Late under the cloud

I drove out to Cowbridge this morning to take part in Fr Derek Belcher's retirement celebration Mass in persistent rain under low cloud. There was a long delay getting through traffic lights at the Grand Avenue crossroads in Ely because there were roadworks in either direction and only one lane out of four was open. When I arrived, I had to park well away from Holy Cross Church, down in the cattle market. When I arrived, I was bewildered to find that the service was well under way and had just reached the sermon. I should have been there with five minutes to spare, except that I had failed to register that the usual service time had been advanced by half an hour. I slipped into a full church and crept to a seat at the back, feeling very ashamed of myself.

It was a cheerful celebration, with an appreciative tribute from Fr Martin Reynolds who preached and a final presentation to Derek and Pam, followed by a big buffet reception in church. They'll be living at Llancarfan Vicarage in a 'house for duty' ministry from now on, so Derek's remarkable gifts will not be lost to the wider church community in the dicoese. There were quite a number of retired clerics present, so there was an opportunity to greet several former colleagues before stepping out into the rain, and driving home for a lunch of fresh venison sausages and roasted veg, cooked by Owain. About three, the cloud began to lift and break up and the sun shone, day ending on a brighter note.

Now two and a half weeks into my Lenten blog, I spent the evening reflecting and writing on the role clouds in scripture. Even mostly sunny Israel/Palestine has its share of grim weather to mention. Also I paid my car tax for the year via the DVLA website. It's has a very clear and simple user interface, as is the driving license renewal page, which I did a month ago. Excellent no nonsense stuff. The Government may have problems about its IT strategy and expenditure in some sectors, but the DVLA certainly isn't part of that.
   

Bargain hunt continues

Eddie and Ann set off for Felixstowe in Monday rain after a long slow breakfast together, and we made a hesitant start to our week. Mid afternoon we travelled into town together - me to bank a cheque and Clare to meet Owain over an exchange of birthday present. 

Duty done, I made my way to John Lewis' store only to see Clare descending the escalator as I was ascending on a bargain hunt. Having landed two great bargains here recently, I can't resist looking for a third when there's nothing better to do. I found just what I was after, a big HP desktop PC running Windows 7 for the office at forty percent discount, to replace Ashley's big laptop, designed with gamers in mind in late 2008, running Windows Vista. It was, in its day, the most expensive piece of equipment we had, and the only one to have failed requiring a visit from a Dell service engineer to sort out the RAID array and re-install the OS, with corresponding data loss. 

Unfortunately, I was in Spain at the time, helpless to intervene with caution in this emergency - probably out cycling somewhere out of 'phone signal range. Getting all the necessary software back up to required standard was one of the first jobs I did when I returned. There was minimal real data loss. A little email data was lost because British Telecom re-jigged their email servers in the same month of misfortune, so missing stuff couldn't be downloaded again. Nothing critical to Company business was lost, due to an obsessive dispersed back-up policy for which there is no need to apologise.. Tomorrow is dedicated to setting up the new machine ready for Ashley to use when he gets back into action after a retail crime conference in London the day after.

Having delivered the new PC to the CBS office, I headed for home. Passing St John's church, I noticed that the contractors shutters around the tower arches had been removed, revealing the new glass door and wall panels which have just been installed. It gave me great pleasure to see this as it was a project close to my heart. I took a few unsatisfactory photos using my Blackberry phone camera. Here's the best of a mediocre bunch.

After supper, I drove out to Cowbridge Holy Cross to join a two hundred strong congregation for the licensing and welcome of Fr Edward Dowland-Owen, the Benefice's new Team Vicar. It was an enjoyable experience, sitting in the congregation with lay people I normally lead in worship, feeling part of this 'community of communities' that calls itself 'church' in this area. Apart from attending summer Evensong at Llanfrynach, this is the first big Benefice event I've taken part it. It gave me a sense of belonging that, if I'm honest, I've missed since retirement. It makes me feel blessed.

  

House painting time

Sunshine and blue skies are making life very pleasant this week for doing business as usual, strolling into town for a couple of afternoon hours in the office, and eating meals out in the garden. I woke up before six on Tuesday with some ideas to embody the plans I'm working on for a ministry development project with people in Cowbridge Benefice into an interactive blog site. I learned some new things about using the Google Blogger platform, which I've been using for nearly ten years, pushing me out of my routine comfort zone. The challenge will be recruiting people to make use of the finished product once we get it approved and launched properly.

Owain came over yesterday afternoon while I was out at the office and started cleaning the front facade of the house in preparation for painting. At last the weather is perfect and walls have had plenty of time to dry out properly for working on. Today while the front facade was in shadow we worked together on applying the first coat of magnolia paint up to the three metre mark. We'll have to get someone in with ladders or scaffolding to do up to the roof level, but already the rest looks so much cleaner and brighter that neighbours have started commenting about the state of their own. 

It's strange, I had plenty of energy for the job and worked right through to completion,  but when I stopped and started to stiffen up in the neck and shoulders, I was overwhelmed with tiredness and fell asleep on the sofa. One good thing about retirement is having the freedom to do just that. Stuff still gets done, but more recovery time is needed.

Clare's been busy in school with staff meeting and interviews to prepare for recruiting her successor, as she's announced her intention to retire, even though she may continue established kindergarten work. It's a good move, now that the school is expanding, to appoint someone new who can develop eurythmy teaching right through the school's increasing age range. She's been doing this over the past year and found development demanding on top of teaching and organisation. It would be nice to have more time together - something I was reminded of when we sat and watched the Llangollen International Eisteddfod together on TV tonight. How lovely it would be to have the freedom to take the week off and go up there next year. Impossible while it happens in term time.

 

Llanfrynach - this serene sanctuary

Another lovely summer day for my early drive out to St John's Penllyn to celebrate the Eucharist, just one year and two weeks since I was last there, before going to Spain. I received a warm welcome and it seems that the congregation were already aware that I would be working with them again in the months to come. The same too at Ystradowen, my next port of call. How nice it was to see the pub next door once more open for business, and the horrid pink external decoration replaced by traditional white.

I returned after the service to collect Clare from the market, and eat late lunch out in the garden before returning to Cowbridge for a tea time planning session with Fr Derek the Rector, looking ahead to me sharing in the work of ministry development and pastoral care in the Benefice, during the period of change-over between Team Vicars. Then we went out to the thirteenth century Llanfrynach Parish Church for candle-lit Choral Evensong, with music by Orlando Gibbons throughout - a nice touch.

Bright sunshine outside, but the building has no electricity, and the only water available (sometimes) is the stream at the southern edge of the churchyard. There may have been a church here well before the Norman Conquest. Its long chancel suggests that it might have once had a small monastic community, and in its early history it was an outpost of Cistercian Margam Abbey. 

The village to which this church belonged disappeared from the map after the Black Death, no more than a century after it was built. The new settlement of Penllyn is a mile or so uphill, and linked by footpath to the church, punctuated by a series of 'coffin stiles', where funeral processions of old would pause to rest on their journey. The generous grassy churchyard, enclosed by trees still remains in use for burial today. I wonder if originally it was a circular site, since there are a couple of other churchyards in the Benefice with ancient churches located inside a 'llan'. The survival of this marvellous building in a remote field, half a mile up a rough track away from the main road, has been due to enthusiasm this serene sanctuary inspired in benefactors in the nineteenth century. Nowadays Heritage Lottery funding has taken the strain and the building is in a good state of repair. 

 It's a solid rough 'n ready sort of construction, described by Geoffrey Orin in his book on the Vale's mediaeval churches as 'crude workmanship'. But I imagine many churches in ancient times were built to be first and foremost functional places for worship. With the passage of time and increase of prosperity architectural refinement and enhancement would occur. It didn't happen at Llanfrynach because its village died, and although a large building, it was relegated to occasional use as a cemetery chapel. So, in a way it gives us an unfamiliar snapshot of a stage in the development life of an ancient church. It's a treasure, deserving many more visitors and pilgrims. 

There were over fifty people present, twenty of them in the choir. Many people spoke with enthusiasm and affection about the place and the event. Evening worship normally fails to attract Anglicans these days, but summer Evensongs at Llanfrynach are clearly worth making the effort to attend. What sort of message does this convey about 'popular' worship, I wonder?

Jubilee Sunday worship

Up at seven, and out of the door by half past to drive out to Holy Cross Cowbridge to celebrate their eight o'clock said Eucharist with nine people present. There are still small groups of older people who value an early said Sunday service. They are willing to make the effort to come from a wider area, either for logistic or spiritual reasons. Early services have been dying out since I was a curate. Often they are abandoned not by a faithful few, (which given the opportunity continues to reproduce itself), but by clergy pressed by increasing demands to provide Sunday worship in several churches. 

Llandaff Cathedral has a well attended eight o'clock Eucharist, two Sung Eucharists, and then another said Eucharist at midday, attended by several dozen of all ages. It shows there is a persistent group of worshippers who prefer to listen quietly and think, rather than sing. I didn't understand this when I was a young zealot of a priest. Now I wonder if we are offering enough variety, as there's such emphasis on overt activity as the main involvement in worship. I'll be interested to see insight the yet to be appointed successor to John Lewis, the Cathedral Dean about to retire - one of my contemporaries - will bring to bear on the Cathedral's offering to the diocese.

After Holy Cross, I drove to St Marychurch for their nine fifteen Eucharist. Gazebos had been erected, and bunting hung in the semi circular grove of sycamore trees enclosing the area to the west of the church tower, ready for a Jubilee barbeque.

The Rector, Fr Derek and his wife Pam were in the congregation. Prior to re-starting work, he is getting out and about seeing his ten congregations in situ - and, in my opinion, finding that they are in good heart. Over coffee afterwards a group of us chatted about the immense social value to the village of this precious and ancient piece of land, known locally as 'the Spinney', where many fund-raising social events take place. Back in the nineteenth century, there was a small farm within the enclosure, but all trace of this has gone. The land was bequeathed to the church, and it acquired its present trees during the twentieth century, even though this enhancement looks and feels much more ancient. I conjectured that a bio-diversity survey of this piece of land might reveal all kinds of surprises and hidden treasures, simply because it has retained its unique form as a celtic 'Llan' for perhaps fourteen hundred years.

My final Eucharist of the morning was at St Hilary. In the announcements I learned that the local choir would sing a Festal Evensong for the Queen's Jubilee this evening. Clare and I spent the afternoon watching the Thames water pageant, and then we drove out to St Hilary for the service. The church was full, seventy people, plus a thirty strong choir and brass ensemble from the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. Parry's 'I was glad', Handel's 'Zadok the Priest', and Vaughan Williams' 'Old Hundredth', all used in the Queen's Coronation, were sung well with great affection.

What a delightful festive day, celebrating not only the Queen's extraordinary life of service, but also the richness, diversity and inclusiveness of British civil society and voluntary enterprise. The way in which she has personally valued the contributions made by so many citizens for so long has certainly set the tone for the life of the nation, an unique moral and spiritual kind of leadership, demonstrating there is so much more to society and public life than power politics and economics.
    

Wagner at Pentecost

Our friend Claudine arrived at lunchtime yesterday from Geneva, where she'd stopped over, after flying from Bangkok, to give a talk to Holy Trinity Church's Care and Concern Group, before coming to us for a night at the opera and a relaxed weekend. We went to see the WNO's Wagner's 'Tristan and Isolde', and our friend Pauline came with us as well. The performance at the Millennium Centre was superbly crafted. It's the second time we've seen this production. This time I decided that I don't like the opera. Not because it's so long - five o'clock until ten fifteen - with an hour long supper break, but to my mind, essentially this great saga of tragic romance is not all that romantic. The bottom line is 'death is stronger than love'. Depressing teutonic philosophical musings. At least it reminds me that I'm a Christian. Pagan myth and legend don't do anything to make my life more worth living. The music, however, is rich and powerful, worth listening to despite the sentiments floated over it.

This morning I had only one service to take, an eleven o'clock at Holy Cross Cowbridge. This meant we could have a late breakfast and be together for worship. I would have been happy to take Claudine to any of the Benefice churches, because people are all so welcoming, but Holy Cross, in the middle of the town is a special place to take visitors. I knew it was important for her, as she doesn't often get to church these days. She lives in Thailand, travels to and from the north of the country and goes to Burma in the course of her work for the Swiss government's humanitarian programme. She misses the regular sustenance of traditional Anglican worship in a mainly Buddhist environment where most of the few churches are very conservative evangelical. A Pentecost Parish Eucharist hit the right spot for her, and I glimpsed her beaming smile during Communion.

Afterwards Clare and Claudine went out and sat in the sun in the Cowbridge Physic Garden, opposite the church - a very pleasant place to relax while I hung around in church and chatted with people after the service. Then we drove towards home, stopping for an excellent lunch at the Loch Fyne restaurant near Saint Hilary en route. We arrived back, just in time to welcome colleague friends of Claudine's who dropped in for tea, catch up and a baggage transfer. Their daughter, recently back-packing in Thailand, had sent home with Claudine a package of clothes redundant after a sojourn in temperate New Zealand! How small the world becomes for those who lives revolve around travel, as opposed to the rest of us whose journeys, great or small, occasional big events.