I posted the YouTube link for today's Morning Prayer on What'sApp just before 'Thought for the Day' and then went down to breakfast, prepared by Clare, who was up before me and ever so slightly improved to be able to take on a normal routine activity again, but there's no escaping the back pain.
I went to St John's and joined six others for the Eucharist' We had the story of Phillip and the Ethiopian eunuch from Acts for the Epistle. Mother Frances pointed out that the Servant Song passage the man was reading aloud in his chariot from Isaiah 53.7-8, is a passage a passage about someone who is isolated and lonely, an experience with which the eunuch would most likely have been familiar, being in a position of responsibility, but without family support. He would have identified himself with this, and be seeking its true meaning. It's an angle of interpretation I'd never thought of before.
Looking at the same passage, my curiosity is aroused by the question of which language he'd be reading in and they'd speak in. My guess is that they'd speak Greek so the Greek translation of Isaiah would be more accessible to him than the Hebrew or Aramaic, both of which he'd be less likely to know. Interesting to observe how the same text catches our attention in different ways. That's the wonder of the Word.
I took the trolley with me to carry the food bank donation to church, then used it on the home run to collect our weekly grocery order from Beanfreaks. Then I recorded and edited the audio for next week's Morning Prayer video, before sitting down to a curry lunch. Unfortunately while I was doing this I was separated from my phones, too absorbed to check them or hear notification sounds coming in, as they were both upstairs. As a result, I completely forgot my booster jab appointment at one forty. After eating I continued work on making the video and then went out for a walk, forgetting to take a phone with me.
It was only when Ashely called me at five that I realised my omission. I rang the vaccination admin line, and was lucky enough to rearrange the appointment for twenty to seven this evening. I had enough time to drive across to the Mass Vaccination Centre in Splott, and as it wasn't very busy I was jabbed by half past six with a dose of the Pfizer vaccine and on my way home in time for supper and The Archers on the radio. Just as well I decided last week to renew the car insurance and keep the Polo for another year!
I binge watched episodes of a new crime thriller currently on ITV called 'D I Ray'. It's about an Asian thirty something woman who is a police detective inspector on a murder squad, who uncovers a link to an organised crime gang trafficking drugs and people, going against her supervisors who are certain two of the deaths being investigated are a product of culturally related violence. D I Ray is subjected to quite a lot of casual racism, presumed to be of Indian origin, but actually born in Leicester into a middle class professional family which happens to come from the Punjab.
The crime investigation using all mod cons available in modern policing was interesting enough, but the whole four part series is really an essay on institutional racism and cultural identity issues, plausible and relevant currently. I suspect there will be another series, probing further the weaknesses and failings of Her Majesty's Constabulary, and that there will be moans that it's unrepresentative of the force today. Trouble is the force has been playing catch-up on these issues for far too long.
