Advocating family meals

A mild cloudy day with no rain. I woke up at eight, posted the link on WhatsApp for Morning Prayer and then got up for breakfast. Chief Rabbi Ephraim Murvis spoke on Thought for the Day about the month of Av, fifth month of the year in the Jewish calendar. It's a month of sad memories when the destruction of the First and Second Temples is commemorated, also the expulsion of Jews from England in 1290 and from Spain in 1492. 

He went on to describe how the Babylonian exile led to the Temple being replaced by synagogues as community gathering places for worship and festive banquets, with the family meal table replacing the Temple altar as the place to offer the sacrifice of praise and feasting. Out of the catastrophe of exile a new way of celebrating Jewish identity emerged. He lamented the reduction of time spent eating together, and advocated making the effort to sustain the family with table talk, discussion, argument and even disagreement as essential for learning to live together in love despite differences. A very neat three minutes worth of thought provoking discourse.

I had a quiet morning, praying and thinking, then went for a walk before cooking lunch. Again I fell asleep for an hour after lunch. It seems that I need the extra hour if my night's sleep is disturbed as it often is. At least it means my afternoon walk in the park is a bit more energetic. I picked up a new empty plastic bag from the long grass beside the road on Western Avenue. In the course of the next hour I filled it with rubbish collected in my circuit of Pontcanna Fields and binned it. If my objective is to walk ten kilometres a day, my aim is to leave the park a little cleaner and tidier than I found it.

After supper I whiled away the evening watching episodes of Swedish crime drama 'Top Dog' on Walter Presents. It's about rivalries underhanded affairs in a big law firm with high value clients, and lawyers consorting with criminals. It makes a change from police procedural storylines.

Spain in view again

A warm sunny start to the day after bouts of rain this past few days, perfect for every growing thing. On Thought for the Day' this morning, Sam Wells, Vicar of St Martin in the Fields gave a superb concise and clear discourse on the distinction between sin and evil. I was so impressed, I'll try and find the text of it on line to quote in a sermon, not something I often do. Here's the audio link.

As I was getting ready to do the week's grocery shopping at the Co-op, I had an email from Andrea of the Costa del Sol West Chaplaincy confirming initial arrangements for my seven week stay. After shopping and cooking lunch, I booked a flight from Cardiff to Malaga. I was looking for 12th July but the earliest flight available is on Saturday 16th July at a convenient time arriving early afternoon. It's a coach journey  of just over an hour to Estepona, where the Chaplaincy house is located. Fortunately there's only one service to take the following day, then a wedding blessing the following Saturday.

It was threatening to rain when I went out for a walk at a quarter to four. My AccuWeather phone app said it was imminent so I wore a mac. I was out an hour and a quarter and it didn't rain. Clare went out to walk just as I was getting back and got soaked in a downpour. Unusual for the forecast to be that unpredictable.

I had a message from Rachel asking me if I could tweak the video I made for her. It hard to do exactly what she wanted, but I gave it my best effort. Let's see what she thinks of it now, as I've spent half the evening working on it again. There was nothing on telly interesting enough to watch, fortunately.

The siege of the Azovstahl industrial complex on the edge of Mariupol is finally ending with Ukrainian defenders withdrawing. Western defence analysts are saying this agonisingly long battle has frustrated Russian war aims, by demanding so much of their military resources, denying them a quick takeover. The port city is in ruins and thousands have been killed there. It's helped change the course of the conflict from an overwhelming sudden Russian victory into a situation in which they cannot win outright,

A prominent Russian defence analyst went public on state TV tonight repeating what he said before the conflict started, that it's not in Russia's best interests to invade Ukraine, as its citizens will fight fiercely to defend their motherland. Now there are 42 nations backing Ukraine, Russia is isolated and being hit by economic sanctions. In effect he's now saying "I told you so." It's doubtful this appearance would happen without Putin and his henchmen knowing. Perhaps it's the first step in preparing the country for bad news about the cost in lives and equipment, which in the end cannot be hidden.

The Speaker of the Russian Douma - the parliament - has declared that the Ukrainian soldiers captured should be shot as nazi war criminals, perpetuating the slander against Ukrainian people and government, while forgetting that war has not been declared, and disregarding the need for due judicial process. It's not the kind of thing you expect from someone in the role of steering democratic debate, but this is Putin's parliament, after all.

Outbreak

As I was posting my Morning Prayer YouTube link to WhatsApp this morning, just in time to listen to 'Thought for the Day', I was surprised when I switched on the radio to hear it had been postponed, as the Archbishop of Canterbury was going to speak later in the programme. I soon gathered that Ukraine was now being invaded by Russia in a concerted show of force from all points of the compass. It wasn't that the Queen had died, the only other piece of breaking news that I could think of which would disrupt the routine of the Today programme . A succession of world leaders reacted, pronouncing condemnation on Putin's action. This and sanctions against Russia have dominated the news ever since, all day. 

War again in Europe, a couple of months short of seventy seven years since it last ended. How long it will last, and what follows from this dreadful moment, we can only wait and see with trepidation. Ordinary Russians and Ukranians didn't ask for this, nor did any other country. It's been imposed by Putin and his supporting criminal mafia in pursuit of his perverse vision of a 'Greater Russia'. It will have punitive repercussions at least for the economies of western nations. How the Chinese dictatorship will react to this global disruption is anybody's guess. God help us all.

A chill wind blew all day. Clouds and sunshine, rain alternating with hail. I joined four others at St John's for the Eucharist, where we kept a few minutes of silent prayer about the crisis. After the service, I went home, wrote next week's biblical reflection on the passage from the Joseph saga to be read next Thursday, then recorded and edited the Office and reflection in record time, with only a fifteen minute break for a bowl of salmon and vegetable soup. Clare bought a month's supply of fresh fish yesterday and the soup was made from the bones left over after cutting fillets from the salmon.

I had a cheque to bank, and started my afternoon walk with a trip to the bank, then went on to the Castle grounds, and back through Bute Park to the Millennium Bridge, up the footpath to Pontcanna Fields and then home. Two big trees near the gate house entrance had been uprooted by the storms of the past few days. It was interesting to observe how shallow their root systems were, no evidence of tap roots going deep, as the entire floor plain area in the vicinity of the Taff is densely packed with alluvial stone, hard for roots to penetrate below a top soil surface about half a metre thick. 

Those trees would have been half a century old I imagine, from their size but they may not have had to face such strong winds in that time, plus the topsoil layer has been waterlogged, also flooded for weeks by heavy rain and river water in recent years preventing the layer from hardening to anchor the roots against such strong wind. The Bute Park arboretum was established in the 19th century in terrain which for millennia was tidal wetland. Only trees which are native to that kind of environment would be expected to thrive naturally. Species introduced would inevitably need careful long term management and protection. Not impossible, but maybe it's always going to be an imperfect work in progress. 

This evening, after supper, we watched the classic movie of Graham Greene's novel 'The Third Man'. It's the second time I've seen it in the past couple of years. It really is a work of art worth revisiting, evoking life in a divided and occupied Europe at the end of the second world war when I was born. The outbreak of war in Ukraine may not impact on Britain as the war did back then, but lovely cities like Kyiv, Karkhiv, Lviv and Odessa could face destruction if fought over, along with masses of their citizens. Oh God I hope not.

Sacred waters

An overcast start to the day with sunshine breaks and inconvenient showers. I was interested to hear on this morning's 'Thought for the Day' that the Cardiff Sikh community has engaged with Llandaff Rowing Club to establish a waterside pontoon, not only for the use of rowers, but also for the use of bereaved Sikh families wanting to ceremonially dispose of cremated remains in the river Taff, adapting the traditional custom of Punjabi Sikhs using one of the five sacred rivers of their native land. 

Llandaff weir is just above the point in the watercourse once reached by salt water at high tide, a sacred site in pagan culture, and a place where Christian monks would naturally choose to establish a mission. I wonder if the Sikhs were aware of the ancient significance of the place? The London born speaker said he wanted his ashes to be cast on Thames water one day - just like my sister June! The environmental impact is negligible. Let's hope it'll be received with good-will by all others for whom rivers are special.

I uploaded today's Morning Prayer link before breakfast then went to St John's to celebrate the Eucharist with eight others before some preparatory work on next Thursday's Morning Prayer, commemorating Ann Griffiths. Clare cooked lunch, then we both had a siesta - me sitting in an armchair, out like a light for an hour. It's strange that I should be sleeping naturally for two hours more than previously. When I'm awake and active I don't feel physically tired, I'm sharp and concentration is good. I feel like I'm losing a couple of hours each day at the moment, but all I can do is go with the flow, and enjoy the occasional interesting dreams I recall but can make no sense of.

At lunchtime we received a WhatsApp message and photo from Kath and Anto in Santa Pola, after their arrival for a three week holiday without travel difficulties. Who knows what re-entry regulations will be in place for doubly vaccinated travellers from Alicante by the time they return.

I got wet when walking in the park before supper, and wet again returning from church this evening. We went to choir practice tonight at St Catherine's and prepared music for Sunday, and for Carole's funeral next Wednesday. Some of the music rehearsed is fairly familiar, which helps in regaining my confidence at sight reading. A music problem I do have is being unable to read lyrics which tend to be printed in a font too small for my worsening eyesight. I think I need a headlamp as well as specs on times. 

Once more we watched a S4C programme about awards at this week's on-line National Eisteddfod. For the second time this week, author Lleucu Roberts has won a major literary prize for a prose essay. Earlier she won the prize for a novel she'd written. It's the second time in her career that she's won 'the double', as it's called. Quite a feat.

Two estate agents' signs have now gone up on the empty house next door to us. There have been a couple of visits already, and probably many more to come.

Clare's upgrade

It was nice to wake up to sunshine, even if there were showers on and off later in the day. This morning's 'Thought for the Day by Tina Beattie was interesting, as it was a reflection on Sunday's episodes of 'Call the Midwife' and 'Line of Duty' which went out on BBC One in tandem. The former she said, highlighted compassion, while the latter highlighted justice, both core Christian values which all need to take to heart.

Late morning, I walked down to Tourotech, our local independent geek store before lunch and bought Clare a two year old refurbished Core i5 laptop with 8GB RAM and a 250GB SSD. It was already set up with a Windows 10 single user area, and a small assortment of free software, but Clare wanted to continue with Linux Mint so installing that was my next job. 

But first I drove her over the the University School of Optometry to get an adjustment made to her new specs. The installation only took twenty minutes. Copying her data from old too new device to two hours. The only thing I had trouble with was getting wi-fi to work, even after correctly installing and configuring the software. I stopped at six and completed my walk for the day later than usual, listening to the Archers on my phone while I was out. Today's episode was interesting as it was all about the christening of Alice's newborn - her chat with the Vicar and the grannies getting the christening party ready.

It turns out that wi-fi works if Secure Boot is switched off. There may be a workaround but I have yet to discover it. For the most part, the new laptop involves little or no new learning or changing of habits for Clare, and that's what counts. This machine has Mint's Mate desktop, and is quite pleasing to the eye as well as being familiar in its function.

If only Windows 10 was as easy to tailor consistently to one's own needs without forever swamping the user with annoying nags and notifications. Chromebooks are better still, but not as flexible as Linux, and you have to adapt to them, as customistion is only possible in a limited way. Interestingly Google didn't send me a whole load of security notifications when I set up Chrome Browser and Firefox for email purposes on Clare's new machine. Same operating system, from same I.P. address, but different hardware seems to have gone un-noticed.

Timely words about bogus Messiahs

Before uploading today's Morning Prayer video I listened to John Bell's 'Thought for the Day' on Radio 4 reflecting with some perspective on last week's events in Washington. It was a superb concise analysis of how and why certain strands of religious people have rallied behind Donald Trump, despite his appalling behaviour before and during his years of office. Part of the problem he said, is the false separation of the political and spiritual dimensions of life, as if political ethics and values were nothing to do with God - a totally un-biblical and heretical notion. 

It's a tribal way of avoiding having to think deeply about what religious faith and practice mean for the entire way in which we live and serve God. In a changing world, having to understand and be concerned about events is avoided by hiding behind a tribal banner. Trump gives the illusion of caring about what they believe and promising to defend them, in exchange for their unquestioning loyalty. He becomes regarded as a divinely appointed champion of their religion and liberty so that challenging Trump is perceived as an assault on God, so believers are prepared to fight and die for him.

"For many other Christians" says John Bell, "Trump has been a bogus Messiah, his photo shoot holding a bible outside a church during a Black Lives Matter protest was not, in my view, an endorsement of faith, but an attempt to convince the faithful that he was on their side. His ability to stand on a podium, manipulate emotions, pontificate and defy contradiction is in complete distinction to the great religious leaders. They, like Jesus, sat at ground level, even among those who disagreed with him, to discuss thorny issues, make themselves vulnerable and affirm the humanity of all."

I felt that I should quote him verbatim as it's the first time I have heard any Christian leader or teacher openly say what I have been thinking since Trump was elected. He sees himself uniquely as one who can save America from all its misfortunes - a bogus Messiah indeed. If any American religious leaders have said this openly I've not heard it, likewise as for European religious leaders. Is it considered unseemly to engage in openly criticising a head of state for dangerous messianic behaviour? Is this the price of unity? 

Unless, of course, news reports have been suppressed or not syndicated so that they don't become part of the public debate. It seems that only comedians and satirists have stood up and dared to mock Trump. On Wednesday, the retiring Archbishop of Wales came out openly in criticism. Sorry, too little too late. And what abut the rest of the establishment of church hierarchies? Simply to have stated, time and time again in public that the true Messiah Jesus didn't behave like Trump would surely have been a start in witnessing to the truth, rather than being so reticent for so long. 

Every Advent the church reads prophetic words about the Messiah from Old and New Testaments. early Christians in a turbulent changing were very conscious that life as they knew it could come to end both violently and abruptly. In this context the Messiah would appear, but nobody knew when or how. It was a mystery. Jesus and the Apostles urged people not to second guess how things would work out according to God's will and warned against preacher and leaders promising to rescue them and claiming to be sent on this mission by God. No matter how good or well meaning they seemed to be any claims to be godlike or superheroes shouldn't be trusted, they were manifestations of the anti-Christ - fake Messiahs. Nobody these 'enlightened' days dares to go against the flow and call a populist leader, religious or secular an anti-Christ. The use of such words has lost its force by being part of the rhetoric of sectarian protestant preachers, usually with the Pope as their target. So it was good to hear John Bell coming at the current American political crisis from a mainstream biblical perspective today.

When I stepped out of the house to walk after lunch I thought it was drizzling and about to stop. I didn't realise it had only just started and over two hours the fine mist turned into rain and soaked my ski jacket. Curiously, the temperature went back up to nine degrees at night, after hovering around zero yesterday. Apart from the grass today, gaunt dark trees against a uniform grey sky, with hundreds of crows wheeling above the trees on both sides of the Taff, made for an ominous and dramatic landscape to walk through rather than photograph, simply too wet to get a camera out.

The Welsh government has banned indoor mixing and outdoor socialising while walking now. You wouldn't think so, to judge by groups of teenagers and adults standing or walking along in groups of four if not more. I know it takes time for new instructions to sink in, but I see no sign of police officers out on patrol. The city centre has CCTV. Apart from traffic crossings there's no surveillance in the park, so patrolling is all the more needed to remind people of what's expected of them to stay safe.

No telly this evening. I spent my time trying to resurrect an old Acer laptop with a new linux install. It used to work except that the trackpad didn't function. I got the hardware to work perfectly and reinstalled Mint 19, but after the first successful reboot, the existence of the hard-disk was not recognised. There's something amiss in the set up of the UEFI secure boot firmware that I cannot figure out how to change. It's so frustrating! 

Pandemic history

I woke up in time for 'Thought for the Day', then fell asleep again until past nine o'clock. Bishop James Jones reminisced fondly in his talk about a discussion on the environment he once had with Rabbi Lord Sacks, which revealed the depth of Jewish insight into scripture. He said that for Christians, stewardship of Creation starts with the stories in the first two chapters of Genesis, whereas for Jews it began with the Torah in Deuteronomy where the Law states all trees be cared for, conserved not destroyed. A beautiful concrete environmental obligation. 

Then Rabbi Sacks went on to speak about Jesus and what made Him a prophet. His most important words were "But I say unto you ..." In other words, no matter what is accepted the status quo, or accepted truth was, Jesus dared to stand out, go against what was commonly accepted, to reveal new truth and insight. That's what prophets do. A truly remarkable man of faith and biblical teacher, whose death last week is a sad loss to thinking people of all religions and none.

Early rain and overcast skies gave way to clouds and sunshine, driven by a chill wind from the West by lunchtime. I cooked again, vegan sausages for Clare and a lamb chop for me, stewed in a tomato sauce with onion, carrot and mushrooms. Delicious cold weather food. 

Afterwards, I walked to Aldi's and bought some wine. For once, it wasn't very busy. I noticed that the Wickes DIY store across the tarmac from the supermarket has closed down. Not enough business to keep two stores running in Cardiff, I suspect.

In the evening, there was an interesting historical documentary on the Great Plague of 1665-66 centred on London, during which a 100,000 a quarter of its population then perished. It's now understood to have been transmitted by infected clothes mites and fleas, rather than by rats, as was presumed, before it was possible to model the behaviour of contagion spread, from city records. We also have Samuel Pepys' diary and Daniel Defoe's Journal as eyewitness accounts. 

It was commonly presumed Bubonic Plague was an airborne infection. Plague survivors were those who had learned social distancing. Tracing and quarantining those showing symptoms was enforced by law, resisted by some, and as ever, it was the poor that suffered most. Those rich enough to afford to change their clothes often were less likely to get infected, but it didn't work so well if tailors or launderers were infested, but business suffered as the death rate soared exponentially and those who could self-isolated instinctively. It was the second of three programmes. The third is tomorrow night.

One by one, the more then two dozen challenges to the US Presidential election results by Trump's lawyers are being dismissed for lack of evidence, but he still refuses to concede. Some commentators are seeing this as a strategy for retaining the attention of his fan base, in preparation for his next project, to build his own media empire. First, however, he has to survive several prosecutions which could land him in prison. It's stranger than fiction, still!

Slow down, stop, look and listen

A cold and overcast day. I wish it was warmer as my stiff muscles would relax more readily. It takes me longer and requires more effort to get mobile and active while coping with pelvis and back pain. Recently, my Fitbit app tells me that although I may walk a certain number of paces each day, I am covering slightly less distance in the same amount of time elapsed. I reckon the reason is that I walk a little slower and my average stride is slightly shorter due to the condition of my back. On my way to an old man's shuffle.

This afternoon I walked up to Llandaff Cathedral and was delighted to discover that it was open for private prayer between two and four, with a couple of stewards on duty directing visitors to the hand sanitizer station next to to the multilingual visitor pamphlets. It's the first time I've been in a church since my visit with Solvieg to Sta Agnès de Corona the church in the Ibiceno village where she lives nearly two months ago. It had just opened for private prayer the day lock-down restrictions were eased in Ibiza.

It was lovely to see the doors wide open and the 'Croeso' notice outside, along with the usual health and safety notices, all correctly in place. I'd thought about this moment during home quarantine, before it was yet possible. It marked homecoming in a very special way. Standing in prayer in the spot where I was ordained fifty years ago, the place from where I was sent, to become a missionary priest before I fully understood what that meant for life ahead of me. A moment of quiet everyday joy to cherish with gratitude.

Rufus called me for a catch-up chat this evening. It was lovely to hear him in good spirits, enjoying the normal challenges of rural team ministry with the abnormal challenge of ministering to people in this time of plague. He told me about all the preparations he had to make in order to abide by the strict guidelines laid down for public worship, which officially was allowed again last Sunday. I felt a sense of relief at not having to be on the front line of service delivery any more, happy to follow the example of others and learn best practice, should I be called upon to exercise priestly ministry at the liturgy. That's now extremely unlikely, as anyone, cleric or lay over the age of seventy with a official role in public services won't be able to resume in that ministry unless they are given special permission. To receive this they'd need to be fit and well with no vulnerability other than their age.

As a significant proportion of services are taken by retired clergy over seventy in many dioceses, this insistence will either add to the pressure on serving clerics and lay people or lead to reduction in the offering of public worship, further decline in support for parish ministry and church closures. He told me that decline was already being experienced in requests for funeral services in Hereford diocese where he now serves. Restrictions on numbers attending church funerals, especially in the case of smaller buildings is leading funeral directors to call on the services of humanist celebrants more often, as they only bound by restrictions in place at public cemeteries and crematoria. They can adapt to a bereaved family's requirements more flexibly.

Whether this is a general trend or not remains to be seen, it's too early to say. No doubt the Church's requirements will adapt to changing circumstances, for better or for worse, but will the response to quick enough to fend off even greater decline in support? Much has been made of the way in which on-line liturgies have attracted far greater numbers than attendance at public worship. I have yet to see this properly analysed, to reveal how many page view hits have led to the visitor staying for all or even some part of the service offered, and how many people downloading religious podcasts go on to listen to the whole thing.

I know that over ten years this blog has had over 300,000 page hits without any kind of promotion, but that means nothing, set against the number of actual 'followers' notified when I post anything new, with no idea of whether visitors read all or part of any post. All that can be relied upon is personal relationships with individuals and communities over a period of time and in places where we live, work and take our leisure.

Much is made of relationships established in on-line communities but their fruitfulness comes from meetings and actions produced in the real world. No point in kidding ourselves about a revival of interest in what the church has hitherto offered. Covid-19 has brutally forced Christians into creative rediscovery of what the church does best, but it also exposes weaknesses which will take time to tackle well. To my mind the greatest weakness is the withdrawal of pastoral presence from so many communities at grassroots level.

There are interesting signs of hope however. Tina Beattie a Catholic writer and theologian, speaking yesterday on 'Thought for the Day' reflected on how during lock-down, Italian Christian women, often regular frequent Mass attenders, deprived of their main spiritual resource, had been driven to discover afresh 'the church in the home', household spirituality, prayer and devotion in the family circle. Very much a return to Judaeo-Christian roots. I wonder if this is a widespread phenomenon among the steadfast minority of faithful believers across secular Europe? Statistics cannot be relied upon. I think it will be quite a while before the fruit of a renewed spirituality appropriate for our times bears noticeable fruit. All I can do is watch and pray, think and write.

State of Alarm - day Sixty Two

I'm still needing a lot of extra sleep at the moment, returning to bed and dozing for another hour after morning prayer and breakfast, eight and a half hours if not more. It seems to be doing me good, I think I'm starting to decompress now, and can work at things without getting stressed.

This morning's 'Thought for the Day' on Radio Four was from Dr Jane Leach, principal of Wesley House, Cambridge. She's one of the Beeb's regulars and usually original and insightful. Like most of the contributors at the moment she was reflecting on her experience of lock-down, working from home, looking after the kids. 

She spoke about how time-out changed perspectives on life in, but also how invasive fatigue has started to creep in. Lock-down made space to do new things and be creative, but some ambitions don't come to fruit. There's still not enough time in the day, but worst of all is the depletion of energy as time goes on. 

She said how important it was not to struggle against this, but to yield, accept the tiredness, simply to let go, let God keep you safe. 'Underneath are the everlasting arms' as it says in Deuteronomy. It was such a blessing to hear this. It 'spoke to my condition', as Quaker George Fox would have said. If you struggle you risk depression and burn-out, the very things to avoid in a time of crisis. Well, this much I have learned, or maybe it's just my survival instinct, having lived and worked under pressure for many years, just like my father when he held key safety responsibilities underground. I well remember him saying to me as a teenager; "Whatever you do, don't take a job in a production industry. Your life is never your own." I saw the sense in this but didn't escape. The world into which I emerged became preoccupied with productivity or creativity in every direction, even the church. It was an effort and a challenge to learn just how to be.

Refreshed and relaxed, I enjoyed finishing off this week's bible study, and then putting together a BCP Communion service for Ascension Day, this Thursday, and then thinking about making a little prayer video for Ascensiontide as well. Everything's easier when I start in good time and don't have to rush. After lunch, I drove to St Josep to do some grocery shopping, then filled up seven canisters of drinking water, and returned, feeling pleased with the achievement, and went for a pleasant walk down to the sea shore and back. Rest, exercise, another attempt at an early night .. life continues and may even improve if I can figure out how not to overdo it.

My friend Roy, over in Alicante has recently been working on a project called 'Ideas World Cup 2020' inviting innovative young people to think of creative initiatives that could help the world get through the covid-19 pandemic. A fifteen year old lad from Cardiff is one of the finalists, proposing an idea that harnesses digital phone technology to virtual running events in cities around the world. An extension of what Clare is familiar with down the gym, where the treadmill screen lets you exercise at your own pace in scenic places, to forestall boredom. In principle it has a much lower carbon footprint than any current running tourism event. Amazing!

  

State of Alarm - Lady Day

Well, the feast of the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary or Lady Day as it was known in the old British civil calendar, one of the four Quarter Days of the year on which rent is normally due for those who pay four times a year. It's one of the twelve great feasts of the world church calendar, so merits a mention under lock-down even if it cannot be observed with a celebration in the usual way. Thank heavens for Morning and Evening Prayer. 

The Catholic Bishop of Portsmouth was on BBC Radio Four's Thought for the Day this morning, reflecting on Mary's readiness to accept whatever God asked of her, and suggesting so should we in this time of plague. Although TFTD is often based on ideas and reflections taken from scripture, it's often done so without direct reference to God, just in case the Secular Society uses it as leverage to get rid of Thought for the Day anyway.

A cold, wet and overcast day, but busy too with supportive phone calls and messages. Rosi sent me the Ibiza Vice Consul's email address, so that I could write to her personally, just in case my message left on the website last night got filtered out, regarded as cranky by a desk officer who didn't understand its intention, or a badly trained A.I. program. I had a positive, friendly response from her, and a promise to pass on my offer of telephone pastoral support should the occasion arise in her work zone. I'm glad that Owain prompted me to make the effort to contact the Consulate.

As it was raining, I did the first hour of my afternoon walk back and forth through the downstairs flat on to the covered front patio and back porch. The rain stopped and I completed the second hour on the usual circuit around the outside of the house. I started thinking about making use of the phone's video capabilities, something I have done very little. Just for fun I videoed the walking course I was taking and talked through it, to see what the quality was like. The result was pleasing, albeit rough. I uploaded it to YouTube via my Chromebook later, and sent the link to family members, for interest.

It then occurred to me that I could record a self-introductory video message for the chaplaincy website, and set about doing that, after spending two more hours on the phone to family and friends. It's not so easy talking straight to camera continuously like that, as I had to, with no means of editing footage. It's probably forty years since I last had to do that for a televised broadcast service after the St Pauls riots - the last major social crisis I was witness to. Forty years ago already? Yes, in just over a week's time. It doesn't seem possible.
 

Post op day one

I thought I'd drop off to sleep naturally last night, tired after a long and eventual day, but I lay in bed wide awake, quite relaxed, enjoying being comfortable and warm, listening to the quiet music of the wind and rain outside. After three hours, I switched on my tablet, wrote emails reporting the op to a few people I'd not got around to sending last night. Some time after four I dropped off and slept until a quarter to eight, in time for Thought for the Day. 

Jasbir Singh was talking about cultural vandalism of historic buildings associated with their religion in the Sikh homeland, due to modernisation which wasn't conservation minded. Co-incidentally last night I read an article on the Spain's 'Politico' news blog, that was a withering attack on the long standing Alcalde de Malaga, alleged responsible for the destruction of 18th-19th century streets and buildings over his nineteen years in office, in the name of modernisation and redevelopment. 

Spain still suffers greatly for municipal corruption, but in the past half century of tourism has grown from a poor, rather decrepit historic city into an expanding place of welcome to international travellers, dominated by hotel and holiday apartments and suffering from a decline in urban native population as citizens move out into the suburbs and travel in to work and play. 

It's a familiar pattern in other parts of Europe and other parts of the the world, where redevelopment ambition clashes with social and architectural conservation. A hundred thousand people may take part in forthcoming Semana Santa activities, but ten times that number will visit the city to watch, creating huge challenges for transport, both public and private, disrupting regular activity. There may be a net benefit to the city's economy, but this begs questions about quality of life, and there are varying opinions as to what this consists of. Slower, more considered controlled growth, would make a difference, but the temptation to make bigger profits has a tendency to hinder this. 

We've seen the same in Cardiff too, where parts of the Victorian street plan and buildings have been obliterated not once but twice since the Luftwaffe's wartime raids. We have conserved some of the facades but lost interesting interiors when buildings have been gutted for internal modernisation. The great Post Office building on Westgate Street has been unused for many years, and is now to be turned into an hotel. Only its imposing entrance hall is scheduled for conservation, the entire internal layout is likely to be gutted apart from this, I learned from my recent chat with Ashley. I wonder when that work is due to start?

My clinic visit was mid afternoon and by that time the schedule was running half an hour late, not that I minded waiting, with not much else to do, and not that uncomfortable after yesterday's op, and not really so tired after a night with so little sleep, but I made an effort to rest. Finally I got around to finishing the Gabriel Garcia Marques novela 'Crónica de un muerte anunciada' which I received from Kath on 10th January. The Latin American vocabulary and literary style made it hard work but mainly worth the effort. It describes in detail the same set of tragic events as experienced by each of the people who were in some way connected to them, circling around the core of this story of an honour killing in a small rural tropical riverside town. Having to pick over the detailed vocabulary to get the richness of the storytelling was slow, and towards the end a bit tedious, but I go there in the end. I'll pick something a bit easier for my next excursion into Spanish literature, I think.

A crisis of conflicting conviction still unfolding

Last night I watched the BBC Parliament TV channel for the first time in many moons, as it covered the vote on the Government's brexit deal took place. The scale of the defeat seems to have taken the political pundits by surprise. Corbyn tabled a motion of no confidence in the Government and this was debated today. This time the political pundits predicted the motion would fail and it did 52/48% a close run thing like the brexit vote. The country is fairly evenly divided, nobody wants to concede. There's not much likelihood of further changes in the negotiated brexit deal being achieved. It's a very worrying situation. A majority of parliamentarians are opposed to a no-deal brexit. If calls for another General Election continue to fall on deaf ears, arguments for a second referendum continue to gain appeal. But will it happen?

On the BBC Radio Four Thought for the Day this morning, Daniel Greenberg, a Parliamentary legal advisor spoke from his perspective as a practicing Jew about the current political crisis. He observed how despite the polarisation of opinion and passionately held conviction, it was clear to him that Members of Parliament equally desired the country's common good, and that courtesy and respect characterised the ways people treated each other, despite profound disagreement. With these things, he trusted and hoped a way forward, a compromise would ultimately be found. I hope he's right. He also pointed out that while Jewish scripture has many passages in which enemies are hated, derided and spoken evil of, there are also prophetic passages in which this attitude is rebuked. God is greater than all our passionately held opinions. We should never lose sight of that.

I celebrated the Eucharist at St Catherine's this morning with a congregation of ten, my first duty of the interregnum. With my condition reasonably stable at the moment, I had enough energy to enjoy resuming a leadership role, and preaching briefly from phrases in the liturgical readings, about the uncertainties attached both to an interregnum and to the brexit process. I enjoyed that. Ann and Paul are off to Geneva for a few days next week and then going by train to Milan for a few more days - the joys of retirement! Ann was picking my brains about places to stay and things to see in Geneva, and when I got back home, I assembled a selection of my masses of Geneva photos, and emailed her a link, to offer an impression of what can easily be seen within a shortish radius of the city centre.

I walked from church to Lidl's in Leckwith to stock up on a few things the store does well, like nuts and cheap soya milk. I mistimed my effort and missed my acupuncture appointment. Fortunately I was able to get another one at five, as Peter had a spare space to fit me in. All that exercise plus an invigorating treatment did me a world of good. I may still be walking wounded but I am decently healthy and fit at the moment. Let's hope it stays like that while I wait the extra month for surgery.