as economic impact in the country.

In the Balearics there's mild optimism that the State of Alarm will be scaled down after the 26th April. Maybe this will happen for each island, but I can't see how that would extend to resumption of traffic with the mainland, even with contagion tailing off. There's `

State of Alarm - day twenty three

An overcast start to the day, but noticeably a few degrees warmer and less humid as the sun rises. The nearly full moon was high above the house, encircled by a halo when I looked outdoors before going to bed at midnight last night. With the curtains open, moonlight shone through the shutters as it headed for the horizon when I woke up several hours later. Enchanting moments with a sound track of distant barking dogs and night birds at the threshold of hearing against the silence of night.

Canon Lucy Winket spoke well on BBC Radio Four's 'Thought for the Day' at breakfast time, from a dutiful mention of Prime Minister Boris Johnson being in Intensive Care with everything being done to care for him now covid-19 has immobilized him, to Jesus being the one to whom cruel and vicious things are done to destroy his life.

These few days for me are all about facing up to that grim reality about what human beings can do to each other 'through ignorance, through weakness, through our own deliberate fault', as our prayer of general confession at the Eucharist admits. As Christians, the world's blame games should be nothing to do with us, although sadly they often are. 

We can and should blame ourselves in relation to what's wrong in our lives, and acknowledge our contribution to the sorry state of a polluted, sick and damaged world, through choices we made as participating consumers. Only when we are this honest can we begin to help make amends properly. Our contribution to fighting the pandemic may be no more than obeying orders, staying in isolation, trying not to add to the colossal burden on global health services, but it gives us time and space to think deeply about where we go from here, and how. 

On my afternoon walk yesterday I was surprised to see a small lizard, about two thirds of the length and a quarter of the bulk of the others, maybe a juvenile, dive off the concrete ledge of the raised flower bed on to the path a foot below, and scamper off. It was so light it seemed as if it was floating to the ground. As if this wasn't enough, this afternoon I saw two lizards locked in combat fall to the ground off a ledge twice the height, spinning as they fought and writhed, again almost floating through the air, but much too fast to get more than a glimpse of. I reckon I could wait there for weeks and not see such a spectacle again let alone photograph it.

After tonight's Zoom prayer group and Evening Office ensuite, I finished tomorrow's audio talk and emailed it to Dave for uploading. Then I walked up to the rubbish bin in the dark under the full moon with a kilo of vegetable peelings and skins in a bag. No organic waste collection here. Such a pity. It's the first time I have been there on foot in ten days. Time moves fast. Jayne messaged me to as what shopping I needed to see me through the Eastertide holiday week. Supermarkets are shut for several days after tomorrow, it seems. Not that there are any Semana Santa processions to close down for this year. But the workers certainly deserve some respite after a frantic few weeks.

When I returned I had an eccentric washing frenzy and ended up with a line full of clean underpants drying overnight. Then I spotted up on the wall above the line a brown gecko. My first sighting of one here and maybe seven years since I last saw one. An amazing gift under the Passover moon.

State of Alarm - Easter Eve

I awoke at the dawning of another mild and sunny day, and over the course of the morning a flow of birthday greetings from family, and church members here in Ibiza. This included phone calls from both my sisters, Pauline (91) and June (85). Most amazing of all was a fifteen minute YouTube video compilation of photos, music, songs performed and birthday greetings from Arizona, Bristol, Kenilworth and Cardiff, masterminded by Kath's technical mastery of current digital media. What a delight it was, such laughter, such affection, I was close to tears, realising how much effort and co-operation this had called for, just for me!

To my amazement, after lunch, churchwarden Jayne arrived with an amazing surprise birthday cake for me, which she'd baked according to a vegan recipe given her by Sarah. That one took me three weeks to finish, savouring a small slice at a time, as it was so rich. This one's bigger, and tastes just as good. What at lucky man I am!

Thinking of tonight's Paschal Vigil, for which the world church cannot gather tonight, I recorded the blessing of the light of the Paschal Candle to send to Dave for uploading with the text to the website before I started lunch. Sharing good moments of these holy days is for me one good thing I can do.

At seven, Kath organised a family party using Zoom,, linking family members together. What a lovely hour we spent together! Zoom admin decided not to cut us off after the set 40 mins, so we had that much longer to laugh and joke, and enjoy being family. It's when the dark shadow of death hangs over one's life that valuing God's most precious human treasure comes right back into focus. 

By this time it was getting too dark to do my 10k for the day, and I failed to complete for the first time since I came here with time on my hands. I also failed to do my Duo Lingo daily language drill, something which happens perhaps two or three times a year. (I need the structure in my life!), but never mind. Then I had to knuckle down and concentrate on producing tomorrow's worship and sermon. No writer's block, but I was so full of ideas that editing them all down to a sensible length before bed defeated me. 

Struggling to get audio editing done, abandoned myself to bed at a unsocial hour. As I worked,  I imagined numinous Easter Vigils, Orthodox, Latin, Anglican, Taize - all part of past fifty five years of adult discipleship. They mean so much to me. This year, the world and not just the church is in such unfamiliar territory, but the story we tell in such a different situation remains unchanged. We're the ones who'll be changed.

Christ, yesterday, today and forever. 

All time belongs to him and all eternity 

To Him be praise and glory forever.

State of Alarm - day twenty two

It was sunny again and slightly warmer for much of the day. I got the evening's address off to Dave, and worked on Tuesday's address later in the day. Since I've been here, walking around the garden to the accompaniment of music on my phone, I have discovered some of it doesn't play because it's in the Microsoft proprietary .wma file format, so it needs converting. The software is cloud based and works fairly well, but it's fiddly and time consuming a job I've been putting off. I've converted three albums since I've been here, and there are more. Kath sent me a download link to stuff in her music software library, and some of those files are in an assortment of formats which will need converting so at least when I have time to spare, I can do this and enjoy listening to the result on my daily 10k.

When I joined the Zoom prayer group this evening, I couldn't get the sound to work, and I have no idea if anyone could hear me. I tried everything I could think of to remedy this but without success, so in the end I just sat and prayed in silence for the forty minute duration. Everyone disappeared from the at the forty minute cut off except me! Very odd, and no idea how or why.

I was sad to learn this evening that the Costa Azahar Chaplaincy is closing down in the summer as its numbers and finances no longer make it possible to pay to support  a part time priest and all the other costs of offering services, where there's no place of worship which is owned. I think this is a scenario which will be repeated in France as well as Spain, where brexit is impacting on ex-pat life as well as the huge economic blow inflicted by covid-19. I feel sure that church life won't just die, but will mutate into new forms that won't look quite so Anglican, but will be both lay led and local.

State of Alarm - Palm Sunday

Today was sunny and mild, good weather for Palm Sunday processions which won't take place due to the ban on all religious processions and public worship across Europe and many other parts of the world. At breakfast time I listened to the BBC Radio 4 act of worship, a service of the Word from Farm Street Jesuit Church in London's West End. Our friend Gail's opera singing daughter Lisa used to be one of the regular professional choristers there in one of her younger days. Although the music for worship was recorded, it was well chosen and beautifully sung. 

Both officiant and preacher spoke about St Ignatius encouraging people meditating on the Passion to put themselves in the place of Jesus suffering on the Cross rather than looking at him suffering. They linked this to consideration of everyone suffering from covid-19, to remind us of the Lord's solidarity with us in all that we endure in this mortal life.

After finishing Morning Prayer and Ante-Communion (as we used to call it way back), I watched the Facebook recording of Mother Frances celebrating the Eucharist at home in Victoria Park with her partner making the responses. She started by walking into the house in full vestments with a palm branch over her shoulder, a nice touch I thought.

As ever, I talked with Clare, Owain and Kath on WhatsApp, and did my 10k around the garden, then joined the Chaplaincy Prayer group again on Zoom this evening, before saying the evening office. Then I worked on preparing and recording the Holy Week address for tomorrow. Sarah is recording the readings for me again, and the files will be edited and sent to Dave for uploading tomorrow. He's told me that the chaplaincy have agreed that they'll pay my weekly stipend for as long as I have to remain here. 

The continuing impact of the pandemic means that the State of Alarm is going to be extended until the time I was expecting to leave. It'll be a good while after that before normal means of transport and reduced infection levels make it possible to travel. I just hope there will be some time when I can meet again with the congregation for public worship, and maybe get out and see some more of the island. Solveig says she has some interesting walks in mind for then! 

Not really having anything specific to look forward to makes each day somewhat tougher going than it might be. All last year I spent far more time waiting for the next operation than I did recovering from any of them. I am far more used to waiting now than at any other time in my life. One good thing about having to slow right down and accept confinement is that I notice each small change in the environment, in the weather, the wildlife day by day, even more so than all the months I spent walking different routes around Llandaff and Pontcanna Fields, and up to Taff Trail. This afternoon I saw a beetle the size of a tablespoon sitting on a boundary wall where some of the growing number of lizards congregate in the sun. No idea what it is, but it had an exotic looking carapace.

State of Alarm - day twenty

A lovely bright blue sky sunny day, though still a bit cool in the shade. I hunted down the key for the door which leads out on to the little east facing balcony, to open the shutters and let the sun in to warm the dining room during the morning. I also climbed up on to the flat roof of the house and took some panoramic shots of the surrounding countryside. Just think, I've been here a month and that's the first time I have been up on to the roof. As Clare said when we chatted later, if she'd been here she'd have found the key and gone up on to the roof in the first day of settling in.

I'm seeing and hearing more sparrows at the moment. A couple have spent time resting in the louvres of the study window shutters, chirping madly at their mates in the bushes yonder. I've heard a blackbird singing for a mate out in the arroyo yesterday evening and this morning that's new. The few lemon blossom buds on the tree are now bursting into flower, so hopefully the terrace will be an aromatic experience in a day or so.

Five days ago I noticed a tiny snail on one of the steps leading up to the terrace. When I checked next day it had re-positioned itself on the terrace corner pillar, a distance of about five metres higher up. Next day I found it on the outside of the pillar at the other end of the terrace, a distance of about eight metres away. Then the next day again, it appeared on the wall above the steps where I first saw it, a distance of fifteen metres if not more?

I'm pretty sure it's the same snail, for if it had been eaten in the night at any stage how come there was an identical one some distance off? Formidable. This morning I found a second tiny snail, nestling on a ridge of concrete grouting in the stone faced ground floor exterior of the building. Hard to spot. In addition  a large sized snail had taken up residence in the middle of the concrete path on which I do my daily round. Not sure where that one came from. I didn't see it yesterday, I don't think.

With Sarah's help recording bible readings, produced the audio file of tomorrow evening's bible study to send to Dave, as the sun was going down. Clare sent me a message to say that Radio Four was broadcasting a documentary about the St Paul's riots and it was just about to start. Pleased that the 40th anniversary hasn't been forgotten, even if the programme isn't on the day. It was a good hour's listening with lots of original sound recordings covering all the events of the fateful day from the perspectives of both the police, the rioters and local residents.

When the violence started I was busy getting things ready for the evening's Confirmation service after returning from a lunchtime Community Relations meeting at which the underlying state of tension in the community was being discussed. Pete Courtier and I, both living in Badminton Road, went home by different routes that afternoon. He ended up right in the middle of the conflict zone and I missed it altogether, as I was working in my study or else in church, not realising there was trouble just three hundred yards away.

I didn't go out on the streets until after the service, about nine in the evening, and was out until very late. The piece by piece story of the riot took me several days to gather together. The documentary did a good job of joining all the dots together. Even so, I hope for the day to come when the story of St Paul's riot day will be told including a mention of that Confirmation service, with the teenage girls in white dresses standing in Ashley Place watching the bank burn into the night.

State of Alarm - day nineteen

Having made a little video for YouTube of the blessing of palms for Sunday, and done the full audio of the Ministry of the Word with Passion Gospel reading, I  felt this would be long enough to absorb in the morning and so haven't prepared a homily to go with it. Each evening this week, until Friday I am going to offer an audio reflection on the scripture readings of the day. 

I don't therefore be doing a Tuesday Bible Study audio as well this week, so why not do a Sunday evening reflection on the scriptures set for Palm Sunday Evening Prayer, as they have the unfruitful Vine of Israel theme running through them? This proved to be an interesting little project, although it took up more time than I expected, and I was completing my daily 10k as the sun disappeared over the horizon in a clear pink sky at the end of a pleasant but still coolish day.

I joined the chaplaincy on-line prayer group using the Zoom app for the first time. It took me a little time to get my head around the way it works initially, but it's quite simple and user friendly. There were nine users on-line, eleven people, as there were two couples, one of them in the Canton de Vaud at the moment - such a small world! I forgot about the 40 minute time limit, and we were cut off unceremoniously, which made me wonder if I'd done something wrong, as the firs tone to log in. Hopefully someone will tell me if I did!

When I tried to load the the BCP 1662 MP3 audio files into Audacity for editing I received a rude awakening, as there was something different about the file encoding which rendered each one in a micro-second, sounding like a loud scratch or a blip. Very odd. File opened and played perfectly in the Windows app provided. 

Then I re-discovered the ability Audacity has to record audio played internally on the PC, as well as from an external microphone. This enabled me to recover editable files which were then easy to stitch together, tidy up and turn into an MP3 file with less hassle than usual. It means I can record audio straight from the web to incorporate in edits I'm making, very much easier than what I ended up doing the other night.

All I have to do tomorrow is record the Sunday evening bible study I've prepared, and then all is prepared to start Holy Week in the best way possible.