Promise of the Spirit fulfilled

There was something very satisfying about celebrating the Eucharist at St George's this morning as Rosella announced the appointment of Canon Paul Wignall as Chaplain. Just perfect for Pentecost Sunday as it enable me to preach on the many ways in which the Spirit works in our lives and in that of the whole church.

There was a happy and relieved atmosphere, during the after-church fellowship. I found myself on the receiving end of appreciative remarks, for having supported the broad conviction of many in the chaplaincy that it was better to look for the priest who'd be happy to be planted and flourish in the appointed dwelling, rather than live with the anxiety of hunting for a costly alternative that fills rather more than the necessary requirements. 

Fr Paul certainly understood this and was willing to take things as he finds them, and work from there. Some thought I'd been successful in persuading him about the job and the apartment, but truth to tell, we talked the same language about mission and ministry, like kindred spirits. He was already sensing a new adventure ahead. To me, this is how the Spirit works, so often. God provides the right place, at the right time, and all else unfolds.

Afterwards, I was taken out for a farewell lunch and final chat, and chose sardinas for the second time in the past fortnight. Again disappointingly they were far too over-salted for my palate which detracted from their delicate taste. To be avoided in future for sure. I'll buy and cook them on my own terms next time. But never mind, the company was good, and the house Rioja was good.

After parting company, I returned to the apartment and started the final clean and tidy jobs, with the first of two loads of bed linen and towels. The effort made me feel quite tired so I only walked down to the port and back. In the cruise terminal, Marella Spirit, a regular visitor had arrived again early morning, also at much the same time, one of the newest cruise ships in the Med., the Seabourn Ovation, launched just nine months ago. I guess it was worth the effort, just for that. Lots more to do tomorrow to be ready to depart before dawn on Tuesday.

  

Fiestas and Tall Ships

My afternoon paseo yesterday took me out ot the cruise terminal to take a look at 'Mein Schiff 4' another in the series of huge cruise liners built in the past decade. I was lucky enough to catch sight of it leaving port an hour or so later, after a walk around town.

Muelle Uno hosted an event promoting women's health, all part of Malaga's season of solidarity with women. The Calle Alcazabilla, next to the Roman amphitheatre, was busy with people setting up a variety of stalls and bars, and a performance stage for events tonight and tomorrow. This is all linked to the confederation of voluntary organisations which serves as the focus for the Women's solidarity events.

Once I'd got my Sunday sermon into shape, my afternoon paseo took me to to Plaza de la Merced, where I was surprised to discover the 48th annual Malaga Book Fair was running, containing stalls to promote about forty different publishers. Last year, this festival happened more than a month later, as I was here at the time. On this occasions, a loud rock band was performing and book presentations were taking place in the open air, in hardly the most suitable contexts,  but enthusiasm is everything I guess.

The Calle Alcazabilla was alive with crowds of people enjoying a different rock band. Overnight, the red carpet that adorned Calle Marques de Larios for the film festival had been put to use again here. No wonder, it's imprinted with the corporate logos of all co-funding organisations involved in this season of social activity.

I paused here to take photos of the statue of Salomon Ben Gabirol which stand among the trees by the patio occupied by the Bar El Pimpi, a Malaga gastronomic institution. Nearby there's a building, well actually, a sort of tower dedicated in his name. It's an interpretation centre of some kind, though I've never seen it open in all the time I've spent in Malaga this past couple of years. I know nothing of the man, except that he was an 11th century philosopher and poet.

On my way back, I saw moored alongside the Palmeria de las Sorpresas a huge five masted sailing ship, called the 'Royal Clipper'. This ship belongs to the new century, although rigged in the classic fashion of a tea Clipper, and can take over over 200 passenger. Alongside it on the quay was a smaller three masted barque 'Pogoria' from Gdynia in Poland. Co-incidentally both these sail ships have been constructed in the 21st century, for the leisure market. On the far end of the quay 'Ann Bounty' is also moored, another barque, a little older, adapted for use as an in-shore pleasure boat. How remarkable to have three sail ships parked at the same time along the same quay.

I then went into the Old Town, in time for the evening Mass at the Cathedral. I'm still struggling to memorise the responses in Spanish, and answer in English. The presiding priest speaks in soft tones, and it's difficult to understand what he says. I just trust myself to the prayer of the community, and to the fact that I have prepared a sermon using the Gospel of the day, I am the True Vine. I notice there are differences between the Revised Common Lectionary we use and the Catholic equivalent. Would that it were not so.

   

Malaga praying

I woke up early and was shocked to hear news of the fire in Grenfell Tower, West London. It didn't take long to learn of the concerns expressed by a local residents group before and after a recent multi million pound renovation, about the safety issues. This is going to turn into a colossal tragedy with ramifications for high rise accommodation, both public and private all over Britain. There have been other apartment block fires abroad, indicating flaws in safety design and materials used. It seems lessons from those incidents have not been heeded or applied. It's another toxic outcome of a decade of austerity which has seen major cuts in public service expenditure. To judge from other recent tragedies, there will follow a wave of compassion and generosity, as the country as well as the neighbourhood rallies around the survivors. And there'll be another public enquiry of some kind. But how will collective indignation at the scale of a preventable disaster of this kind in public service provision affect the body politic?

As I arrived at the churchyard gate to celebrate the midweek Eucharist, a group of four youngsters, English speaking, late teens, early twenties were leaving. One of them accosted me, seeing that I was wearing my cross and a black shirt and asked in halting Spanish who I was, and was relieved when I replied in English. She asked me if there was anything I wanted her and her friends to pray about. I asked her to explain, as usually people ask me if I'll pray for them! She explained that her group had been sent as pilgrims on a mission to pray for people in Malaga. 

It transpired that they'd been given plane tickets, and left to their own devices to find their way about, meet people and to seek hospitality from people. They had no money, and had spent the previous night sleeping on the beach. It seemed that they'd been sent to experiment with the biblical idea of trusting in Providence, although I was offered no idea, apart from the fact that they were from Cheshire, who had paid their fares and sent them off without any briefing or local contacts.

I spoke about this later with the three women who came to the service, and they said they'd had a similar instance of this six months ago. It seems there's an organisation out there which funds this kind of youth initiative with plane tickets, but nothing more was known. How very strange! It's not as if it's hard to find out about ecumenical youth contact networks via the internet, it you want to set up a simple experience of mission in another country. To me this approach is potentially very risky, if the youngsters have no prior knowledge of the situations they were entering. I've not been here long enough to have any idea about how to connect with grass roots Christian communities. I'm sure it would be possible through Lux Mundi in Fuengirola or Torre del Mar, but as for this city, I have no idea, and couldn't help them. And that had me worrying about them for the rest of the day.

Late afternoon, I went out exploring parts of the Old Town, and as it was gone five, churches were opening for the evening after siesta, and I was able to take a look inside several I'd never seen inside before - San Joan, Los Dos Martires, both rebuilt after the 1680 earthquake, and El Sagrado Corazón the 1920's Gothic revival building belonging to the Jesuits, who have a substantial commitment to education locally. I went to the port on the way back, to check out new arrivals and found one large ordinary cruise ship, Panama registered MV Aegean Odessy at one end of the Palmeria de las Sorpresas and the MV Turama huge Super-yacht registered in Saudi Arabia at the other. The latter has sixty staff and luxury accomodation suites, catering for 70 passengers. It can be chartered for cruise parties at the rate of €90,000 a day, I discovered with a little on-line research. It was almost as big as the other cruise ship, carrying 300.

Coming back into the Barrio de la Malagueta, I realised that people were entering the Parish Church of St Gabriel, so I went to have a look inside. Mass was about half way through, and I stayed and prayed. It's a brick building of the 70's or 80's, vast and cavernous, seating 500+ at a guess. There were about 50 people of all ages in the congregation, including a few parents with children. Earlier at St Joan, I'd seen 20 people assembled with an elderly priest before the Blessed Sacrament praying the rosary. And, it was a layman seated at the back who was leading. Sometimes it's a woman who leads, not necessarily a nun. The priest plays his part, but the enterprise of prayer is owned by the community of the faithful. I find this inspiring and encouraging.

View from above

Looking out from the balcony window this morning, I could see market stalls being set up on the opposite side of the road on the tree covered pavement. When I went out to do the weekend grocery shopping I discovered it's a Bio market - organic farmers selling their produce direct to the public. There were mostly fruit and vegetable stalls, with one bread and one cheese and one herb stall, almost a dozen altogether. The Asociación Guadalhorce Ecológico promotes a weekly farmers' market in a variety of locations in and around Malaga, advertising through its own Facebook page. I do hope the market returns to La Malagueta again while Clare is with me. She'll love it.

After lunch and a siesta, I walked up the steep winding well appointed footpath which mounts the hillside behind the Paseo de Reding to the summit of the Gibralfaro. The views across the city and port are glorious, and the path is constantly busy with tourists taking selfies, or athletes testing their stamina. It's a tough climb, but one which I'll be repeating when I run out of new places to satiate my curiosity and my camera.

Having taken photos from on high, I then walked down to the port to visit a large cruise ship stopping here this weekend. It's the Silver Spirit, registered in Nassau in the Bahamas, according to the Maritime Traffic website. It's docked, not out at Terminals A or B, but in the prestigious quay nearest the city, along which runs the Palmeria de Sopresas, rows of Palm trees enclosing the main cruise ship reception centre, several restaurants and gardens. The quayside is enclosed by glass walls, allowing for non cruising visitors to stand and stare safely at this giant of a seven story hotel afloat. I don't think I've been this close to such a huge ship since I was a child and visited HMS Vanguard with my father.

Then, back to the apartment for another quiet evening, writing and uploading photos. I am learning that Google Photos, though not as versatile as using desktop Picasa then uploading to the web,  now works better than Google Chromebook's basic photo editing function. This is prone to crash while editing large pictures, perhaps because it's under powered or lacking in usable spare memory. I am impressed by the upload speed for the chaplain's broadband connection, far quicker than anything I am used to in other places, or at home. It actually makes using on-line apps a congenial experience. I'd still prefer using a device that wasn't so totally dependent on internet connectivity. I fear that we may live to regret this strategic decision taken by the tech giants on our behalf.
   

Walk in the port

A second full night's sleep in a row for me! The neighbourhood and the apartment is remarkably quiet for the center of a city. I pottered around all morning, listening to UK election day news on the radio, wondering what the outcome will be, but I have no intention of staying up to hear the results tonight. The apartment has good broadband, although the solid construction of this sixties building does curb the reach of the signal at the far end, in the kitchen, where I often listen while I cook or eat at home. No two electronic devices have exactly the same capacity to fix on a weak signal, so I have to try them out in turn to see which gives the best results on wi-fi, to save using up data on a 4G phone account. 

A visit to the El Corte Ingles electronic gadget store to buy a wi-fi signal relay device is possible. Finding the right place to plug it in where it can best transmit and receive is another issue. As the first inhabitant of a newly purchased Fuengirola Chaplain's house three years ago, this was the solution to the same problem. Being a more modern house, however, it had a much better distribution of power sockets to make use of. Always best to make use of what's given, if you can.

After quite a late lunch, I went out for my first longish walk of my stay, starting on the Paseo de la Malagueta and making my way to the furthest extent of the eastern arm of the port. The sun was thinly veiled in mist, so I didn't suffer from over exposure. Once you leave the Paseo, there's almost no shade to be had until you reach the two huge Cruise ship terminal buildings. It's the first time I've seen these structures and their accompanying docking facilities. There are no cruise ships in port right now, only an assortment of container ships, bulk carriers and the odd goods vehicle ferry that transports stuff to and from North African ports.

At the town end of the harbour, there's a 300m double deck promenade. The quay level features restaurants and luxury designer retail outlets aimed at cruise clientele. The upper level has a few open air bars and some small gardens, but is mostly open for ship spotters to stand and stare and walkers to promenade in style. Towering over the promenade is 'El Farino' a substantial lighthouse which celebrates the 200th anniversary of its construction this year. 

At the town end is a stylishly constructed modern art gallery called the Pompidou Centre. I found it quite irritating that it was necessary to enquire on-line what the function of this building was, as no information was readily visible to indicate this externally, unless you went inside. I think it's pretentious to trade on having a universal public reputation. It's like meeting some grandee who states emphatically: "Surely you know who I am."

The top level promenade crosses over a bridge beside the art gallery. You can walk through this to access La Malagueta barrio. This has a history board relating to the coastal railway which once ran from Malaga to Velez Malaga. The bridge pays homage to the tunnel through which the train ran into the port. The line closed in the sixties. Most of its railway artifacts soon disappeared, except tunnels along the route, some of which are still in use as part of the coastal footpath running along the old track-bed. The great tourism development started in the same era as the railway disappeared. I imagine some developers and planners may look back with regret at losing such an asset for both mass tourism and local transport. Road traffic congestion however well managed, is a liability and a burden to bear for the foreseeable future. 

In the evening, I re-established my acquaintance with the main maritime traffic website, to see if would be possible to work out which ships I'd seen in dock - as ever, a fascinating exploration. Just as well too, there's no telly here, and it's impossible to watch UK TV channels on my devices, due to digital rights management controls. So much for freedom of information!