Working the Word

Today, my last Sunday Eucharist to the accompaniment of air cooling fans, at least for the time being. Again, despite my best efforts with the microphone, there were still complaints I couldn't be heard. This is the worst kind of frustration for a preacher. You start wondering if it's worth the effort you put into it, especially when the audibility of the lessons is also in doubt. In this climate listening to the Word requires willingness to endure a certain degree of discomfort to get fifteen minutes of quiet, but there's a certain nervousness about imposing this on visitors who may feel deterred by discomfort - well they may feel deterred equually if they can't hear. 

Suddenly my memory erupts with the title of Berton & Harrison's book from my youthful days in ministry 'The Comfortable Pew'. How does any congregation today survive the visit of the 'Mystery Shopper' churchgoer, willing to sweat a little to hear what the Spirit says to the Churches, and is then disappointed by being unable to hear or make sense of what the church proclaims. There are limits to what a locum priest can insist on when others, better versed in local affairs than he, are entrusted with holding things together. 

One thing a locum can do, apart from celebrate the sacraments, is to offer interpretation of scripture in the liturgy of the day. If for any reason a congregation over which I had pastoral charge (which as a 'hired hand' I don't), couldn't hear properly, and there was no other opportunity to improve audibility, I'd make time to print off the Sunday readings and a summary of my address and key intercession points to give to people to read and take away. More expensive textual consumerism, the cynic might say. Agreed. The liturgical norm is now the takeway leaflet! It's not a perfect solution but one that respects the purpose of the gathering.

I was happier with the Alternative Service Book of 1980 despite its limitations, because it was faithful to the strategic design concept of a single Book of Common Prayer complementing the Bible from 1549 onwards. I've been an experimenter and innovator in liturgical praxis for the past half century, but I still wish we could recognise and stay faithful to the gift renaissance and reformation worship practitioners gave us. Just because we have all the core texts and variations accessible on line, and can replace the book with the tablet for reading scripture or prayers, doesn't detract from the central idea of having a text in your hand that doesn't need a web connection or a re-charging.

Recently IKEA, God bless them, promoted their annual product catalogue with a satire of an iPad advertisment. All it needs now is for some smart seminarian to come up with a promotional ad. for Common Worship - the book - as a radically innovative an alternative to Visual Liturgy on-line. 

Honestly I don't hate digital media or on line liturgical archives. I use them like any other slave to time saving corner cutting. The truth is, I think the quality of my prayer life is suffering from months of using the CofE Daily Office and/or iBreviary online, and not having the much more sensual experience of a book I've carried about for decades in my hand. 

There are no fingerprints to wipe from the surface of a book as there are from a screen. A book ages with touch, and absorbs memories of many forgotten moments in its blemishes and annotations. It's far more alive, and I'm much more connected with it physically than with a user interface I can read easily on most devices, even in the dark, so  long as there's power, so long as there's bandwidth. 

Such strange bewildering times we live in.

After the morning's service, I was taken to La Herradura beach for long lunch at the Chambao de Vicente restaurant. It was a lovely relaxed experience with lots of interesting conversation, ending with tea in the house of my hosts and a return to Church House with the setting sun in our faces.

  

Ascension Day realisation

When I started the iBreviary app this morning, it wouldn't give me the liturgy for Ascension Day, but St Matthias, which was rather puzzling. This date is normally that of the feast of the Apostle, but traditionally Ascension Day takes precedence as one of the twelve great feasts of the church. In my lifetime it's become commonplace to move the observance of Ascension to the Sunday following, but when I checked liturgical calendars on-line, I found that the Roman Catholics have ditched 'Holy Thursday' entirely in favour of Sunday next, whereas the Anglican calendar has retained it. I guess it's different in countries where 'Holy Thusday' is still a public holiday. But this has happened without me picking up on it from church news, or noticing it until now.

Judith came and collected me at eleven to go and take Communion to congregation member  in a care home temporarily. When we arrived, we discovered that she'd been taken off to an opthalmology appointment two hours earlier and wasn't expected back to meet with us. Something had gone wrong with the arrangements. We drank a coffee and waited for a while before deciding to head back to Nerja, and seek to make a new arrangement for next week.

The care home is very modern and well run, making use of glass walls internally and externally to get light right into the heart of the building and make it easier to staff to see what residents are doing in case they need support. While we were walking around and waiting, I couldn't help noticing myself  reflected in the glass walls, the image of an old man, no different from that of some more spritely residents.

Truth is, I don't think of myself as being that old. Because I'm fairly fit, I don't feel that old. Yes, how quickly that could change. I've certainly become more aware of the needs of older people in the last decade, and that's important. Perhaps for the first time I see the possibility of identifying with ageing and aged people, as one of them myself. Finitude, vulnerability and mortality suddenly become a disconcerting thought.  Not their problem any longer, but ours, mine!
   

Holy Saturday and the Virgen de Soledad

A quiet day, time to rest and prepare an Easter sermon. The family took themselves off to Fuengirola Zoo for the afternoon, and I stayed at home, and watched yesterday's late night Semana Santa Good Friday footage from both Malaga and on the local TV channel, from Fuengirola itself. There's such a lot to reflect upon in sight of large communities of people supporting those processing with the tronas belonging to their local barrio. 

Someone I was speaking to remarked that there were many atheists as well as believers among the hombres de trono, as respect for tradition motivated many to play their part, just as witnessing to their faith motivated others. I wonder if there's any dialogue between them? An exercise in collaboration  on this scale, involving a hundred to two hundred and fifty people is hardly a seasonal effort. It requires practice and discipline throughout the year to walk together bearing a heavy burden for hours on end, and ensure there's a rising generation of recruits the right size, fit and strong enough to take part.

It's interesting to see that there are tronos carried by teams from military regiments, police and fire brigade. Every outfit has its crowd of supporters, and are applauded for their efforts when they stop or negotiate obstacles. The TV footage shows that many if not most of the tronos pass through the Cathedral, where they are blessed as part of their journey. 

The tronos paraded on Good Friday portray the last hour of Christ's life, his death, taking down from the cross and burial. The crowd is less exuberant, and on occasions stands silent. I was told that the street lights are dimmed or extinguished at a certain moment, although this wasn't a feature of the TV re-runs that I saw. Every procession features an image from the passion of Christ and an image of the Virgin Mary under one of her many names and functions, characteristic of Spanish Catholic devotion. Understanding the distinctions for someone not raised in this spiritual tradition is an quite exercise in interpretation. 

After watching the Malaga processions and then later those of Fuengirola, there was one image of Mary I saw that stood out among the others for me: Nuestra Senora de Soledad our Lady of Solitude. Mart stands at the foot of the empty cross her arms open downwards in a gesture of abandonment and desolation. There are ornate versions and occasionally one that's relatively simple. It's the gesture that speaks however, no matter how much the image is dressed up or dressed down.

On my way to collect Clare from the zoo visit, I noticed the Los Boliches casa hermanidad was open and the image of Cristo resucitado was in the process of being decorated for tomorrow's procession. It hadn't been there last time I passed by, so it was a surprise to see it squeezed in between the other two tronos housed there.

It was lovely to see the care and attention being lavished on the decoration of the trono, and the obvious pleasure this gave to the cofradia hermanos, working together.

I couldn't find much useful information about celebrations of the Easter Vigil in Fuengirola. Maybe it's not made as much of in this part of the world as in others. Disappointing for me, as this is one of my favourite moments of the entire Christian year. I found the Pope's Easter Vigil Mass at St Peter's Rome, streaming live on You Yube, but it was nearly over when I discovered it, the service having started earlier in the evening than I would have expected. Later I read the Paschal Vigil scripture readings on iBreviary, the best I could do in the circumstances.

 

Work and prayer

After Morning Prayer and breakfast in College, I went straight down to the CBS office for the Steering Group meeting we've been preparing for all week. We covered a decent amount of ground and I came away with a couple of assignments. Now that the accounts side of the operation is set up and in good hands, I'm free to take on new tasks that will enhance our role as a crime reduction organisation. It's a lengthy painstaking task, like building and then furnishing a house. 

All the essentials are running well, so now we're 'building capacity' as bureaucratic jargon calls it. In our case that concerns data gathering and sharing which relates specifically to the area served by CBS RadioNet. Procedures are quite straightforward, but when those involved in security and crime reduction are constantly busy and under pressure, reporting and gathering information is the challenge, and that's what I have to work on in the coming weeks. 

It's something of a contrast to the other half of my life doing pastoral work with seminarians, but I find the contrast stimulating, and enjoy the switch between sanctuary and workplace. I cope well as long as I can get enough sleep and exercise - so I'm thankful for all those stairs I have to climb every day. With the Steering Group meeting to prepare for, this week has been busier than usual, commuting daily between my two offices, in order to fit everything in that needed to be accomplished, and without panic. 

A couple of times this week it has disrupted my personal prayer routine, and I've found myself reading the Daily Office from my smartphone app at the bus stop or on the bus into town. I've done this often, at leisure (and usually from the Breviary) while travelling long distance with hours to wait, or in the air, on bus or train trips. This was the first occasion I could recall doing this on the move during a working day. I can't say I'd recommend it as a regular practice, but I found the contrast between the familiar words of Psalms and prayers against the backdrop of a routine bus journey int town was stimulating and refreshing.

Generally the buses are fairly quiet and it's not hard to sit and meditate on a journey, when not needing to plan one's next move. Many of the Psalms it seems to me are rooted in everyday experience and emotion even though they were written two and a half thousand years ago. Many Psalms come from an urban setting with all the challenges of people living together not always in harmony often in conflict using and abusing each other. The appeals they make to God for sustenance and protection, their flashes of anger, resentment and despair, are part of our real life experience still. Perhaps out in the traffic with a deadline to meet is a good place to connect with them, in sharp contrast to tranquil reflection in the sanctuary.

After the meeting, I returned to College, but missed two of the four buses which go through Llandaff and had to wait in the cold an extra ten minutes, and be late for lunch. Fortunately, traffic on the road was light and the bus made few stops, so I just about made up for lost time. After a meeting with a student I went home to a quiet house, Clare being in Kenilworth taking part in Rhiannon's ninth birthday party. Both she and Kath sent me photos of the part while it was going on, and after supper I called to sing her Happy Birthday, and hear about the freezing cold outing to a farm she'd enjoyed with her friends, parents and grandma. This was one visit I just couldn't fit it - such a shame. Here she is with her friends at their farmhouse birthday tea.

Back to class

Having first taken Clare over to Llandough for a hospital appointment, I spent several hours this morning cleaning up Fr Graham's laptop, since neither Lotus Smart Suite uninstall routines would run without an error message. It meant hand deleting all files, then combing the Registry to remove hundreds of erroneous entries to a non-existent drive location, one at a time, since the best of Registry cleaners couldn't identify the faulty entries. Quite mind numbing, but vital for a clean re-install of the latest version. It still didn't work however. The reason for this I concluded, was that this particular suite of programs was incompatible with a 64 bit Windows 7 operating system, being five years out of date, and may never have been adapted for this purpose. It's not the end of the world, just inconvenient when switching between machines.

I came home late last night with Graham's enthusiasm for the iBrieviary app encouraging me to give it a try. I found it and downloaded it easily. It runs well on my phone, and will also work on Google Chrome. I imagine many  students have been running it since it came out. It's such a useful and comprehensive reference tool for daily offices, Eucharist and occasional offices and prayers, even if reading it from a smartphone is a bit of an effort for old eyes.

Another afternoon spent in College, extending my familiarity with the way things work, and getting to know staff better. Before our tutor group session I joined the staff for tea. It was quite hilarious as most had just returned from a Welsh language class for College members, and had stories to tell.

In Tutor group, after saying the evening Office together, Rufus led us in a carefully prepared study of passages in James and Romans on the theme of justification by faith. The discussion was quite thoughtful, but as ever it seems to me that despite the centrality of this theme in the New Testament the way we speak about it still stands apart from everyday discourse, as it is rooted in a culture with a different way of talking and thinking about the Law, so we're always translating and in the process sometimes losing the real point, so its impact on us is blunted.

From College I went to my first Chi Gung class of the autumn. I was so good to be back in class and have an engaging work out, after months of working out on my own. Still, I miss being able to do my moves on a balcony in the warmth of morning or evening sunshine. As Christie our teacher says, we now need to put extra effort into expelling the autumn damp from our bones to move well.