Prayers from the Pacific

Getting out of Canton to reach Adamsdown and St German's on a weekday isn't a comfortable experience. The length of traffic queues varies, until I get to Grangetown beyond the main railway line, and then it's not so variable, but I can never rush because of speed limits and speed bumps. I must leave the house early enough to arrive a comfortable ten minutes before Mass. 

It's not always easy as I can lose concentration on my departure time. This morning my timing was a bit tight, and I wasn't pleased with myself. We were five to commemorate William Tyndall, 16th century martyred Bible translator, to whom, Shakespeare and the King James Bible owe a huge linguistic debt. So many English scriptural phrases and imagery which are part of our way of speaking originate with him. A great poetic mind sacrificed on the altar of British reformation politics. 

St German's nave at the moment is clear of its usual seating and set up with music stands for an orchestral rehearsals as the Royal Welsh College has started using the place on working weekdays. Quite a sight!

I returned home, collected the week's veggie bag, then cooked lunch early. I sat down to listen to the one o'clock news and fell asleep until my phone woke me up with a notification at ten to two for a World Day of Prayer service at St John's.  I got there just after the service started. There were about twenty people there from local churches.

Last year's WDP service was cancelled due to pandemic restrictions, but re-arranged for today. The hosts were women of the Pacific Vanuatu islands, celebrating the beauty of nature, touching on environmental pollution. The biblical parable about building a house on sand or rock was used for meditation, and puzzlingly to my mind made no reference to global warming or the inevitable rise in sea levels which will make many islands uninhabitable as they are no more than a metre above sea level now. Vanuatuans could be among the first generation of climate change refugees. They must fear for their future.

After the service I went for a walk around Pontcanna Fields, and before supper watched the second episode of this week's 'Silent Witness' on BBC iPlayer. After supper we watched this week's 'The Repair Shop', and then I settled down to write for an hour or so before bed.