Land of song

We arrived slightly late for church this morning. As we entered, the choir was singing an English version of a Taize chant which I've known and sung in French for over thirty years, without knowing the English. We're not back to congregational singing yet, but under the cover of my face mask I sang along quietly anyway, a reminder of those family stop-overs in Taize on summer holidays, and the one glorious year when I worked for USPG and stayed a week in Eastertide.

For the benefit of the congregation, Emma announced Fr Benedict's departure for Whitchurch, and her own temporary secondment to Fairwater, although it had been announced to the PCC on Thursday, so most people present already know, and I suspect are still stunned by the suddenness of the change while Francis is off sick. What impact all this has on church attendance and support is yet to unfold. Already the organisational changes demanded of parishes constituting the new Ministry Area are disconcerting for some who don't see good reason for the changes. 

It's all being driven from the top down and it seems to me that diocesan leadership is acting in crisis mode when it would benefit from more widespread consultation with grass roots members, It's difficult admittedly, when proper conferencing has been impossible for over a year, but top down managerial style leadership has been in the ascendancy for the past decade in the Church in Wales. Reducing its body of supporters to passivity isn't a recipe for rescue or growth, but rather resentment. That's not good for a community whose vitality comes from its interactive participatory worship and fellowship. How vital it is then for us clergy volunteers to sustain a healthy dialogue with God, when the hierarchy seems to be unaware of how its actions are being received at the grass roots level.

After lunch I walked along the Taff, still swollen from recent heavy rain, though the water level is lower than it was a few days ago. There was no sight of the Mallard ducklings, just a few pairs paddling hard to stay in the same spot, heaven knows why. Only one small outcrop of river bed rock was visible above the water, and on it was perched a Merganser female. There were no fewer than three male suitors in a line downstream of the rock, paddling furiously to stay in positon. Quite comic really.

Over the past few days, Clare's left eyelid has been worryingly swollen with a condition called Blepharitis, due to blocked lubrication glands. It might be a peculiar pollen, or pollution or an infection that causes it, but it's worrying because of the impact it could have on the tear duct surgery she had some years ago to mitigate the impact of advancing glaucoma. She sought telephone advice from our GP on Friday, and was referred to her optician, but no appointment was possible before next week. So yesterday she obtained an emergency appointment with an optician in Llandaff who prescribed an eye ointment.But it didn't stop the condition worsening. 

This afternoon she had a telephone consultation with at doctor at Heath Hospital A&E, albeit not an eye doctor. They were very busy and it took several hours for it to happen, but the outcome was a just-in-case antibiotic prescription. This was faxed directly to the emergency weekend pharmacy down in Cardiff Bay Retail Park for collection, so we drove down there at six. We had to wait a while as the prescription hadn't yet arrived, but were back home again in just over an hour. Talking to sister in law Ann, Clare learned that her late brother Eddy was susceptible to the same eye condition, so there may be a genetic component in there somewhere, who knows?

While I was waiting in the car I listened to an interview on BBC Wales by Roy Noble with a Rhondda historian, Dean Powell, about his book 'A Royal Choir for Wales'. His book is the fruit of research into the emergence of Welsh male voice choirs during the industrial era in South and North Wales. It seems that in the 19th century there was fierce tribal rivalry between two big Rhondda Fawr choirs, when it came to choral competitions. Punch-ups at the pit-head or in the pubs, betting on Eisteddfod  results, attempts to bribe judges and so on. I can imagine a wonderful movies out of this story, full of uplifting music and surreal comedy! 

There was indeed for the span of a century a Royal Welsh Male voice choir, so called as it sang for Queen Victoria, and a line of British Monarchs and Prime Ministers since. The 400 strong choir went on several world tours by ship, lasting one or two years, depending on where the gigs were. After the closure of the pits, choir recruitment went into decline, and in many places this highly popular form of recreation died as its ageing faithful members died - a bit like the church these days. Then after a spell of twenty years male voice choirs re-emerged with a new generation of younger singers, and much more varied repertoire, as exemplified by 'Only Men Allowed'. Before the pandemic Cardiff was said to be home to twenty different  male voice and mixed voice choirs. Many of them have continued, despite the difficulties, working on-line but once restrictions of singing are lifted, I wouldn't be surprised to see a resurgence popularity in choral singing, as a celebration of regained freedom and creativity.

In St Catherine's at the moment we have a choir of four to six people singing a couple of items for us at the Sunday Eucharist. Months of Mass with no music really made me appreciate what we lacked, and it's a joy to have them back, doing what they love again. Choir member Sue, an adept seamstress has in the past made purple cassocks for choristers. Recently she turned her hand to matching face-masks. It's a stylish response to the onerous necessity of being masked in church. It made me wonder about Spanish penitentes in the Semana Santa processions. They don't all wear long pointed hoods. Many of them wear a decorative face mask and head covering, to conceal their appearance - or is there really more to this than meets the eye? Given the number of times over centuries old cities were afflicted by plague I wouldn't be surprised..