State of Alarm - day nineteen

Having made a little video for YouTube of the blessing of palms for Sunday, and done the full audio of the Ministry of the Word with Passion Gospel reading, I  felt this would be long enough to absorb in the morning and so haven't prepared a homily to go with it. Each evening this week, until Friday I am going to offer an audio reflection on the scripture readings of the day. 

I don't therefore be doing a Tuesday Bible Study audio as well this week, so why not do a Sunday evening reflection on the scriptures set for Palm Sunday Evening Prayer, as they have the unfruitful Vine of Israel theme running through them? This proved to be an interesting little project, although it took up more time than I expected, and I was completing my daily 10k as the sun disappeared over the horizon in a clear pink sky at the end of a pleasant but still coolish day.

I joined the chaplaincy on-line prayer group using the Zoom app for the first time. It took me a little time to get my head around the way it works initially, but it's quite simple and user friendly. There were nine users on-line, eleven people, as there were two couples, one of them in the Canton de Vaud at the moment - such a small world! I forgot about the 40 minute time limit, and we were cut off unceremoniously, which made me wonder if I'd done something wrong, as the firs tone to log in. Hopefully someone will tell me if I did!

When I tried to load the the BCP 1662 MP3 audio files into Audacity for editing I received a rude awakening, as there was something different about the file encoding which rendered each one in a micro-second, sounding like a loud scratch or a blip. Very odd. File opened and played perfectly in the Windows app provided. 

Then I re-discovered the ability Audacity has to record audio played internally on the PC, as well as from an external microphone. This enabled me to recover editable files which were then easy to stitch together, tidy up and turn into an MP3 file with less hassle than usual. It means I can record audio straight from the web to incorporate in edits I'm making, very much easier than what I ended up doing the other night.

All I have to do tomorrow is record the Sunday evening bible study I've prepared, and then all is prepared to start Holy Week in the best way possible. 

Midweek mysteries and digital tasks

At the midweek Eucharist this morning we were four adults and one five year old girl, brought by her mother, and clearly used to being brought to worship. We celebrated Bartholemew the Apostle a day early, with a 1662 BCP service. It's been a while since I last used the old liturgy on a midweek in St Andrew's Los Boliches four years ago, the difference here was an eastward celebration at the Lady Chapel altar. 

Reading the service using a small modern handy booklet without direct lighting was difficult, so I used one of several classic ornate Victorian altar books possessed by the church instead, with much larger, clear print. Even so, I stumbled over page turning at the Offertory, as my eyes weren't quite attuned to the page layout, so I nearly launched into the Consecration rather than the Prayer for the Church Militant. Out of practice, that's for sure. At the end, the child confidently walked into the sacristy and returned with the brass snuffer on a pole to extinguish the altar candles. It was a delightful surprise.

Clare then walked into Montreux gare to meet her friend and former colleague Colette, who came to us from Basel to stay the night. It was marvellous to converse in French, and then later switch to English or a mixture. Colette is fluent in French, German and English after years of working as a teacher internationally. She got me to install WhatsApp on her new smartphone, with German language user interface. Thankfully, Android functions the same way regardless of language settings, so it wasn't a puzzle, except for the odd error message. Curiously, while I was doing this, the house Swisscom wi-fi router lost internet connection. Not even re-booting could restore it. This caused confusion at first, after all, you don't expect fibre broadband to go down like that. 

While internet was inaccessible, but still wirelessly attached to the router, I got a Chromebook browser prompt to access the Swisscom router and troubleshoot the problem. I can remember this happening when we had troubles with the BT network router connection in the CBS office. It was a slower process then, a lot more arcane and fiddly, not user friendly. The shadow of that bad memory warned me not to bother delving into these router settings, potentially in one of several languages. The problem seemed not to be the hardware, but something happening on the external network, so it seemed better to do nothing except wait. An hour later, all was back to normal.

I discovered in the course of the day that no service booklets or sheets were available for me to use next Sunday afternoon for the Christening in Villars. There are few infant baptisms here with an averagely older congregation, and normally when they happen, it's in St John's at a Eucharist, this is now Anglican recommended and desirable best practice, but doesn't cover all pastoral eventualities. So, I had to look for a copy of the required baptism booklet on line, whose contents I could draw from to use for this occasion. 

The Common Worship Baptism rite contains a plethora of options for infant and adult baptisms, and rubrics for all eventualities. I found a PDF to convert to an editable file in Word 2016 on the church computer, then adapted select texts to a recto verso A4 double columned service sheet, of the kind you may still find in the liturgy corner of a specialist church bookshop. The job was made difficult by the fact that the Word conversion preserves all formatting, whether you need it or not. It took me ages to get texts satisfactorily laid out in a readable format. If I hadn't learned how to do this fifteen years ago, the job would have defeated me. 

Just before bed, I emailed the service sheet PDF to  Jane the Church Warden, who'll get copies made at a print-shop. Apparently the church photocopier is on its last legs. Once upon a time, every church had its copier, bought or rented with a service contract. The modern digital print-shop is cheaper, far more versatile in what it offers, and there are far more of them, so there's far less incentive to pay to maintain older equipment. All in all, it was satisfying evening's chore.

  

A St Nicholas Sunday

I woke up early and was out of the house, on my way to Kenilworth's St Nicholas' Parish Church before sunrise this morning to attend the eight o'clock Book of Common Prayer Holy Communion service. It's a refreshing change not to need a book, having memorised it back in my days of BCP early Sunday Communion services in Halesowen, nearly thirty years ago. I was delighted to learn that the Parish now has a new incumbent, the Revd Stella Bailey, inducted on 11th October. 

As this is the Sunday nearest the Parish patronal festival, she started, preaching about St Nicholas, then moved into speaking about the extent of people trafficking, the broad modern designation for slavery of all kinds. She got there by citing a story about St Nicholas secretly providing a dowry for the three daughters of a poor man, about to sell them, as he was unable to afford to keep them and the rest of his family. It's something still happens today, we were reminded. A wholesome remedy against Santa sentiment. Invigorating stuff for a frosty Advent morning,

Rhiannon enjoyed her weekend lie-in, and I cooked us lunch. She then suggested an afternoon walk, and we tramped across the Abbey fields, white with frost, past the lake, where Mallards and a solitary Moorhen were coping with the largely frozen waters, to Kenilworth Castle. Its dark sandstone walls became almost incandescent, lit up by the setting sun - a lovely moment. Then we walked into the town for drinks and a cake in Costa Coffee, a favourite Rhiannon place to go and chat. She told me all about school and the subjects she likes most. She's lucky enough to be taking Spanish and French this year. Her school is in the throes of becoming an academy, she told me, unsure what this would mean, apart from a more prestigious status at this point. Yes indeed, we'll see. I'm not sure either.

Kath and Anto arrived home from their gig in Bournemouth just before eight. I'd already decided that I wouldn't drive back to Cardiff in the dark, as the temperature had dropped below zero, so Rhiannon and eventually Kath and Anto after they'd eaten, watched 'I'm a celebrity ...' together before turning in. I watched the fourth episode of S4C's 'Y Gwyll' (Hinterland) on my tablet. Impressive as ever and far more unmissable. 'Fraid I have no time for any of these celebrity programmes. I'd rather listen to the shipping forecast instead.

     

BCP Sunday and an unexpected travellers' tale

I had a quiet Saturday mostly to myself, as Rhiannon had a theatre performance to attend with her theatre workshop group in the morning, and a birthday party in the afternoon, at which she was introduced to the indoor rock climbing at the Warwick University Sport centre. All I had to do was make her a packed lunch to take with her.

I had time to write two sermons, take a trip to the shops and watch Wales win the Rugby championship match with a thrilling victory over England while Rhiannon was out. She was quite tired when she returned, but stayed up until her usual bed time and explored further how to use Corel Draw, producing a teddy bear picture on her own before asking me to read to her when she eventually retired. Amazing to see how quickly she mastered the basic techniques and employed them in a credible design of her own.

A retired priest was celebrating the eight o'clock at Kenilworth St Nicholas Parish Church this morning. He greeted the congregation, and then commiserated with them on the English team's humiliating defeat in yesterday evening's game against Wales. I sat in the front row grinning from ear to ear.

 
It was a Book of Common Prayer 1662 service for a change, and having celebrated this rite myself only recently for the first time in years, it was gratifying to be on the receiving end of it in a middle England mediaeval church blessed with a regular early congregation of forty devout souls.

I overheard someone at lunch in College the other day disparagingly describing the use of the 1662 BCP  liturgy as "A nod in the direction of Protestantism". To my mind, it is classic creation of late renaissance thinking which is equally able to contain the interpretation and devotion of both Catholic and Protestant convictions, despite each having their own misgivings as well as assurances about it. In a middle of the road, middle England parish, it represents a reconciling traditional path. For a while in its history (sadly) its use was enforced, but for the most part it was received and slowly adapted, to become a home base for national prayer together.  Quite an achievement.

Every attempt at subsequent modernisation of liturgy owes something to the BCP. Glad I learned it by heart 25 years ago, but sad that working with so many different liturgical texts with minor and major changes in them ever since, has corrupted my memory for recitation. I stubbornly resist using the book, for cues, preferring to stumble and mumble my way through with interference breaking in from the more modern language versions in my head. I rough handle this cultural treasure but cherish its persistence nevertheless.

Before leaving for home, I breakfasted with Rhiannon, Kath and Anto, and heard about their weekend gigs in Lincolnshire. They were chatted up in a cafe by a pensioner with a long beard in a wheelchair. He'd recognised them as likely to be musicians, and claimed to be a drummer. That ran bells for Chris the band's drummer, who investigated the interloper via his smart phone. It was none other than Robert Wyatt of Soft Machine and Matching Mole fame, who broke his back falling drunk from a balcony in his youth, but continued his life in recorded music and performance with distinction despite this.

I left in a shower of sleet, and by the time I reached Cardiff the weather was much kinder and the sun was peeping through the clouds. I was back in time for lunch, and we managed a walk around the park and a cup of tea in Cafe Castan (aka Caffi Ty Bach, because of its location in the former toilet block on the corner of Llandaff Fields.), before Owain arrived for a catch up session.