Loose cannon

An overcast day with occasional light drizzle, better than yesterday's persistent rain. Inevitably I lost sleep, my bladder  irritated by the statin I took last night. My head was clear when I got up, but light headed. My thinking was slow, but no brain fog. 

I went to the Eucharist at St Catherine's along with seven others. It's St Agnes' Day today, stirring fond memories of the community in the St Paul's area of Bristol where parishioners taught me how to be a parish priest and pastor. Sion announced that I would be presiding at the Wednesday Mass next week. My next challenge. Several regular attenders expressed warm appreciation for my return to duty. The prospect is slightly unnerving though, given the light headedness I experience in the morning.

There's a lot going on in the news at the moment. Trump's initiative to coerce Denmark into selling Greenland to the USA is a key issue for discussion at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos. He threatens to impose tariffs on countries opposing the sale. World leaders have reacted with open criticism, pushing back against him by contemplating the imposition of retaliatory tariffs. Trump's acquisition strategy includes an insinuation that the use of force to acquire Greenland ownership cannot be ruled out. This has really got the backs up of EU national leaders and the British government, and caused widespread moral outrage. Now he's trying to talk his way out of the crisis he has provoked by justifying his desire to own Greenland, rather that continuing to develop existing security partnerships. He's a loose cannon in the world of international relations.

Defence of the Arctic region is important to all stakeholders. So is the defence of national sovereignty. Resort to force by the USA would spell the end of NATO. An attack on one is an attack on all. Giving consideration to using economic and military force over diplomacy is foolish dangerous talk. A fall in the US stock market, indicates a loss of economic confidence in the present status quo, also echoed in nervousness about bilateral American trade deals. 

Trump's unpredictability undermines trust voters had in him. In spite of this, he gave a press conference on the first anniversary of his presidential inauguration bragging about his achievements he regards as successful. Power has gone to his head.  Immigrants who helped vote him into office see immigrants forcibly deported. Using National Guard troops to enforce inner city law and order violently has been badly received. No wonder his popularity rate is dropping. 

At lunchtime I started taking the alternative blood thinners with aspirin. I'm wondering what impact this will have on my ability to preside at the Eucharist again. Hopefully, the more preparation I do the better I'll cope. I walked to my acupuncture appointment at two and came away feeling less light headed and I walked for three quarters of an hour returning home via the park. Sister in law Ann called to tell us that her niece Helen is getting married in the spring. 

Then we had a call from Clare's Steiner school colleague's son Florian in Germany to say that his father Peter had just died. A decade ago Peter in his sixties had a heart and lung transplant. Amazing to think he survived so long. He taught Rachel and Owain when he worked in the Bristol Steiner school, an innovative social project in its time, sadly now closed. May he rest in peace.

Owain arrived to spend the night with us. He's attending a team meeting in the Cardiff HMRC office tomorrow before returning to Bristol. It's good to have his company, even for a short time.