Preference for podcasts

Any prospect of viewing this evening's much talked about historic conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn was dashed by continuous low cloud and rain all day and into the evening, Although I was awake at seven, in good time to upload the day's prayer video (without incident thankfully), it took me until the afternoon to venture out fully clad in waterproofs and do a full circuit of the parks. Most of the morning was taken up with catching up with this blog. Remembering today or yesterday in detail is challenging enough, as I never make notes. Remembering two days ago takes even longer, especially if it was seemingly uneventful. But it's on such days there's time to muse and reflect, and not just report. 

I had an interesting conversation with Owain this morning about communication strategy, and he told me how some big corporate companies were issuing reports and news news updates, by audio podcasts with a written back up maybe, but not using video media unless there was a specific need speak face to face. An interesting piece of research by an occupational psychologist has revealed that recipients of an audio podcast understand and retain three times as much information as those who watch a Powerpoint or a video presentation. 

Visual information, despite appearances is more complex to digest, as visual words and signs must be translated into real words and thoughts to be processed and understood. If used at all to inform they must be used far more sparingly than is commonly the case. Simple old fashioned static signs work far better than animated video messages. Spoken words are portable and don't hijack the whole of one's attention as visual communication does. You need to sit down to watch. It you look at something on the move you risk not seeing danger before you. It's simple and obvious.

This conversation started because I was telling Owain about the prayer videos I worked on yesterday, and how much more demanding a task this was than producing audio only worship material in Ibiza. His response was - why not stick with audio only then. Clare also confirmed that she only momentarily looks at a prayer video, and then just sits back and listens. Audio only is easier to prepare, even when editing together several voices, sound effects and ambient music together if needed. Being lighter in digital size, it consumes less time uploading and downloading. Case made, as far as I'm concerned, but I only have to do what's asked of me, and that involves video! Even so, Owain sent me a digest of the research article he had spoken of, and I forwarded it to our parish clergy for interest's sake.

The river Taff wasn't as high as I had expected, when I got there half an hour before sunset. The fields were sodden with big pools of standing water around tree trunks, too much to be soaked into clay subsoil quickly. If the river had burst its banks flood water would possibly cover an area of grassland even greater than the last overflow in February this year. Few people were out, except for determined runners and dog walkers, whose charges seem delighted to run with great gusto in the rain. The surface was so waterlogged that dogs running on grass sounded like a high speed fusillade of splashes from a hose.

Mother Frances sent me a copy of the liturgy for Sunday next, St John's day, one of our Parish patrons. I spent an hour of the evening reformatting the original to print into a simple readable booklet for me to use at the altar. The variety we now use in liturgy is such a change from the limitations of the old Prayer Book liturgies I grew up with. I like the flexibility, but still pine for a solid Missal rather than a leaflet. 

Each Anglican Province produces its own, as does the Roman church, but the use of leaflets has become widespread in the past decade, and I'm not at ease with this because it involves the consumption of so many ephemeral resources, adding to our carbon footprint, while dioceses and churches attempt to move in the direction of becoming 'greener' institutions. A bit contradictory really, and I was a much to blame for that in my full time ministry as anyone else. Sooner or later poverty will make us change our habits of consumption.

An old friend's passing

I had an email this morning from the Bishop's Chaplain announcing the death of Fr Graham Francis, a good friend and colleague since we were at St Mike's together over fifty years ago. He's lived with an inoperable stomach cancer for several years, continuing with life as best he could with his strength and mobility slowly waning away, without giving up on performing any priestly activity he remained capable of. We were together con-celebrating the Sung Mass at St Saviour's a month ago. I wondered then if it would be the last occasion. Even so, Eleri and I agreed that we'd meet up for coffee again as a foursome early in this New Year, but it wasn't to be. He died late yesterday night

He was admitted to Holm Towers on New Year's Eve, and visited there by family and colleagues. Two priests he worked with closely over many years were at his bedside, along with family members in his last hours, saying the Rosary and Litany of the Saints to send him on his way, which would be exactly how he would have wanted things to be. As the commendatio animae was recited he slipped quietly away.

It was a good, peaceful Catholic death for a priest and pastor who adhered to traditionalist spirituality and convictions without compromise. He believed he could remain an Anglican Catholic as long as the integrity of traditional and liberal modern thinking were respected in the church of his birth. He was respectful of women clergy from whom he felt unable to take Communion, and gracious when working with them as colleagues. He was a committed ecumenist who practised ecumenism within the Anglican fold as well as with other denominations. Not only that, he was a mine of information about the history of church congregations old and new which existed in the city and further afield.

He will be best remembered for his encyclopaedic knowledge of every kind of liturgy, tradition and custom which has its place in the Catholic Church. He had a huge collection of liturgical books pamphlets and texts of every kind, collected since he was a teenager, a unique specialist library of material, for which, as I understand it sadly, no home has yet been found. His involvement in both liturgical revision and liturgical renewal in practice has exerted a positive widespread influence in the Church in Wales and further afield. For him tradition was a living dynamic affair, not just clinging to old fixed ways, but engaging pastorally and adapting to every social and cultural context without ever needing to compromise the truth of orthodox Christian doctrine. He understood that tradition is 'the life of the Holy Spirit in the church', and exemplified this in his ministry. He will be missed, but for those who remember how things once were, his legacy in the way sacraments are celebrated in many ordinary parishes is unmissable and lasting. May he rest in peace and rise in glory!

Clare's colleague Jacquie came to lunch today. She and Clare walked with me in the park afterwards, but left me to complete my usual longer stretch. Today I wore my new trainers, and these were fine for about the first five miles, and then the ball of my right foot began to hurt. I had to stop to rest it and stretch my ankle when I reached Blackweir bridge, and decided to walk as much of the remaining route as I could on the grass. To my surprise, after walking only a few yards, the pain disappeared and didn't return. This suggests that some of the bones in my foot are slightly out of alignment, but this only shows up when I walk over a certain distance, moving slightly awkwardly. My right leg suffers inevitably from the presence of the wound in the right side of my perineum. The knocks the whole of my body out of alignment. It's something I have to think a lot about and compensate for, including the occasional osteo-myologist visit.