Masterpiece recalled

We got up a little later than usual yesterday and enjoyed our special Saturday pancake breakfast, both made phone calls, and then it was time to cook lunch. Where does the time go to so quickly?

After lunch, I walked to Aldi's to buy some wine. I needed the exercise but it was pretty painful for much of the way there and back. There was nothing worth watching on telly, so we sat quietly in the lounge, Clare reading and me writing. One highlight after supper before we settled down, was a radio programme by Simon Scharma, in a series where he gives a guided tour of Europe's major art collections. Last week it was the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. This week it was the Prado in Madrid.

Not only is he a great enthusiast for his subjects, but he has a very graphic way with words which kindle the imagination when he is describing a great painting and putting it in its historical and social context. I felt no need to go on-line and visit the website containing images of the paintings he talked about, as his descriptions were so vivid. I realised this, as one of the paintings he talked about was Picasso's 'Guernica, which isn't in the Prado, but in Madrid's Museo Reina Sofia. It's a painting we remember well.

When I was priested, back in September 1970, I was asked what gift the parish could offer me to celebrate my ordination. I chose a big reproduction of 'Guernica' to fit on the Vicarage dining room wall, above the fireplace. In retrospect, it seems a little bizarre, given that most new priests ask for a stole or a chalice, but I guess, being teens in the early sixties, during the Cuba missile crisis, remembering what I'd learned from my parents about Nazi concentration camps and the Jewish Holocaust, plus the influence of Taize, I saw ministry in terms of reconciliation and building peace, through the sharing of the Gospel. 

That painting was a stark reminder of the suffering war causes, never to be forgotten. It had pride of place in several parsonages, until we moved to Geneva, some twenty two years later. It went into storage in our newly purchased home base, where we now live in retirement, and never made it back to a living room wall. It was too big in a smaller house, and after nine years tucked away in less than perfect conditions it began to deteriorate, sad to say, and ended up being recycled.

On my to-do list when the pandemic has abated and a sembance of normality returns to foreign travel, I look forward to a trip to Madrid, to see the Prado, and Picasso's Guernica in real life, for the first time.

Thinking about home

Another disturbed night, concluding with late rising, and missing the walk to the bridge to watch the Egrets depart. Late morning, Churchwarden Pam and  her husband Alwyn called in and took me out for a coffee and chat. Then it was time to cook and eat before finishing and printing off my final sermon for tomorrow, then writing the end-of-stay report requested by the diocese. I was mildly annoyed that it was dark by the time I finished, and had not yet been out for a walk. I settled for walking as far as the bridge and back. 

It was pitch dark over the charco water No moon was visible. It had been cloudy all day, quite a rarity here. The overspill from street lighting illuminated only a small area below the bridge. The Coots were still out and about and I had a few glimpses of warblers dashing out of the reeds momentarily on their strange erratic flight patterns. Are their eyes keen enough to hunt insects in semi-darkness? There were bats there too, with distinctive flight patterns and movements of their own. Quite intriguing was the unidentifiable small bird which moved from one bank to another at high speed in a horizontal straight line, strangely purposeful compared with the others. Many of the inhabitants roost in the shelter of cane and reeds during the hours of darkness, but not all it seems. There's so much I don't know.

After supper, I listened to an interesting programme on BBC Radio Four with international writers reflecting on the many meanings of the concept of 'home' in their own experience and in the works of other people. It certainly stimulated me to think about what 'home' means to me. I've ministered in ten different settings and with Clare made a home in fifteen different places during my working life. Learning to be at home and flourish wherever we found ourselves had been characteristic of our life together. For seven years in retirement Meadow Street has been home to us us, but locum duties have taken me temporarily to seven new places, where I've had to make myself at home for one to three months. All this, since leaving my birthplace and living in three other places in my student years. 

Home is wherever Clare is, to return to, rather than any remembered or ideal place. When I think about it, I struggle to identify any one environment where I could envisage spending the rest of my days. If anyone asks me where 'home' is, I say 'Wales', or 'Cardiff' but nothing more specific than that. I trained and was ordained in Cardiff, and a journey lasting fifty years started there. If I don't ever feel entirely settled in Cardiff, it's because we set out from from there, not imagining it would be a return journey. It became a default place to return to, however. Neither of us have any current family memories or associations in the city, nor in Wales for that matter, except for family funerals at Thornhill Crem, mostly decades ago. We love Wales, but rarely think of moving elsewhere in the Principality to settle. As Clare says, I've been restless all our married life. I'm not sure I know the reason why. Will I ever really settle anywhere?

   

St Luke honoured nevertheless

It's St Luke's Day, and I confess my sadness at not having an opportunity to celebrate this fiesta at Mass with a worshipping community. We know more about the kind of man he was from his Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles, than from any biography that might be constructed about him. I'd like to think that the attention his writings give to people, and what they had to endure in life, has had lasting influence on how pastoral care is  understood among Christians.

The morning's overcast weather turned briefly to thunder and rain by lunchtime. After rain, a fresh outbreak of birdsong from the trees in this neighborhood. The distinct voice of the blackbird among the hosts of starlings and doves. Once the skies began to clear, I walked out across the charco road bridge, then up and around the periphery of the Marina del Torre Golf course, where last year I spotted hoopoes and took several photos. No such luck this time. 

Rain threatened, which brought me back downhill quite fast. I hung around the area for three quarters of an hour, waiting to inspect the small array of shops servicing golf course apartments to reopen after siesta, listening meanwhile on my Blackberry to St Luke's Day Evensong, broadcasted on BBC Radio Three. It was strangely soothing at the end of a dull uneventful afternoon.

The shops, in the basement of an apartment block were half shoe and clothing outlets, most of the remaining space was taken by a Chinese dry goods store. I love the Greek term 'pantopoleion' which describes such comprehensive retailing. The corner nearest the street was a mini-market whose stocks reflected current lack of demand from holiday visitors. Few people I imagine, apart from staff live in this area out of season. Interesting to see, nevertheless. 

The economy in leisure resorts is by nature, cyclical. Only those who are good at long term planning will profit from investing in property and infrastructure here. There's always money to be made around the staging of big one-off leisure events, like festivals and tournaments, but those investing time and energy in those activities are not so likely to be there long term. 

It's interesting to compare different kinds of economic enterprise, with the diversity of inter-relationships between species in the natural world. Inter-dependency, balance and resilience under external and internal pressure enable all kinds of species to flourish. Disasters happen when any part of any dynamic system fails to take into account its connection to the whole. 

It's what see now in relation to brexit, and in America's relationship to everything which isn't of America, as defined by the Trump presidency. The world is in the process of re-learning essential lessons at the moment. The harsh way, unfortunately.

 

Up and beyond the coast road

Today is actually the 50th anniversary of the Aberfan disaster I wrote about last Sunday. The BBC Radio Four Today programme had a thoughtful report by John Humphrys, who as a young reporter had visited the village that day. Radio Cymru played part of Karl Jenkins' Aberfan memorial cantata recently premiered. BBC Radio Wales gave over the morning to playing music, and receiving phone calls from people in Wales and further afield sharing their stories from that day. At nine fifteen, the minute's silence in honour of the 144 dead was observed, but it was not 'radio silence'. I believe it was a live feed of the ambient sound being experienced at the ceremony in the village itself, as the distant roar of traffic on the A470 above, and birdsong, could be heard. 

Silence started and ended with the blowing of a whistle. I wondered if this was connected with the original rescue efforts, but I haven't found anything to confirm it. Rescuers digging for survivors commonly use a whistle to call for silence and stillness if any sound is heard from the stricken zone.

This landslide of a mining spoil heap into a school full of children, was an example of incompetent dangerous waste management on the part of the National Coal Board, many of whose practises may hardly have changed since the pits were developed by private mining companies. Eagerness to extract mineral wealth profitably from the ground and get rich as a result is often accompanied by disregard for safety of workers or the impact of the industry on the environment. It's still happening in many parts of the world, and despite modern scrutiny, it could happen again here over the introduction of fracking.

I found myself thinking not only of the teachers and children whose lives had been taken, but of the countless others working in mines, killed by industrial accidents or diseases, often receiving little or no compensation from company owners. The National Coal Board and its chairman Lord Robens were much criticised over the disaster, but nobody responsible was brought to judgement. Mother Nature's judgement on dumping large amounts of mining spoil over a watercourse was an avoidable environmental catastrophe. It wasn't bad luck but a man-made disaster. The fact that such things still happen indicates how far costs get cut, risks get taken and safety disregarded in pursuit of profitability. When will we ever learn?

After lunch, I went for a walk along the coast road. A little way beyond Mojacar's Parador hotel, I found an un-metalled road running inland alongside a piece of raised waste ground with derelict buildings on it. A gap in the more or less continuous urban development which is Mojacar Playa. The road goes alongside an arroyo flanked by more unkempt waste land, marred by rubbish. Then the road begins to rise and parts company with the arroyo. Half a kilometre from the coast road, houses with extensive gardens and terraces became visible, private villas, well separated from each other, and the road becomes metalled. After walking half an hour, I came to a luxury urbanizacion, like many others, built in Andalusian pueblo blanco style, borrowing features from Arabic buildings, arches, domes, towers suggestive of minarets but aren't. At 50 metres above the sea and an initial 10 metre rocky outcrop the road offers good coastal views.

Cloud shrouded the peaks inland, but was more broken out to sea. The mountain foothills, contain a lot more dwellings scattered on them than are visible initially from the coast road, up to a height of 200 metres. There may be a hamlet or a village up there, but then it may be a select hotel or urbanizacion, it's hard to tell, from a distance of several kilometres. Who lives there? Who goes there? Who stays there? It'd be interesting to find out, but living that far from town is must be rewarding for the views alone. 

On my way back I found I'd received an email from the Revd Roy Jenkins thanking me for my message of appreciation sent after his Sunday morning broadcast service. He said he'd worked on three different Aberfan commemorative programmes, and that preparations had been going on for over a year. When I arrived back at the apartment, I realised that I'd walked for nearly three hours, a distance of about 10 km. No wonder I'm feeling tired tonight.

       

Epiphany Sunday & Sinatra live

Ah! Sunday in the pew alongside my darling wife at St Catherines for the Epiphany Sunday Eucharist. Great! To my surprise we were asked to take the bread and wine to the altar at the Offertory. Oh dear didn't get it right. The collection follows, not precedes the Holy Gifts. 

It must be the first time I've got to do something that simple as one of the laos tou theu, in decades. For one as fussy as I am about appropriate good liturgy, this was a sobering experience of being on the other side of the altar rail - a bit like a man being asked to dance the girl's part. Girls are better than blokes at doing this, it must be said.

We walked to the Riverside Market after the service for our weekly outing to shop for organic veg. It was quite chilly. I was inadequately dressed and felt the cold. We concluded our expedition with a shared bowl of lentil soup to fortify our walk home. For lunch we each ate a delicious goat cheese and squash pastie, bought on our expedition.

Before the BBC4 evening news, 'Pick of the Week' featured an extract from a BBC2 New Year's Day programme showcasing Frank Sinatra's concert performances. Tonight, I found the programme on iPlayer Radio and enjoyed two hours worth of music in the American popular song genre. It was a superbly assembled playlist of Frankie, recorded singing to live audiences over a forty year period, 'curated', if that's the right word, by Barry Manilow, colleague and fan. Astonishing excellence on the part of the BEEB.

   

Refecting on Moses und Aron

Since Saturday night's performance of Moses und Aron, I've been pondering on the portrayal of its two main characters. Moses, the inarticulate one,  presented as having this idea about the unique and eternal God, source of all existence, its order, purpose and meaning - the eternal one so far beyond human comprehension that no words or thought can convey the reality of the divine. It's only possible for humankind to be in awe, and to worship the source of our own being.

Aron, on the other hand is the one gifted with words with which to express the thoughts and ideas of other people, the spokesperson for the rank and file, who consider themselves unable to rise to the idea of reaching out to the infinite, of transcending all human concepts in placing the divine reality at the centre of life. Aron argues that people need words and symbols, something tangible to represent their higher intentions and meanings. In the wilderness, the people of Israel miss the deities around which their lives in Egyptian captivity revolved, and appeal to Aron to give them something more tangible to identify with. 

He forges the image of the Golden Calf to be the focus they think they need, but this initiative turns out to be a recipe for chaos and anarchy, as it points them nowhere beyond themselves. It is nothing more than a reflection of who they are - their strengths, but also their fatal weaknesses and flaws. People look for something to secure and unite them outside themselves, but don't look far enough beyond themselves. The worship of the idol doesn't take them out of themselves towards the Beyond, but quickly becomes an end in itself, stifling growth, leading to decay and destruction. The concept of sacramental and iconic symbolism in which the visible is a window to the unseen, had yet to emerge as something human hearts and minds to play with and learn from.

Idolatry, which turns goods into Gods, ascribing ultimate divine significance and power to naturally created things and human constructs, is sternly prohibited by the law which Moses receives from God in solitude on Mount Sinai. In solitude, away from all social demands and pressure, it's easy to think uncompromisingly. Following through in people's lives with such a tough commandment is fraught with challenges and difficulties, as much today as in ancient times. Aron is unsuccessful in translating new ideas of God's supreme uniqueness in a way people can learn from them. Are we any better in an age in which we are frequently being told  'image is everything' ?

Schoenberg's Moses conveys starkly some central tenets of mature Jewish teaching. He doesn't, however, glean from Exodus the significance of the conversations and arguments between Moses and God, whom Moses talks to as a man talks to a trusted friend. Schoenberg's Moses seems to wrestle alone with absolute abstract ideas. He conveys them somehow to Aron who expresses them to the people on his behalf. Moses as introverted prophetic philosopher isn't quite the familiar biblical character. The bible is much more concrete in delivering ideas. Biblical anthropomorphism is far too easily written off as the product of a naive and primitive mind-set, rather than a creative engagement with understanding that leads beyond the dialogue of words into the depths of silence. It's a form of learning through play how to approach ineffable divine reality, and play is one of the great resources of the human mind for working things out creatively.

I heard the other day on the BBC Radio Four Today programme of Professor Dawkins' proposition to ban myth and fairy tale from schooling on grounds of the statistical improbability of magical events occurring - frogs turning into princes. Can't the editor do better than to put up a children's story writer in defence of her art, when an educator, psychiatrist or philosophical theologian is needed to contend with Dawins' instinct to censor anything that doesn't comply with his rationalistic world view? This is about the richly textured nature of truth we live by and worthy of better consideration even in a popular news programme. 

Scientific rationalism and the knowledge it offers is an essential and reliable foundation to life in the modern world. It's not an end in itself. If idolised and made into a divine substitute, it has the power to consume and destroy its devotees. This we know only too well from the history of modernity. Are ordinary human beings capable of resisting the impulse to some kind of idolatry or another? Or at least reading the spiritual health warnings in place for the best part of three millennia? Sometimes I wonder.

  

Bird walk

This morning, I took advantage of having wifi in the apartment to install the Android app which streams BBC Radio programmes. It meant I could listen to the Radio Four Today programme while eating breakfast, as I routinely do at home, for the first time during my stay here. Former Chief Rabbi Lionel Sachs made a bright cheerful return to 'Thought for the Day' after a post retirement spell in NYC. He truly is a great evangelist for God. Linda popped in for a chat about Holy Week plans. Then I went through my liturgy archive and found some texts I'd like to use on Palm Sunday and Good Friday. After lunch, I went for a walk along the noisy coast path alongside the N340 towards El Faro and took some photos of a small flock of Dunlin feeding.

Also there was a solitary Cormorant presiding handsomely over the waves from an off shore rock.

On my way to the shore, and on my return, I saw several flocks of small birds black and white wings, with flashes of yellow underneath, flying about between tree and grass cover searching for insects. Possibly they were finches. Then a pair of larger brightly coloured birds flew out of a tree and headed to the nearby golf course. They may have been bee-eaters, a characteristic bird of the region. They over-winter in Africa, but the first of them reappear on the Costa del Sol mid-March. They were very distinctive and caught me by surprise so I didn't get a photo. Nearer the back garden gate, I snapped this character, a lonely warbler?

As Winter gives way to Spring an increasing number of birds will return here or pass through on their way north. It promises to be an interesting time.

Saying nothing beautifully

After the move I enjoyed a good long sleep to recover, then headed back to Los Boliches to celebrate the Wednesday Eucharist and hang out with people at the coffee morning. Then, I returned to La Cala to take the dog for a walk through the pine woods below the house. As I arrived to park in the area outside the bottom of the garden, I saw my first Hoopoe in the grass ahead with its crest fully erect. It's a handsome bird, about the size of large pigeon, and took off very quickly when it saw me.

Eleanor isn't very big, so I had to bend over to attach her lead. It was quite a learning challenge to ascertain how best to make those moves without compromising my vulnerable still aching but improving back. We did a circuit of about a mile, and I started acquiring tiny insect bites. No wonder the birds love the woodland here so much.

The house has wifi, but its location in relation to the garden flat means that a signal can only be retained out in the garden. It was a pleasant evening, if a little cool, but I was able to Skype Clare and her friend Marion who was staying with her for half an hour nevertheless.

The garden flat has satellite TV, but no access to free BBC channels any longer. But I do have a range of news channels to follow current political developments in Ukraine. I while away time channel hopping to see what was available. Most of the free are re-runs of forty year old series of badly made films or soap operas, rubbish horror movies or sleazy showcases for chat-lines and porn channels. After a while I found the Travel channel and an old programme about French wines which was fairly interesting, but not well made by today's standards. 

It made me realise just how much the quality of TV presentation has improved over the past forty years. Nowadays the most banale content can be made to appear quite alluring.The art of televising nothing much beautifully is now the norm. You really have to hunt for decent content if you haven't got Radio 4 to listen to. I ended up going to bed early, silence being preferable.

  

Festive preparations on the shortest day

With the end of term behind them, Kath, Anto and Rhiannon arrived yesterday afternoon, with Anto going straight off to a sound check for this evening's 'Third Uncles' gig at Chapter. I had the pleasure of looking after Rhiannon while the others went to the gig. She drew pictures of the Nativity and a couple of angels and we discussed them as she worked. Earlier she'd put out the family Nativity set in its usual place on the kitchen window sill. It's made of small pottery figures which her mum and her friend Emily had fashioned when they were in primary school over thirty years ago.

Rhiannon, just like Jasmine, has brought her own Advent calendar with her, to add to the one I brought back from Spain. When both children are here we'll have three to display, somehow. The blue LED lights on top of the stable came home with Rachel last night, acquired from the club where she was visiting Owain during his first gig of the weekend. They'd been part of some exotic party balloons which had been popped, leaving the lights in the detritus on the floor.

I heard William Dalrymple speak superbly in the BBC Radio Four 'Point of View' slot last night about the heritage which Islam and Christianity share in reverence for stories about the birth of Jesus. It was a great interfaith Christmas sermon. In passing, he mentioned the eastern tradition of wisdom sayings about or attributed to Jesus, known among Asians of different religious faiths which aren't obviously derived from the Bible or the Qu'ran, but have a life of their own through oral tradition. Whether or not they represent an obscure strand of teaching that has survived two millennia of oral transmission outside scripture is a curiosity compared to the thought that people of different faiths value such sayings and identify them with the word and works of Jesus, regardless of  their origin. There's no getting away from the fact that his influence persists and touches the whole world in surprising ways.

This morning, I dismantled the ancient crumbling now redundant garden shed and took the remains to the tip. While doing this I pinched a nerve in my back, and will have to cope with the consequences through the next few days.

The Christmas tree came in from the cold. It's the one we dug up out of an allotment patch on Llandaff Fields for a tenner two years ago. It hasn't fared so well in its tub in the alley outside and is a bit thin on needles. As we were away last December, it stayed outdoors, forsaken and neglected. We thought we'd let it see another Christmas, rather than throw it away, as it's still alive. So it looks rather minimalist, but quite effective with lights and candles, thanks to Rhiannon's decorative skills.

We all walked into town together this afternoon and ended up having tea in John Lewis'. We came home on a smart new 61 bus, one of several replacement single deckers making their appearance this week. Our driver said he was none too impressed. I imagine that's how he would feel in the first few weeks, as getting used to driving a new vehicle to the point where it becomes second nature is a bit like getting used to a new pair of shoes. It takes a while before you stop noticing there's a difference.