Another damp drizzly day, but the temperature is nine degrees, unusually mild for January. There were eleven of us for this morning's Eucharist at St Catherine's. It's our regular day for home deliveries of food ordered on line or over the phone. Something went wrong with the Co-op delivery. All the groceries Clare ordered turned up, but in addition a couple of bags of someone else's order. It's happened before, and when it does we don't get charged for the excess, but they won't take back the mistaken goods, as a precaution against covid.
The small amount of fresh food we eat and the canned food we give to the food bank, as there's no way of tracing who the spare bags were intended for. When they discover the shortfall however, they can call the Co-op and get a replacement delivery. It's happened to us in the past, and the staff in out local branch are very good about it. It's a huge task for any store, for which few were structurally equipped to do from the outset. I guess they are still learning by doing.
I suspect that home food deliveries will remain commonplace for much of the rest of this year, as it'll be summer before the whole population is vaccinated, and longer still before the vestiges of covid contagion are eliminated from the population. I just hope food stores don't lose too much money in the process and end up going out of business, as is happening with so many high street retailers.
Our organic veggie bag delivery resumed today, so I walked around to collect ours after lunch and went for a damp walk after making a bereavement call in preparation for next Tuesday's funeral. Pidgeon's called me about a service for the still-born child of a Romanian couple. They seemed OK with having an Anglican priest. I'm willing to help, but I asked if a Romanian priest had been approached. The person who called me didn't know about the Romanian Orthodox church community in Cardiff, or of services that take place regularly in St Dyfrig and St Samson's church. It seemed to me that pastoral care and support from a Romanian speaking person was important in such a tragic situation. I couldn't offer any contact details, but directed the enquirer to the Area Dean, who should have that information. I do hope he is successful finding a Romanian pastor, for the couple's sake.
Sunset is now at four thirty, and that little extra time seems to make a difference, even if the skies are grey, as they often are. I recorded tomorrow's morning prayer video before supper, the relaxed in front of the telly and caught up with the day's news.
Talk of impeaching Trump for a second time while still in office turned into a reality this evening with a vote in the US Congress House of Representatives, in which the slim Democrat majority was reinforced by the votes of ten Republicans, A trial will take place in the Senate, though it's unlikely to happen until after he leaves office. The point of the exercise then will be to complete a process which will prevent him from standing for office again in 2024.
With credible threats of more orchestrated violence from extremist groups in all fifty states, Washington is already in lock-down a week early. Hotels are shutting for the next week, and AirBnB reservations have been cancelled across the board to prevent an influx of demonstrators accumulating in advance. A security operation of this scale surrounding Inauguration Day has never been seen before, and shows how determined the political and governmental leaders are to protect American democracy and the Constitution from subversion and insurrection. There's no knowing in reality how far right wing populist sentiment has been stoked up by agents of foreign powers, but it is clear that the Alt-Right movement in American public discourse over the past decade has been driven by patriotic resentments and fears of change, coupled with the persistence of the rich-poor divide.
The right to free speech is widely accepted, social media has evolved and given a platform to people of all kinds of persuasion, promoting ideas and values from the highest to the most debased imaginable. In the absence of shared moral consensus, racist and sexist hate speech flourish on-line, and conspiracy theorists strive to persuade people that the brand of falsehood is true but all others are liars. A place of nightmares as well as dreams and visions. Will it be possible for Joe Biden's administration to reset the nation's moral compass, and do enough justice to those voicing real grievances to ensure healthy debate and reconcile a country now do locked in confrontation and conflict?
Trump saw the way things were and exploited them to gain support on his pathway to power. His effort to do things his way has unleashed pent-up forces of division he was incapable of channelling for the common good, and this has only made things worse. A great deal of soul searching and repentance is necessary when the drama of coming weeks dies down and the pandemic is brought under control. By the time Joe Biden's Inaguration takes place, over 400,000 Americans will have died of covid and 24 million been infected, with immense collateral damage done to the world's biggest economy. Biden is an active practicing Catholic. He needs all our prayers to become the blessing America needs right now, to curb the curse of Trumpism.
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