Out of the blue a dose of 'flu

I was up and out of the house in good time to celebrate the Eucharist at St Dyfrig and Samson at nine on Sunday morning. On my way home after the service I went to buy for some milk, but suddenly it became a real effort. I felt like I had been poisoned. I went straight to bed and stayed uncomfortably with aching head and back for the next forty eight hours. I don't think I've ever had a 'flu bug hit me quite so rapidly, and without the annual autumnal 'flu jab it could have been fatal.

Co-incidentally, the 1918 'flu pandemic which killed millions was mentioned in a serialised book on Radio Four this morning, recalling how people were dropping down in the streets and dying. We may be much better prepared for such nightmares nowadays, but given the ability of viruses to mutate and present a new strain from which there is neither protection nor remedy is a sobering reminder that we are never in control of our health or destiny as we might think.

At least I started to feel hungry again today and really fancied a bowl of chicken soup, but that meant going out and buying some chicken first. Clare was out all morning for a dental appointment and then lunch, so there was no alternative to fending for myself. I wrapped up well and walked to Tesco's feeling a bit wobbly, but there were no ill effects when I got back. The fresh air did me good I think.

While waiting for it to cook, I sat and worked on my novel, structuring it into chapters to make it easier to read, at Clare's suggestion, earlier. It's a couple of weeks since I last worked on it apart from making notes for the next section. This small task helped me to spot inconsistencies in the narrative, which needed sorting. No doubt there'll be more to come.

A Riviera Travel tele-salesman rang up just after I'd eaten, hoping to tempt me into booking another cruise with a £150 per head 'returners' discount. I had to explain that I've not been able to travel for the past year and would like very much to book another river cruise as soon as the next op is out of the way, so he made a note to this effect, and promised us the discount in 2020. We're both looking forward in hope, as we're keen to travel up the Duoro and see a little of Portugal's rural hinterland slip past us in the sun. I could do with this right now!

An hour later a senior nurse practitioner who works with Mrs Cornish the surgeon called me. She'd asked him to talk to me about my letter. There's no chance of having her treat me privately. It seems she does little outside her NHS work, not having time to give to it. I'd suspected as much. She didn't speak to me personally, which is understandable. I don't doubt there are many other desperate people on her long surgical waiting list. Asking a colleague as opposed to an administrator would be an opportunity for him to ask pertinent questions that might indicate any serious worsening of my condition. As it has turned out, getting 'flu now would rule out any procedure involving anaesthetic before the end of the year, NHS or privately. 

He tried to answer some of my questions about managing the risks of waiting so long, and long term success of the operation, but reckoned that there were too many individual variables to draw up a profile of successful as opposed to unsuccessful ops. Or has the research not be done? I wondered. 

I just have to keep on waiting, stay as fit and healthy as I can, and hope to get assigned an operation date as soon after assessment day 23rd Jan, as is possible.

After an afternoon of writing I felt quite tired, so I retired to bed and watched a couple of episodes of the 'Mallorca Files'. Slowly the characters of the two principal roles is developing interestingly and the plots are little more complex, though all seem to involve crooks, celebs and entertainers, not the lives of ordinary mallorquines. Also too many people are portrayed speaking good English, and there's not enough Spanish or Mallorcan dialogue to merit subtitling, which is a pity.

   

A Bosnian Welsh connection and Leonardo celebrated

Two services to take this morning St Dyfrig & St Samson's at nine and St Catherine's at ten thirty. Thankfully the journey between the two on a Sunday morning is six minutes. I'd have had longer in between them if I'd succeeded in writing a shorter sermon, and I did take a couple of hours to concentrate it by ten percent, but twenty percent would have been better. Editing for conciseness is a skill I have learned over the years, but with some subjects it's difficult, although there was another reason for not leaving St Dyfrig & St Samson's on time.

A young man called Daniel who normally serves at St Mary's comes and stands in as MC when Julian the regular MC is away on business. He was there last week as well. As we were getting ready for the service, one of the others in the sanctuary party asked Daniel when he was next due to go out to Bosnia again. Interesting, I thought, and asked what took him there. His answer was surprising. He leads a script writing team with a film making project, which is working on a story from the time of the Balkan war in the 1990s. 

The town of Gorazde was besieged by the Bosnian Serb army in 1995 after becoming a Bosnian Muslim refugee safe haven, as happened in Srebrenica. In the latter, the UN peacekeeping force surrendered the town to the Serbs and over 8,000 people were massacred. Weeks earlier the Serb forces had taken UN peacekeepers hostage in Gorazde, but couldn't take the town as a contingent of the Royal Welch Fusiliers, part of the UN force wasn't captured and fought back, saving the town from the same fate as Srebrenca. The story isn't so well known, but is certainly worth telling. After the service, I told Daniel about my visit to Sarajevo in November 1997, and expressed interest in his project, so we're going to meet for coffee and a chat later this week. And that nearly made me late.

At St Catherine's there were fifty communicants and a couple of dozen children in Sunday School to bless at Communion. Having spent time with them in the hall Mthr Frances came in with them and interviewed the children about what they'd been learning. It was such a delight to have Emma, Nick and little Ned there with newborn Eleanor, Emma's first outing apart from the doctor's, since giving birth last week. I felt truly blessed being able to bless Eleanor and say a prayer for her and Emma at the altar during Communion. There's good positive energy in the church community these days, with people responding to fresh leadership after nine month wait for a new Rector. Most cheering.

In the afternoon, Clare was singing at Insole Court with the Fountain Choir and left to rehearse right after lunch. I followed on later. It was a joint concert with the Roath Recorder Ensemble celebrating the life of Leonardo da Vinci in this 500th year anniversary of his death. It featured poetry as well as music of the period. I used my Sony HX300 to video the choir from the back of a large drawing room, filled with performers and audience. The acoustics were very good and the sound quality of the recording was far better than I expected, so it was worth doing, to provide choir director Anna with performance evaluation material.

Time for some catch-up writing after supper and then an early bed. 

A face from the past on the bridge

Two services to take in Grangetown Parish this morning. I preached what I'd prepared at St Dyfrig and St Samson, but couldn't repeat this at St Paul's as it was a Family Service Sunday, with a dozen Sunday School children in the congregation for the entire service, with children reading, bringing up the offerings, leading intercessions, and one small boy assisting as a server. All was nicely organised, so all I needed to do was deliver a Ministry of the Word that engaged them. I found it impossible to prepare in detail, an didn't quite know how I could make it happen until I got to St Paul's and saw the congregation taking their places.

Neither the Old Testament nor the Epistle were easy to read, let alone make sense of, and the pair of eight year olds who read showed that, despite their good effort and confidence, standing and reading in front of the congregation. I introduced each reading with a brief explanation of what they were about. I didn't then need to repeat this in my homily after the Gospel, centering around the mustard seed and dutiful servant themes it contained. For this, I didn't need use my script, and it was easy to engage my audience. The last hymn was 'We are marching in the light of God', evidently a favourite as the number of people who started swaying with the rhythm of the music grew from verse to verse and joined in the clapping when I launched into it. 

It was a happy fun moment to end on, and people left smiling. I had both a banns certificate and a copy of baptism certificate to fill out afterwards, and was asked if I'd be willing to baptise the child of a church attending Indian family when I return next Sunday. A marvellous opportunity. 

A small boy came to the vestry door to thank me for an enjoyable service, and asked if I would come and be their new priest! I explained that I'm much too old now, and suggested that when he grew up maybe he could come and do this. Well, you never know what a small seed of an idea might lead to.

Talking of which, when I was out for my afternoon walk crossing the Taff bridge on Western Avenue, I was overtaken by a young man walking his white Scottie dog. He looked across and asked "Are you a priest?" "Yes" I said. "Were you ever at St John's church in town?" he asked. "Yes" I said. "I wonder if you'd remember me, it was all of ten years ago I came to church and talked to you a few times."

His face was faintly familiar, but then he's ten years older now. When he said his name was Stephen that jogged my memory. We had talked about basic matters of belief in God, creation and Jesus on a few occasions, there were things he wanted to know, was trying to clarify in his thinking on religion.

He then told me that he'd grown up on a rough housing estate surrounded by drugs and crime, but he decided he wanted out, something more, something better in life. I don't think I was by any means the first person to introduce him to the Gospel message, but he was still getting to grips with it. 

He said that talking to me then had helped him on his way in his journey of faith, to a new life as a member of the church. He didn't elaborate on that, but when I asked him what he was doing now, he said that he was halfway through a degree in Biology, I guess after catching up on his 'A' levels, as I believe he'd left school after GCSEs. He thanked me for those conversations which made a difference for him ten years ago. Then we shook hands and went our separate ways, the other side of the bridge.

I was astonished by this, that he should have remembered me after all this time, having played but a small part in the life of this teenager who didn't want to go off the rails. I often 'loitered with intent' in the church during the working day. The idea of advertising times when a priest was on duty available to listen to all comers didn't occur. There was a pattern of regular weekday worship, but if I wasn't out and about on the streets attempting to know people and make myself known, I'd hang out in church. It seemed in reality to be a more useful place to be recognised and approached by random visitors. That way I met many different people arriving from places far off and places near. Give the place time, and the place gives back to you in unexpected ways. 

This encounter on the bridge was such an unexpected surprise, a blessing, for which I thank God, giver of every good gift, from the bottom of my heart.

    

A timely anniversary

This morning I had the challenge of getting to St Dyfrig and Samson's for a nine o'clock Mass, and then going on to a ten thirty Mass at St Paul's. Thankfully, driving I'm finding is now getting more comfortable, at least for local trips and that's a positive outcome from the op, ten days ago. I really had to think of my feet, as I'd prepared a sermon on St Michael and All Angels, but the Parish was celebrating Harvest Festival, with the readings for the Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity, so I had to ditch my text and ad lib elements of all three together.

The were twenty at St Dyfrig and St Samson, three dozen adults and twenty children at St Paul's, including a robed choir of five young women, who sang well. For the time being services are taking place in a room big enough for eighty worshippers, screened off at one end of a refurbished hall next to the church building. The screen can be opened to extend the space for a funeral congregation, and in this Parish, I I discovered standing in for the Vicar in times past, that can mean several hundred mourners attending.

The church is closed, pending a major conversion project which will see the vast nave turned into apartments with the choir and sanctuary area re-worked into a new chapel, accommodating a hundred plus, with a vestry and Parish office on two levels. Meanwhile, the congregation fits comfortably into the reserved space and this helps to generate a relaxed atmosphere for worship. The number of young couples with children in Sunday school is a tribute to the Messy Church initiative, and the hard work of those who make it happen as a first point of contact. Much the same as in St Catherine's.

Clare and Ann went to St John's City Parish Church this morning, and from there walked to the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama for lunch. Having returned home for lunch, I took the bus into town and joined them there for a matinee performance of a new play called 'Kamil and Francis' which recounts and reflects on the meeting of St Francis of Assisi and Sultan Malik al Kamil nephew of Saladin and ruler of Cairo during the fifth Crusade, eight centuries ago this year. It's a story I remember reading about in my student years in Bristol, when we got to know Brother Christian an Anglican Franciscan who came up from Hilfield Friary to the city for dental treatment, and stayed with us. Clare's father was named Francis, so it was natural to take an interest in the spirituality and lifestyle of the Franciscan movement.

This story tells of an interfaith encounter and peacemaking initiative which St Francis made unsupported, apart from a companion Friar. Unarmed, and totally vulnerable before an adversary of Christendom. His wasn't the only effort made at dialogue between religions in the Middle Ages, but others are less well known. We hear little of the fact that imperial Muslim rulers employed learned Jewish and Christian advisors and officials, whom they knew were trustworthy, such was the confidence in their hold on power.

It's far less certain that Muslim intellectuals were similarly employed when Christian rule gained the upper hand, although Christian scholars certainly took advantage of the work done across the Muslim empire, to acquire and translate ancient Greek literature, philosophy and drama. Without that immense information harvesting project, there would have been no Renaissance or Enlightenment, no Western culture as we know it today. The violence of contemporary Islamism has obscured this fact, as its qu'ranic fundamentalist approach denies much of the value the great work Muslim scholars did in restoring Classical knowledge and critical thought to the world.

The play as a highly speculative account of that landmark meeting, the content of which nothing is known. The fact that it happened at all, between these two particular men, when it did, is remarkable and inspires imagination about the current need for dialogue between adversaries, both religious and political. It ended with a conversation between its four actors, its author D.J. Britton and an audience, which included several Egyptian Muslims as well as some active Christians, and a majority of uncommitted but curious people. It was a fascinating way to spend an afternoon indoors, even though the sun shone brightly in between showers.

Twelfth Night

Up early and out of the house before nine I drove to St Dyfrig and St Samson's church in Grangetown and was fortunate not to encounter heavy traffic. I arrived in good time to say Mass for a couple of regulars, standing in for Fr David, on leave today. Then I returned to St John's, Canton for the regular Thursday 10.30am Eucharist, which I'm looking after this month as Fr Mark is on leave. 

Thankfully the first service was 2004 Church in Wales rite with readings for the 12th day of Christmas, and the second was 1984 Church in Wales, with a repeat of the readings from last Sunday, for the Holy Name of Jesus. It's good to be challenged by liturgical variety, to stay in focus prayerfully and not let the taking of services become routine or automatic. Different readings also bring their own stimulus to reflection with the congregation, and this I greatly enjoy.

Not long after I returned home, Martin and Chris dropped in to see us. They were invited to a lunch party for Chris' uncle at the Cameo Club, in Pontcanna Street and had been dropped off early, so they chose to come and see us rather than hang out in a cafe for an hour. It was lovely just to have time with them quietly on our own, as so often when we visit them there's a house full of people, and lots going on.

After lunch I went out and walked my usual course again, and some extra. Even so, reaching the set daily target of 10,000 steps eluded me again. I felt I'd walked as much as I could before my dodgy knee started complaining. The daily improvement hasn't been great in this week of trying to get back to regular exercise after Christmas idleness. I probably need another osteo treatment.

At tea time, we finished off the remains of the Christmas cake. Kath let us know that they'd arrived home from Spain, and later we chatted on the phone. We had a quiet evening together, watching telly, and Clare took time carefully to remove and pack away all the decorations from the tree. My job tomorrow morning will be to return it to the back yard, in its tub. Despite dropping some needles, it doesn't seem to have been killed off by a couple of weeks indoors, though it clearly prefers being out in the cold damp air. Then I'll have clear up behind me. The past fortnight has simply flown by.