Sea Sunday

After breakfast we walked up to St Decuman's church for the Bible Sunday Parish Eucharist. This week it was a retired locum priest who celebrated, arriving just as we reached the church after our brisk uphill walk. He was fully vested after celebrating at another church. Instead of the organ, our hymn singing was accompanied by piano and violin, played by older members of the congregation. Everyone sang heartily. There were two dozen present, including another retired priest and his wife. She read the Epistle with great care and thoughtfulness, he assisted the celebrant by holding the chalice for dipping the host during the distribution of Communion.

We had bacon sandwiches for a light lunch as Clare and Ann were due to go swimming at three. I went for a walk and got some good photos from the promontory behind the east cliff of the last train of the day for Bishops Lydeard, passing through the cutting after the station. As I returned, the sun reached the horizon and I got some pleasing photos of the port. 

After the quick installation of a minor Windows 10 update, I found that internet speed had picked up again allowing photos to upload and not stall with the line dropping. Could an epidemic of forced Windows updates be a contributory factor in catastrophic network slowdowns, especially if several users were being updated at roughly the same time?

There was an ecumenical Sea Sunday service at the Methodist Church by the station at six tonight. I had thought of going, but lost track of time when I was taking pictures. The sea came into focus later on when we watched a documentary on BBC Four about the making of a play called 'Salt', written by a black Brummie about the impact of the experience of slavery on continuing racism and black identity. 

Artist Selina Thompson retraced the sea journeys made by enslaved Africans on the transatlantic slave trade triangle, travelling on a cargo ship, reflecting on the absolute power over the centuries of a ship's master benefiting from sustaining human trafficking. Much of her essay centred on the question 'Where are you from' depending on context and working at several levels in terms of personal identity. It highlighted the extent that western society's wealth and culture rests on foundations of violent exploitation. I found it most thoughtful and deeply challenging. 

Quarantine Cymru - day Seven

I do enjoy waking up at sunrise, in this good weather. This week I've been going to bed an hour or so earlier than usual so I'm still getting a good night's sleep. After a week's in quarantine I've had none of the coronavirus symptoms so far, nor symptoms of the wound infection returning.

I had a phone call from Chris Reaney this morning. He was interested to find out about my return from Ibiza and my time there. He spoke about his experience of lock-down ministry in a valley community where only two members of his elderly congregation are internet users. He's had to keep in touch with his flock by 'phone and letter rather than Zoom and WhatsApp. A timely reminder that the digital divide is excluding some church members. Is this being taken into account by the powers that be in their enthusiasm to benefit the majority by use of electronic media?

More work on transcribing our Greek travel journal today. I have difficulty reading my fractured cramped handwriting on times. I think it's become more legible in later years. In contrast, Clare's handwriting was well rounded, balanced and clear to read in those days, and has changed little since then. I'm up to day twelve now, and we've just celebrated our first wedding anniversary, going to church on the island of Paros to join n the celebration of the Feast of the Transfiguration, our feast.

In the post, a birthday card from my sister June. It couldn't be sent to Ibiza during lockdown as I had no access to the chaplaincy house mailbox in the village of St Josep throughout my stay. Now it doubles up as a welcome home card. A nice touch.

After lunch I completed editing my Sunday sermon and then recorded it, and also gathered a few music tracks to use when I put the service together. When I installed Audacity on Windows 10 I was unable to use it to record as I have no plug and play USB microphone to wake up the software that records input. This morning I remembered that it was possible to dig down a few layers into the PC operating system and tweak the settings to record from a digital stream apart from a microphone. Now Audacity is working as intended, and that makes my life much easier.

Owain sent me a link to an Arena documentary called 'I am not a Negro' which makes use of writer James Baldwin's prophetic testimony on racism and the American way of life. Film footage of him being interviewed or lecturing was interspersed with film and photos from the 1950s to the present day of civil unrest, civil rights marches, and from a succession of movies portraying black people in a wide range of different ways. Baldwin spoke about his relationships with three murdered black activists - Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jnr, and their relationships with each other as their shared struggle evolved.

It was powerful and disturbing to watch in the light of recent police murders of innocent African Americans, which have provoked storms of protest around the world and not just in America.

Solidarity revealed

It's getting noticeably hotter by day this week, not only here, but in Britain. Clare has been making the most of her time with Ann in Pembrokeshire, and fine weather, to visit a different beach every day and post photos of them, on Instagram and Viber. She's in her element. I'm not that comfortable sunning myself on sand, though I love to walk along the promenade and sea shore, day or night. 

Monday was a day with no appointment, just clothes to wash and a visit to local food shops, notably an eco-tienda, the other side of the Bull Ring plaza, to purchase a jar of Tahini using my best Spanish with complete success. But, most of the day I lay low in the apartment avoiding the intense heat, venturing out to the Old Town in the late afternoon as it was cooling down, to get some exercise. Having done a lot of walking over the weekend, my legs were quite tired. I'm walking at least 3-5km a day, but I'd like to build up to 5-7km a day every day, to get back to the fitness level I had last autumn in Mojácar.

Tuesday was also a day with no appointments, but a day of preparation for Owain's visit, and a day to draft a sermon for next Sunday's first visit to the Salinas congregation to celebrate the Eucharist. I found myself drawn to the Genesis lesson about Abraham and Ishmael and its relation to Islam.

More information is emerging today about the attack on worshippers at a Finsbury Park Mosque in London, by an assailant from Pentwyn, Cardiff, who seems to be a loner filled with hatred for Muslims. The impact of this act of terrorism, like the London Bridge incident last month, has been a defiant expression of solidarity by people of all faiths and none at every level, both the leaders and the led. 

'Live and let live' has been a default expression of tolerance in British urban society for generations, despite politics, despite local difficulties and compatibility tensions between communities with different lifestyles. It's not always comfortable, but people get used to it, make it work, as much by passive acceptance as through active community relations. There are more ways for people from different backgrounds to get used to each other than we realise. But, when there's an external threat to the natural balancing act going on in every kind of living community, there's a most remarkable reaction from within. 

People who've been muddling along start taking notice, and stop taking peace and stability for granted. Crisis pushes them out of passive acceptance of each other into a defensive affirmation of a diverse common life together. A sense of human solidarity becomes more conscious. It breaks down barriers of race, language and culture in public. What may have occurred when near neighbours had something to celebrate or grieve about, is revealed by harsh circumstances to be an experience shared by the larger community, which just wants freedom to continue muddling along, putting up with each other and living with differences.

Memories are awakened of my time as Team Rector of St Paul's Area Parish, Bristol at the time of the 1980 riots. That was a place where many poor people of different races and cultures muddled along together. Rioting broke out as a result of a bungled operation by poorly briefed police officers unaquainted with the area, without consulting police working there day by day. It was an expression of utter frustration by local young black people with far reaching consequences, and it attracted global attention for a while. 

There were unaddressed social problems as well, that's for sure, and a great need for British public bodies to re-examine their attitudes toward those who were of a non-British culture, in order to find out what all had in common, and what differences there were which called for respect. There were many top level enquiries, and a few changes, though never enough to make a major difference. Even then, as the crisis passed, all who lived in an area subject to intense scrutiny soon wanted just to be left alone to get on with a struggle to survive which no media or political intrusion could ever make a real difference to. 

Young rioters effectively said: 'Stop messing with us' to police with no idea how to administer law and order worthy of respect, as local Bobbies could. Hit a community with an islamophobic attack, or an islamist attack and we can label them politically any way we desire, but when the people of a place bond together in mutual respect to support each other, they may simply be saying: 'Let us be. Let us deal with this as best we can.' Whoever suffers, whoever is the victim, the community feels it's an assault on them and their effort to live together. It's almost like a revelation, this discovery that, as St Paul tells us "We are members of one another."

   

Genie unleashed, attacking the vulnerable, same old story

I spent part of the morning watching the European Parliament debate on the UK referendum result. I was impressed by the warmth of goodwill expressed towards Britain despite the brexit vote. Nigel Farrage behaved with disgraceful contempt and discourtesy towards other MEPs and the Assembly, and he was booed. Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker didn't hold back, openly calling him a lair, just for the record. It is disturbing to think Farrage was elected to the European Parliament, that he has attended and taken his MEP's financial entitlement for such a long time.

Today's news has also raised concern over the disturbing increase in the number of hate crimes against immigrants, people of other faiths and ethnic minorities in recent months. A certain section of disaffected people are scapegoating others on the basis of appearance. Inflammatory rhetoric during the referendum debate seems to have contrived to embolden people to voice resentment by verbal and physical attacks on others. 

It's like a re-run of the seventies and eighties all over again, and I worry that there'll be outbreaks of racially driven civil disorder, unless politicians get a grip on themselves and focus attention on this issue as a major post referendum priority. Now that everyone has tasted a little fear and uncertainty at the outcome of such a divisive decision, it's going to be a lot harder to restore calm and social harmony. Without calm and social harmony, there is no basis for any new policy effort or economic initiative, as these things rely on a bedrock of stability - not just in prosperous areas, but all over the country. I hope that those entering into political leadership contests in coming weeks are aware of the dire need to address this promptly. It's what national survival depends upon.

Re-living recent history

After a quietly lazy morning, I was collected and taken to do a funeral service at 'the Res' this afternoon for an elderly lady who was for over 25 years a local lollypop lady - school crossing patrol officer - on Cowbridge Road West. As I read the 23rd Psalm, the words 'thy rod and thy staff comfort me' took on unexpected meaning. I mentioned this in the brief account of her life which the family had asked me to give on their behalf, but I didn't see many smiles of comprehension from the congregation. I guess that for most, familiar words wash over them on an occasion like this. 

The drive to Thornhill just at the height of the school run traffic peak took double the usual time. We arrived punctually, but the outgoing funeral was running late, so we had a delayed start anyway. The Crematorium attendant seemed to be looking after two chapel services at the same time, whether from staff absences or cut backs I do not know, but the usual atmosphere of calm and comfort prevailed.

I was dropped off at St Michael's College on the return journey, as I was scheduled to preside at a Family Eucharist. I tried out an experimental children's eucharistic prayer draft, tabled at last week's CofE General Synod, which contains several phrases of a dialogue between child and parent, reminscent of that used in the Jewish Passover supper ritual. This was received with appreciation by many. I'd like to think that the concept could equally be adapted for use in other Eucharist Prayers for children - that it might go viral?

I had supper in College and sat next to a student from Ystrad Mynach, my home town. I found out that he was born the year I left for University. That made me feel rather long in the tooth! After supper I walked home across Llandaff Fields in the quiet darkness - so much more pleasant than enduring the heavy evening traffic on Cardiff Road. I then drove over to Ely for my second bereavement visit of the week, this time an old man who had driven a crane in Cardiff Docks throughout his working life. This is the second crane driver's funeral I've done in the last few months.

I finished the day watching a BBC4 dramatised documentary 'Love of books - a Sarajevo story', all about the rescue of a collection of 10,000 old islamic books from a Madrassah library while the city was under siege in the 1990s. It was movingly told recreated through video clips and staged drama portraying those war torn years. 

At the time, when we were living in Geneva, I was profoundly shaken by the Bosnian war. It seemed such a devastating and barbaric assault on the great twentieth century project of making a modern multi-cultural society work, and showed what people risked doing to hold on to their culture, identity and dignity in the worst of circumstances. It took me a trip to Sarajevo, in the year after the lifting of the siege to start learning about the struggle of many of its citizens to hold on to the kind of society they had achieved and valued, and come to terms with my own deep feelings of crushed liberal optimism.

Islamophoba and different kinds of equalities prejudice are still present in Europe and Britain today, poisoning relationships, promoting power hungry ideologies and distorting the political endeavours of mainstream politicians. The world said 'Never again' after Auschwitz, then after Sarajevo and Srebrenica, but unless we learn the lessons of history, expose the bullies and stand up to them and their ideas, unless we teach about justice and reconciliation and fight for it with liberating truth, we may well see history repeat itself. 

Memories of that time haunt me still. I shall not sleep easy tonight.