Eco-parable

I went to the Eucharist at St John's this morning and then went to Tesco's to buy a HP printer ink cartridge for Clare. I was astonished at how expensive they now are, unless I suppose you buy one on-line from an official seller. Mother Frances spoke again about the Ministry Area merger, which again got me thinking. She spoke from the scriptures of the day about the difference small things can make, (e.g. grains of wheat,  mustard seeds) and how every small contribution from a disciple of Christ adds up to great things. Agreed, so why is bigger better when it comes to proposed ministry areas? 

Among biblical references to agriculture, fields occur several times. Breaking down field boundaries and walls isn't a part of planned growth. Destruction by enemies of a land owner is part of a plan to degrade undermine and subject people to the power of others. It happens all the time in the struggle for control in business and politics, so it seems unfortunate when it becomes a strategy for institutional survival. 

The church has seen its far share of political tensions and conflicts between conservatives and liberals when it comes to accepting and acting in response to social change. Can't we come up with a better way to build, nurture, maintain church communities? If church decline leads to weakness and death, that would be nothing new in history. It's a natural process, more like ecological and biological processes than man-made management designs and strategies. Within our own West Cardiff Ministry area is the ruin of a mediaeval church on a hilltop where once there was a village, and before that an Iron Age settlement. Once the river plain on which the city stands developed with industry the old hamlet on the hill died out. 

Cultural rather than demographic change has lead to the demise of the church in our time, but which church communities will die and which will come through decline remains to be seen. I don't think we really understand well enough the evolutionary process we are living through. But why not just let it happen, rather than try and fix things with another pastoral reorganisation?

On my walk in Pontcanna Fields this afternoon, the length of west bank of the Taff this afternoon, was being cleared of undergrowth and saplings, a zealous crop to say the least, perhaps the  first for a decade. I imagine that this is seen as a flash flood prevention measure, since river bank trees and bramble patches snag floating detritus, and hinder water flow. If detritus builds up along river banks, flood water will back up and burst the banks. 

We had such an incident back in February this year. So lessons have been learned. Birds and bunnies lose out at first, it's inevitable, due to habitat loss, but there are other wild areas close by. Come the spring, the brambles will grow back and stumps of the waterside willows will sprout fresh shoots to provide a perch for the few kingfishers along the river. For the first time in more than a month a heron was perched on the east bank witnessing clearance work. Bute Park side of the river is still a mess. I wonder to what extent clearance work will take place over there in weeks to come? Urban development has altered the course of the river from the days when much of the plain was tidal wetland, so it needs much maintenance to prevent flooding, not least because natural growth and decline, for better or worse, never ceases. It's an environmental lesson modern church leadership fails to take seriously.

Overview of Sta Pola

A cloudy cool and windy day today, windy enough to empty beaches of all but wind surfers - just as well for them as there's some kind of race competition being staged here along the shore this week.

After lunch I did a circuit of the town's outskirts up behind our apartment, going first to the Camino de la Cruz and Ermita de Nuesta Senora overlooking Sta Pola. This would have been the edge of town when a new housing area was constructed here in the sixties to accommodate town dwellers whose homes had been crowded inside the walls of the Castello. Part of its restoration by the municipality was the creation of the magnificent open public space that now serves the social needs of the every expanding population of locals and visitors.

The barrio displaced to the top of the hill is now itself enveloped by more modern housing developments to a depth of a quarter of a mile bounded by a recently constructed link road steering traffic through outer suburbs to the N332 south across the salinas from the
 town. The original modern houses are basic simple cottages, low cost social housing in their time.

The modern houses and gated apartment blocks reflect the growing wealth of the coastal region as a result of tourism over the past four decades. It can't all be holiday homes up there however, as there are several large schools serving the area, but inhabitants must go down the hill to do their shopping. Even local corner stores are in short supply in this district, unlike the streets on the coastal plain below, which are altogether more convival places than can be lived in without needing a car.

Interesting to get an overview of the place, and to wonder how it will develop over the next half century. Empty housing plots down below are gradually being filled in with apartment blocks of six to ten storeys. Will they one day go higher, as in so many other urbanised coastal villages and towns, given over the the modern industries of leisure?