A different kind of Lenten journey

I went to the GP surgery this morning to collect my three monthly medication prescription, then to Boots on Cowbridge Road to collect the pills. We needed some prawns and mushrooms for lunch, so I went on to Tesco's, but there was a queue of twenty people waiting for admission to the store, so I went on further to the Co-op, where I walked straight in, bought what a needed, plus a few other things, then headed for home. Our Shrove Tuesday special lunch was pancakes, with a savoury filling, Clare cooked the pancakes and I did the filling - fried mushrooms and an onion plus garlic, prawns and seasonings. Two each, filling a dinner plate. There were two thinner spare ones for sweet. Clare ate hers but I kept mine for supper and filled it with home made hummus, avocado slices and grated vegan cheese. A worthwhile experiment, to be repeated with variations another time! 

Although it rained a little in the morning, it was mild again, ten degrees. After lunch, when I went out for a walk the sun shone through the clouds. I did a few circuits of Thomson's Park then headed through the back streets up to the top end of Llandaff Fields, and then back home, enjoying the afternoon sunlight and shadows on the grass. Everyone out in the fresh air seemed to be smiling more and not so turned in on themselves as happens when it's cold wet and windy, which is all we seem to have had in January.

Lent starts tomorrow, and I understand the Bishops have issued instructions about how to perform the rite of Ashing, without physical contact with worshippers in church, and suggestions on how to do it on-line. I confess I haven't bothered to read up on this as I'm not taking a service, and in our parish there is not service to go to, just an on-line liturgy, but I understand it somehow involves self- administered sprinkling of ashes over the head. I find the idea surreal, and utterly disconnected from what is meant to be a visceral physical experience, of having one's forehead smeared with ash to the words remember 'you are but dust'. I think I can do without playing let's pretend games. 

I could jump ship so to speak, and go to a church where a Mass is happening live, but I am a parishioner here, first and a priest only when invited. I want to share the same experience of disappointment and deprivation at the reality of churches closed for worship when they needn't be. This experience isn't foreign to lay people at different times in life. It's easy to forget this when you've had the responsibilities and privileges of being a priest for over fifty years. The treasured rites and ceremonies of Catholic tradition have been part and parcel of my life and supported my faith journey for the past sixty years. This year will be different, stripped back to the foundation - scripture, tradition, reason, and the passage of time without add-ons. 'We do not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God'.

At the moment I have no idea what Lenten exercises, if any, I am going to undertake. Much of the past eleven and a half months have felt like Lent, so much time in solitude, vigilant, exercising restraint and praying through the events of each day, though not without distractions, anxiety, boredom. Being back at home, secure and healthy with a degree of domestic routine stability is such a blessing. With far less to do in terms of ministry, it's more difficult to find a sense of meaning in life when I've been so fortunate to be active, even in retirement until now. I could do with a project or two, on which to focus me life creatively but opportunity and inspiration have so far escaped me. I'd rather do something to benefit others than just to satisfy my own needs. All I can do is wait and stay open who whatever emerges I guess.

Yesterday I ordered another batch of the sterile swabs I use for everyday wound dressing. Delivery takes two to three days, no need to pay for fast track 24 hour service. The delivery invoice said delivery will be tomorrow. We were both out walking when the courier van turned up a day early! Fortunately the firm has a local parcel collection point in a convenience store on Clare Road, ten minutes walk from home, and I was able to retrieve my ordered parcel at the end of the deliveryman's round. Impressive service from the supplier FirstAid4Less and the courier DPD.

In the evening, we watched a fascinating programme on BBC Four about excavations of stone age sites in the Orkneys. It's thought that British megalithic culture and stone circle sacred sites originated there and spread south into Scotland, Wales and England.  It's amazing the way current technologies and forensics are being applied to uncovering the past, supplying evidence that obliges us to re-think how civilization evolved in the British Isles. This was followed by a programme about Pluscarden Benedictine Monastery in Scotland, continuously in use as a monastery since its foundation in 1230. The monks wear the all white habit of Primitive Observance Benedictines, a sub-group of the family of Benedictines who live by the older more austere version of Benedict's rule which still involves routine subsistence manual labour. It was beautifully done, alluring to watch, but I quite after ten minute  and will view the series about monasteries on catch-up, rather than have a late night, and lose much of the morning as a result.

Travelling in

A good night's sleep helped me regain my equilibrium after a couple of unexpectedly tiring days. I did two lots of weekly shopping and visited the wound clinic for an early appointment before lunch, but then didn't do much else for the rest of the day, apart from read news stories and ponder.

We heard this morning about Auntie Daphne's funeral arrangements. There's to be a service, a week next Friday at the Parish Church of St Gregory in Dawlish, which she used to attend before she moved into sheltered accommodation some ten years ago. It's a long slow train journey to get there for midday. It would mean leaving at an impossible time, since our domestic routine revolves around ablutions and wound management. So, we'll travel the previous afternoon and stay overnight in a hotel near the station. Sister in law Ann will travel over from Felixstowe and join us there. Exeter is a city we've visited just once, when we were young, so an overnight stop will give us an opportunity for a little sightseeing too.

Lent is under way, and I find myself unable to settle on doing anything special or different this year. While it's true that illness or infirmity dispense a person from the usual Lenten exercises, I'm not so incapacitated by my condition as to feel this applies to me. For months I've had to exercise restraint over the amount I eat, and drinking wine isn't something I can do much of, or all that often. I've had to learn to be more mindful of real bodily needs, rather than consuming for pleasure. That's more how Lenten self-denial is meant to be - awareness and control of appetites in order to be free from being distracted or dominated by them. It's not a practice of virtue, but a necessity at the moment. 

In the past I've made an effort to write a daily biblical or liturgical reflection in Lent, but creative inspiration eludes me at the moment, and I find I have no inclination to pursue a course of study or read a book. Lenten things I hear on the radio or read on-line, often familiar and worthy in their way, seem formulaic, clichéd. I feel in need of spiritual stimulus, but hunting for it 'out there' seems like 'vanity, a chasing after wind'. 

My life is focussed around patiently waiting, being careful to stay as healthy as I can and not do anything to sabotage physical healing or make life difficult for Clare and everyone else concerned for me. Perhaps the challenge before me is to travel inward, empty handed, not knowing what's there to learn or discover. 

'Iremos de noche, para encontrar la fuente, solo la sed nos alumbra'

    

Not Dewi Sant but Ash Wednesday

Today's first assignment was the Eucharist and Ashing ceremony at St Catherine's, with a congregation of eight. Then, after lunch, a visit to Tredegarville School for a simple Ashing ceremony for staff and two hundred children. As today is St David's Day, their morning had been taken up with the traditional school Eisteddfod. I full expected the children to be fidgety and tired with over-excitement, and was amazed at how relaxed, quiet and receptive they were. I explained what we were about to do and then taught them to sing a Kyrie Eleison I learned half a lifetime ago from the Taize repertoire. Once they'd mastered it, they continued to sing throughout the procession of children to the front to receive their black smudge on the forehead. This was quite difficult to achieve with perfection, as some moved as I was taking aim. 

With prayers, it was all over in twenty five minutes. The look on children's faces as they came up to receive, some smiling, some serious, some looking a little lost in the moment, was just wonderful to behold. I would like to have spent time just looking into each child's eyes a little longer than the few seconds each took, as is possible when I meet children at the altar rail to be blessed during Mass. For me, this deepens the sense of awe and wonder at the heart of the sacramental mystery, seeing them so caught up in the experience of Christ's presence in worship.

Before returning home to finalise a sermon for the evening Mass, I spent a while in the church hall trying workarounds to the problem of poor wi-fi connectivity in the building. A wi-fi range extender purchased has not delivered expected results. The fault is not in the device but in the location of the wireless router, in an office under the stairs near the entrance. There building has a steel frame and reinforced concrete walls, making it just about impossible for router and extender to handshake, except when plugged in at a socket in the lobby, ten metres away. The extender's signal cannot penetrate the length of the hall and backstage as the only power socket is located next to a steel and concrete pillar which masks the signal or deflects it in the wrong direction. 

A powerline network setup with wi-fi extender would do the job nicely, if only there was a free wall socket in office under the stairs. The answer may well be to relocate the incoming phone socket, in the main hall, along with the wireless router itself. This made me envious of the solution adopted by some Spanish telecom internet service providers, of having phone and broadband delivered wirelessly into properties to domestic handsets and routers through a domestic transponder which captures signals broadcast from an 4G cell tower transmitter or a satellite antenna in the vicinity. This is occasionally subject to outages due to electric storms or really excessive traffic, as when there's a key football match or major emergency, and everyone is attached or trying to attach to the network at the same time, but normally, its fast, stable and effective.

There were twenty of us for the Solemn Mass and Ashing ceremony at St German's in the evening. For the second night running, everyone sat in the chancel and enjoyed the acoustical pleasure of singing parts of the service unaccompanied. Each Lent these days, I attempt to do something that requires me to be creative and learn something new and not just fall back on twenty odd years worth of material stored in my liturgy and preaching digital archive. This year, I'm going to highlight the different Psalms which are set for use in the Sunday Eucharistic lectionary, as so often these are sung or said with hardly a reference to them, when there's so much to be said about the rest of the readings. 

Tonight, it was Psalm 51, which has contributed phrases to so many expressions of penitence in Anglican forms of worship, and the daily offices. The biblical texts is annotated with a reference to origin as a prayer of king David occasioned by the unmasking of his adulterous relationship with Bathsheba and his deadly effort to cover up his mortal sin. So often the prophets denounced Israel as an 'adulterous nation', as people's dalliance with the worship of foreign gods was considered in much the same terms, as being a breach of their covenant with God. Plenty of food for thought here.

I also wondered if there was some different effort I could make that wasn't just the usual routine of fasting, prayer and alms-giving, but which would push me into being more aware, more responsible. Often when I'm out walking I start feeling angry toward people who not only wander the streets at night drinking from bottles, but leave them dumped if not smashed in places where this could harm others, and leave the place looking ugly and uncared for. Often after football training or matches on pitches in Llandaff or Pontcanna Fields the grass is littered with discarded bottles and cans. Not all team coaches and supporters seem to be bothered about cleaning up after them. Occasionally I have collected a plastic shopping bag of stuff to carry to the nearby bins. 

It's immature and irresponsible behaviour, but impossible to police. So, instead of moaning and being resentful, I have resolved for Lent to make it my business to keep a bag in my pocket and pick up cans, bottles, takeaway cartons and the suchlike whenever I am walking anywhere. Having decided this at the Eucharist in St Catherine's this morning, I started on my way home, and collected seven pieces in just over half a mile. Some had been stuffed into boundary hedges, others balanced on garden walls, on waste bins, or ledges from which they could fall and smash. Two bottles that were parked on the street outside of Poncanna's gated St Winifrid's apartments lay there undisturbed since I walked to church on Sunday morning. Residents drive in and out seemingly oblivious of the squalor. 

Council auto-sweepers drive by occasionally, but they only do streets and gutters. Trash dumped out of reach seems to be nobody's concern. Well, if I can see it, I can do something about it, can't I? I don't have the energy to exhort others, start a civic awareness trend or a political campaign to extend community service payback schemes for delinquents to every city neighbourhood, but I can pick up what I notice, if I bother to make the effort this Lent. It is a bit of a penance, but it might help make me feel less ashamed about living in such a slovenly society.

   

Shrove Tuesday

We had a tutors' meeting in College at lunchtime, and then a tutor group meeting at tea time. In between time I went home - that's the benefit of living nearby, and feel the need of being in my home study. After this, I returned home again for the first course of supper, before my Chi Gong class, saving the pancakes of the day for later. 

Over the next six weeks I'm looking forward to reading the book of daily Lenten poetry readings and comment - 'The Heart's Time' - by Janet Morley, received as a gift from the Bishops a few weeks ago. What else will I do, apart from give up drinking alcohol and eat less? This last six months my habitual intake of wine and food has reduced somewhat, in order to lose weight and normalise my blood pressure. And it's worked - the weight loss has not been as slow and steady as the settling in my blood pressure readings, but I get the positive feeling of being more comfortable in my skin, less sluggish and more clear headed, with modest effort. The combination of Chi Gong and Tai Chi classes twice weekly with contentment in work and leisure seems to be bearing fruit. I guess if there's anything I should be doing, it's giving thanks more consciously, more often, for everything about my new life.

People say I haven't stopped working. That's right. Nor have I stopped taking leisure. I retired only from being a licensed public office holder. The vocation to work at being a missionary priest stays with me for life. It's part of my exercise of freedom, rather than a choice of duty in professional life. This sense of freedom is delicious. It means that when I have nothing to do, I enjoy it and don't feel useless. I found it hard to feel like that when duty dominated my calling. Now 'down time' is extra time to relax and just be with God, who asks nothing and returns affectionate glances gladly.