As ever on Monday some housework to do after breakfast. Then I went into town to meet Chris from his train, to sit and chat over a couple of coffees in a Royal Arcade cafe I'd passed but never been in before. It was quite busy, and there were several people working on the laptops, taking advantage of the free wi-fi, that is now become a common feature of just about every establishment open to the public in the city centre. You can also get free wi-fi when out and about in the street once you register.
It's so different from how it was fifteen years ago when St John's pioneered the first public wireless access point in the in town, and certainly the first in a church. That ran for a year for free, as I recall, then lapsed, as the publicity stunt ended and wi-fi roll-out got going in earnest. It was rather clunky as speeds weren't great. More a proof of concept than anything else. But I was there! As Max Boyce would say.
Chris and I chatted for two hours, about the departure of the Bishop and the prospects for a new one. It was two by the time I arrived home for lunch, lovingly kept warm by an ever patient Clare. There was a message from Pidgeon's about a funeral the week after next. After I'd eaten, I went for a walk in the park, then recorded and edited the audio for this week's Thursday Morning Prayer and reflection.
I returned to receive an email from the Euro-diocesan safeguarding officer with instructions about registering for the CofE Disclosure and Barring service database, something which I'd done three years ago prior to going to Ibiza. I dug out my password for the website, and was obliged to re-enter a list of required identity details, the same list as last time, if my memory serves me right. The next requirement is to get copies of three identity verification documents and get them signed for by a cleric - Mother Frances has agreed to do this when we meet for the Fountain choir concert rehearsal tomorrow night.
Once signed, I have to scan and send them to the safeguarding officer. It's an onerous task, and it must be that much less straightforward for anyone who doesn't have the ability or technical resources on hand to do this. Proving who you are by supplying a whole lot of confidential data had now almost entirely supplanted personal relationship 'knowing and being known'. I see the point in a world where deceit and lies have become endemic, and identity theft is now crime whose impact is causing increasing concern, but the impersonal forensic nature of the process seems anything but pastoral when based on electronic communication.
The only personal element is the responsibility entrusted to Mother Frances verifying my documents, as a cleric who knows me. I'll have to go through this procedure all over again soon, as the due date for my diocesan PTO will fall early in the New Year. I find this process at the heart of the church's enlistment for public ministry somewhat disturbing. The data doesn't say whether I am faithful, or trustworthy with the duties I undertake, only that I haven't transgressed the law and been found out. It hasn't stopped the church from losing members or gaining new ones. The distrust or disregard people have for the church is based on credibility of belief and practice in all our relationships. Not just compliance with the law.
At least there's one thing to rejoice about today. I heard that Gerwyn, former Dean of Llandaff has been appointed Vicar of Thaxted in Essex, an historic Anglo-Catholic Parish in Essex with a radical social traditions, bringing to a happy closure the bitter dispute between Bishop June and Gerwyn about reforms imposed on the way the Cathedral and Parish were run. It attracted unwelcome publicity from the media, and affected his health, such that he hadn't worked since early in the pandemic and eventually resigned his office, withdrawing a formal complaint he'd made against her. It was a profound embarrassment for the Cathedral and diocese. Llandaff has a history of tense relationships between its Bishops and Deans, but nothing quite as open and exposed as this. Thankfully now, it's over.
After supper the last episode of 'London Kills' and latest of 'The Blacklist', almost impossible to fathom. After watching all fifteen episodes of the former I can say with confidence that the same clips of stock footage of London locations was re-used time and time again in between dialogue scenes, to no benefit apart from padding episodes out to forty five minutes instead of forty or less. It takes binge watching to notice things like that. I the porgramme commissioners notice, or care, I wonder?
