Powerpoint economics & Mass in Welsh

I went into College Monday morning and worked there a while, before heading into town for a Cardiff Business Safe planning session, which didn't happen as intended because the person who'd called the meeting didn't turn up. In addition, our accountant was late arriving due to motorway traffic congestion, but by tea time, four of us sat down to discuss next week's inaugural meeting of a reconstituted Board of Management for CBS. I came away from the meeting tasked with creating an introduction for new Board members, almost all of whom will have little or no background to the origins and day to day running of the business.

I worked on creating a Powerpoint presentation by collecting facts and figures from CBS operational reports and annual financial statements, doing calculations and turning them into charts. It meant a couple of really late nights from Monday evening until Wednesday night, as well as  spending time in College for a few meals, meeting a couple of students, and saying Mass on Tuesday afternoon before my tutor group meeting. I was so pre-occupied with getting it done that I forgot to watch the delayed part 2 of 'Vicar Academy' live and had to catch up on iPlayer this evening.

First thing this morning, I made a brief visit to College then went out to Ely for a bereavement visit. I've been asked to take a funeral service on Monday next. The lady who died, aged 89 had only one child, a daughter, who'd had seven children. Between them they'd produced twenty five children, and that generation had already produced three offspring of their own, so the deceased lived to see her great great grandchildren born. That's remarkable - and from what her daughter told me, they all gave her much pleasure. 

On my way to the CBS office to get the finished presentation approved by my colleagues, I stopped off at Cardiff Camera Centre in the Morgan Arcade and bought that digital SLR camera I've been thinking about getting for ages. Not what I'd been contemplating in other stores, but a heavily discounted Sony Alpha 55 with telephoto lens for bird-watching photos. Blame it on my Spanish sojourn days in the Delta de 'Ebre.

That was a busy few days one way or another, but I didn't feel under pressure as I was creatively occupied, and two weeknights were taken up with Chi Gong and Tai Chi classes. This kind of exercise seems to release energy for patient concentration and endurance when I need to get things completed. My mind stays clear, and things don't bother me the way they once did. I still need to rest well eventually though. It doesn't work by magic, but by re-balancing the self.

Tuesday afternoon's Mass was in Welsh. It was the first I'd celebrated using the new 2004 liturgy and twenty five years since I said Mass in Welsh the first time using the 1984 liturgy in St John's Church Ystradmeurig. Both of these were deeply moving. Even more so than saying Mass in French for Geneva's Old Catholic community back in the nineties. Celebrating the Holy Mysteries in another language makes you think about the meaning of what you're doing and saying in a different way, highlighting the sense of 'the Other'. I've been rota'd in for more Welsh celebrations as the year progresses. I look forward to this, and being taken by the liturgy deeper into the spiritual roots at the heart of my native culture. 

Sometimes I am amazed at the rich variety of the strands which make up my life, both active and passive. I'm so happy, so blessed to be given health and strength to enjoy retirement ministry as much as I do.

 

Documentary launch day

I went into St Mike's this morning to meet another of the candidates for the Vice Principal's job, being shown around, and introduced to staff and students. On my way in I met Archbishop Barry, arriving for a College Committee meeting, with  Trever Willmott, Bishop of Dover his guest. Both remarked that they'd just seen me in a preview video of tonight's 'Vicar Academy' TV documentary. I wondered when that was and what I was doing, as the cameras were rarely around when I was in College last year. 

When I watched the programme, I was relieved to find I was only in background of an opening shot of a procession into chapel one day when I was celebrating the Eucharist - that's just where I'm happy to be these days, delighted to see our admirable ordinands willing to open their hearts to the interview camera, and   deal with the inevitable scrutiny that arises from being broadcasted. It's a pity it is only being shown on BBC Wales (and iPlayer thankfully), but I guess if it's a ratings success, it will go out on the network eventually.

Let's hope it stimulates fresh interest in vocations to ministry. That's certainly what people in College, if not elsewhere, are praying for. This is an era in which the impact of decline in support for the Church is causing heart searching with more than a tinge of panic about it. Yet, in College I see so many gifted people, with a strong desire to serve and not too many illusions about the challenges they will face. Many of them have conflicting ideas about what ministry will mean in the very varied settings where they'll be exercising it, so College life isn't sweetness and light by any standard.

At the core of the spiritual formation students get at St Mike's is learning from experience how to live together with their differences, and finding the common ground they share in the life of faith. Sometimes it all seems like it's miles away from the communities they'll end up working in, struggling to survive, fearful of losing their identity let alone their kind of religion. Yet, as I found when I was a restless and questioning student in this College forty five years ago, nothing I learned or experienced was wasted once I was let out into the wild. 

Perhaps it's gratitude for that gift more than anything else which persuaded me to accept the invitation to be part of the College's formative community life. And however dire the state of the Church may currently be, both staff and students, encourage incurable optimism in me.

 

Publish and be blessed

Wednesday, I lunched in College and worked there during the afternoon, before celebrating the Eucharist. I went in again today to work and then for a meeting over tea with one of the candidates for the Vice-Principal's job, visiting to meet staff and students before the interviews take place next month. It's lovely to see how everyone takes an interest and makes an effort to welcome and put people in the hot spot at their ease.

A large banner notice has gone up on the perimeter fence on Cardiff Road, to tell the world to watch the 'Vicar Academy' documentary series on BBC1 Wales next Monday. And why not indeed promote it shamelessly? There's a strong desire in college, backed by lots of hopeful prayers to see this programme arouse interest in ordained ministry, as did last year's documentary series about monastic life and retreats revived interest in vocations, particularly among Roman Catholics in Britain. 

The church is blighted by contemptuous media stereotypes of religion and the ministries which serve faithful communities. I'd love to see us having to rise to the fresh challenge of public dialogue about discipleship and spirituality that could be both corrective and inspirational, and have our vocations advisors working overtime for a change. In fact, I think our students from so many and varied backgrounds are well placed to sustain such an exchange.

  

An opera re-visited

Yesterday, as I had some catching up to do at home and at the office, I first took Clare and our guests to Penarth so that they could walk the coastal path, returned and then spent the afternoon at work. This morning, was our first College Tutors' meeting of the year, but before I could get to it I had to take Clare to her eye clinic appointment straight after breakfast. Accessing the University Hospital of Wales campus at peak commuter traffic time meant queuing queuing, whichever way I went, but despite the congestion, I dropped her and made it to the meeting only five minutes late.

The big news of the day is of the screening on BBC2 of the first of a TV documentary series of four on student life at St Michael's on 15th October called 'Vicar Academy'. The structure of the series bears an uncanny resemblance to a TV soap opera, in the opinion of the Principal, Dr Peter Sedgewick - even so, no publicity is bad publicity, and who knows what interest and debate the series might spark off?

Our guests went into town on their own, and returned mid-afternoon, likewise Clare. Apart from being early for her appointment, she'd endured a long delay in being seen and more delay in waiting for additional eye scans to be performed. To be sure she got home on time, she sensibly took a taxi. I went off to St Mike's again at tea-time for this week's tutor group, of worship and bible study. A good session, followed by a quick departure, as we had tickets for the WNO's 'La boème' evening performance at the Millennium Centre.

It's the same production as we saw last season, once again superbly sung and visually it's a remarkable enhancement of the theatrical character of the story. Yet again, we loved it and more importantly our guests loved it. They go to lots of concerts back at home in the Rhine Valley region of Eastern Switzerland, but seldom go to opera, so it was a special evening for us all.