Mourning ritual

Another day of clouds, sunshine and showers. After breakfast I went to St John's to share in the Requiem Mass for the Queen. There were nineteen of us present, and the service was streamed on Facebook as well. Then I went to town, hoping to hear the great tenor bell of St John's City Parish Church, tolling ninety-six times to mark the Queen's passing. I wasn't disappointed. I met Ruth in the porch, welcoming visitors and alerting them to the fact that the  usual midday Mass was going on. She told me Evan Chapman the verger was doing the honours up in the tower's ringing chamber. Good to hear he's still there, over twenty years in quiet service of the church's solemn ritual if not longer to my knowledge.

I recorded some of the tolling, and then went to the Castle for the Royal Welsh Regiment's ceremonial honouring of the departed monarch with a ninety six gun salute. People were queuing along Castle Street in the drizzle to be security checked into the grounds. I joined a crowd of about a thousand others waiting for the salute, scheduled at one o'clock. By the time the ceremony started, the number had doubled. I took nearly sixty photographs and a short video of four out of the ninety six rounds. 

The ceremonial field guns were positioned with their armourers standing watch over them, and then at ten to one the teams responsible for each one in full dress uniform marched to their assigned positions, behind each gun. With meticulous punctuality, they fired a round every ten seconds, beginning as the City Hall clock struck one and ending at one sixteen. Each team then left the field in their personnel vehicle, towing their gun. The crowd was too dense to see all that was going on. For security reasons no vantage points from above were accessible. Press cameras were on a grassy bank about a metre about the field itself.

In the course of taking photos beforehand and trying to keep my camera from getting wet while it was still drizzling, I lost my camera lens cap. When I realised, I retrace my steps, and fortunately a couple and a young girl had spotted it on the ground, and left it there in case I returned. I was lucky! It seemed like everyone in the crowd was taking photos on their phones - hundreds of people with both hands held high in the air to position themselves for their best shots. I wasn't able to get near the crush barrier so my photos weren't as good as I hoped for. Nevertheless, when I reached home, late for lunch I spent the afternoon editing the sound files I'd made and incorporating them into a video slide show, which I thought my sister June would appreciate, and maybe a few others as well.

At six o'clock, before the national thanksgiving service at St Paul's Cathedral, we watched King Charles' first speech as our new sovereign. It was a warm tribute to his mother's vocation and life's work and he included twice his solemn pledge to continue to minister to the nation in the same way as his mother. He acknowledged that his life would change in the light of his new role, but expressed confidence that the things he was passionate about over the past fifty years now had momentum of their own in the hands of many others. 

The service following was good, uplifting music, carefully chosen readings and some new prayers for the departed I wasn't familiar with, but which spoke poetically about the mystery of eternity and resurrection. Such public prayers for the dead in a CofE service back at the beginning of Elizabeth's reign would have led to hard-line Protestants causing uproar, alleging papist inflitration. Not only the world, but the church is a different place from how it was when I was a kid.

Christmas down-side

As I feared, I  suffered from having sat so many hours yesterday. The pain got worse after I went to bed. From midnight until four I passed the small hours on the toilet, my pulse racing. 

It wasn't due to an excess of food or drink, nor a stomach bug, but the impact of inflammation on the vagus nerve, running in the vicinity of the perineum. It's happened with this intensity before and resembles a panic attack with added physical symptoms. It's enough to make you anxious about bringing on a stroke or a heart attack. After a couple of hours I called the GP after hours service for advice.

I had to wait for a call back from a doctor. This came around four when I was away from the phone in the bathroom. It didn't ring long enough for the answering machine to activate, and desperate for sleep, I resigned myself to just coping. The phone awakened me around eight. I had dropped off to sleep at five. The on-call doctor was helpful and reassuring, ordering a house call from a local District Nurse later in the day to assess and give some help with wound dressing.

Nurse Emma arrived at midday, and ministered to me with an expert hand and eye. The team she is part of works from Riverside Health Centre, a ten minute walk from home. In addition to a wealth of hands-on expertise, this team has state of the art wound management resources. She not only made me feel safe and comfortable, almost painlessly, but left me a kit of temporary dressings to use in case I needed to change before her next visit tomorrow afternoon. Apparently the materials now used are good for up to a day's use without needing a change. 

From Friday, I can visit a specialist clinic in nearby Riverside to get nursing attention. It means I get a regular eye on this precarious condition, right up to the operation in three weeks from now, and thereafter when even more careful attention will be required until propert healing is finally well under way.

When I told Emma I was a cleric and had worked at St John's City Parish church she said with delight, "It's our family church, I was christened there, and a couple of my kids later!" Small world. She also has a daughter with the same birthday as me. This visit restored my spirits in more than one way.

More time in bed recovering rather than out walking with the family this afternoon. I have a funeral to officiate at tomorrow, and must be fit for purpose. Emma's ministry to me helps me believe I can, rather than having to hand this back to the hard worked parish clergy at the eleventh hour. They too need rest and recuperation. 

In the evening we sat down en famille and watched another movie on Netflix 'The Grand Budapest Hotel' about which I knew nothing. It  was a sheer surprise and delight, funny, thought provoking and theatrical, as it told the story of a five star central European resort hotel through the most turbulent years of the twentieth century through the eyes of a hotel concierge. 

The script was outstandingly well written in its eccentric use of an erudite literary style for its narrator, from start to finish. This was enough to keep you laughing all the way through. It looked back to an era when conciergerie was a lifelong vocation to care for others with courtesy, loyalty, discretion and pastoral knowledge of every guest, transient and returners alike. It portrayed a secular self effacing kind of priesthood, always there, facilitating, never attracting attention. 'Among you as one who serves', and reveling the art of true service. I found it hilarious and inspirational, and it certainly made up for the horrid night preceding it.

   

Christmas Eve reunions

I walked into town this morning for the Eucharist at St John's City Parish Church, blessed with a very diverse congregation of adults and children of over seventy people. It was lovely to see many familiar faces, still going strong after the seven years since I retired, some even more active now than they were then, as their own faith has developed. 

It was an enjoyable relaxed, yet quite traditional celebration, story telling the entire Nativity, from the Annunciation to the Massacre of the Innocents using scriptural texts of both Luke and Matthew, and a verse rendering. It's something I've not thought of in the context of a Parish Eucharist before, but it certainnly worked, and mad me think how I might do the same if I find myself with a free hand in organising liturgy on the Sunday closest to Christmas Eve. Afterwards I chatted with a Pakistani Christian woman whose asylum request had been granted. When we talked last year, she was still waiting. Now she was relaxed and joyous. I thought of Hamid, whom I baptized in St German's the other side of Christmas two years ago, deported back to Rawlpindi eighteen months later, finding reconciliation with his Muslim family an impossible struggle at this point in time.

He now lives a good distance across the city from a church. Will he be able to join others in worship there? Possibly not, just isolated and vulnerable in a hard traditional social setting where he no longer feels at home, but is rather, at risk now, thanks to the ill-informed decisions of Her Majesty's Government and judiciary who are less well informed about traditional orthodox Christian belief and practice than should be the case.

I returned from church, refreshed and consoled by meeting and greeting with so many old friends to whom I had already sent cards and emails. No need to explain to anyone what I've been doing since we last met! After lunch, I started packing, both for my journey to Kenilworth tomorrow morning, and separately for my Swiss locum duty travel next Friday. It takes the pressure off me, when I get back home with only 24 hours to spare before heading out again. Perhaps I am taking on too much, not giving myself enough time to recover these days. I certainly seem to take longer to prepare and recover from being away.

It's a consequence, I guess, of getting old, needing to have everything in order and well prepared to avoid the demands of spontaneous organisation, which I think I was quite good at when I was younger, unless I've frogtten how chaotic I really was. Or perhaps my standards are now higher. Once, I could pack a bag successfully and leave the country with an evening of effort. Now I need a day, if not longer. It is all this digital connectivity, taking up so much extra time, to keep life flowing evenly, without dislocation?

Midweek meditation

So good to awaken to a day of clouds but no rain, and as warm as one might expect in a British Spring. My first assignment of the day was to celebrate the mid morning Eucharist at St Catherine's, our local Parish Church, for a regular midweek congregation of eight, plus a couple of small children. After that, I had to get myself to the far end of Canton to join the monthly Ignatian prayer group, meeting there in the home of one of  its members. I spend quite a lot of time in silence and solitude these days. I doubt if I could cope with doing many other things without dipping into this infinite spiritual reservoir. Even so, silence together is even more nourishing, like a place where many deep running waters flow together. 

I get the same sense of rightness from Chi Gung and Tai Chi classes too. Even though we're being talked through our movements by a class teacher, everyone is quietly focussed, aware and intent on right action. To say that the one is Christian in its ethos and the other is indeterminate, or Chinese, fails to recognise universality of endeavour motivated by a higher sense of value and purpose. Divine grace, to the scandal of this world's particularists, knows no boundary of religion or culture. Communion in living silence can be achieved from no matter what starting point or means, as a path into the heart of the divine life. It's a conviction that's grown in my heart the longer I've lived, and I refuse to surrender it, no matter what hyper-orthodox or conservative fundamentalists threaten regarding my spiritual welfare.

From lunch after the meditation group, I went into town to spend the afternoon in the CBS office. St John's City Parish Church bells were ringing for a wedding. When I got into the office, the city centre manager's CCTV monitor displayed the camera output showing the church west door under the tower, with bridal limousine parked outside and people arriving late for the service. I was told that it was the wedding of a Sayer family member - leading fun-fair providors in the city and across the country. Seven coaches of guests, plus limos had been allowed through the security cordon for the occasion. It was so nice to know that access arrangements I'd worked at putting in place years ago when I was Vicar were still functioning.

As there are continuous changes in the world of commerce, with companies starting up, going bust or trying to re-start all the time, the management of record changes involved is continuous, sometimes complex. Attention to detail is everything. It's not my strength, but Ashley is generally thorough and diligent in checking and following through on the requirements of every users. What I have to do is make sure all is well recorded, and users know what we know. It's a perpetual work in progress. My reward for the day's efforts? A night at home doing nothing in particular.