Luciadag

The pain in my ankle wasn't nearly as intense as last night so I slept well. I had to move tentatively and slowly to find out what movements caused me pain and what didn't. There was no question of putting on shoes and walking outdoors yet, just slow pacing around the house, which got easier as the day went on. Clare went out shopping and I cooked lunch.

My ankle swelled a little afterwards, perhaps because I was standing for a while, but what took it so long to react to injury I wondered? On with the elastic support sock again, and foot up for the rest of the day in between short spells of walking around.

Sara emailed a link to a Swedish broadcast of the celebration of Sta Lucia, today's big festive Advent ritual in Sweden. It struck me while watching it that it's much more than a charming musical ceremony hard to relate to mainstream Church teaching. It showcases teenage Christian girls celebrating songs of praise in honour of Lucy of Syracuse a young female martyr, victim of violence against women, along with many others persecuted for their faith, and refusal to comply with the imperial status quo. The ancient Roman Canon of the Mass contains the names of seven female martyrs from the 2nd and 3rd centuries. Not even a conservative religious hierarchy could suppress mention of their names.

Given the horror of what is currently happening in Iran, with young women and girls persecuted and violated by Islamic Republican 'morality' police for refusing to cover their hair, the sight of a couple of dozen girls with their hair down, uncovered, wearing crowns of light remains a powerful gesture of defiance in a world contaminated by cruel sexism. 

With much time on my hands, iPlayer on my Chromebook is a consolation. I watched the last episode of 'Strike' with its surprising revelation that a seemingly helpless elderly lady was behind the disappearance of a female GP, just one of multiple victims of a discreet psychopathic serial killer. A very clever twist in a detective story. I guess good fiction help draw attention to the seemingly unthinkable. 

Then I watched all three of Simon Schama's series 'The History of Now' reflecting from both personal experience and his own historical enquiries on the way key artistic contributions to life in the past hundred years gave a voice to the need for social change in the realms of justice equality and freedom. A powerful collection of essays that is giving me pause for thought about change in Christian thinking and my own ministry, especially as Schama is just two months older than me.

Looking back over the years since I retired, I have been disturbed and disillusioned by the ways in which the Church in Wales has been led and run, or should I just say managed? But I haven't been outspoken on any issues of concern. It's been important to me to exercise a ministry as pastor which serves others, not to draw attention to myself more than is necessary, and to stay out of church internal politics. 

My final big project before retirement was the faith communities survey of Cardiff. It had a positive public launch, but was dismissed by the editor of the Western Mail whose report on it only included negative feedback from a spokesperson for Wales Humanists. I didn't know how, or have the guts to challenge this at that time, prior to Twitter and Social Media, nor how to follow it through without making myself more prominent and open to criticism that could undermine confidence in me as a pastor. It's all I ever wanted to be in life, after all. I didn't have the energy to be anything more at that stage. 

In the same year I had to accompany the faithful remnant of St James' church through the painful process of church closure and its contents disposed of prior to sale. It was a heart breaking job for which diocesan and provincial officials gave me no support. Maybe none of them knew how to do the job either. It was a bleak time which I survived thanks to the loving kindness of a wonderful congregation at St John's. It made me determined not to stay on for another five years as I could retire  at sixty five and have nothing more to do with church bureaucracy. Having the freedom to be a volunteer pastor since then has been a great consolation, glad to have nothing to do with the institution or its processes any more. Was I right to disengage? Not to seize the freedom to speak truth freely to power when I could or should have done? Not sure I know the answer to that.

Life, but not as we know it

Yesterday was the day of Sta Lucia, and Sara over there in Gothenburg sent me some photos and a video link to a TV recording of a national celebration of carols. Then again this morning, photos from the early morning ceremony at the school where she teaches. Lucia customs aren't that widespread or embedded as part of our winter folk ceremonies. It's very charming and beautifully atmospheric, but what is it really all about? I ask and get no answer that satisfies. In our email exchange I quoted Spock from Star Trek "It's life Jim, but not as we know it!", but Sara didn't get it. She was born around the time the first series got shown on UK TV, and has never watched. 

So, this led to me writing her a brief summary description of what it was all about and why it mattered to people of my age, quite apart from all the antics of the world wide fan-base of 'trekkies'. Putting down my thoughts made me realise how much the Star Trek narratives had reflected the debate about multi-culturalism and pluralism, and working at eliminating conflict. The other great sci-fi saga of the age influencing many is Star Wars, again in the public eye due to the new movie release. All the rage when Owain as a little boy, it never grabbed my attention, and I'm not even sure I can recall sitting through one of the movies on telly, let alone in a cinema. Having been raised on a diet of heroic World War Two battle movies, with roots in recent history much nearer to recent reality, I was destined to lose interest in Star Wars early on. Sci-fi that envisaged an era when we would 'study war no more' engaged with my idealism better.

Now today is the feast of St John of the Cross, whose poetry I have started dipping into in this past week for the first time. The Breviary office for the day contains a text from his 'Spiritual Canticle', all about suffering as a route to contemplation. Thought provoking, to say the least. I like the joyous innocent simplicity of his poetry. By contrast, the simplicity of Pablo Neruda's observations of life are of a different. He looks in detail at ordinary people and the things of life, giving an almost sacramental value to that which others would treat with contempt or ignore. His socialist humanism, if I may call it so, has a truly incarnational ring to it, an earthly mysticism. Two Spanish poets five centuries apart giving much much delight and inspiration this Advent, helping me to cope with the darkness of the year more cheerily than usual.

This morning I did the week's food shopping on foot, visiting first the Co-op and then Lidl's, braving the rain and getting four miles worth of exercise, much needed. I posted all the foreign cards, and then finished off the rest of the British ones. Seventy in all. Very satisfying.