Sea Sunday

After breakfast we walked up to St Decuman's church for the Bible Sunday Parish Eucharist. This week it was a retired locum priest who celebrated, arriving just as we reached the church after our brisk uphill walk. He was fully vested after celebrating at another church. Instead of the organ, our hymn singing was accompanied by piano and violin, played by older members of the congregation. Everyone sang heartily. There were two dozen present, including another retired priest and his wife. She read the Epistle with great care and thoughtfulness, he assisted the celebrant by holding the chalice for dipping the host during the distribution of Communion.

We had bacon sandwiches for a light lunch as Clare and Ann were due to go swimming at three. I went for a walk and got some good photos from the promontory behind the east cliff of the last train of the day for Bishops Lydeard, passing through the cutting after the station. As I returned, the sun reached the horizon and I got some pleasing photos of the port. 

After the quick installation of a minor Windows 10 update, I found that internet speed had picked up again allowing photos to upload and not stall with the line dropping. Could an epidemic of forced Windows updates be a contributory factor in catastrophic network slowdowns, especially if several users were being updated at roughly the same time?

There was an ecumenical Sea Sunday service at the Methodist Church by the station at six tonight. I had thought of going, but lost track of time when I was taking pictures. The sea came into focus later on when we watched a documentary on BBC Four about the making of a play called 'Salt', written by a black Brummie about the impact of the experience of slavery on continuing racism and black identity. 

Artist Selina Thompson retraced the sea journeys made by enslaved Africans on the transatlantic slave trade triangle, travelling on a cargo ship, reflecting on the absolute power over the centuries of a ship's master benefiting from sustaining human trafficking. Much of her essay centred on the question 'Where are you from' depending on context and working at several levels in terms of personal identity. It highlighted the extent that western society's wealth and culture rests on foundations of violent exploitation. I found it most thoughtful and deeply challenging.