Orthodox Easter

Blue sky made an appearance early this morning, so good to wake up to. The Sunday Service was from the Ukrainian Catholic exile community in London, celebrating Easter according to the Julian Calendar a week later than the rest of the world. We were treated to some traditional resurrection hymnody, but what caught my attention was hearing the response to the Litany of Fervent Supplication in the Liturgy of St John Chrysostom used with prayer petitions relevant to current conflict. 

As an indigenous church, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic church, to use its full title, has been in communion with Rome since the seventeenth century, rather than in communion with the Ecumenical Patriarch, or the Patriarch of Moscow - other groups of Ukrainian Orthodox are in communion either with Constantinople or Moscow. It reflects the tensions and conflict of interests which have plagued the history of Ukraine for the past five hundred years.

In a way this is  what has happened to churches of Orthodox tradition in the Middle East which also changed allegiance under Roman Catholic influence and support post-reformation. The second Vatican Council affirmed the contribution of Eastern Rite church communities and enabled them to adapt to the times in a way Eastern Orthodoxy is still reluctant to do. 

Traditional Slavic Orthodox churches would be less likely to adapt classic petitionary prayer to current conditions. It's something I noticed this morning, because of encounters encounters with the Russian Orthodox church in Exile as a student nearly sixty years ago, when it was possible to get to know (and sing) the entire set form of the liturgy off by heart, leaving the variable bits to the experienced cantors. I owe a lot to the Orthodox way of prayer, and its original poetic way of expressing theological and spiritual insight in hymnody so different from its western equivalent. 

Western and Eastern expressions of Christianity are equally riven by religious and cultural divisions which are institutionalised into different church communities. There may be an acknowledged essential unity of teaching and purpose between them all (or most of them), but living with differences when exposed to geographical, political and cultural tensions is as difficult now as it was in the years after the birth of the church. What is most lacking, to my mind, is a universal sense of humour, to enable us all to admit that taking everything too seriously makes us no different from those scribes and Pharisees challenged by Jesus.

When I set off to celebrate the Eucharist at St German's, I kissed Kath goodbye, but when I returned just before one, she was still there, about to leave, as she's been unable to contact a friend to visit on her way home, so we kissed goodbye again. Then I cooked lunch.

Poor Owain. He left us to catch a train at nine last night. The train to boarded never left the station, and he sat in it for an hour before a cancellation announcement was made, due to someone wanting to jump from a railway bridge outside Newport. It's disgraceful that it should have taken so long to alert passengers and give them the choice to wait or go by other means.

I don't understand why an alternative means of transport wasn't arranged once it was clear there was a problem that might take time to resolve. British Transport Police would have attended the 'jumper' and had a presence at Cardiff Central. What's the matter with them that it took an hour to inform passengers of the futility of waiting? Rather than return to Meadow Street, he contacted electrician James and Jo his wife who live in Grangetown, a shorter walk to a couch for the night, rather than returning to Meadow Street, but it was midday before he got back to his flat.

We walked in the park for an hour before tea, then after supper I went out again on my own. A young man accosted me as we passed each other saying "You look beautiful, would you mind if I took your photograph? I'm a portrait photographer." I was intrigued by this chat up line and agreed. He told me he was in his final year of a photography course at the University of South Wales. In his bag was a Mamiya medium format film camera - the real deal. He said he'd just returned from a photo expedition in Turkey, and was intending to work in a European country after graduation. He took three pictures of me, hoping that the evening light was adequate for the film he was using. I guess I'll never know, though he did say that the final year class photo exhibition would be shown in the St David's Centre for a week from the tenth of June, so I've made a note to visit. Maybe I'll find out then if his shots were successful.

On returning home, I completed work on the Morning Prayer video and uploaded it to YouTube. As the biblical reflection was about Moses striking water from the rock at Horeb, I hunted down a photo to use of Ayin Musa - the spring of Moses, taken in 1999 while visiting Frank Dall in Jordan. 

It was on one of the many rolls of film which I digitized early in retirement and sits in its own Google photos album, easy to find. Cherished memories of travels in times past. I wonder if such opportunities will ever happen again?

Homecoming remembered

Another lovely hot day with the temperature at around 25C again. I love the weather like this, and easily slip back into the habit adopted in Spain of keeping in the shade when the sun is hottest and brightest, to avoid getting burned. I'm brown enough already from spending so much time outdoors every day.

This morning I completed my preparation for Thursday's on-line Morning Prayer and Reflection, and went on to record and edit the sound file. All I need now is to match this with a handful of images, and put them together in a video upload to YouTube. It's getting easier now I've got the hang of it. I also got the material ready for tomorrow's funeral. I can't risk rushing anything at the moment. Wound discomfort is minimal, but in the morning the internal bruising plays up a bit and rattles my nervous system. It's a distraction that calls for more effort and less distraction to stay focused. Each day is less worse than the previous one so far, but I don't take chances, just in case there's a setback that makes normal activity an effort.

In my afternoon circuit of of Bute Park, Pontcanna and Llandaff Fields, I bumped into David, one of the mid-week regulars at St Catherine's whom I haven't seen since before I went to Ibiza. He's not felt ready to resume live worship, but follows on-line services. Recently he's had the second covid jab and is thinking that it'll give him confidence to return to church, which is nice to hear. 

Talking with him reminded me that it's exactly one year tomorrow since I started my journey home from Ibiza via Barcelona and London. What an extraordinary year it has been. I'll never forget walking out on Pontcanna Fields to stretch my legs after the car journey from Heathrow, and having a family of swallows sweep past me at knee level, hunting for insects. Funnily enough, I thought about this because it happened in the same part of the field where I'd just met David. What a lovely welcome home from nature that was!

In tonight's second round of 'Cardiff Singer of the World' we were treated to four powerful singers, a bass from Denmark, A Korean baritone, and two sopranos, one Welsh and one South African. It was hard to tell who the judges would declare the winner. All four promise to do well in their professional singing careers. It was was the Korean baritone Gihoon Kim who won, remarkable for having been born and raised in a poor provincial town, coming to classical music singing through his local church choir where his musical gifts were recognised. I daresay all four will be recruited for roles by WNO sometime in the future.

Following this was the last episode of the UK Photographer of the Year programme with Rankin hosting six very differently gifted photographers of different ages and experiences. It was great to watch and really challenged me to think again about the rather limited range of photos I take, albeit in abundance. I think I need to work a lot harder and take my beloved hobby much more seriously.

Staycation round two, day nine

I woke up half an hour before sunrise to a bright blue cloudless sky. It lifted my spirit, and moved me to take my Sony Alpha 68 to the loft and shoot a series of photos as the sun emerged from behind the roof line of the terraced houses beyond the garden. For a fleeting moment I glimpsed a flock of starlings as the made their way from the night time urban shelter towards the countryside to the west. I often hear them in the late afternoon, but seldom see dozens in the sky together. Inevitably, after an early breakfast I fell asleep again during morning prayer. Thank heavens I don't have a schedule to keep these days.

Early results in the U.S. election indicate that Joe Biden didn't get an overwhelming number of votes. It's too close to anticipate a result while votes are still being counted. How long will it take I wonder before enough are counted and legitimized to be sure who won? Again the opinion polls have been wrong, Not enough people are yet sick of political populism and a bullying head of state to declare against him. 

The country seems evenly divided, on the basis of voting turnout said to be the largest in a century. No good can come from all Trump's lies and deceits, until enough people give up on  all illusory promises that end up dividing in order to rule. The world needs consensus and united action in order to survive pandemic and climate change, and at the moment we have neither.

I had to forego exercising in the garden today despite the sunshine. Clare took advantage of the weather to fill the washing line which runs along the path, so all my walking was indoors, listening to Radio 3. When I did pop outdoors, I noticed that the hawthorn tree in next door's garden, now stripped of leaves was hosting a large family of sparrows, nearly a dozen I think, and another family visited but seemed unable to find enough room to cohabit. 

Last week, and on other occasions this autumn, a solitary sparrow perched in that tree, cheeped loudly for ages then flew off. I wonder if it was advertising the space available? Before this tree was drastically pruned about five years ago, it was often hosted a large group of sparrows. Then there were none. This year they've nested in the hedge next door on the other side, and are hanging around much more.

Having taken such a lot of photos of four different cameras since the end of summer, I thought I'd add them to my PC's hard drive archive. It took me longer than expected to file them away in the correct folders this afternoon. Then, for amusement I processed ten sunrise photos into a video clip to send to the family. It's something I rarely do, so it took a while to figure it out first.

The surgeon's administrator at the hospital rang at tea time to check me out, wanting to confirm that my covid-19 test had been booked, and asking if I was well, really wanting to check I wasn't poorly and going down with some sort of sickness - possible even in quarantine I guess, if you ate something that gave you a tummy bug. So far so good, anyway.

Pilgrim memories

I attended the Eucharist at St John's this morning, and after lunch walked around the park, enjoying the presence of many birds out feeding while I was passing with my camera at the ready. Redstarts, long tailed tits, a solitary cormorant in breeding plumage perched on a rock in the river Taff, and a jay that fed on the ground for a couple of minutes as I approached, though I wasn't quick enough to get a shot of it as it moved around. It's just lovely to see.

Then in the evening I continued scanning more old negatives from the year 2000, fascinated to learn where they had been taken. Today's batch was a roll of film taken in Haute Savioe in May 2000. One was of the annual pilgrimage by Holy Trinity Geneva to the Voirons massif where a community of about fifty Carthusian Sisters live work and pray at 1,700m on a ridge with a stunning view of the Mont Blanc range.

In the forest that's part of their domain, looking north towards Lac Leman and the Jura, is a chapel of 14th century origins with an adjacent accommodation building for workers. Each year on Ascension Day, the chaplaincy gathered there to celebrate the Eucharist, using its huge boulder-like ancient altar stone. The chapel is dedicated to Notre Dame des Voirons, and it may have been a local pilgrimage sanctuary many centuries ago. It was a wonderful and numinous occasion, even if it was in shadow and chilly there. Sometimes it snowed while we were there. The photos I took were of our group of two dozen arriving and being welcomed by the Sister guest-mistress. I wonder where the youngsters in the photos are now? Some of the older people are still alive, others of them I laid to rest or have died since.

Another first rate episode of New Amsterdam tonight. It did prompt me to wonder how long it will be before I get my appointment letter from UHW.
  

New Year Honour

Another quiet day, pottering around, nothing special to do, apart from printing off my Sunday sermon and hunting down some photos I'd taken of an orchid given to Clare last year, which flowered again for the best part of six months this year also, and has only recently dropped its last dried blossom. Nothing showed on either of my Picasa photos albums, so I'd not bothered to upload them at the time. So I had to sift through my collection of SD cards, used but not re-cycled. Well, storage is so cheap nowadays, it means I can always revert to the originals, even if the majority are somewhere in the Cloud. It paid off, in this case, although it did take me a while, as I have SD cards used by four different cameras over the past four years alone, and none of them indicate the one used, until now. It's a way a whiling away the time when there's nothing better to do.

Just before sunset I went for my usual 5km walk to Blackweir Bridge around a section of Pontcanna fields. My injured knee seems almost back to normal now, and I maintained a brisk pace, covering the course in 45 minutes. The knee didn't swell afterwards, and the pain was minimal compared to the way it was in the first week of recovery when I walked this route before Christmas.

I cooked sausages for supper, veggie ones for Clare and high quality pork ones for me, also a spicy sauce we could share, and some veggies. We sat and watched an episode of Inspector George Gently afterwards, which had xenophobia and racism as its theme, set against the context of Enoch Powell's infamous 'rivers of blood' speech. The world we live in is much more ethically and culturally diverse these days, yet the same intolerance prevails, the same desire to roll the clock back to some fantasy era of pure Englishness. Britain is much wealthier than in the sixties, yet the same wide gulf between rich and poor and the same struggle to grow confidence economically in changing times exists now as it did then. Much change in some ways, while in other ways, no change at all.

In this evening's news, Wales's finest international opera star Bryn Terfel receives a knighthood in the Queen's New Year Honours list. It's justly deserved. His musical life and work is an inspiration and an encouragement to so many people, far and wide.

Ardderchog a Llongyfarchiadau Syr Bryn!
     

Photographic motivation

Back to St German's to celebrate the Sunday Mass yesterday morning, then home for a solitary lunch, finishing off the other half of what I prepared for last night's supper, with some pasta. Clare arrived home at tea-time from her visit to Auntie Daphne in Exeter, and we had supper together, something different. No matter how restrained I am in preparing and cooking ingredients for a sauce or ratatouille for a meal, I find it impossible to cook enough for one, apart from omelettes or stuff on toast. Maybe I have less of an appetite than I used to, but basic food cooked seems always to stretch to two portions, or enough for two meals when I'm on my own. Funnily enough, I'm happy to eat the same meal twice in a row, fine when I'm on my own. Clare doesn't enjoy the same meal twice in a row, so any excess prepared has to be potted up and retained in fridge or freezer. All part of life's rich pattern, I guess.

After lunch and a siesta, I spent an hour or so editing and uploading photos from our stay in Sta Pola, three batches in all, one exclusively from my visits to the salinas, one from the Tabarca visit and one from the town and port itself. 

Birdie photos from the Sta Pola salinas are here

Tabarca island photos are here

Sta Pola town, port and beach photos are here

The next big photo adventure will be our Danube cruise, starting and ending in Budapest, travelling to Bratislava, Durnstein, Salzberg and Vienna - an orgy of historic townscapes and countryside viewed from the river, with all its commercial traffic, and shoreline interest. I won't know which way to point my camera. Which camera to take for the best results is now lurking in my mind.

Truth to tell I am getting fussier and fussier, thinking about picture quality and detail. I take many photos at mid to maximum telephoto range, and despite having a steady hand, getting satisfactory shots is a bit hit or miss, so the question of how to get the best quality is now bugging me. I wish I could borrow a selection of cameras to try out, and see what best suits me. After all, given the fidelity and accuracy of modern digital cameras, also the level of photographic discipline and skill, the character and quality of pictures taken relates to the person taking them, and the observation and insight they want to convey. 

I want something of everything when I take photos, to convey the context, whether aesthetically or socially or historically, sometimes to notice the detail in a scene and what that has to tell. I admit that photographing people is something I'm nervous about. It's not that I don't enjoy the results when I get a good shot, but I fear invading people's privacy, distorting their livers with my camera. I'm not into the social contract dimension which portrait photography involves, and if I ever get a good portrait it's more by luck than anything else. What drives me to take pictures is the sheer beauty of the world we live in, whether natural or built environment. It's capturing a little suggestion of the work of art which is creation itself that gives me joy.