All that glistens ....

Despite the bright morning sunshine, I didn't wake up until gone eight this morning. When the Radio 4 'Sunday Worship' programme came on it wasn't a conventional service, but a meditative presentation about Edward Elgar's sacred music with readings and prayers included. Fine, in its way, but not the usual live act of worship with congregation and choir. I guess this had to happen during lock-down, but it's become an occasional feature of Sunday's dedicated morning worship slot. I don't suppose the BBC would have made this a part of its programming schedule if there'd been no demand for it, and features of this kind have been in the late evening devotional slot for ages. But, what of those listeners who tune in looking for a live act of worship, so they can imagine themselves part of the congregation, rather than individual consumers of a religious programme product? I think there is a difference.

I so enjoyed celebrating Mass at St German's this morning, with the sunlight pouring in, lifting the spirits. There were thirty four of us in church. Of the twenty eight communicants, four were in wheelchairs, five under 16s, two retired clergy, no longer active, and a mix of people with African and Asian backgrounds in addition to Cardiffian regulars. It's one of those special nurturing congregations where a priest can feel that they receive more than they give out from ministering to people. I stayed late, chatting to people after the service, but remembered to ring Clare and tell her before I left. It was one twenty by the time I got in for lunch, but she'd waited for me, so we could eat together.

I siesta'd for more than an hour after lunch and when I woke up found a message from Frances to find out if I'd be free to take a funeral in two week's time. That's three I've got lined up at the moment. Fortunately, they are well spaced out. June's friend Elaine called me. My effort at fixing the erroneous bookmark in her Chrome browser through remote sync'ing hadn't worked. I was able to explain to her how to edit the list of bookmarks, and at second attempt she succeeded. It's a relief she understood what I was talking about. It seems she had difficulty topping up June's phone, probably because it ran out of credit a while back. When that happens, the number can get relegated to 'dormant'. although it should still be able to make emergency calls and text messaging.

Then a walk around Llandaff and Pontcanna Fields. There's a lot of outdoor socialising going on at the moment and rubbish bins are heaped to overflowing. I wish these throwaway barbecue kits were banned, as they burn into the turf and cause added mess around the rubbish bins, along with takeaway pizza boxes which take up far too much space needed for empty drinks containers. I found one barbecue tray that was probably abandoned yesterday in a remote spot on the periphery of Llandaff Fields. I took it to the nearest bin 150 yards away but there was hardly enough room to cram it in. 

Everywhere I recognise discarded plastic bottles and cans in undergrowth or long grass because sunlight is reflected off them. It so mars the beauty of nature I feel I must retrieve them and take them to the nearest bin. All that glistens is definitely not gold! I could get to feel depressed and angry about the carelessness of those who abuse our common land. It's the selfish ignorant behaviour of badly brought up children, no matter how old the culprits may be. Sanctions don't work. Enforcement is non existent, and there aren't enough bins in strategic peripheral locations. 

If only the Council would provide extra empty rubbish sacks at overflowing bin locations, where demand for containers outstrips existing capacity. This could actually make the daily clearance operation at peak times much more efficient I believe. There'll always be a few people around to insist that rubbish is at least kept tidily once the bins are full. 

We had a phone conversation with Gail in Worcester before supper, to arrange a visit to collect Clare's clavichord which Clare loaned to her husband Mike several years before he unexpectedly died. Where it will fit in the house is something that will need some thought.

There wasn't much of interest of telly, so I went out for a walk around Thompsons Park for half an hour before it closed at sunset. A pleasant aesthetic experience with near horizontal golden rays of sun piercing the trees on top of the hillock and lighting them up. Another gorgeous day, and in Thompsons Park there was only one discarded cider can to take from beneath a park bench to the nearest bin thirty yards away.

Video hassles

Sunday worship on Radio Four first thing was from Brecon Cathedral, in honour of tomorrow's St David's Day. Archbishop John Davies preached, referring to his own call to ministry and reflecting his impending retirement. I remember meeting him first when he arrived as curate of Bulwark in Chepstow Parish, in the late 1980s where we lived during my time working for USPG as Area Secretary for Wales. I wonder what he plans to do in retirement? It seems strange to have been around long enough in ministry to see eight Archbishops of Wales come and go - Glyn, Gwilym, Derek, George, Alwyn, Rowan, Barry and now John.

What a delightful blessing to walk to church in sunlight under a clear bright blue sky in crisp morning air! There were thirty of us celebrating the Eucharist together again in St Catherine's. We're still hemmed in by 'no socialising' policy, even if we're careful to maintain social distance. No hanging around in the church grounds, go to the supermarket instead, or talk in the street with two metres (?) between you, if you want brief interaction or company of sorts. As if we weren't going to be careful, having survived this far!

It was warm enough to have lunch in the garden again today. I edited and wrote some of this week's parish WhatsApp Reflections before going out for a walk up to the Cathedral, and then to Llandaff Weir. It's the first time in many weeks that the footpath up to the weir has dried out enough not to feel treacherous underfoot.

After tea I set about recording tomorrow's St David's Day reflection, with a brief video introduction, a photo of Fran's icon and an audio commentary. I hadn't forgotten what I learned from recording my sister's eulogy last summer, and soon found out how to produce a viable video, which ran correctly on a PC, but not on a smartphone, producing only a perfect miniscule version. I tried every trick I could think of to get the video to display properly full screen without success. 

Fortunately a conversation with Kath proved to be helpful. I re-recorded the little video introduction in landscape mode, and replaced it in the file editor, then rendered it as a 720p video. The whole thing only looked best on a phone in landscape mode. There's a problem I cannot resolve with mixed portrait and landscape display. If I could have done the whole thing on my phone without resort to an internal video editor, maybe this problem would not exist, but my phone doesn't have a video editor I know of. Kath has developed expertise at video editing on her Mac, and on a smartphone in the course of work this past few years. Rhiannon, doing video projects at home for drama college uses only a smartphone, and produces some impressive sophisticated results. Ah! These digital natives!

A remarkable twenty million vaccinations have done in Britain in the first three months of deployment. It's a logistic triumph for thousands of people working together. All deserve a medal of honour. Six new cases of the Brazilian covid variant have been detected among passengers travelling from there on a flight via Zurich, thanks to rapid genome sequencing of test samples. Five of the six people infected have been tracked and traced, A sixth didn't give sufficient detail on their form to make tracing possible, potentially sowing infection chaos, so a high speed hunt is on to detect the potential super spreader. 

If only people weren't so careless about giving their details or neurotic enough to want to obscure them in the interests of personal privacy. In a village, it's not unusual for everyone to know each others' business. Now we're in a global village. While there are many good reasons for safeguarding personal privacy on a host of different issues, matters of who we are, where we've come from and going need to be known for the sake of the common good, and such doesn't have to be broadcasted or exploited to this end. Nobody is exempt from the risk of being a carrier or a victim of this plague.

State of Alarm - day Forty One

Clouds and rain gave way to sunshine this morning and nice long warm day. After Morning Prayer, I listened to the Sunday programme on BBC Radio 4. This ended with a poem written by a surgeon on in a Lancashire hospital Intensive Care Unit, entitled 'I just called to say ...' It wasn't a homage to the Stevie Wonder song of the same name, but an account of his telephone pastoral ministry to the next of kin of patients under his care on ventilation. Half of his day is spent on the phone updating those who wait at home, for better or for worse. The poem spoke of what he has to tell someone at each stage, eagerly awaiting news, unprepared for how long it takes, either for recovery or to death. It was moving and powerful, and gave an insight into the anguish of the healer when all that can be done has been done, and all that's left to do is wait.

The broadcast Morning service, which I listened to over breakfast centred around the Emmaus Road story, today's Gospel. Worship was led by the chaplain and staff members of a hospice, and turned around the journeys people make at the end of their lives. In my sermon for this week, I mentioned that several places lay claim to be the original Emmaus village just outside of West Jerusalem. The preacher, principal of Mansfield College Oxford took it a step further, speaking of several possible roads to Emmaus, all of them different, one hidden, one overgrown and neglected, one dangerous, along a landmine strewn border and so on. It's an imaginative fugue on the narrative, showing how rich are the possibilities for feeding on the Word.   

I read Ante-Communion and prayed at the usual service time. Valuable and inspiring though many on-line liturgies can be, sometime I find that I just need to read the texts rather than listen to them, and then be silent, either sitting or walking. There's no substitute for fellowship, for human contact, but the empty space can be re-purposed for waiting on God. Co-incidentally, Roy over in Alicante sent me a quotation from T S Eliot's Four Quartets which speaks profoundly of the mystery of God and the humankind beholding the mystery

'I said to my soul, be still and wait without hope, 

for hope would be hope for the wrong thing; 

wait without love, for love would be love of the wrong thing; 

there is yet faith, but the faith and the love are all in the waiting. 

Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought: 

So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.'

Out in the garden, I caught my first daytime sight of the house gecko on a wall, and took a photo which I'm proud of. Then I saw a pair of small grew birds acting as if  they were looking for a nesting site. As one of them rested on top of the big garden cactus I took a photo which Rosi later identified as a Spotted Flycatcher. I remember Mother Doreen pointing out one in the forest near her home up on the inland border of Malaga province but that wasd fifty metres away, impossible to snap. So this was another first!

In the evening Rosi called me about booking a flight home, on the 22nd May, as a couple of direct flights to London have been advertised on the BA website., one to London City and one to Gatwick. A quick chat with Kath confirmed she'd be willing to collect me and take me home, and within an hour I had the flight confirmation document. It was booked by Rose from the UK. She was stranded there on a return trip from Ibiza where she has made her home. Decisive action was needed and taken on my behalf, for which I am very grateful. But my hopes won't really begin to rise until this flight proposal is confirmed. Any deterioration here or in UK could change the best made plans. One step at a time on this road. The old order has changed, perhaps irrevocably, who knows yet?

The inbound flight will be mostly of stranded returnees, with fewer people this soon after lock-down wanting to go to London, except for business, or people who missed out on the emergency flights in March, and didn't need to return. It will be good to go home, though there will be far less for me to do there than there has been here, except carry on waiting for that final round of surgery. Clare says that 'elective' surgery is to be re-started soon, though I suspect I'll still have another six months to wait for that.

This morning I saw a man out walking with his young teenage daughter dragging her feet behind, taking advantage of the easing of restrictions on children. I could imagine a girl of her age saying "Oh Dad, must I go out with you, you're so embarrassing."  In the afternoon I heard several children's voices out on the road, and through the trees saw three naughty youngsters out together, no parent, no dog in sight. Well, one can expect the young to push the boundaries, having been pent up at home for so long. Good for their mental health, as it's bad for the blood pressure of law enforcers.