Memorable Musical

This Sunday, the first of the New Year, is the first in the new era of Ministry Areas in Llandaff Diocese, with the historic pastoral area of the parish merged with neighbouring parishes to be 'managed' with a team of clergy assigned to, but not confined to working where they worked before. There is just the one governing council with a few people from each church represented on it, instead of each parish having its own church council. It's not yet clear how the traditional role of church wardens will be exercised, who will be appointed to it or how. Or what the consequences are of abolishing the office. 

It's creating a situation in which fewer lay people have a say in running their church. While it's true that recruiting a full complement of PCC members is more difficult as churches shrink in numbers, that's no reason to remove the opportunity to participate. There's a risk that when members no longer feel they are stakeholders, it'll mean they are less motivated to volunteer for church duties, and a greater burden of responsibility for running local affairs will fall on the clergy. Let's hope I'm wrong about this. I can't honestly pray for success, but can pray it doesn't lead to decline or to hard working clergy being broken by changes wished on them from above.

At St German's this morning baby Abigail was baptized during the Mass. With her parents was her Nan who flew in for the occasion from Amritsar. The couple are here for studies without family or friends to be here with them. Dad was keen to video parts of the service to send to relatives back home. Given the initial uncertainties surrounding new Ministry Area arrangements, it was a real blessing to welcome a new member into the Body of Christ, especially one whose Christian identity is rooted in the Indian sub-continent. Business as usual, in other words.

Covid restrictions have led to the suspension of after service refreshments for the moment, which was a pity as it meant we couldn't celebrate with Abigail's family before going home. But at least it meant I could reach home for lunch by one after getting soaked in a cloudburst walking from the church back door to my car parked at the front.

Afterwards I walked around Thompson's Park and then down to the Taff, listening again to yesterday's New Year concert in Vienna from the podcast I downloaded to my phone. Rain threatened again, but didn't materialise. The weather is changeable and temperatures dropping after a spell of unseasonable mildness. At the top entrance of Pontcanna Fields I found the first snowdrops of the year and the first tender leaf shoots of emerging daffodils in places where I have photographed them in previous years, so very early in the year.

Before supper, Clare and I sat and listened to Jazz CDs, then in the evening watched the new production of the 1936 American musical comedy 'Anything Goes' filmed in London's Barbican. It was delightful, brilliantly conceived and performed with inspiring dance routines and witty comic dialogue. It reminded me of the film of the stage show, one of many musicals watched on black and white TV as a youngster. Happy memories of going to bed as a kid, with the music continuing to play in my head as I fell asleep. The same thing now too.

A is for Archbishop as well as A.I.

Last night my first 'covid passport' expired and as we have a matinee concert performance to attend at the RWCMD this afternoon, renewal was my priority after breakfast. I failed to get a result from the NHS digital app on my phone which referred me to NHS Wales digital equivalent without providing a weblink that would land me exactly on the page I needed. Or if it was there, it was somewhat obscured from plain view by too much irrelevant advisory text. I had to google the correct page on my PC to reach where I needed to be, and then it was straightforward to download and put on both my phones. Perhaps I'm just old and stupid, but perhaps some stupid old digital feud between governmental IT silos of the four nations is the reason.

In this week's diocesan newsletter was a short greeting video from newly elected Archbishop of Wales, Andy John, Bishop of Bangor. It's not a contentious appointment, but he's a safe pair of hands coming into office as the Province presses ahead reforming the structure of its entire parochial system, with one Benefice the size of a conventional area Deanery in many cases replacing individual Parishes many of which were probably carved from the larger area Deanery centuries ago. Why a 'Ministry Area' structure needed to be overlaid on the existing historic entity is hard to see. Admittedly demographic and social changes have occurred that make some ancient Deaneries boundaries irrelevant. They could have been tinkered with, but I suspect that would be more expensive legally than overlaying a new Ministry Area structure on a grouping of churches and then dissolving the ancient structure in one fell swoop.

Really, it's the way the plan has been implemented which is a problem for some. Some churches which have fought hard to survive, want to stay as they are and feel they will lose their identity, alleging their members have not had enough say in this decision. Others are now too impoverished and weak to care. Llandaff diocese has been a slow starter in this process. Pressure to complete has come at the most inopportune time during the pandemic, but more seriously because it can no longer afford to pay an adequate number of parochial clergy. 

A heart-breakingly difficult dilemma, as harsh as that faced by British churches at the reformation, when monasteries were dissolved, and monks who served as parish clergy were deprived of a living if they couldn't adapt to new vernacular liturgy or loyalty to the state. Some clerics are farced with redundancy and early retirement, or offered part time posts with free accommodation. Others are non-stipendiary clergy already or young enough to make a new career in secular employ, whether they want to, or not. It's been coming and avoided for as long as I have been in ministry. I retrained as a teacher forty years ago with that in mind, but somehow it never happened in my full time work life, and here I am in my seventies often working the equivalent of a half time minister's hours as a volunteer, and happy to do so.

While Clare had her online piano lesson, I listened to last Wednesdays Reith lecture about the use of A.I. in warfare, and what a challenge it is to agree global banning status for autonomous 'killer robots' that is equal to the ban on chemical and biological weapons, as different interested parties have different ideas of what autonomy consists of. Superpower governments are the most reluctant to agree to a universal ban for fear others will develop them in order to get the upper hand in the global strategic situation. 

The thought of killer drones that can use A.I. to select individuals based on facial recognition and target them for assassination with greater precision than a remotely operated unmanned aerial vehicle, is really disturbing. Tiny drones are already in development that can carry out covert surveillance, even indoors, and swarms of tiny light bearing drones performing aerial ballet were used in this year's Olympic games opening and closing ceremonies demonstrating the huge advances in remote control which have been made in the past few years.

After her lesson, Clare went to school for a couple of hours and I cooked lunch ready for her return. We had tickets for the matinee performance of the students' Christmas concert at the Royal Welsh College at three and walked over there through Bute Park. To my surprise, it turned out to be a full Christmas Carol concert accompanied by the College Big Band with fresh arrangements of a wide range of well known carols done in full strength music theatre mode, with jazzy swinging gospel numbers and fast moving choreographed ensemble singing by groups of singers and soloists. 

Everything was sympathetically re-interpreted and delivered with astounding energy. I was feeling rather jaded when I arrived but invigorated and awake when we left. I wanted to jump up, clap and shout hallelujah, but I'm not sure if that would have been deemed appropriate in an audience of staff members, elderly patrons like us, and just a selection of students (it was being live streamed for other students and family members around the world). Whether they were believers or not, they put conviction, heart and soul into performing in a way that seems lacking in church services.

I'd like to think that performing songs of faith so excellently might work its own miracle on those taking part. It's long been known that taking part in a passion play can lead a sceptic or someone going through a barren patch to a spiritual awakening. From my own experience I can say that the more I've preached and taught, the more confident in faith I've become without ever losing my natural scepticism and desire to test and question all religious assertions. I believe and hope this can also be true for others.

The sun was setting in a clear blue sky as we walked into town for some shopping before going home. With all the Christmas illuminations and streets full of brightly decorated market stalls, it was quite an enchanting scene. After supper, I settled down and watched a couple of episodes of the third series of 'Crossing Lines', ad free on the computer. There are major changes of cast in the new series, due to some characters being killed off, or disappearing from sight for reasons inexplicable so far. Only three characters from the first two series re-appear, and are joined by three more. Intriguing stuff.

User friendliness a forgotten dream

Despite a good eight and a half hour's sleep, I woke up feeling tired and felt tired for much of the day. I've no idea why. With more work to do on Carole's funeral and people to contact, it was hard going. I went to the Eucharist at St John's, which Emma celebrated. She brought her two infants with her. One slept and the other played with his toy car around the altar, not too noisily. I don't think anyone minded, but it was a challenge for Emma. She didn't think to ask me to cover, as she thought I was still away. The congregation was pleased to see her again and catch up with her, now she's seconded to Fairwater until an appointment is made. This may be further delayed now that Francis is on bereavement leave. As Ministry Area Leader Frances needs to be involved in the new appointment. 

This is an unexpected testing time for the resilience of the Ministry Area set-up before it comes into force legally next January. I think there is a significant measure of resilience in the seven constituent congregations due to their long histories at the heart of their local communities. Will this cope with identity loss, grouping together in a larger entity without precedent or preexisting social cohesion? I'm unconvinced it will do anything to forestall further decline. 

Our neighbour Liz moves house tomorrow after living forty years in the house next door, ten years before we arrived. She's moving to a retirement apartment to be closer to family in the Cotswolds, so she came for a farewell lunch today. I wonder who'll be the next occupants, and how much makeover work will be undertaken before they move in, and how long we'll have builders' noise and skips taking up parking space in the street. Houses change hands at the rate of around three a year nowadays in a street of twenty eight houses. House prices have soared and the interest in our area by first and second time buyers has increased so the rate of 'churn' in home ownership is likely to increase further.

I went into town after lunch and bought the pocket digital dictating device I ordered last week, and picked up the pair of shoe insoles ordered from the Ecco shoe shop. I hope they work better than all the other kinds I have tried. They're certainly better quality and much more expensive.

My sister June has had several days of connectivity grief with her landline and broadband playing up leaving her frustratingly isolated. Engineers from BT and Open Reach have been two days running. I hope the problem is sorted now. There's been such a lot of rain in the area where she lives it has led to a flood of line fault reports, whether due to infrastructure inundation or connections into properties compromised by the weather. It's very distressing for her as she doesn't understand the error messages which her computer and phone throw up, and doesn't know what she can do about it when things that are fairly reliable cease to be reliable. 

It just doesn't feel right that so many people are now heavily dependent on technologies the hardly understand or adequately control, because government and business presume a level of technical literacy many older people will never acquire. I have thirty five years of experience behind me, and have got to the stage where I am less than interested in the learning detail of how new tech works. I just want things that just work in delivering what they promise  to provide in the simplest and easiest way they can be designed to function. Is that asking too much? The new digital voice recorder I bought today took me half an hour to figure out how to work. The instructions were printed so small they were difficult to read and make sense of, and working things out by trial and error, just by handing the device, was impossible without the near illegible instructions - well, near illegible for anyone with poor close vision eyesight.

T.here was a huge head of celery in this week's veggy bag, and Clare used much of it to make celery soup for supper. Just celery in the pressure cooker with a little veggy stock powder, no need for thickener when it surrendered to the blender. It's quite a strong flavour, but with a small amount of Miso added, it's quite an interesting flavour. We slumped in front of the telly and watched a slow moving episode of 'Vera' which I hadn't seen before.

More ministry upheaval

So disappointing after yesterday to wake up to overcast sky, blustery wind and intermittent showers from dawn to dusk. I walked to St John's and back to celebrate the Eucharist, however, without a soaking, but I had to dress in my waterproofs to go out after lunch. There were seventeen of us for the service. That's the most there's been on a Thursday since we restarted give weeks ago, perhaps the most for several years. It's to core of old faithfuls who are making the effort to come together for worship and a chance to say a quick hello to each other, as they don't have a Sunday service attend at the moment.

Sunday next the new West Cardiff Ministry Area is being inaugurated by Bishop June with an service at the 'Res' in the afternoon. She's also confirming candidates from our Parish (and maybe others) who were due to be confirmed last year, but couldn't due to a covid postponement. Monica, the organist at St John's, is being confirmed, having been raised a Baptist, and there's a class of about a dozen children too. I don't intend to go to either service. after celebrating Mass at St Catherine's on Sunday morning, I'll avoid further social gatherings. I'm due to have my pre-op pre-quarantine covid test on Monday. I'm not in the mood to take extra risks. 

Apart from that, to be honest, I would in any case stay away. I don't see the point of Ministry Areas as an extra layer of organisation between the Deanery and Parishes. I see reason in reverting to the Deanery as a key organisational unit for mission, even for making it into one big team ministry - provided the area a Deanery serves makes sense to serve as a socially cohesive unit in which collaborative ministry can function. 

In some places this can work, but in other places, some territorial revision is called for. Parish and Deanery boundaries are often ancient history on maps. Changing them legally is both time consuming and legally expensive unfortunately. I don't think that inventing a new structure is an answer. In a declining situation it seems un-natural. Rather let nature take its course. 

Church communities die, new ones are born and some are even re-born with the passage of time. Is social engineering the life of the church really compatible with the Gospel? Only time will tell if this novelty proves worth the effort, and what the losses as well as gains will be as a result. My loyalty lies with the worshipping communities I am privileged to serve and to supporting their pastors. My days of grand plans motivating others to engage with change and worrying about the outcome are thankfully behind me. 

After five weeks on sick leave Mthr Frances is re-starting part time, and having a lot of catch-up work to do as the local Ministry Area Leader. It'll be good to have her back, so that there is one permanent priest in the Parish, as Benedict leaves and Emma takes on a secondment to Fairwater until an appointment is made there. There's another upheaval about to happen to, as Fr Phelim over at St German's has announced his departure, to take on the role of full-time Area Dean in South West Birmingham. Twenty Parishes with a total population about the size of Cardiff. 

It's another initiative in managing institutional decline, re-shaping the life of the church with fewer clergy, less resources and still shrinking support. There's not much sign that a pandemic has driven the population back into the waiting arms of Mother Church so far. If decline is turned around into growth, I believe it will be due to lay initiative and activity, not clerical. It may be necessary for much of the church's present structure to fall apart and die off before that can happen again freely.

I was much cheered a few days ago to have an email from Andy and Michelle Evans about the christening of their second child now that it's safer to do this than it has been for the past year. Fr Phelim has agreed to let me take this on, and asked me to celebrate Mass at St German's that morning beforehand. This will free him to get on with necessary preparations for moving to his new job at the end of summer. I am quietly hoping that I'll be asked to spend more time over there during the vacancy. I'd love that.

A new kind of ethical dilemma

Another bright cold sunny day, good conditions to try out my new Zoom lens, so I was out walking in the park by ten thirty. It's pleasant to handle and produces the kind of results I hoped for, getting shots of birds high up in trees not yet covered with foliage.

This past couple of weeks the cricket pitches in both parks have been mown and boundaries marked. One group of amateur cricketers I saw were in the throes of learning how to assemble a large mobile frame on wheels designed for use as a 'practice nets' structure. There's been the occasional informal match, although how legal that was under covid restrictions I don't know, and almost daily when it's dry small groups are out there practicing bowling, catching or batting. 

As I was walking over Llandaff Fields this morning, the astro-turf wicket was occupied by two guys. One was practicing his batting, but the other wasn't bowling to him in the normal way. He was delivering a white cricket ball to the batsman using the kind of throwing device beloved of dog walkers. The park is rarely without several people making use of this shoulder pain saving device to send a hound speeding off a hundred metres to retrieve a ball. I wonder how easy it is to pitch a cricket ball with speed and accuracy down a twenty metre wicket?

Clare made a pizza for lunch as she was also baking bread and had dough to spare. I went out for another walk after lunch, and then watched New Amsterdam on catch-up. This week an interesting modern dileema was presented in one story line. A young couple meet for the first time and fall in love at College. Some years later as they get ready to be married they both do a DNA test which reveals that by virtue of sperm donation, both have the same father. They are soul mates. What should they do? Marry and keep the fact secret, but adopt children on the grounds that they cannot have children otherwise. It's something I never thought of before. I wonder if it's happened in real life?

I had a phone call from Fr Phelim this afternoon, we've been trying to catch up with each other for the past week or so. I wanted to find out how he was getting on in his new role as Ministry Area Leader, even thought it's still early days. He told me that St German's is going to be in the Roath Ministry Area from the new year onward, and no longer under his watchful eye. St German's is one of the Parishes that remained open for Sunday worship, over the past year, except when it was legally obliged to close, Both St German's and St Saviour's are seeing a return of worshippers in numbers equal to if not greater than before the pandemic, reflecting their history of rootedness in the communities they serve. He's asked me to cover the St German's Sunday Eucharist for him a week Sunday. I'll be very happy to do that. It must be the best part of eighteen months since I was there last.

After supper I binge watched several episodes of 'Non Uccidere' series three in which the mafia background history of the is spun out alongside the weekly case study in dysfunctional family crimes. Some of the stories make me wonder if they reflects modern domestic reality too.

Re-opening horizons

Thank goodness, no wind today, but still unseasonably cold. My daily Morning Prayer video upload went without hitch and on time. There were eleven of us for the Eucharist at Saint Catherine's. It was celebrated by Archbishop Rowan, who now lives in the parish in retirement. It may be the first time he's done this since he and his wife Jane arrived last summer. I was charged with locking up afterwards, as Clive who normally opens and shuts was leaving immediately after the service for a funeral in the Cathedral. 

I collected this week's organic veg bag before sharing in cooking lunch. I went to bed too late last night and dozed off for an hour afterwards. Then Ashley rang, and I went out to meet him for a chat while he waited an hour for his second jab appointment. We had to walk around the streets, as no place is open where one can sit and have a drink. There will be outdoor places soon, but in such cold weather it's just too cold, even to sit on a park bench with a take-away drink.

It's good to note that covid hospital cases are still diminishing, likewise the general infection rate. As a result it means that next week's planned reopening of shops can go ahead, and likewise cross border travel between Wales and England. I was pleased to learn this afternoon that discussion about reopening Saint John's for worship is now taking place. It's stayed closed longer than the other two as it's been more of a challenge to meet the covid risk assessment scrutiny for places of worship, requiring a team of people to prepare and clean up and welcomers who will check in worshippers and take their contact details for track and trace purposes. 

The average age of the regulars and their aversion to risk taking may have something to do with this, but now that all who can be safely vaccinated in the higher age range has had at least their first jab, confidence is returning. Reopening is complicated by the use made of St John's for live streaming a Sunday Eucharist. There's no reason why regular services with a congregation shouldn't be live streamed, with a little extra equipment and someone willing to operate it as part of their devotions at church, but this requires thinking through if it's to be sustainable.

For some on-line worship has been invaluable in the crisis of church closure, for others unable to attend church because they are housebound it's been a new and unexpected blessing. And, it seems there are even more others who aren't church attenders, but they have come across services on line and started watching and joining on-line discussions and forums. How this will bear fruit once people aren't subjected to social restrictions and have more choices about what to do with their time, remains to be seen. I believe that in the long term, having an on-line service for the housebound is worthwhile doing long term. The question is whether this should be done by every parish all the time, or should grouped parishes in the new Ministry Areas agree a rotation of on-line services from different churches. Maybe a Ministry Area could invest in high quality kit and train teams of people willing to make local broadcast worship their contribution to the life and outreach of the church. Now we've begun to see what works and what's valuable to people, a fresh exploration of this issue will be possible.

Eco-parable

I went to the Eucharist at St John's this morning and then went to Tesco's to buy a HP printer ink cartridge for Clare. I was astonished at how expensive they now are, unless I suppose you buy one on-line from an official seller. Mother Frances spoke again about the Ministry Area merger, which again got me thinking. She spoke from the scriptures of the day about the difference small things can make, (e.g. grains of wheat,  mustard seeds) and how every small contribution from a disciple of Christ adds up to great things. Agreed, so why is bigger better when it comes to proposed ministry areas? 

Among biblical references to agriculture, fields occur several times. Breaking down field boundaries and walls isn't a part of planned growth. Destruction by enemies of a land owner is part of a plan to degrade undermine and subject people to the power of others. It happens all the time in the struggle for control in business and politics, so it seems unfortunate when it becomes a strategy for institutional survival. 

The church has seen its far share of political tensions and conflicts between conservatives and liberals when it comes to accepting and acting in response to social change. Can't we come up with a better way to build, nurture, maintain church communities? If church decline leads to weakness and death, that would be nothing new in history. It's a natural process, more like ecological and biological processes than man-made management designs and strategies. Within our own West Cardiff Ministry area is the ruin of a mediaeval church on a hilltop where once there was a village, and before that an Iron Age settlement. Once the river plain on which the city stands developed with industry the old hamlet on the hill died out. 

Cultural rather than demographic change has lead to the demise of the church in our time, but which church communities will die and which will come through decline remains to be seen. I don't think we really understand well enough the evolutionary process we are living through. But why not just let it happen, rather than try and fix things with another pastoral reorganisation?

On my walk in Pontcanna Fields this afternoon, the length of west bank of the Taff this afternoon, was being cleared of undergrowth and saplings, a zealous crop to say the least, perhaps the  first for a decade. I imagine that this is seen as a flash flood prevention measure, since river bank trees and bramble patches snag floating detritus, and hinder water flow. If detritus builds up along river banks, flood water will back up and burst the banks. 

We had such an incident back in February this year. So lessons have been learned. Birds and bunnies lose out at first, it's inevitable, due to habitat loss, but there are other wild areas close by. Come the spring, the brambles will grow back and stumps of the waterside willows will sprout fresh shoots to provide a perch for the few kingfishers along the river. For the first time in more than a month a heron was perched on the east bank witnessing clearance work. Bute Park side of the river is still a mess. I wonder to what extent clearance work will take place over there in weeks to come? Urban development has altered the course of the river from the days when much of the plain was tidal wetland, so it needs much maintenance to prevent flooding, not least because natural growth and decline, for better or worse, never ceases. It's an environmental lesson modern church leadership fails to take seriously.

Time, place and context

There were ten of us for the midweek Eucharist at St Catherine's this morning. Mother Frances spoke to us about the imminent formation of the new West Cardiff Ministry Area, grouping Canton Benefice with the Parishes of Glanely, Caerau with Ely and Fairwater. The existing benefices will be legally dissolved to merge into one Parish six historic parishes, in what will be, in effect, one giant Rectorial Benefice of the kind now commonplace in many rural areas of Britain. Incumbent clerics will be licensed as priests in charge, and the status of curates and NSM will be much the same, except that they may be required to work across old borders I suppose, not that it doesn't happen now when need arises. 

Mother Frances is Team Leader designate. What a job to take on when she's only been here a year and two months. It's a new role and it will involve a great deal of admin given seven church buildings and a team of seven clerics and heaven know how many lay people in voluntary or paid specialised roles to manage. I'm sure she's capable enough to do the job, but she came to us because she wanted to return to parochial life from a diocesan role which by its nature would have involved much admin. Out of the frying pan into the fire, unfortunately.

Never has there been a time when collaborative ministry his more necessary to care for people in a geographical area of about eighty thousand people, of whom less than a thousand may be committed contributing churchgoers. Far more people than those who believe enough to attend look to the church for rites of passage and support in times of crisis, let alone those who engage with church youth and educational undertaking, and this dimension tends to be quite locally based, although not exclusively. It's hard to see how a wholesale reformation of institutional structures is going to work out. 

The structures we have represent the consolidation of historically based missionary enterprises. Church planting went on from ancient times in Wales. It started with the christianizing of pagan holy sites, or with monastic settlements set up near trade routes, which later grew into towns. From Norman times the sub-division of territory into parochial areas was imposed by the state, and fragments of many historic boundaries still remain as part of Church in Wales diocesan maps. Some larger ancient territories were subdivided or merged since the reformation due to the demise of settlements in one place and emergence of new ones elsewhere. 

When urban populations expanded during the industrial revolution, new parishes were carved out of the old, and church planting went ahead at a phenomenal rate in an effort to meet the pastoral needs of the masses. In this century when the masses have turned their backs on the church, the assets of a former generation have become today's liability. Cardiff has less than half of the salaried clergy it had when I returned from Europe eighteen years ago, and a quarter to a fifth of the membership. Certainly radical measures are required when the institutional church is dying, but we have no idea of what a resurrection of the church could look like. 

Church structures and the people who serve them can be tinkered with and altered, but plans fail when circumstances change and how we've witnessed this during the pandemic! Planning is essential, but it's vital to focus around qualities and values. How can ministers and communities become more resilient and flexible, creative in response to change? What's needed to make a worshipping body sustainable if not re-grow from scratch, in the absence of resources? Where do we start while things are still falling apart? Questions I've pondered on for years. The response so much depends on time, place and context.

Biblical metaphors that relate to the propagation of the Gospel are chiefly organic and to cultivation - parables relating to fields, seeds whose form must die to flourish and be fruitful, tiny things that grow into big things, trees and bushes that need pruning. Time, place and context, i,e, environment, are all essential, and it seems to me that grand plans, however well informed and designed, may not achieve all that has been achieved by piecemeal effort, starting with individual responses. It's not about resources. "Silver and gold have I none." said St Peter when he dived straight into healing ministry soon after Pentecost. And St Francis standing in the ruined chapel of Porziuncula, hearing the Lord say to him "Francis rebuild my church!" and then picking up first of many scattered stones to add to a broken wall. The spontaneous expansion of the church in China and Africa happened through the actions of untrained laity, whether or not they've had clergy leadership or support. Growth actually slowed down when clergy were imported to head up the mission in places where it was already well under way. A church which is clerically top heavy in leadership may be doomed to extinction. I hope we don't lose sight of such lessons from scripture and missionary tradition.

Having cooked and eaten lunch, I fetched this week's organic veg bag, then walked in the park for an hour, and got back at sunset. Then, Clare and I sat and watched the last three episodes of 'Fear by the Lake', which turned out not to be about countering bio-terrorist plot, but a psychotic primary school teacher on a personal revenge mission. A bit far fetched, although the portrayal of the the response by the major incident medical emergency response team showcased medics and the gendarmerie working at fictional pace to establish city wide lockdown, deal with violent incidents and get a field hopsital up and running by the end of day two. An experimental antidote was knocked up at fictional lightning speed by a top expert in under a day. Would that real life could be fast forwarded to a happy ending like a movie.

There was a telling mini-story line in which a group of a dozen or so asylum seekers escaped from their lock-down at a reception centre and presented themselves for duty at the gendarmerie field hospital, as each of them had been doctors or nurses in their home countries. A neat piece of movie fiction advocacy to champion the cause of asylum seekers to work and be useful in their place of refuge. It's a hot potato political issue across Europe and beyond. 

It was a good watch and less difficult to get the gist of what was going on (with or without the subtitles) because the past ten months have exposed us all to the vocabulary of medical statistics in a way without precedent. Not so much a feel-good movie, but one perhaps to make us feel less bad. We'll get to where we wish we were, eventually.

Another birthday girl

This morning Rufus came over for a chat, so we sat in Cafe Castan overlooking Llandaff Fields and drank coffee for an hour and a half, sharing thoughts about ministry and teamwork, as the Church in Wales rolls out its new area ministry plan. He's brought a good deal of experience with him moving from social work into the church in his fifties, but he is fired up with enthusiasm for a life of pastoral care in the community, flavoured with a healthy dose of practical realism. He keeps his feet on the ground with lots of domestic DIY jobs, furniture restoration among them. He told me how pleased he was to have taken a broken stained glass door panel and modified the intact portion to create a window light to go above a door frame. It's great the church has such all round capable people in its service.

Over the weekend I was asked if I could do a funeral in a fortnight's time. I was busy with funerals when I returned home from Malaga in the summer. I may well be busy again now we approach the threshold of winter.  

The weekend rain and cold has changed many trees that remained green until lately giving them extra shades of yellow and gold to add to the reds and browns. Utterly lovely when the sun shines. This long drawn out and fairly mild autumn has been quite spectacular, but even the best of photos doesn't fully capture this.

Hot on the heels of Rachel's birthday last Friday, today is Jasmine's birthday. She's twelve already. We spoke to her on WhatsApp just before bed when Rachel was driving her home from school. She was having some friends over in their evening to celebrate with her. It's sad we see so little of her.

   

Thoughts on MInistry Sunday

Another early start this morning, as I was asked to cover the 8.00am Eucharist at St Catherine's, another traditional Book of Common Prayer start to the day, only this time the 1984 Church in Wales revision, another liturgy I know off by heart. Clare came too, so we there walked together in the pre-dawn twilight. By the time I reached the altar for the Offertory, the sun had risen enough to shine in through the churchyard trees, and light up the brickwork in the north west corner of the church. Lovely. There were seven of us for the service. I read Archbishop Barry's Ministry Sunday letter, his last before he retires in February, commending the new Ministry Area strategy for the Church in Wales and all this will mean for the vocations of both lay and ordained people as it develops. 

With fewer than ever clergy doing more of the same, in a world where more and more technical management skills and experience are required on top of pastoral and spiritual gifts, it's difficult to see at this stage exactly how responsibility for the whole life and mission of the church is going to be shared between laity and clergy in ways that are not already happening. Maybe at this stage it's a matter of muddling through, adjusting, making better efforts to communicate better and build effective personal relationships, not just trusting that every stakeholder lay person or cleric is happy to be organised and work in a way that's different from that is habitual to them. 

In my experience a community will rally around and grow through tackling a cause or project which everyone recognises as a key issue around which to rally and muster resources. Adapting buildings to cater for changing need is one thing, restoring beloved places of worship in crisis is another, reaching out to identifiable needy groups of people is another, social and natural environmental concern is yet another. What's more difficult, when it comes to working together in genuine missionary enterprise, isn't practical responses to material need, but the spiritual dimensions of life.

Without a vision the people perish (Prov 29:18), immediately comes to mind. Every changing scene of life, every new experience, Christians are challenged yet again to return to Scripture and Tradition, and seek new understanding about how the life of faith engages afresh with reality, not just as individuals but as a community sharing thoughts and insights about the meaning of life and our relationship with God as a fresh stimulus to creative imagination.

The appeal of Christian faith to heart, mind and will has been profoundly weakened by ideologies emerging from secular materialistic thought, so that now Christian faith is dismissed as unworthy of consideration by perhaps a majority of people, who, if they have any religious or spiritual inclinations at all, prefer the DIY approach and make it up as they go along, their individualism unchallenged. Populism, be it religious, social or political may be a kind of reaction against that, but a disciplined challenge to the truth and validity of either from Christian thinking has very limited impact. Believers have a great deal to learn from the failure of the church to commend its faith to a greater audience, and a need to re-engage differently in persuasive argument for the adoption of Christian life and faith.  

Those who take the lead in matters of ministry teach and remind the church of its calling and purpose, but they are also learners, who need enable others to think for themselves, imagine and share their ideas and insights. That means taking time to listen, for them, for the whole community. Whatever practical preparation we make for anything we do is only as good as the quality of preparation we put into it, together. And that's so hard when we're so busy with so much to be done. In retirement I now look back and think about things I could have spent more time on and done better. Now I have spare time, wondering what to do with it is what exercises me most, for now.

Thankfully, after several hours of battery charging, the car started without difficulty. Why it discharged when it's not that old, is another issue to keep an eye on. Anyway, I got to St German's nice and early and enjoyed chatting with people arriving for the service. Churchwarden Peter read out Archbishop Barry's Ministry letter, and I preached about it. To my mind, St German's is a church community that is ready to face a changing future in a ministry area, as they have learned to work hard together to sustain its community facing activities, as well as buildings and worship for several years, this has continued throughout its extended period of life without a regular parish priest. I hope a new priest will be able to recognise this and build upon it, whenever one is appointed, and hopefully sooner, if a new ministry area in the 'southern arc' of Cardiff's parishes is to be realised.

After lunch, Clare went off to her final concert rehearsal, and I followed her to the Fountain Steiner School in Llandaff North a couple of hours later for the later afternoon performance. The school hall was full of families, and the choir was drawn from teachers, parents nd friends of the school. They'd spent the term rehearsing a selection of pieces from Benjamin Britten's 'Ceremony of Carols', quite a tough challenging work to develop from scratch in over three months, but I know how much Clare has enjoyed it, and is now enjoying singing lessons, taken to improve her vocal technique. I wouldn't mind joining the choir, except that it means on Tuesdays, clashing with Chi Gung, and I'm looking forward to re-starting that in the New Year.

I took my Sony HX50 with me, perched on a high window sill, pressed the video record button and left it to its own devices during the Britten, reckoning this might produce a helpful piece of feedback for the conductor to consider later. I was delighted with the result, as the sound is really quite good as well as the video footage. There was a man sitting in front of me who also had a camera and took a few stills. It turned out that inside his smart leather camera case was an identical HX50!

After supper we relaxed together, watching the movie 'Paddington', for the first time, laughing aloud at its mild satirization of British bourgeois life, while at the same time it packs a hard hitting message about the inclusiveness, diversity and welcoming foreign migrants deemed by the author and producer of the film to be characteristic of the British way of life. Nothing could be more timely. It could do with being shown on one channel or another every night at the moment, just to spite the tabloid media. 

This was followed by the penultimate episode of 'Gwyll', which rather shifted gear half way through, going from being slowly paced with a hint of menace, to chain of incidents in which our heroes start to join the dots and make an intelligible picture of the toxic affair of the children's home which has been the cause of so many tragic lives lost, throughout all three sets of episodes of this memorable Celtic noir movie series. I'm left wondering if the producers planned them all in advance, given the difficulties in funding attached to projects of this nature, or whether it evolved following the big international success of the first series. It's been a great credit to the Welsh language creative industry, and S4C. One can only hope we'll see new ventures in future.