Advent arrives

I love Advent, despite the dark overtones of death, judgement, heaven and hell. Meditating on the theme of looking for, waiting for God to reveal himself in the turbulence of this mortal life, is what appeals to me. The newlyweds weren't there, having gone to Venice for the weekend - it must be the shortest version of the Grand Tour imaginable, but even 48 hours in Venice is worth the effort if you have the time and money to break routine with. At the end of the day I mailed them a copy of the sermon they'd miss - just for fun.

For me it was not an easy day, eight o'clock and nine thirty Eucharists at St John's, then a tense trip through the Sunday shoppers traffic, slowed down by hunting for car parks, to reach Tredegarville School to open up and welcome people for the once monthly morning Eucharist. After lunch, a brief respite then back to the school for the second service of the day, the regular four o'clock. I was grateful that my colleague Chris was there to preach, making it easier than it would be alone. Then, back to St John's through the darkened streets for the Advent service of lessons and carols, conducted by candlelight. This went well, and there were nearly ninety people present altogether, more than in recent years, probably because our advertising has improved somewhat, bringing in more passers-by than usual. We were finished by seven thirty, and I was greatly relieved to shed the weight of the great blue processional cope which is worn on such special occasions, the fatigue and stimulus of recent days catching up on me.

It's good that the hard work put in by our singers is rewarded by a decent attendance, although even these special occasions have but a fraction of the attendance they had a decade ago. I confess that sometimes I would prefer not to have to consider such things as numbers. In fact, I'd prefer a decent retreat at this time of year, like the one on Advent Sunday weekend in 1963 when as a young University Freshman, my encounter with 'the God who comes' in the mystery of prayerful silence and emptiness sealed my destiny as a pilgrim disciple of Christ, and eventual priest. Leading such a full life as I do in this job, when I find I need most of all is that empty silence to nourish my soul. Nothing else works quite the same.

A winter wedding

The evening after our concert excursion, I had a wedding celebration at St John's. A regular member of our congregation in his forties who had finally found the love of his life earlier in the year. I knew the first time he brought her to church that this was already a special relationship developing for both of them, and so wasn't at all surprised when they invited me around to discuss marriage, and matters of faith. Once the decision was made an early date was set for a modest ceremony with just under thirty people taking part, that is, apart from the Glyn-Neath male voice choir whom he ad invited to come along and sing. The groom's father had been a member of the choir for many years. "I grew up around these guys.", he declared. They were evidently happy to have been invited.

Although now a leading local international businessman, he had never lost touch with his roots in the former mining village where he had been raised, schooled and gone to chapel. A couple of years ago, having settled in Cardiff he came and asked to be Confirmed and to join the Church in Wales, not out of any sense of disaffection with his non-conformist past, but out of a desire to identify with the church in the heart of the city to which he had felt an attraction for more than twenty years. In fact, he brings with him good Christian gifts nurtured in his Welsh speaking radical religious background.

The wedding liturgy, which I had to prepare with the couple was completely bi-lingual in print as in practice. A minister friend of the groom's, Robin Samuel, now working for Christian Aid in Wales shared the Welsh language components of the ceremony with me, since the groom made his vows in his mother tongue, and the bride, an English speaker in hers. Sharing the whole service together between languages was entirely natural and drew favourable comment from the congregation afterwards. Often I have done this in French, even n German, Italian and once in Spanish, on my own. Quite a challenge to concentrate hard and avoid funny sounding errors of pronunciation.

There was an intimate banquet to follow the reception in the Mansion House, Cardiff's official Mayoral residence. It was an occasion of relaxed good humoured formality with good food and good talk in both languages around the table. And, it's been quite a relief to have Saturday to recover from two late nights in a row before the onslaught of a five service Sunday tomorrow. What a way to start the new Christian Year!

Bewichment !

Friday night was one that I'd been looking forward to for many months. A trip to Warwick Arts Centre, for Clare and Owain to meet up with Kath and Anto for a concert by a group of Barcelona musicians known as Ojos de Brujo (eye of the witch, in Spanish). Their music is Flamenco, but employs techno, funk, hip hop, rap, reggae, and banghra rhythms in a fusion of the most original and exciting kind. When Anto and I went to Granada for a guitar course two years ago, we were curious about contemporary developments in Spanish popular music, but had not time to go clubbing and explore what was there. The CDs on sale at El Corte Ingles gave us little clue from the covers about their content. In the end it was a salesman with good English at Malaga airport who recommended we try the group's first album 'Bari'. Then earlier this year I came across their second album 'Techari' in a shop in town. Both have been played more than any others in my collection. As soon as their English tour dates were announced, Anto booked tickets and it turned into a family outing!

It was remarkable to witness a high energy live performance that was so faithful to their recordings and yet added new dimensions of improvisation and interaction. Three percussionists, three guitarists, a deejay, a flamenco dancer and the fireball of a lead singer played for over ninety minutes with only a short break. The entire show was accompanied by some extraordinary art video footage mixed in with live video of the performance in a powerfully evocative manner. The group members weren't all youngers, but mostly thirty somethings or older, and their way of working, and the social vision articulated in their music and visual art was definitely the sort of stuff that frightened Franco into making war on his own people. Call it Catalonian radicalism if you like - it was strong on contemporary social justice issues, and not merely exploiting the revolutionary past of the region. Last year they toured Cuba, and worked live with Havana brass musicians, and the state dance company, at the famous Karl Marx auditorium. Their second album includes a photo/video CD narrating this encounter.

They had been on stage no more than five minutes before the group's leaders were inviting people to get up out of their seats and dance in the area cleared at the foot of the stage. First the younger, then older elements of the audience, moved, eventually including most of the Kimber contingent. It was irresistible. Given the stress of the drive to Warwick after a busy morning, and the (as yet unresolved) problem of my high blood pressure, I was a little apprehensive. But as I danced away and clapped the compas wildly (and probably inaccurately), it was as if the stress all melted away, leaving me with the sensation that my blood pressure had gone down rather than up with all this musical excitement. The joy of the moment opened my heart in praise to God. Not that any of this was the kind of sacred music that would delight erstwhile followers of the generalissimo. There's just something about human beings celebrating their creative freedom to the full that to me is holy, a divine blessing, especially in the place where cultures mix and fertilise each other. For me it was a true holiday of the spirit. We whizzed home by one in the morning, and sleep was sweet as heaven.

Sing to Christ the King

Tonight we had a concert of sacred music by local choir Cantorion Llandaf, in honour of the Feast that ends the Christian year. I agreed that it should start at six, for no other reason than not thinking before saying 'yes'. As a result I was gently reminded of a long standing agreement I had forgotten about, that Evensong should not be supplanted by a concert. A bit embarrassed I declared that I would say Evensong at five thirty and anyone who wanted to could join me. This was announced a week in advance, and to my surprise and delight, roughly the same number came and said Evening Prayer with me as usually came at six - eighteen people. And, they made up more than a third of the subsequent audience for the inspiring programme that followed.

Apart from a range of well sung choral works with which I was already familiar, the programme featured a fine solo trumpet player and an accomplished soprano. For one item, they joined forces for a voice/brass duet with organ accompaniment, which was exhilarating to hear.

The musicians' energy and commitment made the event an act of devotion, even though it contained no formal liturgical prayer. Perhaps for some people this is as much as they can manage. It's worship of a kind, and it can move others to prayer and reflection, even though it is essentially performance art. I wish there we more we could achieve to bridge the gap between the two. This is a theological understanding I've not properly explored.

Earlier this week I booked my Easyjet flight to Geneva for my long New Year break this year, starting the day the new Parish of Cathays comes into existence. My first port of call will be St Imier in the Jura bernois where my secretary from Geneva days, and her organist husband live. Both are accomplished organists and professional musicians in their own right, conducting and teaching, working in churches and schools. I look forward to taking some theological soundings with them. It's been six years since we last had an opportunity to meet and catch up.

At the other edge of the Centre

The poor at the gate
Over the past year, if not longer, I've found myself listening to different people expressing concerns about the relatively small number of people, a couple of dozen or so, who live wild in the city centre. It's a bit of an embarrassment to the city's image stylists, but in a way, I'm susprised at how readily it's overlooked. There's a mix of men and women, many of them youngish, hanging around Central Station and the multi-storey car parks, either on drugs or very heavy drinkers, equally dependent on emergency handouts from social services and free food dished out by either volunteers doing soup runs, or the Barclays Bank sponsored / Social Services / Volunteer partnership which runs the excellent Night Bus - a dark blue double decker dispensing food, health care and information on emergency shelter for anyone who needs it. In fact, Cardiff City Centre Social Services has a good record of getting people off the streets and into accommodation within 48 hours, a 98% success rate. This is good news for the vulnerable - runaways, people in crisis, or new arrivals in the city finding their promised job or the offer of a floor to sleep on has fallen through.

The chronic core
That leaves the hardened survivors - people who've been sleeping rough for years, surviving with mental health problems and/or addiction. They can find it difficult if not impossible to adjust to accommodation in hostel for long enough to break the cycle. Sleeping outside means they don't get bothered as much, when all they seem to want to live for is to get stoned, immunise themselves against harrassment and hide from everyday life. One of the consequences of this is the poisonous litter of used needles, and excrement, both human and animals, in obscure doorways, and planter pots in quieter corners of town. So far, no incident hazardous to health has been reported as a result, but given the current risk-averse obsession with health and safety, it's an extraordinary oversight on the part of politicians and senior city bosses, and much to the credit of those who work on the streets to make the city enjoyably habitable, that they are concerned. Some of the most vulnerable sufferers take refuge on the streets rather than stay in a hostel, afraid because of their experience therein of aggressive behaviour, noise, crime - be it mugging or drugs trading which occasionally succeeds in overcoming all attempts by hostel workers to suppress it.

The vicious cycle
For social service street outreach workers, constant vigilance is necessary to identify and help them, Also they need to be vigilant against the temptation to write off the really needy who seem to be beyond help apart from the money they need for their next fix or bottle of Thunderbird liquor. Most of the beggars who appear near cash machines, or in strategically visible places on the street (like the alley outside St John's Church) aren't begging for food and shelter. They want money to feed a drug habit. Probably the majority of those who are generous to them are unaware that they are able to find free meals twice a day, that they are contributing to the vicious cycle that enslaves them. The police arrest them under vagrancy byelaws. They get a night in a cell off the streets, a court appearance that seldom leads to suitable remedial action, then as soon as possible they are begging somewhere again. It's not an overhwelmingly huge problem on the scale of possible human problems to solve, but for those with eyes to see, it's a nagging concern that here's a group of people it seems impossible to rehabilitate. Now and again, one of them disappears, or is found dead. There's no outcry, little by way of public embarrassment, but among those who care, there's a sense of frustration and failure at the waste of lives through booze or heroin. How to break the vicious cycle?

Diverted giving
Steve, a member of the city centre management team had the idea of establishing secure collection boxes at strategic points, and running a publicity campaign to draw attention to the fact that giving to beggars here changes nothing for the better. The collecting boxes are intended to raise funds for voluntary rehabilitation work. Suitably secure boxes, to be set in a ground mounted pillar were acquired. Permission has been granted, so far, only to install them in NCP car parks near the pay machines, a favourite site for beggars. Heaven knows what the banks would think of having boxes near cashpoints, as they seem reluctant to do anything about the sad characters who regularly squat near them at night importuning, sometimes even intimidating customers. Steve's hard hitting publicity poster awareness campaign promoting 'diverted giving' has been watered down with help from anxious local authority lawyers. All is now set to run, with a bit of extra enforcement help from the police.

Consequences
Will this shake up the routine of the hardened addicted rough sleepers? Will the extra hassle nudge them in the direction of compromising their anti social demands and accepting the professional help that's there waiting for them? We wait and see - in my case, watch and pray. The start of recent police crackdowns on vagrants in the centre co-incided with a series of purse thefts from volunteers looking after the 'Cards for Good Causes' shop and the South Wales Arts Exhibition in church. These incidents may be unrelated, but it has church workers all a bit edgy at the moment.

Unconsidered impact
The other worrying factor in attempts to address the homeless problem has been the impact of the volunteer soup run on the area in which it is located. A couple of times it has moved in the past year. Crowds of meal seekers gather, drug dealers seek them out. Sometimes there are fights. Sometimes shoppers passing by are intimidated. There's always discarded remains of food and containers strewn about the street adding to the burden of night cleaners and neighbouring shop workers. Children who are not homeless or runaway gather to be fed, sent by parents unwilling or unable to make them a meal at home. These can be vulnerable in the presence of unstable people, and vulnerable to predators who target children for their own reasons. Some experienced volunteers are aware and concerned about the problems caused. There's no doubt about the keenness and sincerity of all the volunteers, but for the most part they little or no training, and are unable to handle problems which arise. The danger is they become part of the overall problem. In some British cities, and also in the US, street based feeding stations have been banned because of the public nuisance factor.

A middle way?
Discussions about these concerns in Cardiff, between city centre social workers, city centre management, retailers, politicians, police and clergy colleagues which I've been privileged to share conclude that the volunteer contribution (over a hundred people, mostly from suburban churches) should not be banished or punished, but supported and encouraged to work with the professionals and the authorities, offered suitable training to make them more effective as 'street carers' - nice new piece of civic jargon.
Everyone argues about the hows and wherefores, and the pastoral methods to be applied, but the bottom line is that everyone's desires and aims for rehabilitation. Without it the problem persists. Many religious believers may hope for conversions, morally reformed characters etc., but it's healing at every level that's most needed, setting sufferers free to live full lives, no longer defined merely as a victim or a micro contributor to international organised crime and the Afghan economy.
Progress in setting up a scheme to empower street carers is a painstaking task, requiring political and diplomatic persuasiveness to keep everyone on-side. It's a complex, many layered project that needs trust and good-will all round. Better that it happens in a low key way, than being driven by the media which can quickly raise a storm of attention, and equally quickly pass on to the next minor sensation, having provoked over-reaction in every direction. It doesn't matter if any of this effort ever makes a decent headline. What matters is people working together to bring such suffering to an end.

Far away thoughts

Finally the winds and rain are sweeping the bulk of the golden brown leaves from the trees around the Square. It's back-ache time again, with so much raking to do after each big storm, or else get overwhelmed. Ten bin bags of leaves to take to the rubbish tip each time, forty kilos or so, three or four trips during November, despite the fact that the lawn contract maintance people put in a weekly visit, weather permitting, and shift lorry loads of leaves from the knee high drifts on the grass in the middle. This month is averagely warmer than the same time last year. I have yet to see my breath making mist as I labour at the leaves this year.


On a few days when the temperature went almost to zero and there was a modicum of frost, I wore my ski jacket. It made me think of Switzerland and memories of much colder days past. Eventually this sentiment drove me to the EasyJet site, to book a flight to Geneva for my winter leave in January. This year I'll have worked six straight months with no more than a four day autumn break, and few regular days off to punctuate the working week - my own fault entirely. With a week's holiday in hand, I'll be able to stay away for nearly three weeks. I need it now really, but have to practice patience. Making the booking is a definite commitment however. Now I have to make some decent plans, to make sure I get to see all the old friends I'd like to during my sojourn, and have time to spend in the Jura and maybe even the Alps, absorbing the scenery which has so deeply touched my inner life over the past twenty years or so.

Living in a city built across a coastal plain means for me a bit of an effort to get to a place where the surrounding chain of hills (100 metres max) is visible. I was brought up in a Welsh Valleys village, where in every direction Psalm 121 "I will lift up mine eyes to the hills." came true. Despite the ravages of coal mining on the environment, we were still surrounded by lovely woodlands and pastures, and had mostly a green hilltop horizon to gaze at. My first discovery of the much vaster scale of mountains in the centre of Western Europe was an experience which brought tears of emotion to my eyes as a young adult, and indeed still does whenever I revisit.

Clare says she feels overwhelmed and diminished by the scale. For me it's the opposite. I was glad to quit the Valleys as a young man since in those days I felt the environment constrained my spirit. When I discovered, some years later the large scale version, it was as if I found somewhere that I could expand to the full, in awe and wonder at the beauty of creation. Soon I understood why so many monasteries and hermitages have been established in places of outstanding natural beauty. The hardships of ascetic life are well balanced by the joys of truly aesthetic environment. Despite all the pleasing architectural marvels, not to mention great award winning parks and gardens of this city in the plain, my experience of it more resembles that of being in a wasteland. Everything, even the naturally beautiful things here, are managed by man. Wilderness places, with or without people, charged with natural beauty, and some of the unpredictable dynamics of nature, speak to me deeply.

These days, we discuss more frequently what we'll do when we retire - another three and a half years or so from now. We can't make up our minds. We'd love to be close to our children and their families, though there's no guarantee we'll all want to live in the same region, even though being close enough to visit each other is important to us all. One way or another, provided I am fit and healthy, I'd like to spend time living again in a mountainous area of outstanding natural beauty, or perhaps several diffrent places in spells over a period of years. Maybe Andalusia, or the Valais, the French Jura, or the Brecon Beacons. With careful budgeting and a simple enough lifestyle it might just be possible. Each region has its distinctive characteristics and culture that can best be savoured by resting a while through the passage of seasons. There's much more to experience than the transient visitor can ever take in. And why do this? To have sufficient time, God willing, to contemplate the beauty of creation to the full, and return praise and glory to its almighty Creator.

Often it seems, in the city, we are too busy and preoccupied to give enough time to the adoration and worship that really belongs to a life that takes seriously relationship with God. I see God's grace and beauty in my neighbour and in the stranger, in all sorts of people every day, but it never feels enough to stop there. I just have to get away, be somewhere with a horizon not man-made before me to draw strength and perspective and a bigger better sense of being human.

Hospitality to the Deanery

Yesterday, St Teilo's church hosted a Confirmation service foe Cardiff Deanery. When parishes were asked, a few months ago if anyone would be willing to do this, I volunteered our Parish, though there was no certainty of being able to present any candidates at the time. There was the possibility of the odd student seeking confirmation, but what I had my eye on was the possibility of making good use of this spacious church for a conventional liturgical celebration in an unusual way.

Five years ago St Teilo's was the subject of a development project which led to its daily use in term time by hundreds of music students attending rehearsals. The revenue from this and from a telecvommuications mast helps keep the church solvent, with its small, dedicated congregation. It's a beautiful building with huge potential for experiment as a place of worship - so I seized the opportunity, despite the work involved in preparing the service.

The church was in use for rehearsal up until four on the day. A handful of us turned up and set about re-arranging (humping) pews, chairs, altar and lectern, so that we could have the majority of the congregation along the north and south side lengths of the nave, with the Bishop's throne and candidates at the east end, the lectern at the west end, and the altar in the centre. This arrangement worked well, once the chuch filled up. There were about 130 people present, and 19 candidates.

Half a dozen members of the 'home team' supported the event. They worked hard and graciously to make the celebration thoughtful and dignified, something which Assistant Bishop David noted and made use of in his way of leading the celebration. I was pleased that our Deacon, Christine, and our theological student on placement, Andrew, were on hand, able to support the Bishop, which led me, after last minute anxious battles with photocopying the order of service, to help by leading a few of the musical elements of the service. That part was easy for me. Having to fuss over anxious colleagues or members would have been for me a nightmare. I'm lucky to be surrounded by mature aware and confident people who support me more than I support them.

I was glad that people in the Deanery enjoyed the event and the way it was carried out, thus able to see the potential for using a traditional Edwardian church building in a less than usual way. When I first came, the congregation were hostile to moving furniture into new arrangements, zealous about preserving the ancient status quo. Much has changed since then. The congregation has shrunk, but what is absent in numbers is made up for by the freedom and flexibility shown by members keen to find out how it is possible to make credible again the life of worship they long to see continue in this fine building.

It's a long hard struggle against the grain. The vision of a humble serving church that drove adaptation of the building for new puposes will, in the long run, be proved to be authentic - so long as this generation doesn't lose heart in the momentous struggle.

Recycling technology assets

Last night I met up with Chris and Vic, a colleague of his from Chapter Arts in the Church Office, created on a newly constructed mezzanine floor in high roofed sacristy of St John's church over a year ago. In the free space there I have three redundant old computers set up and linked to each other. Each is running on the same set of Open Source software driven by the free Linux operating system, issued with the name 'Edubuntu' ( derived from the Ubuntu Linux operating system) , and concentrating on assembling a useful suite of educational software programs for use in schools. Like a scrap or antique dealer, I've been able to gather together these technological rejects, and with Chris's expert help, and got them all running and talking to each other (and to the office computer) for the cost of a couple of network cards and cables, plus the CD on which the program suite was downloaded from the Internet.

For ten quid plus equipment donations, we have three computers which could be deployed in the corner of a classroom, easily able to support various basic learning schemes, even collaborative learning projects among small groups of children. What I'd like to be able to do is to lay on workshops to introduce IT specialist teachers to the possibilities of this kind of DIY approach to equipping a classroom. There's rarely enough computer equipment to go round in a school, even when the IT budget is generous. A few pieces of old kit like this could help schools in a poor area get started, and help them maintain a low cost IT budget. However, I couldn't succeed in this kind of enterprise on my own.

Chris' interest - he has two small children - encouraged me to develop this idea. Tonight's demo persuaded Vic to get involved. What we now need is a few more collaborators in organising and publicising workshops to promote use of Edubuntu with old hardware. What we also need is Talk Talk to deliver their much vaunted free broadband service to the ready laid phone lines at the church. We've been with Talk Talk for nearly five months. Our phone bills have been small, admittedly, but then we don't make that many calls from church. It's the Internet connection we need most, and all our email enquiries have so far met no response. Do they really exist?

TO RACHEL & JOHN, A DAUGHTER

This particular Sunday, it was tough getting through the usual five services. I was well and truly exhausted. All day yesterday and through the night, our younger daughter Rachel was at home chez nous with John her husband, and she was in labour, finally producing Jasmine Aurora around dawn, on the Lord's day.

On Saturday, elder sister Kath and her daughter Rhiannon, now two and three quarters, came on a visit, to see Rachel with her giant tummy. It was a day of joyful expectation and family intimacy. A birthing pool replaced the coffee table in the lounge for the duration, and Rachel insisted the room should be adorned with aromatic oils, candles and fairy lights to create a happy atmosphere. She coped well with labour, but the two late shift midwives were tired out when they arrived and exhausted by three in the morning, so in the end, they called in an ambulance. The final stage of labour and birth happened in the Heath Hospital, ten minutes away from here.

It was quite a busy night. I was tired enough to sleep, anxious about getting going for the eight o'clock Eucharist, but excited, and easy to disturb, with all the noises off - Rachel managing each contraction with a loud resonant 'AOUM' - In dreams I was timing the minutes between them. Finally I must have conked out properly because I didn't realise she'd left by ambulance - you'd think the blue flashing lights outside the bedroom window would have registered something in my subconscious, but they didn't.

By one o'clock, Rachel had been discharged. She and John were back home again eating lunch and telling their story, after a difficult though normal birth, and we were all over the moon with delight that it had gone the way it had.

As a home delivery had been planned, the hospital Maternity Unit, in the wee small hours of Sunday, weren't quite on the ball, investing great energy in filling in routine forms and taking blood tests, as opposed to assisting a mother in her final birth pangs. Fortunately, John was there in her defence and aid, and fully participated in her moment of triumph.

We'll get used to more broken nights, with the new parents staying with us a fortnight more, then away for Christmas, with Rachel returning to us for a few weeks before she is able to fly home to Saint Martin (French West Indes), where they now live. Such a long way away. I guess Jasmine may well be walking by the time of her next UK visit. Such is family life in the jet age. Nevertheless there's nothing to match the experience of welcoming a new child into your home. And the children of your children ... an unmeasurable blessing, even the second time around.

Museum piece inspiration

Just as I was leaving church one Saturday recently I was accosted by a young man who was asking what the words : "Welcome in Christ" were in Welsh - easy - "Croeso yng Nghrist", I told him, and we parted company. A week later I received an email from a name I didn't recognise. Dave Lewis introduced himself as this passing enquirer, and told me how he had needed the phrase in Welsh to complete a poem he had been writing, inspired by a visit to one of the two church buildings preserved at the National History Museum at St Fagans outside Cardiff. (Have a look at:- www.museumwales.ac.uk/en/stfagans/

One Museum flagship project is the re-building of the mediaeval church of Llandeilo Tal y Bont rescued from a churchyard on the flood plain outside Pontarddulais on the West Glamorgan border with Dyfed. The thirteenth century Parish Church is dedicated to Teilo, a local South Walian fifth century saint. It has been carefully demolished and re-built exactly as it was in its original site. Frescos were discovered under the whitewash on the walls, adding to the interest. It is being restored to appear as it would have done on the eve of the Reformation, in the fifteen twenties. Craftsmen have been engaged to build a rood screen in the mediaeval style and to paint it also. Eventually, copies of the frescoes will adorn the walls. As a conservation measure, the building has a geothermal heating plant, to minimise long term running costs, and keep restored fabric at a stable temperature. Staff and local visitors alike are immensely proud of this building. It will be used occasionally by ecumenical and denominational groups for acts of worship, though it is mainly an superb piece of educational history hardware, a must for visiting schools. (More at: www.museumwales.ac.uk/en/198/)

Anyway, his visit to this church inspired Dave to write a poem about it. He told me poetry writing was something he was committed do, without making any grand claims for his output, and included a copy of the poem with his message. With his permission, told the story in the next Parish Magazine (since we also have a St Teilo church), and here it is as well. Dave is also a blogging poet and you can find him at : www.churchmousemutterings.blogspot.com/ Can't find his poem on the blog. I'll have to ask him if he'll let me publish it here.

It's good to know that a visitor from outside Wales can find a bit of very local Welsh history as inspirational as many of us do. Pete, one of my church-wardens, a Lancastrian who came to Cardiff from Cheltenham often says how taken he was with the discovery of just how many Celtic saints there were all over Wales who were unknown the other side Offa's Dyke, and for him how immediate and almost personal this made the continuity of Christian history over more than fifteen centuries. He's right - but how easily we take that for granted, once we can pronounce their sometimes difficult names.

Remembrance - afterthought

In the fortnight before Remembrance Sunday, RBL volunteers sell poppies just outside the church gate in the pathway crossing the churchyard, where they always get good custom. A little further along on several occasions sits a poorly clad homeless man in his early thirties who begs to buy drugs. He's often there. He gets arrested several times a week. He spends a night in police custody, is charged and taken to court next day, then released as there is no suitable facility to take him or treat him, and no punishment sufficient to serve as a deterrent. The charity soup runs for street people morning and night feed him and his associates.

There are no more than a couple of dozen destitute addicts at the most, haunting the centre day and night, dealing and/or consuming drugs, they either steal or beg to fund the habit. It's a source of frustration to social workers, city centre management, police and community health and safety officials. Within an hour of the Magistrates releasing him, he is back begging again, until he raises enough for a fix, or gets arrested again. Professionals speak of the 'rotating door' they are helpless to check, despite their experience, training and resources. They all have the will and the desire to help, but lack an inspired remedy.

I wonder if poppy selling veterans make the connection between this sick sad feller and the young squaddies blown up in Afghanistan. Worlds apart, except that the heroin consumed begins its life in Afghan poppy fields as a cash crop, earning money that not only feeds farmers' families, but as it increases in value travelling West, it pays for weapons used against 'our boys'. What on earth can be done to break that vicious economic cycle, so dependent on the 'consumers', who are the shadow side of the city's flourishing commercial economy?

Giving Remembrance its proper place

At noon today St John's hosted the annual ceremony to bless the Garden of Remembrance in the churchyard. There were a hundred and fifty people in church for the brief service, with the rich sound of the prizewinning St Athan RAF Voluntary Band, playing for the second year running. The Mayor and the Lord Lieutenant were there, also the Presiding Officer of the Senedd, our Welsh Parliamentary Assembly. Some military representatives were present, but few local politicians. For the most part, participants were Royal British Legion, Veterans' organisations and their supporters - still plenty of them, in these times when British lives are again at risk and being squandered unpredicatably in far off conflicts.

The main Remembrance ceremony is on Sunday in eight days time at the national Cenotaph in Cathays Park behind the old City Hall. Everyone who's anyone in pubic life turns out for that. It's at a time when usually I am chasing from one church service and act of remembrance to another, so I'm not oging to be there. The national Cenotaph a dignified public memorial, resembling a Graeco-Roman temple, set in an exquisitely maintained small park. It's more usually a venue for students snogging or having impromptu liquid picnics. Once a year, serving soldiers and veterans take over for a day. There's another larger field of crosses here (sadly it's defended by a security company this year because of casual vandalism last year), close to the marble memorial.

Military and ex-military assemble there from early morning until eleven, for the traditional annual service and silence, followed by a proper parade with a salute taken, with bands and the goat mascot of the Royal Welsh Regiment, as it it now called. The goat is older than the regimental merger - does he have the kind of identity crisis the men have?

Our affair at St John's is a more homely and local (to Cardiff) event, well run by the Cardiff and Vale Branch of the RBL. It complements rather than competes with the national event, and maybe it owes some of its good support to the fact that in the evening following it, the RBL Festival of Remembrance takes place in St David's Hall, just down the street from the church.

Syd Nash, local RBL Branch secretary organises the St John's memorial garden. He also acts on Remembrance Sunday as Parade Marshal for the Veterans. He'll be there at the end of the line in a brown bowler hat, next week. This hat was bequeathed to him by the widow of the previous Parade Marshal, Major Bernard Schwarz, who led the veterans' parade, thus hatted, without fail for sixty years. He was one of Cardiff's great characters - the only Jewish officer to serve in Palestine with the Arab League in World War Two, a stylish businessman, president of the Synagogue, raconteur. I was so proud when the RBL asked St John's to host a memorial service for him. He belonged to us all. And, frankly I'd want to say the same of Syd too, who beavers away in the background without fuss, in a good humoured way, passionate about giving proper respect to all the fallen, whether they were killed yesterday, or nearly a century ago.

We started our celebration today in church with the dedication of a new, first-ever Standard for the War Widows Association. They celebrated the 60th anniversary of their foundation with us back at the end of the summer. Their Standard was brought forward to be prayed over, borne by a young woman who was a Sea Cadet. The mainly elderly membership of the Association were delighted at this. In the few years I've been a Legion Chaplain, I've learned St Benedict's advice about prayer is much taken to heart in military circles: "First let your prayer be brief and pure." Thoughtful conciseness is appreciated - something I have also learned from attending Mess dinners as a Chaplain. If I work hard to prepare something short, I get good feedback. It's as hard as doing 'Thought for the Day'. Silence in relation to the words is also as important to them as the words. It stands to reason actually. So often, Chaplains pray with warriors in the open air, or else in the proximity of noisy engines of war, so that it's difficult for anyone to hear a prolonged discourse. How many situations are there in which clergy learn to speak sparingly?

Unlike last year, when it was cold and rainy, today was unseasonably warm, blue skied. The streets were full with extra visitors for the Wales v Australia Rugby match. When we stepped out, as we could this year, to bless the garden in situ, passers by surrounded the churchyard railings to watch and listen - not only to the RAF Band, but also to Cardiff's Scottish pipers, who have now attended three years running for the open air part of the ceremony. Imagine the delight of the crowd when the two bands played 'Amazing Grace' together! Followed, after the ceremony's conclusion by 'Scotland the Brave', for which they received an ovation.

I had to explain to an Australian passer-by that it was a War Veterans' occasion, still relevant to all of us, and she seemed to understand what it meant. The planting of the individual memorial crosses in plots representing particular military campaigns is very moving, and so much easier to carry out when the ground is not soaked and slippery with rain. It speaks for itself.

This year, in the days beforehand, a major tidy-up of the churchyard was necessary to have any useful space for the bands, and the field of crosses. The pruning of shrubs and trees yielded an embarrassing huge heap of garden waste. Thanks to the immaculate diplomacy of Phil Thomas, St John's organist, and one of the cherishers of the church building, the City's waste management team did a special mission and removed not only the rubbish essential to clear the space we needed, but an assortment of accumulated bags and heaps of rubbish in other quarters of our domain, including the larger part of a whole tree! The sight of a smallish 'bin lorry' ('prehistoric garbage trucks' according to Mark Knopfler's 80's lyrics), chewing up the trees was an amazing sight that left me kicking myself that I'd left my camera at home. The city's waste management team did us proud that day - as they do around the city, just about every other day of the year as well.

It was a memorable day, a privilege to be part of something so valued in the city, part of its enterprise in building a community of citizens. And not only that, Wales held its head high and drew 29 all with the Wallabies.

The technological bee in my bonnet

Computers have played a big part in my working life for the past twenty years, as church organisations have been less and less capable of affording administrative help. It’s as much a hindrance as a help really, if things go wrong, or the work load builds up. Being a priest is about working with people, not about machine minding, or organising working with people, except that in our present culture, the two have become hard to separate, and the tasks harder to share out.

That said, I have been much entertained, out of work hours, not by computer games but by following the developments in technology and its social use. I discovered early on that I wasn’t much good at programming, but at least I understand how things work. I can troubleshoot computers, take the lid off and tinker with insides, like many blokes do with cars. In my wife’s eyes, I blur boundaries between work and leisure in a unhealthy way; i.e. it takes up too much of my spare time.

For the past seven years years, I have followed very closely the rise of the free Linux operating system, and Open Source Software, learning to use it, unaided, not without difficulty, but with growing commitment. Now I run a Linux system alongside my standard Microsoft PC for variety and interest. I follow most discussions in the tech journals and blogs (Curious? Try for starters) about the merits and de-merits of contrasting software cultures, and how they can be used to make the world a better place.

Following the recent Cardiff Vision Board conference presentation about new technology applications in local government services, I felt emboldened to write to Crispin O'Connell, Cardiff's head of ICT and ask about Cardiff’s attitude to Open Source Software. It was a small attempt at advocacy, putting down in writing some of the issues which matter to me about the world I'm part of. The collaborative enterprises which make up the Open Source community represent one of the most significant social projects of modern times, not recognised or valued nearly enough. It’s another kind of good news I want to promote. It may not seem so religious, but the movement is about people freely forging creative working alliances for the common good. There are people of faith (and of no faith at all) participating. The substance of what I wrote, minus some of the specific questions I wanted to raise is what follows..

“Much of our city’s current successful social innovation is driven by and rests upon new information technology. Economic development relies as much on appropriate electronic infrastructure as it does roads and other transport systems. Delivery of information services technology represents a huge investment in hardware, software and trained personnel. Notice is being taken in the heartland of the computer industry in Silicon Valley (CA) and elsewhere about the environmental impact of the multiplication of computer ‘server farms’, consuming huge amounts of energy, and the disposal of redundant hardware.
The need to upgrade to more power-consuming systems is driven by the industry’s business ambitions. New software is designed around state-of-the art hardware which needs to be purchased, rendering perfectly serviceable equipment redundant. Replacement costs become a significant drain on information service budgets, as well as adding to environmental hazards implicit in disposing of old equipment. We have no more than the beginnings of safe recycling procedures for old electronic equipment. The volume of computer hardware needing recycling grows with each major innovation in what computing can deliver. Might it be possible to slow down the rate at which equipment is dumped if some of it could be re-used to good effect?
There is an international movement of academics, technology professionals, and volunteers dedicated to creating, maintaining and promoting reliable software, free to users, not dependent for its effectiveness on having the latest, fastest equipment to run on. Partners in this enterprise, spanning over seventy countries, develop and maintain software and provide web-based user support which costs little to access. Open Source Software (OSS) and Operating Systems – notably Linux – is already deployed to maintain server infrastructures in government, scientific, military and educational settings around the world, because of its proven stability and reliability, and high levels of security. By design, it is nowhere near as vulnerable as many comparable commercial and domestic products. It doesn’t benefit from huge advertising budgets, but commends itself by results. OSS is available for only the cost of an internet download and a blank CD, it can be freely distributed without requirement to pay licensing costs. In the past two years, the adoption of free operating systems and software has started to make an impact on the desktop computer market as well as server infrastructure.
In Europe, the government of Munich and the state of Extremadura are in the process of moving all their computer operations to free OSS. Some departments of Bristol city have switched, also some local government departments in the North West. Altogether a dozen European Community members including Britain are adopting OSS in some government operations, also more than dozen national governments in developing countries, including China, not only because of savings on licenses, but also because it is possible to re-use older serviceable equipment with relative ease, thus expanding computer resources at a lower capital cost.
One high profile OSS related project currently publicised is the ‘One Laptop per Child’ initiative of American entrepreneur, Nicholas Negroponte, now moving towards production of a robust simple laptop, driven by solar or hand cranked power, costing $100-150. It has wireless network capability and can easily be used in collaborative projects at school as well as in the home. The laptop is driven by a Linux operating system and loaded with good free educational software. The Brazilian and Nigerian governments have each placed initial orders for a million. Another major achievement of the Open Source community is to secure international consensus on a non-proprietary file format for many kinds of documents. Called the Open Document format (ODF), files of this type are readable by different brands of software, so that no document is unreadable when switched from one kind of machine to another, as was once commonplace. It’s digital photographic equivalent is the JPEG file. Some states in USA and Australia are now adopting ODF file formats for all future official documents, and implementing a conversion process for all archived documents, to ensure everything in the public domain remains readable in future and thus compliant with freedom of information legislation.
The adoption of Open Source software solutions promises large cost savings, longer life for hardware, lower total cost of ownership. From the user’s viewpoint OSS programs are as friendly in action as commercial software, so there’s no reason why conversion to OSS and re-training users should be a major burden. One criticism of OSS is the lack of driver software for scanners, printers etc, because major manufacturers have been reluctant to write additional software for an emerging minoriy market. The Open Source development community, however has its own engineers producing free equivalent drivers. Some big manufacturers are changing their policies and now producing extra drivers for their machines – HP, Samsung, Epson – adapting their products to diversifying markets.
A thorough investigation of the benefits and problems of adopting Open Source software could well be of strategic benefit to this city. Open Source developers have the freedom to use derived products for commercial benefit, so there is a lucrative crossover between voluntary and commercial sectors. Establishing, promoting Cardiff as an Open Source friendly city could enhance its attractiveness to outside investment, particularly from Asia, which is innovating at great speed through OSS. A policy of OSS adoption in local government and especially in schools could be economically advantageous.
Perhaps the greatest obstacle to be overcome is the conviction that standard commercial products must be best, because it is conveniently marketed and consumed, but real value is proved in action. Nobody can be unaware of the expensive, time wasting struggle of computer users, everywhere to secure their systems, free of viruses and ad-ware. Open Source software, by design, minimises vulnerability to attack. It’s not just costly Apple products that have this benefit, but also free Open Source Software.”

Just a day after sending this, I was delighted to receive quite an informative and personal response from Mr O'Connell. Heavens, he could have been patronising or defensive, but he was neither. He just told it as it was, as much as he could to an inquisitive stranger. Without much external publicity, it appears OSS solutions are being deployed where it is found to be worthwhile to do so in the City's computer arsenal. Advocacy of OSS in educational use (my particular obsession, of which more anon), he revealed, even has its own homepage on the Local Education Authority’s website (which to my shame, I had visited without noticing). This was one small fact I hadn’t come across in any computer journal article about Educational uses I’ve read in recent times. Talk about keeping your light under a bushel. Advances are being made in local government, albeit in a discreet way

But what about the Church? Diocesan and Provincial administration centres. How much money are they saving / spending on deployment of OSS software solutions? Is there any adoption? Do they know what I'm talking about here? Llandaff Diocesan Secretary says that he reads this blog. Well, here's a test .... Looking forward to hearing from you, Peter!

View from the board room

Friday last I attended the inaugural meeting of the Cardiff Proud Capital Vision Board, the rather esoteric title given to a gathering of senior city government executives with counterparts in other public agencies dealing with environment, health, education, sport, employment, business, transport, media, etc. This is a successor to a body called the Community Planning Implementation Group (CPIG for short), a body whose meetings I have attended over the past four years as an observer on behalf of the Archbishop, who was invited to take part as the equivalent of a church's CEO, even though the church has others who discharge many CEO functions. It makes you realise what a difference of management culture there is between church and city.

The idea of these gatherings was to oversee the way strategic plans directing present and future development of the city and region are put into practice. This is necessary, as so many major transforming projects rely on collaboration, or 'partnership working', in the current jargon, between different organisations and agencies with a wide range of interests and responsibilities.

You cannot redevelop city centre retailing, for instance without working with those concerned with transport, communications and public safety, for instance. Health and Sport overlap. Employment and education need to be bedfellows with economic development, if the city is to have the skilled work force it needs, essential to huge prestigious new projects designed to 'reposition' (another new bit of jargon) Cardiff as a front-runner on the European capital cities map.

From the vision proposed by our political leadership to its implementation through many different kinds of initiative is a long and complex journey. It took me several years of attentive listening to understand some of the jargon, and even to discern how far all the participants really understood the purpose of the exercise. Indeed, the difficulty of the exercise was uncovered when a review of CPIG was undertaken after its first three years, revealing a mixture of successes and failures, but also dissatisfactions in areas where it seemed little progress in partnership was apparent.

I had my own concerns in this review process, representing the head of one church out of many, in a situation where ecumenical instruments of collaboration have become weak with the weakening of member bodies, and where few of the churches have large enough an organisational profile to figure prominently on the radar of a huge corporate body like city government. Being the only religious observer was for me an interesting experience, presenting a conundrum to some participants. There are many churches, not to mention other faith communities that could also have been represented, but no adequate framework for collaboration or participation. One senior local government officer agreed that local government had only fragmented, partial knowledge of the city's religious community groups, and that research was needed even to be able to invite them to assemble without excluding anyone.

Given recent concern about the need for social inclusion expressed by national government, about other-faith religious communities and their young people, it seemed to me there's an issue to address here. As Cardiff has been mercifully free of conflict surrounding religious or ethnic communities for generations, social inclusion has not figured on anyone's political agenda, though some civil servants see there's a problem. Religious culture features little in the way the city presents itself, and largely because religious groups have made little effort, and have remained turned in on themselves, disinterested in the common good, apart from their own local and domestic needs. It's not only a problem of other faith communities, but also of the Christian enterprise. My conclusion was that the city itself needs to challenge religious groups to greater participation. But how to achieve this in the face of political apathy? So far, no answers.

The new Proud Capital Vision Board began life with a couple of presentations on the new approach to policy making and services, and attempted un-successfully to define its principal tasks in an interactive sessions that was poorly managed. Not an auspicious start. We were not short of top level expertise, but surprisingly short of skilled facilitators to help retain the focus on the process in hand. So we'll end up, as usual with most of the necessary work needing to be redone in the back office and served up for people to nod though. It's the way with all large organisations I guess, Churches included.

Of organs and window guards

Since our ‘Father Willis’ organ got restored to its original working condition over a year ago, I’ve got so used to the regular monthly routine of Friday lunchtime organ concerts, this rarely gets mentioned in my postings. One reason to mention this now, is that recently we had Thomas Trotter one of Britain’s finest organists back for his second recital, the first being the inaugural concert of the restored instrument. Philip Thomas, our organist and concert organiser, the instrument’s custodian and tireless promoter, had, over nine months careful stewardship of concert retiring collections, succeeded in putting enough money away to cover the cost of Thomas’ second visit. This meant the concert retiring collection could be used to raise funds for another project. What for? Window guards. Window guards? Yes, window guards. Not very sexy or noble, but very necessary.

Before the Cardiff blitz, the church stained glass was removed for protection until the war was over. That’s how we know the age of the window guards covering some, though not all of the stained glass most of which was returned to its place 1945-46. Many of them rotted away over sixty years leaving little trace. A few had been replaced at different stages, several on the north side of the church within the past three years. One new post war window never had a guard over it. This, and a neighbouring window over 120 years old were both vandalised eighteen months ago, on two separate occasions over 48 hours, smashed with a lager bottle by person or persons unknown who had climbed over the fence to do this. It happened the weekend of one of our rare weddings. Sue, the bride’s mother was terribly upset, not because it was going to make the church look unpleasant to photograph, but because in the run-up to the wedding she had simply fallen in love with the building, its people and its activity and was horrified at such sacrilege.

After the wedding Sue and her husband Peter started to attend church regularly. She started obsessing (healthily and constructively) about getting the windows fixed, and getting some preventative measures in place. The outcome of this was a personal campaign to raise funds to get safety guards put on every window lacking one – a project with an estimated cost of £35,000. They had recently retired from business locally, so between them they had lots of professional contacts to solicit for support. To date, over a third of the total needed to install the guards has been raised.

The two vandalised windows took six months to repair at a cost of £7,000. These were the first to receive new guards, since then a third has been done and another is to follow shortly, much to everyone’s great pleasure. At the Trotter concert, Sue stood up and spoke with great eloquence and brevity about the value of the project, and evidently the 300 strong audience agreed with her, for the collection produced an amazing £1,050 – the cost of one more new window guard.

When churchwarden Allan and his wife Lyn celebrated their golden wedding back in the summer, many of their friends joined in by donating to the window guard fund as a thank offering, raising £2,000 beween them all. Neighbouring pizza entrepreneur Tony Venditto taxed his sales a pound a piece, to raise £1,000 for a window guard. We reciprocated with a posed photo for the local papers, with pizza in church. Well, we are the church, not only in the market place, but for the market place, and we are still learning how to value the goodwill people have for a church about its business, even in this secularised multi-cultural new age. Sue has done us good by recognising what the church community values, seeing it with fresh eyes, and realising that our efforts at valuing our heritage encourage others to do likewise. The good old virtuous cycle at work again.

Changing circumstances, changing roles

One of the purposes of creating a new city centre Parish focused on St John’s Church, is to enable me as Vicar to focus on ministry to the institutions at the heart of the city, its businesses, hospitality, public services and local government. My churchwarden joked the other day that my wife is the only person on the church electoral roll who is actually resident in the new city centre Parish. And it’s true, since all those who are signed up live in different residential areas away from the centre, and travel in to make themselves part of the worship and hospitality that characterises the life of St John’s.

It’s not that ours is the only residence among offices, shops, arcades, theatres and restaurants, far from it. Around two thousand occupy new-build high rise apartments – student residences and luxury apartments - plus the remainder of old low rise flats and established houses like ours. With several more new housing construction projects in hand, and the re-adaptation to dwelling spaces of areas above shops, the city centre population will rise fourfold in the next five years. Add to this three new hotels planned, bringing the number up to a dozen, and those sleeping in proper beds in the city centre area, transient and resident together, is set to hit ten thousand, by the end of this decade, from a low of five hundred a decade ago.

Of new residents, whether students or a new generation of apartment dwellers, only a few drop in to St John’s or any other church on a regular basis. Today’s mobile lifestyle takes people all over the place for work and leisure. Home may be a dormitory or a place of refuge, but not much of a base from which to socialise or engage with others in the local neighbourhood. New lifestyles represent a new pastoral challenge, and quite frankly we don't really know where to start engaging with it. Maybe in a few generations people will settle more, have children, reconnect with the place they live for most of their activities. The agenda for ministry in the city centre will be different again another two decades from now.

For the moment, the redevelopment of the retail environment, promises to create three thousand new jobs and bring many more tens of thousands in to shop every day. This is a huge challenge for running the city. If churches have any interest in the welfare of the city, either short or long term, it’s necessary to have a constructive working relationship with those who run the affair, in public services and in city government itself. This is now one of my responsibilities, now I'm about to change from being Team Rector of Central Cardiff to being Vicar of the city Parish of St John the Baptist.

I’ve been gratified at the positive response I’ve met to my announcement of this change from people involved in making the city work. Living up to the challenge will be a long slow journey, given the complexities of everything connected with running a place with a throughput of a hundred thousand people every twenty four hours. On a day to day basis, developing ministry to tourists, sharing the the church’s offer of hospitality, conducting worship, encouraging the team of volunteers who work at St John’s continues unchanged, if less pressured. Now I'll have more time to respond to different opportunities arising from contacts I make and the concerns about city life shared with me by different individuals. Also, I have a little more breathing space to consider the future - how church ministry and mission might develop practically in new ways for new times.

On my ‘do do’ list is to re-vamp the church website, as one kind of publicity which I already know from emails I get to deal with gets read across the world. There's the church magazine too, and other print publications. Due to our investment in an advert in Cardiff’s promotional 2006 tourism brochure, and a mention in a local city walks guide, the presence of St John’s as ‘must-visit’ place has seen tourist numbers rise 50% this past six months. The Tea Room is busy most days it is open.

Just now the annual ‘Cards for Good Causes’ charity Christmas Card shop is preparing for business in the St John chapel area of the church. This also brings in large numbers of people. For the past couple of weeks a Christian Aid exhibition about post Tsunami reconstruction work in Sri Lanka has graced the North Aisle. In mid-November few weeks time South Wales Artists will turn that aisle into a gallery to exhibit paintings for sale by talented amateurs, bringing in many more people, just to look, and enjoy the peace and quiet.

This week, outside the church, on the west railings of the north churchyard, there are five large yellow panels with black artwork on them, done by a member of Cardiff's One World group, expounding the importance of international trade justice. This is one World Week, and the third year the exhibition has appeared, growing by one panel each year. It's remarkable given the rowdiness of revellers in the streets several nights each week that the panels have never been vandalised. Next week, the Royal British Legion will be planting a field of crosses in the churchyard behind the same railings, to prepare for the Cardiff & Vale Branch Garden of Remembrance. There's another bigger Garden of Remembrance that will also be planted with crosses, just a quarter of a mile away at the National Cenotaph behind City Hall, in Cathays Park. Both are as much dignified protests against the futile violence of war, as they are commemorations of those killed.

The church and its environment is a busy place, but it rarely loses its tranquility. This holy place is the engine room for every other city activity we try to become part of. ‘Our lot is set in a fair ground’, as the Psalmist says. (Ps 16:7) As its custodians church members have much to live up to.

On Muslims and Mosques in Cathays

As I was preparing to celebrate the evening Eucharist at St Teilo's last night, a dozen men arrived in church, whose dress declared them to be Muslims of varied ethnic backgrounds. Due to a mix up in their leader's diary they were 24 hours late for a meeting of the local community and police representatives being hosted by the church. There was more laughter than embarrassment at the mistake, and many warm greetings were exchanged, ending with a invitation to the handful of us who welcomed them to visit the local Mosque in Wyvern Road the following night to join the members for their Ramadhan breakfast, or iftar, as it is known, part of their celebration of Lailat al Qu'adr, the 'Night of Power', a vigil celebration which commemorates the descent of the Qu'ran from Allah in the seventh heaven to the first heaven from whence the angel Gibril (Gabriel) dictates it to Muhammad. Matt, one of the churchwardens and myself were free and promised to attend.

I had been to the Wyvern Road mosque once last summer with my wife Clare, when an Open Day had been held. The buildings were once the St Teilo church hall, but were sold off twenty years ago, when the fortunes of the parish took a downward turn. It was good to see it still in religious community use, and indeed to see how international a Mosque it is. Being close to the University, many attendees are students and single, others are settlers of many years standing, local businessman and university people with generations of their own families in the Mosque with them.

We were warmly greeted, and at the end of opening prayers, served with a meal of soup, curried chicken rice and vegetables, followed by a milk pudding and lots of tea. We chatted with various elders from Pakistan, Palestine, North Africa, and interestingly with two students from Azerbajahn, brothers who were both mathematicians and computer scientists. There was even a talk about Lailat al Qu'adr by a teacher from a neighbouring Mosque, possibly an Omani by his dress. Perhaps because it was Ramadhan, when people set aside more time for their devotions, many arrived to pray in non-European costume, making it all the more clear how many nationalities were present, several dozen at least.

By nine o'clock there were more than two hundred men praying the late evening prayer before the vigil proper, and goodness knows how many women out of sight, either on the stage behind a curtain, or out in the back hall preparing meals for all these attendees. Hundreds of Ramadhan breakfasts are served up nightly here, perhaps because this is a Mosque that welcomes many single people. Commonly Muslim families break their fast at home together, so this was something special and pastoral, serving a mobile community - and yes, just as many mobile phones went off during prayers, and suprisingly often, people answered them, even made calls in the prayer hall, despite pleas to switch them off.

Our hosts and those we spoke to were very natural and uninhibited in speaking about matters of faith and the problems all believers in God share due to the modern political secularism that seems to want to problematise religion and religious believers. The teacher who spoke was at pains to remind his audience how much the three Abrahamic faiths share in common, (sounded like one of my sermons!), and how Muhammad demanded that all the prophets of Judaism including Jesus, should be revered for their lives and their teaching.

Whilst we may never agree on the meaning of the life and death of Jesus, with the Qu'ran taking Jesus straight to heaven and effectively bypassing the significance of the cross, their prophetic take on Jesus has value. I remember Walter Hollenweger, professor of mission in Birmingham in the eighties writing about the Qu'ranic view of Jesus, and saying that it possibly lies closer to the view of Jesus which would have been held by some first Jewish believers believers - 'early Semitic Christology' he calls this understanding of Jesus as an anointed prophet of God. The idea of Jesus as Son and Word of God belongs more in the realm of Hellenistic thought. Islam was born among semitic people, even if they aren't so very keen on their Israeli cousins nowadays. I guess we all get to work first with perceptions and ideas we inherit from our ome culture. Question for everyone is: how necessary is it to remain stuck there? How can we move to a new experience of God's truth coming to meet us from beyond, not conjured up within us.

Both Matt and I were presented with copies of the Qu'ran accompanied by an English translation as a memento of our visit. Our hosts asked that we should bring them a Bible, and next day Matt organised a suitable presentation gift purchase. I wish more non-Muslims could have this experience of being welcomed by fellow believers who are thoughful, intelligent and determined to live a godly life in what is for most of them a foreign land. It reminded me of my time in Geneva's international community as a chaplain to an expatriate congregation - thinking of which, in eight years there, I never made it once into the principal Mosque in Petit Sacconnex, despite the Consul's residence being opposite, plus an old people's home where I took communion to an ancient international civil servant for several years. But prior to 9/11, it didn't seem to be such a priority. Pity too, as it was a fine purpose designed building in grey Jura limestone, befitting an international city, not a red-brick seond hand church hall in a Cardiff back street.

Next year, building starts on a brand new Mosque at the other end of Woodville Road from St Teilo's, a multi-million pound project to replace the warehouse building that community presently uses. There's been some controversy and internal division over the new building apparently. I hope this doesn't lead to a characterless compromise construction that looks more like a large lego version of a Mosque than the real thing. Modern computer aided design seems to be producing more and more buildings that look like models of buildings than the real thing. Architectural symbols of faith communities, whether ours or someone else's, should still be substantial contributions to our visual landscape to my mind.

Interestingly enough at the bottom end of Cathays, another group of Muslims has taken over a rather fine former Baptist church, with an ornate frontage, and byzantine like cupolas and portico. When I pass that way it's often busy. With its somewhat oriental facade, it has stuck me that the possibly suits its new owners idea of a sacred place better than its previous owners with their more austere origins. Interesting times!

Light in the tunnel

From the bad news
Thursday last, Jenny my former colleage was inducted as Rector of Radyr. It was a full house at Christchurch Radyr, around two hundred people, and a warm air of anticipation. At the start my anticipation was tinged with apprehension. How long are Chris and I going to be able to cope with the routine workload before a successor is appointed? Already I am faced with doing five services a Sunday until the end of the year, when the separation of the new parish is meant to come into effect. At that stage the Area Dean takes charge of finding ministers for services in St Mikes and St Teilo's, or enforcing cutbacks - something I have never been happy to do unless unavoidable. There are so many distractions for people these days, that once a routine habit is interrupted, regaining it may no longer be guaranteed.

To the good
Having said that, I don't really know why I worry so much. Obviously, not enought faith. We restarted God on Mondays two weeks ago, having moved the event from St James' church into the school, and were delighted to see the same number of familiar adult and children's faces turning up and singing lustily. And no, I needn't have worried at all because Paul, the outgoing Central Cardiff Parish Warden, who will undoubtedly continue as one of the Wardens of the new Parish of St Mike's and St Teilo's, took me aside after the induction service to tell me that Archbishop Barry had already written to all the new Parish Wardens to propose the appointment of Revd. Caroline Downs as priest in charge of the new Parish. This is as good as it gets as far as I'm concerned, as Caroline, lives in the neighbouring Parish of Roath nad has been working there part time for the past five years, handing with aplomb and great humour some very tricky situations. Funnily enough she had been guest preacher at the St Mike's Songs of Praise only a fortnight ago - already known and well liked, and an excellent choice, since she can start work quickly without housing hassles initially, since she and her husband have their own house. It's great news for Cathays, and a relief for me, to know that two of the churches I have cared for over the past four years will now be in good hands.

Clearing the desk
The Archbishop certainly moved fast in response to our urgent pleas, hastening to resolve urgent concerns before going on a well deserved sabbatical. I've been quite short with people who've moaned to me about him having several months of paid leave. They don't really have much idea how how much he has to carry, even with a small staff support team, fulfilling a demanding pastoral task of rallying flagging demoralised legions of faithful, coping with a bureaucratic system failing to catch up with the 20th let alone 21st century, despite the hi-tech tools at its disposal.

A thankless task
On top of this, Barry has a valued role as an Anglican Primate of the world wide Communion of churches, straining at the leashes to break apart because of the difficulties some member churches have with the idea of agreeing to disagree, respecting each other and living together with differences. Ease of modern international communications has taken Barry away from his diocese and province for too much for its own good for these high level deliberations which seem to have done little or nothing to prosecute the Gospel cause - 'the Primate Wars', my good friend Martin calls this. I resent all this as a waste of Barry's time, and our resources expended on processes which seem unconnected with the mission we're actually engaged with at home.

Contrary agendas
Do the 'led' really want to break communion with each other as much as the leaders think. Or is it just the 'led' who have cash and influence to spare, trying to be the tail that wags the ecclesiastical dog? I think most people don't much care about these so called divisive issues. They've moved on, seen life differently, and are aiming to live the Gospel truth from within their real experience of people and relationships, as close to the compassion of Jesus as they can get, closer than one can get just by endless debate over Biblical texts and church regulations. Sure we can't do without scripture, but following Christ in the everyday world is miles bigger than just scripture or church law. I don't notice Christ letting us down either. I wonder what He thinks about these power struggles.

When will we ever learn?
Our ways and means of management and self-government as church leave a great deal to be desired. Sometimes basic communication skills and disciplines seem to be lacking, other times it's a lack of accountability in decision making, as I've found in some of my dealings with the Representative Body of the Church in Wales. How we will ever become a mature egalitarian networking culture within the communities of the church is a mystery to me. We still cling to past privilege and status (under the guise of 'responsibility'), and look to a way of being in society that belongs to the past.

Time for time out
I'd hate to be in the driving seat, in Barry's position. He sure deserves a good break from it all. I hope he'll do as little as possible with his time, and enjoy some freedom from all activity, whether gainful or futile. Come January, I'll be taking time off as well, and heading for the Swiss Jura and Alps once more. This thought will make light work of the harsh pressures of the next ten weeks or so.

A Family Treasure

The day after Jenny's farewell celebration, Clare and I attended a first ever Kimber family re-union at a hotel outside Bristol. This brought together thirty odd people, two of the four surviving aunts, cousins, spouses and offspring, including my daughter and grand daughter Rhiannon, who at two and a half was the youngest. We'd been promising for some years to get together on some occasion other than family funerals, but not got around to it, until cousin Dianne took charge of masterminding the arrangements. It was an excellent occasion for sharing photographs, comparing likenesses and telling stories, particularly of my paternal grandparents, and the family home in Duffryn Street, Ystrad Mynach in the Rhymney Valley in the days when coal was king in South Wales.

My grandfather John learned steel erection working on New York skyscrapers as a young migrant at the time of the Titanic, then returned home to marry Gwenllian, daughter of a market gardener in Cardiff, who was co-incidentally a stallholder in the market adjacent to St John's church, which is now centre of my ministry. He worked on mineshaft sinking projects all over the South Wales Coalfield. The family is said to have moved house 26 times before settling in Duffryn Street, when Grandpa became under-manager of nearby Penalla colliery. It was so near that there was a substantial coal tip (aka spoil heap) beyond the gardens the other side of Duffryn Street. As kids we used to play there. He trained me to recognise plant fossils imprinted in the abundant carboniferous shale of the tip.

It's really the internet which has brought our generation of cousins into contact wiht each other after what seems like decades of childrearing between weddings and funerals. Several are interested in the family tree, notably cousin Lindsay who has traced Kimber family ancestry almost back to the Civil War. My grandfather seems to have shared this interest in the family record, with his willingness to recount his offspring and thier deeds. The Family Bible, which John and Gwenllian bought when they married in 1904, was handed on, at my grandfather's death to my Uncle Mostyn, his youngest son, with the understanding that it should eventually pass to me as the son of the eldest son, my father Jack. Mostyn's widow, Auntie Mary brought the Family Bible with her to the re-union and handed it over to me to pass on eventually to my son for safe keeping.

I recall seeing it last at Grandpa's funeral over thirty years ago, and remember also looking at it with wonder as a child fifty years ago. It’s big and ornate, like a church lectern bible, typical of what was once commonly found in the best front room in family houses of my youth, though now somoewhat delapidated with one of its brass clasps missing. It’s not an Authorised Version King James Bible. It's called the National Comprehensive Family Bible, published locally by Jones and Jones in Porth, in the Rhondda. In addition to the text of scripture it contains notes and commentaries by notable bible scholars of the time.It's is a typical artifact of Victorian non-conformist religious culture, following the practice of the Geneva Bible, once common in Puritan influenced Britain, of printing scripture plus commentary side by side to assist in reader’s spiritual formation. This publishing practice continues with modern scholarly equivalents today.

I doubt if the choice of commentary much mattered to my grandparents. I don’t actually know if they read it with the children Sunday afternoons, as many pious families did in those days. It wasn't a practice I was brought up with. What I do know is that the ornately supplementary pages in the front of the book were used to record the births and achievements of their eight children and many grand-childen over the next sixty odd years. It's an old fashioned family database in fact.

Uncle Mostyn, writing just fifteen years ago, in a note inside the cover, comments on the book's worse for wear condition and speaks of it as a sacred heirloom testifying to generations raised on hardship. Grandma had penciled inside the front cover 'Please wash your hands before you handle this book, Mam'. Often it would be covered with a fine layer of dust, coal dust, polluting everything within a mile of the mine.

In varying degrees our family members were churchgoers, mostly Anglican. I suspect the book's contents were more revered than they were read. What mattered to them was that the family story, as it was recounted in the front pages, was bound together with the story of God’s dealing with humankind. This is, or should I say was, a commonplace heirloom, far less valued these days. Family Bibles turn up for auction on the internet or in antique shops, perhaps because a family line has come to an end, or perhaps because this treasury of memories no longer means anything to its inheritors.

There’s widespread interest in family trees these days, in gaining or re-gaining a sense of forgotten identity in a world where so many wish to be recognised only by what clothes they wear or beer they consume. It seems people want to know where they came from even if they don’t know where they are going to. Linking your story with God’s story in scripture requires a huge effort, a measure of hunger for the truth of our existence, the meaning of our lives. Old family bibles are a religious commodity from our past, when bible knowledge was so much more commonplace that it mattered less whether your family heirloom was read or not.

There’s not much point in lamenting that things aren’t what they used to be. We’re faced with the challenge of recovering the habit of reading and remembering scripture for its true worth, and recovering the habit of discussing it together as a natural enterprise of thinking people, rather than consuming the latest video epic giving its own spin on half a biblical narrative wrenched out of conext for misinterpretation.

I must say, I'm much taken by the Bible Society's catchword 'Bible poverty', not just to describe the situation in those parts of the world which don't yet have scripture to read in their native tongue, but those parts of the world where secularism deprives people of a sense of the value to be gained when one reads, marks, learns and inwardly digests, what has been written and is within everyone's reach for our godly learning.