Forgotten pole

Despite rain in the night, a bright sunny start to today.  I posted today's Morning Prayer YouTube link to WhatsApp just after eight, before getting up for breakfast. There were a dozen of us at St Catherine's for the Eucharist celebrating St Ephrem. This prompted me to remember my brief sojourn and encounter with Syriac Orthodoxy in the Metropolitan Cathedral of St George in Aleppo thirty two years ago. 

Ephrem was a deacon and hymnodist ministering to refugees driven west by the Persians from Edessa in the fourth century. His lyrics meditated on the mysteries of the incarnation and redemption expounding poetically on the teachings of the Nicene Creed. 

When Syriac Christians were persecuted and driven out of Turkey in the early twentieth century, the community exiled from Edessa settled in Aleppo, one of Syria's oldest and largest cities. It's tragic that resistance to the Assad regime in the Syrian civil war resulted in extensive destruction and thirty one thousand deaths. There was an earthquake in 2023 but reconstruction was under way already. Due to persecution, diaspora communities of Syriac Christians thrive in America, Sweden and Germany. The Indian state of Kerala has had an indigenous Syriac Christian church community since the fourth century, arising from trading links between Mesapotamia and the western coast of India. It's a remarkable history of resilience and vitality stretching back fifteen centuries.

We had lunch at midday today as Clare had an early acupuncture appointment. Falafel balls, sweet corn and spinach, an unusual lightweight combination. I followed up with a stodgy custard doughnut left over  from yesterday to fill the gap. Then I did a circuit of Thompson's Park to see how the juvenile moorhens are getting on. Several motor driven lawn mowers were busy filling the air with the scent of cut grass. The noise of the machines was inescapable, robbing the park of its usual peace. Then I went down to Tesco's to buy chamomile tea bags. At the junction of Romilly and Llandaff Roads is a corner house with a hedge of beautifully scented white lilac bushes, thanks to the recent warm and wet weather, now overgrown. Again more noise as a couple of guys with motor driven hedge trimmers cut back the luxuriant growth robbing them of their beauty and most of their scent - until they re-grow. Clare was having a flute lesson when I got home, and being complemented for making progress in producing a good consistent sound.

After her lesson, Clare went out shopping. When she returned, she was in a panic, as she left the house with her walking pole and returned without it, having visited two local branches of the Co-op in search of frozen food items. She parked her pole next to the freezer while extracting what she wanted to buy and left the pole behind, but in which store, she couldn't remember. Walking back without the pole was painful and exhausting, so I went to both, a circuit of about a mile, and retrieved it from the second one. What a relief!

After supper I finished editing the Morning Prayer audio for the Office of St John the Baptist's Day, and made the video slide show, then uploaded it to YouTube. 

There have been more exchanges of fire between America and Iran today. An American helicopter was shot down in the Straight of Hormuz and there have been more Iranian strikes on US Middle Eastern bases, breaching the ceasefire and halting negotiations. Trump has returned to threatening more strikes on Iran, to pressurise Iran into resuming talks. The Iranians and their allies are bound to retaliate. Trump's bullying tactics and lack of strategic clarity have resulted in his inability to gain control of the situation. He really is the 'elephant in the room' trashing relationships between Middle Eastern states and the West. How much longer can he retain authority by making a mess of everything he turns his hand to? And why do so many Americans trust their fortunes to him and his false promises?