Home grown clerics

Another rainy night, but a dry cloudy day with no rain until darkness fell. After breakfast I finished and uploaded next week's video slideshow, then started work on the Armistice Day Morning Prayer recording and video, as I'm covering for Pearlin who's gone to India for a couple of weeks to see her mother.

Fr Dyfrig sent the Canton locum rota for December, but with no information about Christmas services. It's yet to be finalised, apparently. I heard from Linda in la Cala de Mijas that Fr William, having completed his NSM curacy in Málaga has now been designated Resident Locum for the Costa del Sol East Chaplaincy. I imagine that when a new Chaplain is appointed he will become NSM Curate. As William lives in Mijas, having a home grown voluntary priest is a great asset. Just as we do here in Canton with Fr Rhys. It's a sign of how the church is evolving in changing times.

Clare went to the Eye Hospital after an early lunch and I cooked myself pasta, then completed the second video and then went into town to take my favourite jacket to Slater's Menswear where I bought it, to get the lining repaired. It's the only shop I now which has a team of seamstresses on-site to do alterations and repairs to its own stock. The lining in both armpits has been torn when putting the jacket on by the buttons on my ancient Casio watch, which died on me earlier this year. My Fitbit watch has no sharp edges or protruding buttons, so hopefully this won't happen in future.

I walked  the long way through Bute Park, and it was dark by the time I arrived home. After supper, I read four more chapters of Diana's novel, then another chapter of 'Battle for Spain' before turning in for bed.

Today's Dark Hour

Rain in the night but happily another chilly sunny morning. News from Gaza continues to be distressing, with the Israeli military ordering the evacuation of staff and patients, plus thousands of homeless people taking refuge in the grounds of a hospital, said to have the Hamas command and control centre concealed in a network of tunnels underground. It's impossible to respond to this, as the means to evacuate 400 sick people and thousands of refugees are insufficient in a ruined city. 

It seems Egypt is now expressing willingness co-operate with Israel in facilitating the faster flow of aid trucks into Gaza. This morning, 118 trucks are reported to have crossed over the past two weeks, it's a fraction of the daily passage of 500 trucks. It doesn't include fuel, so water pumps remain idle.

The UN and governments around the world are calling for a humanitarian ceasefire. The more this falls on deaf ears, the more the Israeli government will lose world sympathy and be accused of war crimes. More worrying is the increase of anti-semitic attacks in the UK and elsewhere. In the Russian Republic of Dagestan, a predominantly muslim country, a mob attacked an airliner, just landed, after social media reported it had Israeli citizens on board. It remains to be seen how Putin will deal with this in the light of nationalistic xenophobia stoked up by his regime since before the war with Ukraine.

Then, at the end of the lunchtime news, a fresh report of a video produced by Hamas of three hostages appealing to Netanyahu urgently to swap Palestinian prisoners for  hostages. It's a subject that has been under debate in Israel recently, so the captors are taking advantage of what is still a minority public opinion.

After breakfast I did the hoovering then worked on next week's Sway and sent out the Sunday readings. Then I recorded next week's Morning Prayer and Reflection before starting on lunch - a joint effort with Clare today. After we'd eaten I finished editing the audio files, ready for producing the video slideshow. Quite a productive time actually, until some display glitches were pointed out to me creating a problem that took me hours to resolve, before my afternoon walk. I went out so late it was dark when I reached the home stretch. The only compensation was seeing the moon rising in between the trees, with bright Jupiter seeming to race ahead above the horizon.

Cousin Dianne sent me a statement she'd received from Pat Mitchell, a women's peace movement activist in America. It was devised by a network of eminent persons; ex-heads of state and international agencies appealing for a just and equitable resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict. It's entitled 'Today's dark hour must be a catalyst for change' You can read it here.

I spent the evening uploading and editing photos and continuing to troubleshoot Sway. I got there in the end, but what a waste of time. Then I spent an hour reading the first chapter of Diana's new novel before turning in for the night. 

The long shadow of the Holocaust

After a long night's sleep, it was good to wake up to sunshine. The situation in Gaza continues to worsen, but some telecoms services are being restored, so stories from the past 48 hours of the on-going nightmare are now being told. A UN spokesperson has stated that 84 aid trucks have now passed through the Rafah crossing. The system is working, but too slowly to make much difference in the face of the overwhelming crisis facing two million Gazans.

I drove to St German's to celebrate Mass on this Bible Sunday. The church was bathed in sunlight throughout the service. There were thirty five of us including a young Indian couple who presented themselves at the altar for a blessing. The man didn't seem to know what to do, and presented his hands to receive the sacrament, the woman asked for a blessing motioning to her companion to bow his head. He then opened his hand which still contained the host, so I took it back and blessed him instead. An odd situation. I don't recall this happening before. St German's welcomes young Africans and Asians to services. There are students and also hospital workers living in the vicinity, and some of them are devoutly Christian. 

There have been occasions celebrating Christmas Midnight Mass which a group of young Asians have turned up, always well behaved and evidently a mixed faith group. Most will come up to the Communion rail, and some bow their heads for a blessing. I wonder if they have been briefed by their Christian friends on how to behave. I wonder if they are repeating a young people's festive season social custom from back home in some big city where there's a prominent Christian church. They don't stick around long enough after the service for me to enquire, however.

It was nearly half past one by the time I reached home after the service, as our latest asylum seeker was upset and needed support, which I was best able to offer through a long discussion with Hilary who has befriended her. Salmon for lunch as ever, but a gorgeous apple crumble for pudding. After we'd eaten, I got to work on a batch of bread dough, then went out for a walk. Rain was forecast by my Accuweather app so I took my brolly, but there was no rain at all, not even light drizzle, and blue sky. The app has been less than accurate recently.

After supper the dough had risen enough to be ready for a second kneading and put into tins ready for the second raising before going into the oven. While I watched antiques roadshow, Clare was busy making fudge for Christmas gifts, and then joined me to watch the second part of 'The Devil's Confession' about the trial of Adolf Eichmann, architect of the Holocaust, and the recorded evidence which emerged only after the trial in which parts of the tape transcript were admitted into the evidence condemning him. 

Very powerful and painful to watch. It gives essential background to the understanding why Israel is so determined to pursue and destroy Hamas and put an end to its genocidal ambitions. It doesn't however, explain why the majority of civilians in Gaza are made to suffer so cruelly. It's as if the Israeli government and military are blind or indifferent to the presence of helpless civilians overwhelmed by the war being waged not of their making.

I took the cooked bread from the oven towards the end of the documentary. It will last us for a week if not longer, most of it stored in the freezer until needed. Then the news. Most memorable quote from a citizen of Gaza tonight. 'We're no longer asking ourselves where can we go that's safe, but rather where do we want to go to die.' How much longer must this cruelty continue?

Bargain buys

Another pleasantly sunny day with occasional cloudbursts. Clare made pancakes for breakfast with a nice bacon and mushroom savoury filling for me, special treat. Little news from Palestine as few people have the means to report anything from Gaza with telecoms infrastructure out of action. Only people living close to the borders of Gaza who can afford international SIM cards able to attach to neighbouring Israeli cell towers can communicate with the outside world, according to reporter Rushdi Abualouf the BBC's only person inside Gaza.

Netanyahu gave a press conference later in the day announcing a scaling up of offensive military incursions. Delicate negotiations about hostage release have been abandoned abruptly, and movement of aid trucks made impossible. What most disturbs outsiders, whether politicians, diplomats or media commentators is the inability to conceive how this can lead to a long term peaceful settlement. The death of about 8,000 people in Gaza is arousing indignation around the Middle East in countries sympathetic and hostile to Israel alike. The situation is worryingly volatile. Demonstrations protesting at the treatment of Palestinian civilians in big cities around the world, 300,000 attending one in London. There was one in Cardiff too, but it had dispersed before we got to the city centre.

After breakfast I worked on revising tomorrow's sermon, having used the wrong set of readings. There's a choice of two. It was less difficult than I imagined once I put my mind to it. Then we went for a walk in the park before lunch, ending with a visit to Elgano's restaurant on Cathedral Road, where we both had minestroni soup, Clare had seafood pasta and I had a Calabrian risotto. An excellent meal from the people who did the catering for our Golden Wedding celebration in 2016. We learned they no longer do outside catering. Covid put an end to that element of the business sadly. On either side of us were two families occupying a long table - one Chinese, and the other Anglo-French. Their youngest of five children was using DuoLingo for kids on her phone once she'd finished eating. Better than some trivial game, for sure.

It started raining when we were in the restaurant. Fortunately the restaurant has a bus stop outside, so we caught a bus into town for a visit to John Lewis' store. Clare hunted for birthday presents for Rachel and Jasmine and I went upstairs to see if there were any tech bargains. I spotted a Panasonic Lumix TZ95 camera with seventy quid off the ticket price of one on the shelf the other end of the shop floor. It's the only 30x zoom pocket camera on sale these days, and since I damaged the casing of my Sony HX90 making it vulnerable to complete breakdown, I've been looking out for a bargain replacement, so it was an irresistible purchase. There was also a discounted 2TB portable hard drive, which will become a Christmas present from Clare.

We had a cup of tea then headed for home on the bus. The rain stopped so I went for another short walk before supper, and then an evening writing a reflection for use a week Thursday, finishing tomorrow's sermon and printing it off before turning back the clocks and going to bed early enough to take advantage of the extra hour.

Paella again

Another sunny day, cloudy and occasionally light drizzle. I had extra work to do on this week's Sway after breakfast as I'd missed out a flyer for an event in two week's time. Diana and Pete called around to drop off the manuscript of a novel Diana is about to have published, and stayed for coffee. She's asked me to read it through to see if her portrayal of the protagonist is authentic. I look forward to this unusual task.

An email arrived from my cousin Dianne with information about an appeal from the Diocese of Jerusalem for the Al-Ahli Anglican hospital in Gaza city. It was from her parish's weekly e-newsletter. I posted the link to the donation site on our Daily Prayer WhatsApp thread. We both sent donations to Christian Aid's Gaza appeal already, but another will go to this diocesan appeal now. I asked her as a former-journalist if she had any idea about how to find the actual number of aid lorries allowed through the Rafah crossing so far. She said she'd heard there's no coherent information coming from reporters in the area as their access to the frontier crossing point has been denied.

I cooked a paella for lunch, with the fish pie mix which Clare had bought. It's the first time I've done this in a year or so, and was pleased at how it turned out, even if it did take longer than anticipated. After we'd eaten I set to work on preparing materiel for Daily Prayer two weeks hence when I have to days to prepare for, as I'm covering for Pearlin while she's visiting her mother in India. Then we went for a walk down to the river, and called at the Co-op on the way back to buy evaporated milk and sugar for Christmas fudge making. Evaporated milk is not used as much these days and is hard to find, but we came home with two half sized tins, and that cleared the shelf in the supermarket which stocked it.

After a cup of tea, I went out again and walked for three quarters of an hour to complete my daily quota. The nearly full Hunter's Moon had just risen in a clear-ish sky as I was walking in the darkness of Llandaff Fields, a beautiful sight. By the time I made my way back, it was enveloped by a veil of thin cloud.

I watched another episode of 'For Life', and then the news before bed. More raids on Gaza, the civilian death toll keeps mounting. It's now over seven thousand. Half of those killed are children. Bombing and shelling has intensified this evening and internet access has been lost. The UN and politicians in many countries call for a humanitarian cease-fire, but there's no sign of that, any more than there's sign of more hostages being released. In a worrying move, some Hamas leaders are visiting Moscow as Putin has expressed an interest in hostage release. There are a lot of Russians in Israel. I don't know what influence Russian government has in Israel, but Hamas is backed by Iran and the Iranian government has links with Moscow. What next?

Late autumn butterflies

Another sunny start to the day. I was late waking up to post this week's Morning Prayer YouTube link to WhatsApp before breakfast. I phoned Sandra to check she was OK to receive a Home Communion visit, and finished off this week's Sway, my tenth and dispatched it by Mailchimp - all by eleven o'clock. It is getting easier now to remember the operating procedure for this routine. If any additions or corrections arrive late I can edit them into Sway without needing to re-issue the link, as it remains unchanged, and as the content doesn't have to be downloaded but is viewed on-line, it's more flexible in use.

I drove to Danescourt to take Communion to Sandra. A recently knitted bed jacket for a new born infant lay on a side table by her chair, one of a hundred and ten she's made this year alone. They are destined for the premature babies unit at the University Hospital of Wales. Amazing dedication!

I returned home and took Clare to lunch at Iona's. Sitting at table in Iona's kitchen looking out into the garden, I could see sparrows coming and going from a large bush and a couple of butterflies put in an appearance as well. It's not the first time I've seen butterflies this week. Astonishing when it's the last week in October, a consequence of milder autumn weather due to climate change. We discussed how it would be possible to improve communication within the Ministry Area with more active representation in the Area Council's affairs from every congregation. Dissolution of traditional parochial structures has proved damaging to morale among church members. Nevertheless, many have made huge efforts to ensure church life continues and haven't given up, despite the decline in membership since the pandemic.

When we returned home after lunch, I worked on drafting a fresh sermon for next Sunday, Bible Sunday, celebrating the age-old impulse to translate God's Word anew into the languages of the world. Then a walk around the park, with the sky clouding over and evening rain following. I spent the evening after supper until bed time making an effort to read the last seventy pages of Beevor's 'Battle for Spain'. It's weeks since I last picked it up, and I promised myself that I wouldn't start a new novel in Spanish until I had finished this magnum opus in English, from which I have learned so much about the civil war. I didn't get to the end before stopping to watch the late news on telly.

Listening to the news about the continuing aid crisis in Gaza, I learned that about seventy aid trucks have now passed through the Rafah crossing so far, this report comes after media silence on numbers for the past couple of days, another thirty odd in the past couple of days. It's still a fraction of what's urgently needed. International pressure on Israel to let more through is countered by insistence that none of the aid supplies fall into the hands of Hamas, but there's no mechanism in place to ensure that doesn't happen. None of this has been thought through properly, and only results in more suffering and death. When will the Israeli government come to its senses and realise this is undermining its own just cause?

Flight from reason

A bright sunny start to the day, even if it did cloud over later in the day. I slept far longer than I intended to given that I had to leave the house in time to get to St Peter's Fairwater by ten, but I made it in good time without undue haste. There were twenty of us for the Eucharist. Although the set readings were somewhat difficult to work with I managed to extract enough to encourage me to speak about the current conflict in Israel/Palestine. I found this hard to do, and was relieved to receive a comment from one worshipper afterwards saying he was impressed at how balanced my observations were. 

It was gone midday when I returned from church, to go out again and collect the weekly veggie bag from Chapter Arts. Clare was already cooking lunch and left me to prepare my meat dish with half the portion of chicken and canellini beans I cooked for myself yesterday. After she fetched her weekly order from Beanfreaks, I went to the Co-op to shop for the rest of the week's supply of groceries, and then went for a walk in the park. Clare had left for her Plygain singing session by the time I returned.

Despite such continued uncompromising extremist rhetoric from Israeli political leaders, it was good to hear from Benzi Saunders, a former Israeli Defence Force soldier on active service during 2014 incursions into Gaza, interviewed on the lunchtime news about his change of heart. He recognises just how counter-productive it is to refuse to pursue a two-state solution, how much both sides need security and freedom to determine their lives. No matter how many Hamas supporters are killed, its ideology persists and feeds off the sufferings of an oppressed people. It's a reasoned position to take, supported by some Israeli strategists but can or will an enraged political leadership see reason? No matter who blames whom for such insane cruelty and wickedness by either side, innocent people have been killed and are still being killed.

António Guterres, General Secretary of the UN has spoken out against the refusal to allow emergency aid into Gaza, referring to it as 'collective punishment'. So far 6,500 people have been killed by the air raids, the majority of them women and children. Aid convoys have stopped again. Netanyahu's government has reacted angrily, calling for Guterres to resign, and denying an entry visa to the UN's senior humanitarian aid coordinator. Righteous indignation tainted by rage and lust for vengeance is blinding politicians to the cruelty and injustice of their actions in the face of reasonable criticism. They undermine their credibility and risk losing international sympathy for their position. Where are the truly wise counsellors of state?

After a snack supper, I relaxed in front of the telly with a couple of cooking programmes and this week's episode of 'Payback' and finally the news, then bed.

Witnesses to reconciliation

I woke up late after a cold wet night to find the sun shining through a veil of mist over the back gardens of the street, an unusual sight here in the city. Radio 4's Today programme was interviewing Judith Lifshitz the daughter of Yocheved Lifshitz, who together with Nurit Yitzhak are the hostages released by Hamas last night. Her father Oded is still unaccounted for. Judith, who was raised on the Kibbutz from where the couple were abducted spoke of his parents' high idealism as peace activists. 

They settled on the Kibbutz early in their life together near the border with the Gaza Strip in order to work for reconciliation between Jews and Arabs, building relationships with Gazans. Oded volunteered to give lifts to Palestinians needing treatment in Israeli hospitals, meeting them at the nearest border crossing. Yocheved learned Arabic and taught classes to Israelis who wanted to improve communication neighbours across the border. Here for the first time in seventeen days of conflict are witnesses to the practical way of making love not war, counterbalancing the host of cries for vengeance and retaliation, people who know at first hand how risky and costly it can be. There are still prophets in Israel, thank God!

I listened to 'Thought for the Day' on BBC Sounds - Sam Wells reflecting on progress made since the end of the Thirty Years War in 1648 in agreeing and establishing the laws of war and national sovereignty as a way to prevent or limit conflict from becoming totally destructive and dehumanising. It was an innovation but it didn't stop the outbreak of new wars, each more deadly than the previous, but each time lessons have been learned about what is needed to be agreed for the 'things that make for peace' to be a reality. 

This slow process led to the establishment of the United Nations in 1945, and international agreements banning biological and chemical weapons and limiting the proliferation of nuclear armaments. The UN can raise an armed peace keeping force from the military units of several different nations, to keep warring factions apart while conflict resolving diplomacy is pursued. In each case there has been a measure of success and failure. Sam Wells argues that lessons learned from the greatest tragic failures in war are often pivotal in leading to significant steps towards a peaceful future. In in this context he cites the death and resurrection of Jesus, and hopes that the present Palestinian crisis will lead to a different place, despite the pain and anger of the present. Certainly lots to ponder on today.

After breakfast, Clare went to her study group, and I recorded Morning Prayer and reflection for All Souls' Day in my armchair studio while I had the house to myself and went on to make the accompanying video slideshow. When Clare returned I cooked lunch and afterwards uploaded the video to YouTube. I sat down to read my newsfeed and fell asleep for over an hour. 

It was half past four by the time I went out for a walk and took photos of trees that have turned colour. I had to return home after an hour as it started to rain. My topcoat wasn't waterproof and I didn't have a brolly with me. I got wet, but not soaked so I didn't go out again until after supper. Quite heavy rain persisted for hours after dark, but with a raincoat and my brolly, I avoided getting very wet and walked for another hour, returning in time for the ten o'clock news, and then bed.

It

Coastal Gwent, a new Bristol suburb?

Another day of sunshine and interesting clouds. Good conditions for driving to Bristol to see Owain, but we couldn't get away until noon as Clare's back medication injection packs were going to arrive by courier at some time in the morning, and needs immediate refrigeration. While we waited, I did my share of the weekly housework, then emailed next Sunday's readings to their destined recipients, and made a few changes to next weekend's Sway. 

I listen to every news bulletin, and look at my news feed often during the day for changes in the situation in Palestine. It's the feast of Saint James of Jerusalem today, so I decided to look for a photo of the Orthodox Cathedral Church of Saint James in Jerusalem, just outside the precinct of the Church of the Resurrection in the Holy City, from my collection of over a hundred photos taken there in 1998 and 2000. I don't have them on-line any more but archived and searched through four different hard drives in order to find the folder containing the photos I digitized them back in November 2008, not long after I bought the film digitizer, I think. 

Reviewing them made me realise how poor quality many of them are compared to what's possible to produce nowadays. I took an Olympus Trip 35mm film camera with me on both visits to the Holy Land, and digitized the negatives eight years later. It's a good little camera for point and shoot pictures, but my ten year old Olympus MFT camera produces far superior photos. The range of subjects photographed is also disappointing. A roll of 36 frames obliges you to choose carefully what picture you want, but when you're free to take scores of pictures there's no need to be choosy. Failed photos with a film camera are costly, unlike a digital camera. I prefer to take stills rather than video, as there's a momentary element of choice and attentiveness involved. Video shooting involves a lot more attention to do well, or else spend a lot of time editing out the poor parts.

We arrived at Owain's just after one, and then went out to lunch in a small eaterie not far from Stapleton Road railway station. His apartment is looking good now with the walls decorated and new carpets and flooring looking good. Shelves containing his huge vinyl record collection are installed and full, also his record decks and home computer workstation. The bedroom and kitchen are neatly organised, but he's lacking a sofa bed and dining table. He's making a home he can truly call his own for the first time, and that's a blessing for us as well as him.

We started for home as the rush hour started. The M32 and M4 were quite busy as we left Bristol, but not running slowly. It wasn't until we'd passed over the Severn crossing that traffic began to slow right down in all three lanes. I thought there must have been an accident or road works somewhere in this stretch of motorway, but there weren't. Once we were past the Magor junction the pace quickened to 50mph and stayed like that right through Newport, without further slowing down. That was unusual, as the Newport section often suffers from congestion. It took us an hour and a half to get home, twice as long as the outbound journey.

When I reflected on it, we've experienced that particular stretch of traffic congestion on other occasions recently. It's something to do with the significant increase in cars leaving the M4 at the Magor junction,. It wasn't designed to accommodate such a high volume of traffic fifty years ago. What's changed is the growth of new housing estates along the coastal strip from Chepstow to Newport. There's a big increase in commuter traffic to and from Bristol as house prices plus semi-rural lifestyle in Gwent make it worth the effort, now that hybrid working between home and office has become acceptable.

Clare made a quick snack for her supper when we got back and then went in search of a Plygain group sing-song in the Butchers Arms on Llandaff Road. Half an hour later she returned, disappointed, as the info she'd found on the internet related to an event that no longer happens there. I went out for a walk. First to Tesco's to buy her some flowers and a bottle of Chilean Pinot Noir for me, then my usual circuit of Llandaff Fields in the dark, with half a moon showing through the clouds. Earlier when we left for Bristol, I noticed a lovely colour change in the trees in the park, viewed across the road junction. A few days ago they were still green, speckled with small patches of yellow and brown leaves. After days of rain and colder wind, green trees look like they've been brushed with a light topping of golden colour. I look forward to getting some pictures of this scenic effect tomorrow, unless it changes again overnight! 

News tonight of another day of 20 aid lorries allowed through the Rafah crossing after clearance of content for weapons. Also two elderly female hostages released by Hamas, whose spokesmen says they have been retrieved from captivity by other military factions which joined in the murderous assault on Israel, and did their own thing. If this is so, it's another own goal for Hamas as it reveals opposition to Israel isn't united or disciplined, even if it is deadly and cruel.

Nothing worth watching on telly after my late walk. I had more changes to make on Sway. Then it was bed time. Rain returned 

Justin in Jerusalem

After nearly a week of clouds and rain, it was a pleasant surprise to wake up to blue skies and sunshine. No news of further aid convoys being allowed into Gaza after yesterday's opening of the Rafah crossing. Meanwhile Israeli bombardment of Gaza continues, in preparation for the ground assault. The compound of the Greek Orthodox church of St Porphyrus  in Gaza city was hit on Thursday last killing 18 people. It's said to be the oldest church in Gaza dating from as early as 425AD.

The Radio 4 Sunday programme, interviewed the Anglican Archbishop of Jerusalem and the Archbishop of Canterbury on a visit there. They made a plea to the Israeli military to consider urgently the plight of all those exposed to great danger, who have lost their homes and are running out of food and water. They also made an urgent plea for initiatives of reconciliation and peace making to begin. Recently a similar appeal was made by the heads of all Christian churches in Jerusalem, gathered together under the media spotlight. I've not seen this reported until now. It's violent men on both sides with the power of life and death over others who hog the attention of newsmakers and media influencers.

Clare and I attended the St Catherine's Parish Eucharist . There were three dozen adults and eight children in the congregation, and Fr Rhys presided. Before lunch, I worked on next week's Sway and the relevant liturgical reading files for distribution. I made an effort to get ahead as tomorrow when I normally do this, we plan to visit Owain and inspect the work he's done on his new apartment. Then I had a short siesta and went for a walk around Thompson's Park until tea time. 

At short notice this week, Christian Aid Wales organised a vigil service to pray for Israel and Palestine in Llandaff Cathedral at six this evening, so we walked there to join fifty others who responded to the call for prayer together. The bilingual service lasted just half an hour and involved eight people reading quotations from suffering people on both sides. There were several others there from St Catherine's and clergy friends as well, making the effort after a day's work. 

We got home in time for 'The Archers', and after supper watched 'Antiques Roadshow', and the first of a series of three episodes of a documentary about the trial of Adolf Eichmann, key Nazi organiser of the Holocaust in 1961. Eichmann was convicted on the basis of evidence from transcripts published in Life magazine of recorded conversations between himself and Nazi sympathisers. The tapes themselves were unavailable having been hidden after the event. 

It was some years before they found their way into German government archives, and for political reasons it was only in 2020 that the surviving 15 hours worth of 70 hours of taped conversations were released to an Israeli documentary team. I recall hearing of this trial when I was a sixth former, and reading about it. The Holocaust, I already knew about, as I'd been told about it by my mother, and seen footage of it in documentaries about the war on telly.

Then in the ten o'clock news, a report from the UN that a further 14 aid trucks have crossed into Gaza during the day. Sufficient diplomatic pressure on Israel seems to have secured the passage of more trucks in the aid convoy in the days to come. We'll see. 

Finally the Anglican identity of the bombed Al-Ahli hospital has been given fair coverage on prime time BBC news, thanks to the visit of Archbishop Justin Welby to his episcopal counterpart in Jerusalem. He gave a superb interview in St George's Cathedral about the need for reconciliation, including the following observation: "How you fight determines whether peace and reconciliation is possible in the long run" Let's hope that this wise counsel has its impact on leaders on both sides who have a choice to think about their plans of action before this conflcit spirals out of control into an widespread international war.

Women taking action

It may be damp and overcast again here in Cardiff, but news of the opening at last of the Rafah border crossing from Egypt into Gaza for emergency aid trucks to enter. Yesterday a video was posted on the WhatsApp Daily Prayer thread about an organisation in Israel called 'Women Wage Peace', with its own peace song 'Prayer of the Mothers with images of peace rallies from Yael Deckelbaum, an Israeli singer and activist. Women Wage Peace is the largest grassroots peace movement in Israel whose purpose is to promote a political agreement, involving women in the process, a movement with more than 44,000 members. It embraces a membership of Jewish Muslim and Christian women. It brings some light into the dark macho mood of this past few weeks for people in Israel and Palestine.

We both slept late, but Clare made pancakes for breakfast nevertheless. I cooked some baked beans with mushrooms to accompany some of mine. Then I started working on texts for Morning Prayer for the week after next, as there was time to spare before driving to Rumney for a hair appointments with Chris. On the way back we called at B&M to buy some crocus and daffodil bulbs. Clare went straight to work planting them while I went for a walk. Thankfully there was no rain at all. 

When I got home she was roasting veggies and grilling sardines for supper, as we only had a snack lunch, There was an aroma in the house that reminded me of the Paseo Maritime in Fuengirola. Almost as good as baking bread. After we'd eaten, I continued working on texts for All Souls' Day Morning Prayer and Reflection before watching the final episodes of 'The Fall'. 

It finished with a surprisingly violent murder and suicide in secure custody engineered by the perpetrator, just before the actual ending when it seemed like it was winding down to a courtroom battle over fitness to plead. Having set a slow measured pace for the very detailed eighteen episode series, it sustained interest right to the last before going out with a shock that revealed the primal rage driving a highly intelligent man to kill. Embedded within it, a history of abuse in a childrens' home with a paedophile cleric in charge. The dialogue driving the story forward through conversations and interrogation struck me as authentic and not exaggerated, with contempt disguised as compassion and concern devoid of love. Hard to watch on times but worth the effort with plenty to think about.

Inclement weather

Another day of intermittent rain, sometimes heavy but South Wales is just outside the impact zone of the huge and dangerous storm hitting Northern Britain with a month's rain falling in 24 hours in some places causing floods and transport chaos. After breakfast I walked down to the Taff in the drizzle to check the water level and found it was already dropping and no higher than its usual autumnal level. It could have been worse if the storm had shifted further south at its present ferocity. Given climate instability these days, who knows if we'll escape another time.

Walking to Blackweir and taking a circuit of Pontcanna Fields in the morning for a change was refreshing. Maybe I'd benefit from exercising earlier in the day. I completed work on next Thursday's Morning Prayer video slide show, and uploaded it to YouTube when I got back, as Clare was already cooking lunch. After eating, I fell asleep in the chair for an hour, and then went out walking again, this time in pouring rain but fully kitted out with my oldest and strongest rain trousers. The elastic waistband has perished, so I had to use a pair of braces to hold them up, but the trousers withstood the downpour well. There were some very wet dogs and owners out walking despite the weather.

When I got home, I watched some more episodes of 'The Fall' on BBC iPlayer before and after supper until it was time to catch this week's live episode of Norwegian crimmie 'For Life' and BBC News at Ten. It was good to learn of the release of two American women held hostage by Hamas in Gaza. I hope and pray there will be more releases before the Israeli army ground offensive happens.

As I was preparing to wind down for the night, I had a message from Iona to say that the first mother and toddler Friday play group session in St Catherine's church hall had been a success, despite the weather. It's good news, and reassuring to know that a local current need has been identified and responded to. 

Tesco Express under attack again

The sun peeped through the clouds while I was waking up this morning and posting my Morning Prayer YouTube link to WhatsApp, just before 'Thought for the Day', but intermittent showers of rain, some of them heavy continued through the day with more brief appearances from the sun. And it's  milder too.

I phoned Sandra to confirm I'd be taking her Communion at the end of the morning, only to find that she had developed a cold and was going back to bed so we agreed to postpone until next Thursday. There were only four of us for the Eucharist at St John's. I didn't have time to shop for food-bank items beforehand, so I went to Tesco's after the service. As I did, it started to rain.

As I rounded the corner of the store I heard loud banging and saw a man jump on a bike and take off dangerously weaving around passing cars, shouting and cursing. Several external shop windows and a main sliding door were cracked, damaged by heavy blows. The doors were locked and I could see the staff lined up behind the cracked glass with anxious looks on their faces. One of them waved me away, unaware the assailant had left the scene. 

I think it's the third time I have arrived at Tesco's on a Thursday when there's been disruption due to an incident with one of the local addicts stealing or menacing the staff getting in their way. The police aren't usually called unless it's a burglary or serious assault. If arrested villains are rarely prosecuted. Knowing they can get away with it encourages rather than deters further attempts. It's not fair to staff or other shoppers.

I abandoned grocery shopping and headed for home.  As I walked the downpour increased but I found shelter under the lintel of a garage door in the lane on my usual route, and had to wait ten minutes before the rain stopped leaving the streets awash yet again.

Clare was cooking lunch when I arrived, so I set about issuing this week's Sway on Mailchimp. Pleased with myself for remembering how to add a new recipient. There are so many configurable menus in the app that learning to navigate it efficiently takes time I don't usually give it when I'm narrowly focussed on the current mailshot. It's a slow process without a user manual.

After lunch and a few more rain showers, I returned to Tesco's to get food bank groceries and drop them off at St John's. The checkout lady told me how shocked she and her colleagues had been at the violence of the morning's marauder. The police were called and arrived an hour later. The villain is well known. Some staff are nervous when leaving the store as an assortment of street people hang about on the public benches nearby. Most are harmless but there's fear of intimidation aimed at deterring staff from identifying habitual thieves.

By the time I arrived, a glazier was working to stabilise the cracked pane in the shop's sliding main door with a plastic film. The glass used is probably armoured and cracks rather than shatters. Even so dangerous splinters could dislodge themselves, the film serves as a suitable precaution until a new door can be ordered. Increasing losses due to shoplifting are causing serious concern among retailers, linked with the cost of living crisis, not only foodstuffs but high value items which can be sold on to generate income for the thieves. And we wonder why so many small neighbourhood corner shops are going out of business!

With the food bank shopping done and delivered to church I returned home, picked up my umbrella and went for a walk in the park. I wasn't out for long before the rain started again, but the umbrella was enough to stop me getting wet through as there was little wind, just a mild breeze, at 17C, surprisingly mild for this time of year, more like a spring day.

I spent the rest of the evening watching more episodes of 'The Fall'. Its slow pace makes attention to detail possible, in relation to the investigation and how everyone involved is affected by it, detailed protocols to be observed when dealing with a suspect to ensure their human rights are not denied, and a close view of how the Belfast city hospital surgical team deals with gunshot victims. 

Due to the Troubles, the level of expertise developed to deal with life threatening emergencies is among the best in the world. I believe this is reflected in the portrayal of a situation in which the murderer is shot and his rescued kidnapped victim are both in imminent danger of death, but survive. This enhances the story line rather than distracting attention from it, as it's surrounded by observations of how this affects different people involved. It's not a story you can lose interest in, although it is on times painful to watch, and it's not always the scary or gory scenes, but emotionally revealing moments in conversations.

Unnatural death at Al-Ahli hospital

A day of non stop cloud and rain after rain overnight. From the news I learned it was Al-Ahli Anglican Hospital in Gaza City which was hit by a missile in a devastating blow yesterday, taking hundreds of lives, as the place shelters many refugees as well as patients. I was unhappy no mention was made by the BBC of the historic nature of this Christian institution, founded in 1852, serving all-comers in need. Llandaff Diocese has raised funds for the hospital's mobile eye clinic for many years. I hope there'll be a fundraising appeal from the Bishop to help meet the most urgent needs there. 

It's the second time the place has been hit by a missile in the past few years, according to the hospital's own website. Different Hamas spokespersons said in interviews that 200 or 500 people were killed, and blamed  Israel for the hit. After a delay of several hours, while investigations were carried out, a rebuttal of the claim was made, based on the fact that no mission was being flown over Gaza city at the time, and that video footage showed no impact crater or blast damage, pointing to a explosive ground fire possibly caused by a faulty missile launched within the city itself failing and crashing just after takeoff. 

Whatever is eventually shown to be the cause it's a humanitarian disaster, causing political shock waves internationally, particularly in the Arab world. President Biden cancelled a meeting with Arab leaders in Jordan this morning and flew to Israel instead to find out what happened and urge Netanyahu to stop military action at the Rafah crossing from Egypt, to allow humanitarian aid to be taken into Gaza. While Biden is there, the Israeli army remains on standby. It's another tragedy as painful and difficult to absorb as the mass murder of Israelis in border towns two weeks ago.

It was a matter of walking through pavement puddles, avoiding flooded gutters and getting splashed by passing cars, to reach St Catherine's to celebrate the St Luke's Day Mass with seven others. Then a walk to a busy Chapter Arts for the weekly veggie bag before returning home to cook lunch. Clare was out, leaving a note to say she'd miss the meal, as she was out learning about volunteering at a local charity cafe, and would eat whatever I cooked for supper. I stewed some lentils with onions, and steamed some veggies, and put half of it on a plate for Clare to reheat later.

After lunch, I recorded and then edited next week's Morning Prayer and Audio, having modified the prayers to name Al-Ahli hospital. Then I realised tomorrow's upload is already on YouTube and makes no mention of this, so I recorded the prayers again and edited them into the existing sound file, then re-opened the video slideshow, added the edited soundtrack, and posted the modified version on YouTube. It was possible to do this as I preserve all current work projects just in case a change of this kind is needed. It was a fiddly job to make tomorrow's prayers current, taking me an hour, but hopefully it's worth the effort. At least it helped me to deal with my own shock and distress.

When Clare returned, she went out into the rain again to collect her weekly order from Beanfreaks, then it was my turn to brave the rain and shop for groceries at the Co-op. I couldn't find my new rain trousers but dug out an ancient pair I once used to ski in. I forgot the waistband elastic band no longer effective, and had to remove my trouser belt and use it to hold up both pairs. So annoying! It was gone six by the time I returned to unload the groceries.

In the evening, I got out my ten year old Linux laptop and used it to rip the Daniel Martinez CD into nine separate files, changed the file type and re-ordered the file sequence in Audacity then transferred them to my Windows laptop to edit them with Audacity, to correct the error in the original sound track editing, I mentioned yesterday. Another fiddly, if satisfying job, but not hard to do as I use Audacity regularly, at least once a week. The .ogg files are now on my computer, on Google Drive share with Anto, and on my phone's SD card to take with me everywhere.

Enough mental gymnastics as well as physical exercise for one day. Now to bed.

 

Another covid jab in view

Cloudy and dry all day, with a cold wind on times. Clare's study group arrived at ten, so I confined myself to the front room, and after saying Morning Prayer, prepared the text for next week's ready to record and started writing a reflection based on a letter from Eugenio Mesón one of many pro-democracy activists imprisoned and murdered by Franco’s regime in the aftermath of the Spanish civil war. He knew his fate was sealed and wrote a farewell message to his wife saying ‘Take flowers to the mass grave where our bodies will fall.’

It occurred to me that we have no letter from Jesus, but we do have St John's account of what he said to his disciples after the last supper. It was a good starting point, but completing it took a lot more time, especially as I had to cook lunch in the midst of being creative. A text message arrived while I was sitting and relaxing after eating, with a date for my next covid jab - November 6th

It was gone four by the time I went out for a walk. I chatted with Ashley about jabs while I walked along the river path. He has his jab on 7th November. This time jabs are being offered in Rookwood Hospital, a walk away from Llandaff village. The original Victorian mansion was the home of Sir Edward Hill who was behind the building of the Port of Cardiff's dry dock, with a former convent in Taormina Sicily for his winter holiday home, as I discovered when I did a month's locum duty there in 2012. I was sent there once for a cardio scan, so I'm pleased to have another opportunity to return there. It's a beautiful place.

Clare had gone out to meditation group by the time I got back. After supper, I made some additions to Sway, and listened to the CD of the Daniel Martinez Flamenco Company's show 'Art of Believing'. It was recorded live at the show premiere in Edinburgh six years ago. The sound quality is better than at the show itself, where the bass tones were over amplified, compromising the balance. One of the CD tracks 'Alegria in Escocias' was recorded by the BBC at a live broadcast of the Radio Four show 'Loose Ends' at the Edinburgh festival. As this number is now part of the show it may have been added after the original recording was made. Unfortunately the CD is flawed. The last track stops abruptly three minutes short of its end, and the introductory section from the broadcast of 'Alegria in Esocia' comes at its end rather than at the start. Apart from these quirks, it makes delightful listening.

With jobs done, I ended the evening with another episode of 'The Fall'. It certainly packs in a lot of detail and surprises, more than the average police procedural crimmie, but then it does have seventeen hour long episodes, which is rather unusual.

Good news for Clare

A cold sunny day, up early to take Clare to Llandough Hospital for a nine thirty bone density scan. We got there ten minutes earlier than expected, simply because we had a succession of eight green traffic lights. A rare thing indeed, and the traffic was light. I returned home to work on this week's Sway and send out this week's set of readings. Clare returned by bus an hour later with good news. The bone density scan showed a ten per cent increase in bone density in the first year of the two year course of daily calcium injections.

I cooked pasta with a sugo of carrot, onion, celery, mushrooms and butter beans for lunch and after eating I made the dough for a couple of loaves of bread, then went out for a walk. While I was out Clare saw the leavened loaves into the oven, and the aroma greeted me on return. 

First I walked to Thompson's Park and saw two juvenile moorhens, not the same birds as I saw there a few weeks ago but smaller ones. It's the first time I've noticed a second brood of moorhen chicks in one season. If it's the same breeding pair, it has to be the third attempt of the year, given that the first effort of nest making and egg laying in the small ornamental pond came to nothing around the time Jasmine came to stay. Then I walked to Victoria Park, to take a photo of St Luke's from inside the park gates to use for next week's Sway, as St Luke's will be celebrating its Patronal festival next Sunday.

Two people sent me emails arriving within a minute of each other, containing a poster to include in Sway advertising a Prayer Vigil for Israel and Palestine next Sunday evening at St Martin's Roath. Yesterday at St German's, the leaflet version was given out with the weekly notice sheet. I brought one home with me to scan, but didn't need to, with a suitable jpeg provided.

After supper, I made the video slideshow to go with the recording of Morning Prayer I made and edited a few days ago, and uploaded it to YouTube. We watched a cooking programme with Jamie Oliver showing how to cook a range of different simple dishes using just five ingredients commonly found and used in our kitchens. 

Then a programme about the Chartist movement presented by Newport born Michael Sheen, travelling around the South Eastern valleys interviewing people in deindustrialised villages not far from my birthplace about the reason for political apathy in deprived areas today. A story of voiceless people, past and present, with some of today's community activists striving to give Wales' poor communities a voice and raise people's hopes, powerfully told.

Unexpected meeting in church

A lovely sunny morning to wake up to, and a late start for St German's to celebrate Mass. The church was flooded with sunlight throughout though it was warmer outside than indoors. The mood was sombre with the situation in Gaza at the forefront of people's minds. Perhaps because I've been away for a few weeks, I was slower with longer silences in celebrating and preached a little longer than I usually do so we finished nearly ten minutes later than planned.

As there was a road closure in Westgate street in the town centre, I took the precaution of returning home to Canton by the Grangetown route, just in case there were traffic queues. This takes longer, but there was less traffic and no slow queues. It's difficult to get home for lunch until one fifteen either way.

After lunch, I slept for an hour, then went out for a walk around the park. At five, I caught the 61 bus to Fairwatwer, to celebrate Evensong and Benediction at St Peter's. I left early, anticipating there might be problems with the bus timetable due to a bus stop relocation in the town centre, thanks to roadworks in Westgate Street. A bus arrived minutes after I reached the stop - the previous bus, late! Jane got on the same bus, also on her way to St Peter's, and we arrived with more than half an hour to spare. It was good to meet up with Richard again and share a few moans about the state of the church.

The organ was being played when we arrived and unlocked. It was a contemporary of mine from St Mike's days, Richard Fenwick, the retired bishop of St Helena, also a lifelong organist. I think he lives nearby and has his own key. Like me, he enjoys locum ministry, and is currently helping out in the upper Rhymney Valley, not far from my childhood home. He was in church practicing for a concert, but didn't stop for the service. There were just three of us again, but I think we each enjoyed the serenity of quiet eventide prayer together. Kate gave Jane and I a lift back to Pontcanna, and I was home just in time for the Archers.

After supper, we watched 'Antiques Roadshop', then I watched another episode of 'The Fall' before turning in for the night.

Flamenco at RWCMD

After a night of rain, lower temperature and disturbed sleep, followed by sunny autumnal morning. We had waffles for breakfast and then I slept again for over an hour. Today is the St Catherine's Autumn Fayre, but we had to miss it due to an afternoon concert at the Royal Welsh College, so Clare took the jars of crab apple and grape jelly we made a couple of weeks ago to the church hall. Fascinating to think that the grapes came from the yard of the Robin Hood pub, and the crab apples from the tree in the churchyard garden, within a hundred yards of each other. Food with a provenance, and zero food miles!

After an early lunch, I completed tomorrow's sermon, then we walked to the Royal Welsh College for  matinée performance of a show called 'Art of Believing' presented by a young Flamenco guitar virtuoso Daniel Martinez with an ensemble which of two singers, a dancer, a violinist, another guitarist and a cajón percussionist. It was an astounding performance mixing traditional forms and measures with compositions by Martinez himself, delivered with energy, embracing the joy and agony of cante jondo. 

The Dora Stutzker auditorium was almost full with a noticeably ageing audience expressing enthusiasm and delight for the music, with two standing ovations at the end. What a treat! On our way out we bought a CD of the music performed. Pleased to know they'll be returning with a new show next March. It seems the group are living and touring in Britain at the moment. This experience certainly awakened in me a sense of hiraeth - but for Spain, rather than my motherland. I do hope I get another opportunity for locum duty in Spain next year. I could do with a change of scene after such a long spell of vacancy duties here.

We returned home on the bus, and after a drink and a piece of choccy cake, I went for a walk in the park as the sun was setting. It's chilly tonight, seven degrees. So far the ambient temperature of the house hasn't dropped enough for us to need to use the central heating - thanks to the longer spell of warm weather since the end of August. 

After supper I watched another slow moving episode of 'The Fall', then printed tomorrow's sermon and headed for bed early. I've not had much of a reaction to yesterday's 'flu jab, except for feeling the need for more sleep, even though I'm not physically tired.

Story of a street name

Much rain overnight and showers for much of the day. I went for my 'flu jab at the King's Road Pharmacy straight after breakfast. Mother Frances messaged me just after I got back, flagging up a strange anomaly in the Mailchimp distribution, with her personalised email addressed to Jesse, not to herself. A web-server glitch? Or a catastrophic mailing list database failure? No other complaints so far, or a simple data entry typo from some time in the past? Fortunately that's what had happened, I discovered when I examined the mailing list in detail. I couldn't edit the entry however, and ended up removing it, together with two other email addresses of people who have died, one of them a couple of years ago.

Clare bought a salmon for freezing from Ashton's in the market yesterday. While I was writing a sermon for Sunday, she cooked a lovely fish soup for lunch with the head and bones left from filleting. She had a flute lesson after lunch, so I went out for a walk. It started to rain, so I took shelter outside Cafe Castan and had a cup of coffee, waiting for the rain to stop, then walked to the other end of Llandaff Fields and caught a bus into town at the stop near the junction. The bus was crowded with students returning from college so I had to stand all the way into town.  

I visited John Lewis to see if there were any bargains to be had, and chatted with a young woman in the tech' section, wearing a Chromebook tee shirt and hovering around the display. She told me she'd not long returned from a year in Hungary as part of her business studies degree. Now she has the travel bug and is wondering where next to look for work. I think she was slightly surprised to learn I was an early adopter of the Chromebook over ten years ago. On balance, I use mine for everyday tasks more than I use my two Windows machines, which serve mainly for easy audio and video editing plus mailshots. I am thinking of buying a device with more RAM to use for running Linux apps, now that Chrome OS has been enhanced to make this possible, but before I do, I need to find out how feasible this would be. I'd certainly like to be able to use Linux again on a daily basis.

I caught the 25 bus to the top of Cathedral Road, then walked into the park before going home. There, I bumped into Peter and Jan walking their dogs, and we chatted for a while. Jan is a member of the Church in Wales electoral college which meets in the coming week to elect a new Bishop of St Davids. I wonder who will be elected? Jan says changes in electoral procedure are now in place that have improved the process, with preliminary briefing papers on prospective candidates available before a decision on nominating a voting short list is made. This is, I believe, intended to inform decision making and refine the selection of possible candidates with sufficient support to be electable in the ballot process. Let's hope it works as it's intended to.

Above, I mentioned Cathedral Road. Rufus told me yesterday how he learned about the origin of its name from Peter, who I met in the park this afternoon, when he was at St Mike's. Cathedral Road doesn't lead to Cathedral Road, and never did. It was named after the prestigious Victorian Welsh Presbyterian Church that still stands at the west end of the road. 

In the nineteenth century Welsh Calvinistic Methodism was a major force in the social development of urban industrial Wales, said whether true or not, to have enjoyed the adherence of half the population. This building was its most prominent in the capital city, but why call it a Cathedral when its pastoral oversight is performed by a council of elders, not a Bishop? 

French theologian Jean Calvin, caught up almost by chance in Geneva's independence struggles in the 1520's made a  major contribution to reforming church and society in the city state, advocating a new form of governance that didn't rely on episcopal hierarchy, but a council of church elders. Two centuries later his way of thinking was influential in the Methodist revival in Britain, and especially in Wales. Geneva's St Pierre Cathedral was one of only three churches which wasn't closed for worship at the time. It's a place where his memory is still honoured, a mother church of the protestant reformation. The road was named after the church building regarded as the Welsh equivalent of 'Calvin's Cathedral'. 

Sadly, in the last quarter of the twentieth century Welsh Calvinistic Methodism went into steep decline, losing almost all of its buildings. Ninety years after its opening in 1903, the congregation moved into the church hall and the main building was converted internally into three floors of offices. For fifteen years it was the headquarters of homelessness charity 'The Wallich'. It's now been acquired by Red Rose school, an independent special educational needs establishment. No longer a place of worship, but still very much in the service of vulnerable people, in the spirit of Calvinistic social thinking.

Clare was out when I got home. She'd gone to 'Amser Jazz' at the Royal Welsh College. I watched the news on telly, listened to the radio and waited for her to return so we could eat together. Then, this week's episode of Norwegian crimmie 'For Life' before turning in for the night.

Foggy information

Another overcast autumnal chilly day. I woke up just before Thought for the Day and posted this week's Morning Prayer link to WhatsApp. After listening to the news I got up for breakfast. What was noteworthy was brief report stating the main Gaza city hospital has only four days worth of fuel left for its emergency generators, having reported yesterday there was only enough fuel left for the rest of the day. It also stated that electricity is provided by solar panels as well. The fog of war hinders communications and the flow of correct information (quite apart from misleading propaganda). Journalists can get misled and report emotionally charged statements from desperate staff that don't survive thorough investigation later.

The Israeli government is doubtless trying to figure out why Hamas were able to mount a surprise attack unnoticed. Former UK spy chief Sir Alex Younger has observed that with such intense electronic surveillance available, and apparent inactivity from Hamas, Israeli intelligence services were less vigilant than they usually are. In addition, he stated that there may well have been suspicious traces of a build up in surveillance data that were unwittingly overlooked. 

Another report states that there was a noticeable flow of crypto-currency in a direction where Hamas could use it, in the run-up to the attack. Crypto-currency is a medium of finance favoured by terrorist networks it seems. Another report states that Egypt recently warned Israel of Hamas activity. Netanyahu vehemently denies this and calls it 'fake news'. This may be so, but it's in Egypt's interests to disassociate itself from Hamas actions, and such information may not have reached higher echelons of government if dismissed by others lower in the pecking order. Any catastrophic failure has a complex chemistry.

I was able to make an early start to get to St John's after breakfast, and shop for foodbank items in Tesco's on my way there. Three members of the congregation were already in church drinking a cup of coffee, having arrived even earlier with other tasks to perform. Their conversation was about war in the Holy Land, and what God was up to, putting me on the spot. I reminded them of how ancient biblical myth about the Fall and origins and evil observed sibling rivalry, jealousy, deceit and murderous rage as typical of how human beings behave, and how in the early story of Jacob and Esau can be seen the roots of all tribal tensions, and the history of suspicion and resentment between Jews and Arabs which seems impossible to eradicate fully. There's no need to blame God for that which we do to each other, in failing to conquer our lower nature.

There were seven of us for the Eucharist, and perhaps because we had chatted about these things I found bringing them into the heart of our prayer quite emotional. My nine weeks in Jerusalem back 2000 gave me a love of the place and both its tribes, so gifted, sharing similar values and aspirations in their different cultures and religion. But will true lasting reconciliation, harmony and peace ever be possible? There's no miracle solution, that's for sure. Not even to getting out of this current mess.

I cooked lunch early when I returned home, in order to get to Coffee #1 for a chat with Rufus, as he is just about to start his new job as South Wales Missions to Seafarers Chaplain. He told me about the lengthy on-line training programme he's been through to prepare him for pastoral work in a safety conscious, highly disciplined industrial environment. He commented that the church was not nearly as thorough in its induction programme, given the unsafe social environment in which ministry is exercised. He's happy, returning to a familiar structured secular workplace where he can feel looked after and supported in doing his job. When we parted company he was going off to buy industrial standard boots and protective clothing which will be his everyday work attire from now on.

Then I went for a walk in the park. On the home stretch I ran into Peter returning from his jog, and we walked back together talking about the conflict that's burdening so many of us at the moment, dominating the news. Over fifteen hundred have died in the Gaza bombing raids, a disturbingly high number of them are children. How can the end justify the means? Calls for restraint seem muted in the face of reality, no matter how precise the information reported may be. Images of devastation and a state of siege depriving Gazans of food and water speak for themselves. Hundreds of thousands of innocent people are suffering.

After supper, I watched a couple more episodes of 'The Fall'. It's very dark and deeply disturbing, showing more than it really needs to, leaving nothing for the imagination. I've just discovered from IMDB that there are seventeen episodes to this drama, and I've only watched four so far. That's a very long drawn out tale. Am I going to make it to the end? What's going on in real life as opposed to fiction is hard enough to witness and reflect upon, but necessary.

At the end of a far from routine way, I realised that I'd not issued this week's Sway, having waited for an information update which didn't reach me by the deadline, I remembered just as I was about to switch off and go to bed. I don't suppose many need to view it before Friday anyway. Distractions happen. It's just a matter of how quickly they can be recovered from. Preferably earlier than bed time!

Beware the speedy green man

A cooler cloudy day to wake up to. News of the increasing death toll in Israel and Palestine and more and more victims' bodies from the weekend slaughter are found, and more become victims due to the bombing of Gaza city by Israel. Twelve hundred Israelis are known to have died. Over three thousand Gazans including the Hamas fighters killed early on The denial of electricity and fuel to Gaza will lead to hospitals no longer able to function within this day. More will die untreated from injuries sustained during the prolonged bombing which is destroying whole blocks of city high rise buildings. Both sides acting without mercy. How can good come out of this?

There were just six of us for the Eucharist at St Catherine's, the situation was the focus of our prayer and our conversation over coffee afterwards. Roger, who has friends living in the north of Israel spoke about the messages he's received from his friends, living far from the sources of present danger, but sharing the grief and distress of the whole nation. 

Anger is being expressed by some at the concessions Benjamin Netanyahu has made to far right political parties in order to retain his hold on power, leading to increased injustice and oppression of Palestinians. There is no consensus supporting this. At the moment, Netanyahu is negotiating to unite all political interest in a government of national unity, but how much will it be possible for its members to agree on? All agree on the need for national security and stability, but opinion could be divided about how to achieve this, both in the short and long term. The world outside watches, concerned about escalation of the conflict beyond the Holy Land.

After coffee, I collected this week's veggie bag from Chapter. Clare was half way through cooking lunch already, with a delicious gammon steak for me. Later in the afternoon, I did the week's grocery shopping at the Co-op, and then went for a walk in the park. Finally, after four and a half months, temporary traffic lights at the pedestrian crossing on Penhill Road have been removed and the new set of lights installed a few months ago are finally working. 

The only problem is that the green man flashes to tell pedestrians when they can cross only allows ten seconds to cross the road. In effect, if you can't walk at one meter per second, you're at risk from traffic. People pushing buggies or wheelchairs and people with walking sticks are not always able to walk that fast. A twenty second interval would be preferable for safety's sake. When I got home I tweeted about this an appeal which I hope the Council will pick up. If nothing happens, I'll have to contact a local council about it.

Clare went out after an early supper to her Plygain singing group. I recorded and edited my reflection and Thursday Morning Prayer for next week and then watched the second episode of the money laundering mystery drama 'Payback' on ITV. An intriguing plot is developing. Then the news, reporting on the Israeli troop buildup around the Gaza Strip. Regrettably, whatever the Israeli government says about the urgent necessity of utterly destroying Hamas, the death of so many civilians in the razing of sections of Gaza city, and the deprivation of energy, food and water supplies, looks like the collective punishment of the entire civilian population. There are indications tonight however, of negotiations with Egypt to open the Rafa crossing into Gaza, one Israel doesn't control, for emergency aid food and fuel to be delivered. And now to bed.

The hardest of questions, always with us

Last night I went on-line and booked a slot at the Bessemer Close recycling facility to deposit a couple of bags of garden waste from Clare's recent autumn clearance of dying vegetation. I was a bit slow getting started, but arrived there exactly at the allotted time. It drove from there to the big Tesco to get petrol, as I was running low. The low fuel gauge lit up just as I parked at the pump. There was a queue of cars at the tyre checking facility, so I decided to postpone that part of the procedure, and went to Aldi store nearby instead to buy some nuts and smoked fish.

On return, while Clare cooked lunch, I answered an email from by old friend Geoff Johnston, expressing his distress about the war in Israel/Palestine as it's being called. In replying I couldn't help but reflect on the history of antagonism and rivalry between Hebrew and Arab peoples going back three thousand years, spoken of in biblical stories about Israelite origins. The achievements, learning and culture of both societies in different ways has contributed immensely to human progress. The world is indebted to both, yet their wisdom and knowledge has yet to free both sides of recourse to violence in favour of peaceful co-existence. When will we ever learn the things that make for peace and security, which the whole world learns and lives by?

After lunch, Clare went out for her 'flu jab at the surgery. I'm booked for mine at the pharmacy this Friday. I had a prescription to collect, so I went out to the surgery a little later and collected my new wart bashing medication from the pharmacy, then went on to get some grocery extras on my way back before walking in the park, and having supper. Thinking outdoors gave me the germ of an idea for a biblical reflection on a line in John's Gospel about glorification. I spent an hour or so writing this down after supper, before watching the news reports about the massacres in Israeli border settlements by Hamas gunmen on the weekend. Gaza city is now being reduced to rubble by Israeli bombing. 

There is no doubt in my mind that Palestinian Arab people have been subjected to terrible injustices since the establishment of the state of Israel, but there's an insanity about the perverted logic of Hamas arguments that their violence can succeed in doing anything other than bringing even worse violence on themselves and calling the outcome as success. Abuse of any kind results in the sickness of victims and unleashes even more evil. The devil's reasoning, with or without the metaphysics. How can this endless endless cycle of violence be broken is the question behind all the pain and anger on both sides of this conflict?

Big new yellow box appears

Another mild sunny day. I slept for nearly eight hours, and woke up with a stiff neck that took a long time to ease. I prepared the liturgical texts for next Sunday, and sent them out, and did a preliminary edit of the next Sway edition - my eighth. Then some housework, before cooking a chickpea and veggie stew for our lunch. After we'd eaten I relaxed for a while, then went for a walk.

When I got to the junction of Llanfair Road with Penhill Road, I was pleased to see a fresh painted yellow hatched box on the road, and some additional lane direction arrows up at the junction with Llandaff. When I went out for a walk yesterday afternoon, a man who wasn't in work clothes was positioning 'no parking' traffic cones around the junction corners. They had been replaced by double yellow lines earlier today. 

It's strange that the bus lane markings were done on September 1st, and the rest of the road markings have been added after five weeks. When driving in or out of Llanfair Road over that period, the lack of a full set of road markings has made me nervously extra vigilant, not being sure of when the bus lane (although not yet operative) turns into a shared traffic lane, and whether the inside lane is both for turning left and going straight on. Correct road markings remove the ambiguity which no driver needs on a busy road. Didn't anyone think of that when deciding to make this a two stage job? Even if there have been no accidents as a consequence, the risk has been higher. I realised this afternoon what a relief it is for the road to look the way it needs to, for safety's sake.

On my circuit of the Fields I came across eight dumped drinks containers, glass and plastic bottles and cans and some plastic food wrappers which I escorted to the bin. There aren't enough bins in the parks and some of them are rarely filled. The number of drink containers dumped within fifty feet of a bin made me wonder if they're invisible to people. Then it occurred to me that bins are all decorated in green Council livery, would it be better if they weren't dark green against a green grass background? Pale blue, grey or red would stand out better, and maybe lead to increased usage.

After supper, I watched a couple of episodes of 'The Fall' on BBC iPlayer, featuring Gillian Anderson as a senior detective in a multiple murder investigation in Belfast. I last saw her playing a Russian aristocrat in a costume drama a few years ago. Now she's back playing an investigator again 30 years after she starred in the ridiculous long running 'X Files' series, still looking great and filling a more senior role now with credibility in a dark and sinister crime drama.

In Israel/Palestine the death toll continues to mount with a thousand air strikes today and the threat of land invasion of Gaza to come. Vengeance heaped upon vengeance, one side as cruel and ruthless as the other. Three millennia of history keeps on repeating itself, without lessons being learned. That's how long there has been tension and conflict between Jews and Arabs over the land of Canaan. How can that be changed? Outbreaks of anti-Semitic reaction are occurring around the world, stirred up by fools who think this is going to help secure freedom and land rights for Arabs in Palestine. There are only losers in the absence of a deep change of heart on all sides.

The gift of Law

We woke up a little later than usual and had a slow breakfast. Another Sunday without duties to perform, so I decided I'd go and worship at the Cathedral. As I walked along Llanfair Road, I spotted the familiar figure of Lord Elis-Tomos walking ahead of me, When I caught up with him I found that he was headed for the Cathedral as well, so we walked together, and arrived just at eleven. The bells were still ringing, and there were a crowd of people outside the West Entrance wearing official regalia. What I didn't know was that it was the annual National service for members of the Judiciary, and it started at eleven thirty, to give people time to arrive from far afield.

There was a grand and slow procession of dark robed bewigged figures and other civic dignitaries before the choir and clergy entered. Former Archbishop Barry was in the clergy procession, in memory of his late wife Hilary who served in the Crown Prosecution Service for Wales. Dean Richard Peers led the service and in a warm and relaxed way, and preached a fine sermon, expounding the value of Law in the Hebrew Scriptures, with particular reference to Psalm 119, and the many metaphors it employs to celebrate the gift of the Torah.

He highlighted the persistent multiple use of three words as metaphors for Torah - Way, Truth and Life, connecting them to Jesus' saying in St John's Gospel "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life." It was so good to hear Fr Richard honour members of the judiciary for the service to society, at a time when casual disregard and contempt for established law and order quickly morphs into social injustice. I felt refreshed and uplifted on the walk home in warm sunshine.

I had a siesta after lunch, then went for a walk to see if I could spot the leucistic crow again. I was lucky and got several sharp photos of the bird on the ground a few in the air which are not so sharp or close up, but do show the white feathers on the edge of the wings. 

It's really hard to get good handheld shots with a long lens and heavy camera which doesn't have image stabilisation. The Sony Alpha SLT design dates back more than thirteen years, before image stabilisation was a common feature of consumer cameras. Maybe I'd have better luck next time with my Olympus long lens camera. It's of similar age, but was one of the first to feature image stabilisation.

After supper, we watched 'Antiques Road Show', an edition made in Cardiff City Centre's Alexandra Park, behind the National Museum of Wales. Then I finished watching 'The Bank Hacker', with the last episode full of surprising twists and turns, right down to a last scene, which does more than hint at a second series. It's like watching the end game in a chess match. You never know when its over until it's over. During the story several scenes depict the gang's money laundering plans are meant to work, but in this episode there was an easy to understand explanation of how it happens internationally, exploiting disparities in financial regulations for reporting large money transfers between different countries. Quite educational in a way.

And now, time for bed.

Surprising encounter

I woke up at a quarter to nine from the best night's sleep I've had in ages, to a sunny morning laced with high thin cloud. Breakfast was late and leisurely, and it was gone elven by the time I said Morning Prayer.

On this 50th anniversary of the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur war Hamas launched a huge sustained cross border attack on Israeli settlements, completely unforeseen by Israeli intelligence, with thousands of missiles launched into the air and troops on the ground, capturing the key border crossing at Rafa which controls the flow of goods in and out of Gaza, making it in effect a huge prison camp for its inhabitants. 

Considering how sophisticated Israel's spy network is in cyberspace and on the ground, such a carefully planned well resourced attack was prepared undetected, and is a major embarrassment to Israel's far right government, that has done so much to increase Palestinian suffering and aggravate the people into action on this scale. Hamas cannot win, only put the enemy to shame.  Terrible blood letting now and the days to come in retaliation will only bring more suffering and ruin to innocent Palestinian people. I hope and pray that it causes the Israeli electorate to have second thoughts about choosing such an extreme government next time they have a choice.

I worked on making and uploading to YouTube next week's video slideshow before and after lunch with a break to prepare and cook veggies while Clare made a codfish pie for lunch. While Clare had a siesta, I worked on preparing texts for Morning Prayer two weeks hence, then we went out for walk. After one lap of the park she returned home having expended as much spare energy as she felt she could. I did another circuit, and spotted a pair of wrens feeding on seeds in the head of some dried out plant I don't know the name of. But there was no sign of the leucistic crow today.

Then I walked down the woodland path along the Taff and took photos of a female goosander fishing in the pool below the weir at the bridge. Walking further along the, I caught a heron on the east bank, then moments later I passed two young muslim girls, dressed in hijabs and full length garments. One of them smiled at me and said Hey, are you a cameraman? No, I said, just a nature photographer, and then she started asking other questions, and told me she was on a dental hygienist course at the University Dental School. Her younger quiet friend was getting ready to go to University. 

The extravert one was confident and very well spoken. She asked how she could improve her English, which surprised me, until she explained that while she had plenty of medical and scientific vocabulary, she lacked broader cultural vocabulary. I suggested asking the Uni Extra-Mural Department about any book reading circles which may exist that she could join, or choose a movie to watch based on a novel she could read and find easy to follow once she knew the story. Then I set out for home. 

Later on when I thought about it, I realise I've seen these girls out in the park before. Clare said the same when I told her the story. On one occasion they were out in the middle of a football pitch, dancing to music emanating from a portable bluetooth speaker, while a large muslim family barbecue was going on the the field 500 metres away. I think they must be one family's rebellious teenagers, frustrated by traditional parents, but not yet ready to stray too far from the security of home. A delightful encounter. Being an elderly man seems to make me approachable to some youngsters - a non-threatening safe man!

The sun was setting just after seven when I reached home. Clare was playing the piano, so I prepared supper. Afterwards, I spent the rest of the evening watching several episodes of 'The Bank Hacker'. A very complex plot, switching between flash backs and the present, in a way that explains itself piecemeal, so you're never aware of how it's going to work out. Clever.

Improving

I had a fair night's sleep. Fortunately my knee joint wasn't too painful, just stiff, so it meant taking extra time and care to get myself mobile when I got up. I made breakfast and took Clare's to her in bed. She was already dressed and feeling somewhat better. I've had no covid symptoms. So far so good.

I spend the morning preparing next week's Morning Prayer and Reflection, then cooked lunch. Clare came down and sat outside with her lunch in the garden. Afterwards, I recorded and edited what I'd written in the morning and started making the accompanying video slideshow. When I stopped to go for walk, it was already four o'clock. The day's work had been punctuated with getting up and down and walking a little to prevent knee stiffness from worsening. On leaving the house I had to walk slowly and didn't pick up much pace over the next hour and a half. Walking with a stiff knee without limping is physically demanding so I needed to stop and sit on a bench and relax a few times on my circuit of the Llandaff Fields.

For the second day in a row I saw a crow with a fringe of white wing and tail feathers on the same stretch of path in among the trees at the Western Avenue end. It's due to a genetic condition called leucism, and it seems the distribution of what feathers like the condition, is random. The particular bird looks distinctive from behind in flight, as all its trailing edge wing feathers are white. I got a few photos, but at a distance. Without my long telephoto lens the cropped pictures aren't all that sharp, but here are the better ones - in flight

And on the ground 

Tomorrow, I'll change to my long lens, and see what I can snap.

Autumn is really with us now. Some trees are changing colour, and some fallen leaves have beautiful colours. Easier to photograph than crows! Cricketer's apparatus - sun screens, practise nets and wicket  covers have all been stored away, leaving the pitches free for rugby pitches. The wicket covers leave behind large patches of dried grass of different hue, depending on how long it is since any of them last saw the light of day. They only get moved in the event of really heavy summer rain it seems. By the time I got home, I'd walked my daily quota without making my knee feel worse. Clare made me sit with my leg raised and an ice pack under the knee for half an hour before supper, while she prepared it. It's been at day of recovery for her, and she managed a short walk in the fresh air too.

After supper, I watched a couple of episodes of 'The Bank Hacker' on Walter Presents, and episode two of Norwegian crimmie 'For Life', investigating the sudden death of a politician with a reputation as a sexual predator while giving a party speech. It made a worthy job of portraying the various reactions of his victims to his unwanted attention. All good viewing.