A lovely sunny morning, if cold, just right for my first proper outing in a fortnight, to celebrate Mass at St German's. We started the Palm Procession with the blessing ceremony in the church garden, which looks great at the moment, clean and well cared for. There were twenty seven of us and a revised version of the Passion Gospel according to St Luke prepared by James involved a third of the congregation as readers. It was one of those 'bonding' experiences which really brings out the best in a church community, whether it's a small number, or tens of thousands. For me it's the same experience as standing in the street among the crowds watching Semana Santa processions in Malaga.
After lunch, I did another two hours work to complete the visuals for Good Friday before going for a walk. I noticed the Snoopy statue near Cafe Castan was missing, with a note on the empty plinth saying it had been taken away for repairs. That's after three days in the wild. It's too tempting for the idle handed youth who like to hang near the cafe to take advantage of its free wi-fi at night.
Ukrainian workers report that over twelve hundred dead civilians have been counted in areas around Kyiv which Russian troops invaded fought over and then retreated from. Moscow denies everything. An army general has been appointed to lead the forces aiming to annexe the Donbass region who was instrumental in the devastating siege of Aleppo and all the war crimes committed there. Boris Johnson has paid a visit to Ukraine this weekend. Archbishop Rowan goes with a group of church leaders this week.
Meanwhile, the Prime Minister of Austria is going to visit Mr Putin in the Kremlin. Since Cold War, Austria has been not only a neutral country, but strictly non-aligned, in a deal to ward off the Soviet threat. This means there are channels of communication with Russia uniquely open to Austria. Switzerland, while also neutral, has by its sanctions policy and support for human rights concerns, is in effect aligned to the West, though not closed to Russia, as witnessed by the Russian citizens and their wealth domiciled there. But can anything be done to stop the onslaught on Ukraine without conflict escalating dangerously?
There was nothing of interest on telly this evening, and I try not to spend too much time glue to 24/7 news as it's not good for the soul. So, after supper I got on with work on the audio side of the Good Friday service, finding hymns on-line making recordings and editing for length, seventeen minutes worth of use in between readings. It took three hours. It wasn't very easy, and it was only when I went up to bed that I remembered an occasion when I'd used the Twisted Wave app on my Chromebook and produced a much better quality of sound file than was possible by the convoluted method I was using - partly as a consequence of my not being able to configure Audacity properly. I don't know why I failed on a new more powerful machine, but it may have something to do with the hardware that I don't understand. Much work done today, and a fair amont of progress, which is pleasing.
No comments:
Post a Comment