Building diplomacy

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Met this afternoon with our church architect, Martin Killick and an officer from CADW, the Welsh conservation quango. The idea was to find out where the no-go areas might be in proposing changes to certain aspects of our grade one listed building.

We want to make the building more visitor friendly, as it is one of the place most visited by tourists to Cardiff - at least 15,000 a year. The west porch doesn't work. It is uninviting, difficult to negotiate with a pushchairs or laden with bags, and has an internal which step people trip over with worrying frequency due to poor sight lines rather than lighting deficiency. We want to remove the porch and have state of the art glass doors and glazed panels under the tower, to make it all lighter more open and inviting. We also dream of moving pews to side aisles from the back of the nave, then raise the floor to lose the dangerous step, and create a welcome area in which we can hold exhibitions, and greet people before services - maybe even an information desk, who knows what may work best for all, at this stage?

The south church entrance is paved with gravestones, and would benefit from being re-laid with a single consistent regular surface, as it becomes uneven in only a few years of wear and tear, as the stones are all of different thickness. How we haven't had a bad accident out there I don't know. Very soon now the passageway between the churchyards will be laid with new granite paving which eventually will cover streets on all sides of the church. I am hoping we will be able to replace the gravestones with the same paving. The surrounds would all look good then - a worthy setting for such a fine building.

Fortunately the CADW man didn't seem to think any of our ideas run contrary to the received conservation doctrine, so it's now a matter of drawing up plans and preparing more faculty applications to get permission to do the work. Knowing that support from CADW is possible to obtain for sensible plans easer the way to get a faculty approved. The number of such faculties I've applied for in the past four years runs into dozens. It's not a task I'll ever enjoy, only improve at doing well.

Change in view at 'God on Mondays'

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Due to our holiday in Corsica, today was the first 'God on Mondays' during this half term, spent telling the story of St John the Baptist. This coming weekend I'm away and not back until Monday night, leaving just one more opportunity before the end of term school service, telling the story of St James the Great. Our parish 'heroes'.
Both were martyrs in the proper sense of the word, dying rather than killing others for the sake of God's truth. How I hate that perversion of language so commonplace in the Arab world. I am not persuaded by that semantic arguments on this. Martyrs witness at the cost of their own lives to the truth of God. If suicide bombers witness to anything it is to be demonic belief that might is right, that violence can redress injustice - this is the opposite of what has stood throughout twenty centuries of Gospel faith.

I hope that church school children at least will grow up with the right ideas.

Next term a significant number of our God on Mondays regulars will be moving on to secondary school. I'm going to need to rethink what we are doing and consult about how to attract the interest of a new wave of people to join in. Things change. It's been going two years now.

The faith communities research project moves forward slowly. The Steering Group appointed by the City Centre Churches Together met for a second time tonight. Our University sociology researchers start work in earnest on 1st July. I'm feeling less neurotic about it all now that more people are involved, even if progress is slow.

St John's-tide

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This year our Parish Patronal Festival of the Nativity of St John the Baptist falls on a Sunday. Not that this meant an increase of attendance for us today. We were just over thirty adults plus half a dozen children - few visitors for our main service. The ancient rhythm of celebration and prayer no longer figures as a significant feature in the lives of visitors to our city, any more than it does for people who inhabit the city, who for want of commitment to a particular community, float around from church to church, if they don't stay home. How do we win their loyalty?

It's marvellous that there are still devoted core communities of people, like ours wanting to continue worship in the traditional liturgical cycle, who come every week and not just as and when they feel like it. I'm grateful to have such people to continue in prayer with around the year. How I wish there were more of them !

I never fail to be struck by the fine quality of scripture reading during our services. When I sit and listen to the Word being read, often the very reading stimulates new insights into passages read - lectio divina, by any other name I know. I hope other congregation members feel as blessed as I do by simply listening to Scripture. It's one of those core activities of an Anglican congregation, something we almost take for granted. Every reader, by their intelligent rendering of the text takes part in the exposition of the Word. I wonder how many listeners appreciate something so simple and so powerful, rather than just take it for granted that things are simply done well.

St John Baptist preparing the coming of Christ - however our church goes about it, that's our role too. And it's more and more complex and challenging to accomplish in the face of the powerful secularist movements of our time.

How do we persuade people to be aware of, and relate to the source of their being?

How do we persuade people that there is more to human life than is determined by experience of material existence?

How do we persuade people that considering their origins and destiny as human creatures is important and ultimately unavoidable?

How do we persuade people to listen to and learn from the story of Jesus?

These questions are ours. Working on them may help seekers to clear the ground for the Spirit to engage with them in searching out the truth of their own existence.

For the most part, we are working from ignorance or uncertainty.

Broadband blues

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Finally I am able to post from the church office computer.

Last July we switched phone and ISP providor from BT to TalkTalk at the very time when the latter were inundated with demands for their free broadband offer, so we expected delays and resolved to be patient.

By December we started wondering if we'd been forgotten. Calls to customer service yielded nothing useful, until the day we were told TalkTalk didn't have our telehpone rental account, only line rental, so they could not switch us over to broadband. Only at this time did we notice that TalkTalk phone bills were for calls only, not rental. Nobody worries about small bills do they, even if they appear too small on scrutiny. Further investigation led to the church treasurer ringing BT and establishing that they no longer owned the line rental account. It had been ceded to Cable Direct in July 06, a company bought out by Talk Talk in September '06. Which cyber black hole had swallowed up the account, nobody could tell us.
Another six weeks passed, and then a member of the congregation came up with the personal email address of the CEO of TalkTalk, Charles Dunstall. I wrote and told him the story, and within hours received a sympathetic reply. Within the week, someone else from Customer services rung up, took details and set about unearthing the missing account. Several more weeks passed, occasioning another email to Mr Dunstall and another sympathetic response, followed by a further conversation with someone higher up the pecking order in Customer service.
Second time lucky - the line rental account details were hunted down (they were there all the time, tucked away in a screen behind the first account presentation screen,) and finally the process of activating the broadband supply began. Of course there was ten months unpaid line rental still to be dealt with, but this was speedily dealt with. By the time this was done by the church treasurer it was May.
Finally, just before going on leave, notification of the start date of our TalkTalk broadband service arrived at the church office - eighth of June - while I was away. I set up the office router with the designated password and left it for someone else to discover if it worked.
As it happened, nobody bothered. Just as well, since I'd made a mistake entering the account details into the router. Anyway, once corrected, on my return to work last week, it worked fine, eleven months from the switch of service to BT. Is this a record delay I wonder? But, it's not the end of the story.
A letter arrived telling us that a subscription to the excellent F-Secure anti-virus came with the broadband business service. A download address and initialisation key was provided in the letter, but the download address proved to be non-functional. Customer services kept me on hold for half an hour when I rang before dropping the line. I emailed and was told to ring Customer Services. Vicious circle.
Fortunately AVG Free has caught up with the office computer being eleven months off line and purrs along happily.
Now, shall I annoy Mr Dunstone about this one more time? Or has he changed his email address?

A Pilgrimage and a Baptism

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The day after our return from holiday was the Parish Pilgrimage - a traditional coach outing, beginning and ending with prayer. Three dozen of us gathered in Tredegarville School for the morning Office, before getting on a coach which took us to the border market town of Monmouth, a hour away in rural Gwent. There was time here to have lunch and a wander around the shops, and fortunately the rain that threatened to fall did so only half heartedly. We travelled on down the verdant Wye Valley to Tintern Abbey for a guided tour of the majestic ruins from a knowlegable local artist and historian who dressed as a thirteenth century Cistercian monk, to take us back into the period of the monastery's heyday. It was a most interesting and comprehensive account of mediaeval monastic life in its social setting, albeit a little prolonged for some older tired pairs of legs. At the moment, sculptor Philip Chatfied is at work in the Abbey, recreating with local stone and period tools a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Jesus, based on the torso of a statue found at the site. You can read about it at www.ourladyoftintern.co.uk

The final leg of our journey was to the village of Usk which we'd sped past on the motorway, en route for Monmouth. This has a fine Parish Church, also dedicated, like the Abbey, to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Until the reformation it was a Benedictine womens' Priory. It still has a fine mediaeval chancel screen, plus a rather exotic looking organ which used to be in Llandaff Cathedral in the 19th century. Here the choir sang Evensong, and the church ladies of Usk gave us a super High Tea to send us on our way rejoicing. It would have been a most wonderful day, if it were not for the necessity of returning to rush through preparations for Sunday, there being so little time to catch up since our return, routine tasks left undone, and a baptism to prepare for.

Sunday morning, Joshua, one of our regular children, who comes with his mum most Sundays, and is now two and a half, was baptized during the Parish Eucharist. It was a joyous occasion, with a congregation almost twice the usual size. Josh didn't seem to enjoy being in the limelight, and all this fuss being made of him, and when the time came he was very apprehensive and reluctant to have water poured over his head, though I did manage a sprinkle. This delightful little boy had quite a lot of early illness crises, and clearly hates people doing things to him, unless they happen to be mum and dad. Katie, his regular playmate, around the same age was also there, and several other family members brought children, so all in all almost a fifth of the congregation was of school age or under - a very special pleasure. After the baptism part of the service, some of the Sunday school children sang their own version of 'Thank you Lord for this new day', with 'Thank you Lord for Josh's baptism', as an extra verse. The after service refreshments were augmented with cake and wine, then Clare and I were invited to join the family for lunch, with others from the church congregation.

That was my second baptism of a child from a regular churchgoing family within a month - in both cases it had taken a long time to get around to doing it, because of the trials and tribulations of finding suitable godparents and agreeing a date when both family and godparents could make it to church. With families often scattered these days, it requires determination and sacrifice to make it happen, and the joy of the gathering is palpable.

On principle, I don't refuse baptism to anyone who asks. In the year before St James closed we had more baptisms than had been held in the other three churches of Central Cardiff Parish over a three year period - nothing to do with the threat of closure, just a surprising number of people in Adamsdown and Splott areas giving birth in the same period, who still looked to the church for a Christening. A small handful of these families had childen in Tredegarville school and although they never came on Sundays, they do come to 'God on Mondays'. The majority, however, turned up once and were not seen again. Perhaps a thousand people, mainly locals, passed though the church in baptismal parties in that year before its closure. The sad thing is that it wouldn't have occurred to many that their support (or lack of it) for the church they expected to be there for them, would make any difference. People's sense of Christian identity and belonging is so fragmented in this day and age, that little remains that has the power to make any difference. The persistent nagging question for me now, over the past twenty years has been - how do we evangelise in this generation, in order to regain a Christian sense of self, meaning, purpose and community in life? And still there are no answers that make a difference. It's no reason to stop trying or asking, especially as I still regard this as a matter of life or death. It's just hard to be running out of years to give to the task.

Cardiff to Corsica and back

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Holiday !

Nearly two weeks without phone, TV, video, radio or computer,I had only my Clié Palmtop to keep daily notes of our holiday trip to Corsica, to jog the memory about the 400 plus photos I took (yes, I know mad obsessive). Spending so much of my work life in a city that welcomes visitors certainly shapes the perspective from which I tell the story these days. Like holiday snaps, for what it's worth, here they are.

04.06.07
Bus to train station, train then bus to Bristol Airport, plane from Bristol to Nice, all seamless, well co-ordinated, despite the Bristol traffic congregation. Arrived in Nice vieille ville area from airport bus as it was getting dark. Fortunately hotel was only ten minutes walk from there, and so at midnight we were strolling around the port checking out here the Corsica ferry terminal was. we were both quite hungry but few places remained open, and all, apart from a kebab stall, looked like they mght be pricey. In the end, we found a small halal grocery store still open , not far from the hotel, where we were able to buy some bread and a bottle of wine for a late feast. Quite a eucharistic start to our vacation.

05.06.07
We woke early to a noisy street below, and enjoyed a big breakfast before continuing our reconnaissance of the port, still unsure of where the ferry departed from. Eventually a helpful traffic marshal pointed us to the right quay resolving sign post ambiguities for us. We lazed around until after midday and then trundled our cases to the ferry terminal. Half way along the eastern quay we were offered a lift by a ferry shuttle bus driver. A free minibus circulates in the port, presumably to reduce the number of pedestrians mixing with cars, and to save the confused and the lost. There is a ferry office at both extremes of the port, but the signage doesn’t make it clear on the side which the ferry used to leave from, that it no longer does. So the shuttle bus is a multi functional response to the problem. The ferry’s departure was, due it seems to a problem with a passenger's vehicle, the driver of which could not be traced. He was paged for a good half hour,and we left twenty minutes late. We dozed comfortably in a lounge for much of the journey, as it rained and was cool out on deck. When Cap Corse came in sight, we were amazed to see twenty wind turbines atop high ridges overlooking the shore in an area that seemed remote from habitation. That's new since our last trip here five years ago. On disembarcation, we trundled our cases up through the town of Bastia to a small hotel close to the train station, booked on the internet by Clare to ease our early getaway. We found a small restaurant near the cathedral of St John the Baptist, for a supper of delicious couscous. Afterwards we walked back through the delightful old port area before turning in for the night.

06.06.07
Early breakfast, boarding the 08.40 from Basta to Ajaccio, a three coach diesel railcar of eighties vintage. It looked rather shabby, especially set against a newly rebuilt station. Only a dozen or so passengers aboard hen we left, bu at each stop for sixty of the ninety mile trip, it picked up more passengers than it dropped. They were predominantly holidamakers like us - walkers with packs. We arrived at lunchtime found ourselves a hotel, had lunch and booked a hire car, whilst exploring the older parts of Ajaccio. There's one long street, which is pedestrianised, with fine small shops and restaurants, a few churches, and the national library with the Bonaparte mausoleum next to it. We spent the evening resting in our quiet room , as I had the gripes from excess of white bread. The air of Ajaccio is thick with swifts food gathering and emitting their high pitch burst of twittering, like a tape run very fast. Blackbirds are also in evidence, and some other song birds which may be captive, I'm not sure. Despite the volume of car traffic, the beauty of birdsong is comfortingly audible.

07.06.07
After breakfast, we hired a diesel Opel Corsa, and headed south from Ajaccio, through thickly wooded mountains on the winding Route Nationale over two cols, rising from sea level to 750m or thereabouts, towards Propriano, then turning west along the north side of the Gulf of Valinco, to look for some accommodation to last us the week. This we found in a motel facing the beach at Abbartello, where we were warmly welcomed by an retired couple, former Moroccan colons, who were in charge of the place. After settling in we made our way to Ponti Pollu at the westernmost end of the bay, to have lunch -crepes provencales - and mooch around until the shops reopened, to buy food supplies. Then back for a swim, and a verre du vin before supper in the small restaurant opposite the motel. A nice quiet place to be, with a great sea view.

08.06.07
A good long night's sleep, breakfast on the balcony in the clear bright cool morning sun. Half an hour spent just trying to capture a photo of a lesser spotted Corsican flycatcher or two that use a tree close by as their hunting base for their midair food forays. Then a stroll up the road to the local campsite shop, as our supermarket next door has yet to awake from hibernation for the summer season. Saw a cormorant atop a rock as black as itself on the edge of the water - also saw it in flight patrolling last night. After checking out the beach, we returned for lunch of salad including a super Corsican sheep Tomme. After siesta, we drove towards Proprianu, inspecting beaches and taking pictures. We found one of the watch towers that characterise the region, which had been restored as a dwelling with nice gardens surrounding, and a wonderful view of the bay and Proprianu. Then we turned round and drove back past our lodgement and on to Porto Pollu for a swim and a shop visit, before returning for supper.

09.06.07
After another lazy breakfast, we drove up to Porto Pollo to visit the open air fruit and fresh fish stalls to buy for tonight. With a pair of Pageot a local variant on sea bream tucked in the fridge, we headed off up the Taravo valley to visit Filitosa, where there is an archaeological site which was occupied between five and one thousand years before Christ, and features a number of dwellings, walls, tombs, and a sacred site with sculpted granite menhirs with faces. A large site, rated as one of the best in Europe. Most impressive, well laid out for visitor interpretation. Much more varied than Stonehenge, but not quite so accessible. A marvellous find - and only discovered 50 years ago. Back for a late lunch and siesta, the a swim, then supper with those Pageot as honoured guests.

10.06.07
Croissants for breakfast today, as its Sunday, then a trip into Proprianu to find a church with Mass. There seemed only to be one church on a promontory in the middle of town, quite austere, built of granite blocks, unsurfaced. It was fairly plain inside with just a main altar. Mass was already over and we were directed to Olmetu, the prominent hill village to the north of the bay. We made it just in time. The church and large school building next to it were painted in a rich yellow (maybe a patriotic colour?), which looked good against the paler hues of the granite's almost flesh colour, with red highlights. The Mass was sung, choir of seven women and two men, one of whom played the electronic organ and acted as cantor. Two primary aged kids served the priest, and there were another four children in the congregation of around 50 in all, mostly over fifties. We had Benediction as a post-communion devotion, in honour of Corpus Christi, which fell this week. The priest read the Gospel as a story teller would, and preached simply with much hand-waving - very relaxed. We had a drink on the terrace of a main street bar overlooking the church forecourt, and Clare says she felt sure the guys at he nect table were talking in Corsican. Noticeably the signposts are all bi-lingual. Here and there the French was painted out in yellow - made us think of Wales. Bach for lunch, snooze then a swim at Porto Pollu, before supper. Lots more birds, two birds of prey, and a buzzard, and several small species to look up.

11.06.07
After breakfast we drove to Porto Pollu and hunted for the path around the coast to Cupabia the next sandy bay along to the north. After a couple of tries, we set out north through the olive groves on a rough gravelly path, from which we had some great views of unpopulated coastline. We didn't make it all the way to Cupabia but found a place close to the water's edge in the vicinity of a deserted modern house, which had collapsed in on itself - who knows why? We lingered there on a terrace close to the water's edge with only the sound of the sea and the sight of butterflies - few birds out here. Then, back to Porto Pollu for a swim and a drink before driving home for a shower and supper.

12.06.07
After breakfast, we set out to find the section of coastal path running along the ridge above our motel , walking about 2km along the road to Porto Pollu and trying various tracks uphill without success. In the end we came home and had lunch and a snooze before going by car on the narrow twisting road to discover Cupabia beach - a mile long, fringed by dunes, beneath we wooded hills of the enclosing bay. There was no shade and quite a wind, so we cut short our visit, preferring to swim instead at Porto Pollu where it's more sheltered. On the way down we stopped to look at the small hill village of Serra di Ferron, with its delightful well cared for simple church, containing two Virgins , two St Anthonys, a St Julie, and a well clad male saint with a pig for a companion. Glorious views of the Golfe de Valinco from up there. After our swim, we returned for an apero with the gardiens of the motel and a few other guests, mountain walkers before returning to Porto Pollu for supper at a beach restaurant.

13.06.07
We decided to explore further up the Taravu river valley today,our last full Corsican day. we found a delightful hotel restaurant in an old mill building next to an ancient stone bridge crossing the river, at Calzola. There was a spacious campsite and a winery in the vicinity. After a drink on the terrace overlooking the river - saw a kingfisher, heard another cuckoo, twice this week, and could see trout and eel clearly in the water below. We went on up the mountain road, towards the col d'Aja Bastiano, visiting the hill villages of Cogliocpli-Monticci, and Pila Canale, with their houses constructed of granite blocks - all different - with exquisite mountain views. Then we descended to take lunch at the old mill restaurant, a most enjoyable affair,ending with local cheese and fig jam, accompanied by a pichet of excellent cheap local red wine, probably from the surrounding land. Then a stroll in the heat before heading to our favourite beach at Porto Pollu for a last swim. Then home to clean up and pack, ready for an early start.

14.06.07
And yes indeed, we were breakfasted and saying farewell by eight o’clock and taking the Route Nationale north to Ajaccio. The roads were hardly busy, thankfully, for the narrower sections must a nightmare when there are dozens of summer coaches, and work lorries, not just an early morning handful. Ajaccio seems to be perpetually traffic congested, however, but checking in the car was easier than feared, as the small service team was expecting us and pleased when we arrived to time. We sat on the main street and had a drink and a croissant in a pavement café. Then Clare went for a last minute Christmas present hunt (as is her wont on summer holiday), and I sat and people watched for an hour. Just a short walk down the hill took us to the air conditioned modern ferry terminal, and just an hour to wait before the ferry arrived.
The crossing was fine, apart from an awful American baseball romance movie on the ubiquitous overhead monitors. By tea time we were checked into a spacious (for Nice) hotel room, in the hotel next door to the one we’d stayed in on arrival. We had time for a stroll around old shopping haunts before eating out at a pasticceria in the vieille ville, which looks a lot less tatty than when we were last here five years ago. I spent time during the meal watching a young man begging, and observed that of the hundred or so passers by, while I watched, two young men offered him cigarettes, a third gave him money. The four women who gave him money were all old enough to be his mother, shall we say. The body language of lots of the younger passers by was fascinating – neither aggressive, nor indifferent, but clearly dissociative.

15.06.07
Despite a night in a comfortable room, neither of us slept well, and we were up and about by six, readying ourselves for the airport bus at seven forty. Which left on time, despite the generally surly atmosphere that seems to typify Nice bus station at all hours of day and night. We were ahead of time at check-in, and thus had a good two hours of indolence, plane and people watching before the flight back to Bristol. Bus and train transfers were seamless, so we were home within two hours of landing. After ten days of perfect weather, however, the heavens opened was we arrived in Cardiff Central station, and so we arrived home from the local ‘bus dripping wet, with a not too huge pile of mail to greet us – not to mention a thunder storm!

Meeting of minds

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A small group of grant recipients from the Community Development Foundation met today with FCCBF project manager Anna Allen at the Norwegian Church. It was so noisy inside the building we moved out on to the grass in the sunshine, which was quite pleasant and surprisingly, much quieter.

Gwyn Williams, director of the Llangollen International Eisteddfod company and a grant recipient made the four hour journey to attend the meeting. He has a project which aims to forge appropriate links between the Eisteddfod and the 38 linguistic and cultural communities so far identified in Denbighshire.

Dave Berryman a fieldworker for Rhondda Cynon Taff based Christian community based social inclusion project was there. He's part funded by FCCBF to research and engage with emerging other-faith groups in the Local Authority Area, where these seems to be a huge information void at present. It's real 'missionary' stuff, quite suitable for English Baptist minister in secular employement - well, not really, as his project is church-initiated.

Soad Hamdi and Samar Wafa were there from Women Connect First a Cardiff project that works with ethnic minority community women, teaching technology and organisational skills. Soad is CEO - Egyptian Muslim with a load of hands on experience of wheeling and dealing with the Council. All that I've been saying recently about the kind of frustrations experienced by Christians in relation to the Local Authority she confirmed were also true for Muslim communities. Samar is employed on the FCCBF grant as a part time volunteer co-ordinator for the year. They now have a new HQ in Neville Street, Riverside, after a long battle to obtain funding once Communities First Funding was withdrawn from Wales.

John Martin Evans was there, he's an ex OECD statistician, researching on behalf on the Evangelical Alliance into the social and economic contribution made by faith communities in Wales. He's been at it for over a year, and has only just obtain FCCBF funding alongside three other grants to run his project. In some aspects his data gathering resembles ours, but his remit is national, not confined to this city and relationships between its government of religious communities. The two projects together should complement each other, and could have quite an impact, hopefully to get those in power to take religious communities more seriously.

It was a useful and positive meeting, with quite a bit of shared awareness of the way religion and religiously based enterprises have been pushed out of the public domain. There's a strong desire to make a case for changing this, but I'm not sure how much people realise this is a deep political and ideological issue this is in the society we've allowed to develop. I was glad of this opportunity to see our project in this context.

It's been quite an intense time, this past month or so. Glad to be signing off for a break, away from work and computers. Well it's one way of finding out if I'm really a cyber-addict !

An unusual funeral

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For only the second time this year, I had a funeral to do this week. It was of a man, born a Catholic, who spent much of his life as a seafarer, and in his old age, he'd started reading the Qu'ran and practising prayer Muslim style. A few days before his death he was visited by two local Mosque officials, and he made his submission to Allah, all of which left his family a bit bewildered about what to do, since he's stipulated in his will that he wanted to be cremated - not a very Muslim thing to do.

When I was in Geneva, the Welsh friend of an Iranian woman got in touch and asked if I would do her friend's funeral. She still believed and practised Muslim prayer at home but had an abhorrence of Iranian religious personnel. Her three daughters were content for a Christian priest to do their mother's service. We included some CD tracks of the call to prayer, and a reading of texts from the burial ritual in Arabic and English. On this occasion there was no Arabic speaker around and no CD, so I had to use the English versions of the prayers, and readings from the Old Testament and Psalm, with a brief Gospel passage about the compassion and unconditional acceptance received by all who turn to God.

In several areas of common human experience Christian, Jewish and Muslims each want to express the same things to God, and prayers are adaptable or interchangable. It seemed right to reassure the forty mourners of this, and to say that conversion even if it seems hard for us to think of it as anything other than a rejection, if it leads a fuller deeper relationship with God, is a work of grace, by the One who moves in mysterious ways through our lives. I'm not quite sure what the three daughters (again, co-incidentally) made of my explanations, but then they had plenty to deal with coping with their children and other family members.

They'd agreed to the visit of two Mosque officials who arrived ahead of the ceremony to wash the dead man's body and clothe him in a shroud. Was this OK? They wanted to be reassured. I had to explain that putting someone in ordinary clothes was something of a recent innovation, at one time working class families couldn't have afforded to see the late beloved's clothes go with them. When I started out in ministry, the shroud was still accepted convention for people of all religions. How quickly this has changed to the point where the custom has all but been forgotten - except in horror films.

When we traipsed out of the Roath Court Funeral Chapel, several old guys, probably ex-mariners or workmates, expressed their appreciation for what I'd said, or maybe it was for not glossing over things and pretending this was a Christian man's funeral when it was something different.

Just a believing man trying to work out what it was right for him to be and to do, and not letting himself be carried along by the flow.

It strikes me how often in the life of a pastor, the response one is called to make to a real situation isn't matched by the options available in the book of rules or the variety of liturgical texts. Having them is more of a safety net (or trampoline for take-off?). They give a basis in values and attitudes towards caring for people and accompanying them in the messy realities of real life and death situations. Starting from a dialogue with ones own tradition reveals what is relevant and what is not is always educative and creative. It makes the job worthwhile.

A weekend of music

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Friday last we had a lunchtime organ concert in St John's with over eighty people in attendance. Then, last night Clare and I went to the Opera, to see Bartok's grim fable, Bluebeard's Castle, which I didn't like, and Brecht's Seven Deadly Sins, with Welsh Ballet Company, Diversions, and WNO collaborating. This was outstanding, memorable, a brilliant piece of 'moral' entertainment, satirising western materialism and the seamier side of American (not to mention European) aspirations for success. It should be required viewing for all sixth formers. The dance side was spectacular and at the same time vividly exhibited the spiritually injurious nature of the 'deadly sins', without ever being salacious, as one might fear. Welsh artistic enterprise scores again!

Then, Saturday night, we had a superb concert at St John's from an American choir from Rutgers University New Jersey. The choir had spent the previous week touring Wales and singing during their fiftieth anniversary year, also on a pilgrimage in the footsteps of the great black activist and singer Paul Robeson, who was an engineering graduate of their college.

Rutgers claims to be one of the most culturally and ethnically diverse colleges in the USA, and the choir itself was certain evidence of this. They sang in English, Spanish, Chinese, and several items in Welsh, raising the roof singing together with the eighty strong audience 'Mae hen wlad fy nhadau' at the end of the concert.

The Paul Robeson Society's history exhibition was erected in the north aisle for all to visit. A fine piece of work, with a dual display for children (at a lower level for reading), also bi-lingual. Robeson's solidarity with the Welsh miners during the 1930s is part of Valley historical pride. The choir visited Mountain Ash, where he'd sung a concert for miners, and also performed a concert in St Paul's Ynyshir. They loved our building and its perfect acoustic for music, and made a full recording of the concert in the hope of producing a tour CD.

The choir made a quick excursion to England (Bath) during the morning, and returned from lunch there to a Welsh Tea before rehearsing briefly. We wondered how many people we'd get at 5.00pm on a Saturday, this being a bit of an unknown time for us to hold a music event. When they'd finished rehearsing the choir trooped outside for a breath of fresh air, and started singing spontaneously in the street as a couple of church people gave out leaflets. It was a moment of pure magic, and people did come in to listen to the music and stayed. We were fortunate to get another turn out of eighty people, a second day running

I loved the warmth, enthusiasm and energy of the choir singing music from American composers I didn't know. I'd have loved to hear them tackle more material from some classical and European repertoire, which I'm sure they do and would do well, given their vocal power and discipline. At one stage their organ accompanist let rip with a little jazzy improvisation, which made Father Willis dance in a delightful way. Americans do syncopation like nobody else.

Finally, a 'musical event' of a different kind. The baptism of Rosie and Chris Berry's son Daniel at St Teilo's Sunday morning. Rosie is a long standing choir member at St Teilo's, Chris leads St Teilo Arts Trust and plays organ in various palces including St John's, when he's not travelling to remote places as a Geolgoy researcher. It was my first visit back to St Teilo's since the benefice split, and it was lovely to be able to share a service there with Caroline, my new neighbouring priest. Daniel has been going to church since he was a few weeks old, so he's quite at home, and content to participate in his baby way. When I gave him the baptismal candle, he looked and exclaimed loudly 'Ah!', which made us laugh. Then when we clapped in welcome, he joined in, and we all laughed again. Such a pleasure.

The frustration of voicelessness

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I've been putting in a lot of spare time work recently on preparing the ground for the research project for which we received funding from the Community Development Foundation's Faith Communities Capacity Building Fund. Instead of employing someone directly to work on data gathering, we've commissioned work from the Regeneration Institute of Cardiff University Social Sciences department. So, it's been important to be very clear about what we want done, who the subjects to be investigated are, and how to be sure we get them talking about the real subject of the enquiry - relationship between religious communities of every culture and background, and civil society, local and national government, and all the institutions which serve us.

I've represented Archbishop Barry for nearly five years, as an observer on various incarnations of the County's Strategic Planning Body, and it still seems to me that lip service only is being paid to the contribution made by religious communities to the economy and social welfare of the city. There seems a steadfast reluctance to engage properly with the views of religious communities, especially when they challenge and contradict the policy leads given by politicians. This is a cause of frustration, not only amongst Christians but also amongst Muslims I've heard speaking on radio, or talked to personally.

Civil society, certainly in this city has disengaged from any meaningful dialogue with religion and is tries to push religious opinion and value out of the public realm all together, mostly by ignoring it or not inviting contributions. When I read news forums discussing anything to do with religion and listen to discussion programmes on the Beeb, the confident articulation of anti-religious sentiment amazes me, and it often goes uncontested, or challenged only by traditionalists without any real credibility or vigour in their responses. It seems as if a new kind of public consensus is is being forged - largely due to the poverty and weakness of current Christian advocacy. I often hear more incisive argument coming from top Muslim and Jewish thinkers. It's what becomes of the church squandering its energies on internal disputes, and failing to focus on the essential task of prosecuting the case for faith in the Gospel of Christ. We've fallen a long way behind in the last 30 years.

Active religious community members of all faiths probably make up ten percent of the population of the Borough, only about five percent of these are Christian, although over fifty percent of the number of citizens would put down 'Christian' on a census form. There's never a problem filling church school places, and people still turn to the church for crises and special events in life, as a kind of default consumer choice. So there's still a fair amount of general good-will towards Christianity, and an acceptance of other people's religious cultures as part of our urban diversity.
Fewer and fewer people are willing to stand up and be counted, and express views that many others may agree to but not have the confidence to voice. A society can hardly claim to be truly liberal and tolerant when it fails to engage sectors of its population in the debate about its present or future.

Politicians lament low voter turnouts and apathy. Many people feel powerless and lose interest in contributing socially because they fell they won't be heard. Talking politics on TV creates only passive 'consumer' audiences. The media belong to and are part of the powerful status quo. Too much street politics is a kind of performance art for the sake of the news media. Politicians come to church for special events because Protocol demands they should be there - even the Mayor (of one party) doesn't always show up if the Leader (of another party) is also attending - unless Royalty is coming! Few come quietly, humbly and ask to hear what church communities have to say about matters of mutual concern, without reporters or cameras around to distort the event into something other than grass roots listening.

There's such a lot of work to be done to prevent total alienation of religious communities which will leave them outsiders, stuck in their own past, unable to be shapers of the future. One has to admire those Christians who stick it out at the heart of politics despite the crushing weight of a system which doesn't much value what they really stand for any more.

Churchyard Path and Gates blessed

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This weekend, I have a rare sense of achievement.

Yesterday, the Friday after Ascension Day, Assistant Bishop David Yeoman came to St John's to celebrate the lunchtime Eucharist, and later to dedicate the new gates and path in the south churchyard 'garden'. The churchyard closed to burials in between the World Wars. It was handed over to the Council to look after and made into a 'garden' open to the public in 1983. This didn't work very well because there was only one entrance gate. When substance abusers adopted it, the shopping public become too afraid to enter for fear of getting trapped inside, so it wasn't long before the garden was left locked. Although some flower beds were still tended, parts of it became overgrown and rubbish strewn. There was a strange incongruity between the regular appearance of fresh bin bags in the few litter bins adorning the locked garden, and the bottles, fast food wrappers, plastic and cardboard boxes thrown over or stuffed through the railings. A sad site indeed. An icon of communal slovenliness.

Part of the deal made by the City with developers Land Securities, involved money spent on works in the public realm. Newer smarter street furniture, lighting and granite paving, also a makeover for the churchyard 'garden' that involved putting a new path through from East to West and giving it gates which could be closed at night. The church council was very happy with this proposal and agreed to ask for a Faculty to cover the work over three years ago. Long delays ensued, not least because of the slowness of city lawyers negotiating with the Representative Body of the Church in Wales a new lease for the new path, plus a settlement of monies outstanding on other portions of land being used by the city to provide a basement entrance to the Old Library next door. It's a long saga, too boring to tell, and it started within a couple of weeks of my taking officer in November 2002. It was finally secured and back rent paid up in January 2007. Then in March, work began on the 'garden' make-over, and the construction site shutters only came down at the beginning of this week.

It rained for the ceremony. Nevertheless we had a brass trio to play fanfares and accompany the blessing. Four children from Gabalfa Primary school, which had produced some winning poster designs to adorn the construction site fence for the duration, helped the Bishop to pull open the gates and break the red ribbon which was threaded through the railings around the entire site. It looked great. Council Leader Rodney Berman and local SD2 project manager Simon Armstrong made short speeches, and then the assembly withdrew into church for tea and sandwiches with more brass music. Despite the weather it was a satisfying occasion. Most of the guests were City officials, SD2 staff or church members. Most I had met, worked with and know by name, because of my role as City Centre Missioner. I had a certain sense of satisfaction in being able to welcome people to the ceremony and into church, knowing that almost all of the non-St.John's people have only ever seen me out and about in my workaday dress. NO doubt I'll get teased about that as time goes on. We're all working for the good of the city in our different ways, and share the same sense of pride and adventure in these changing times.

On a sad note - when I went to visit Nia Wyn-Jones manufacturing the gates in her workshop, her mother Gwen was working on them with her, welding pieces together, a woman of my age. A few weeks after the gate work was finished, she died suddenly of a brain hemorrhage. Her husband attended the ceremony and told me the story. Nia was off somewhere filming for S4C TV and sent him to represent her. The gates are a credit to Nia's craftsmanship. But now they're also a memorial to her mother.

One other sign of the times. At the City Centre Retail Partnerhship Board meeting on Tuesday I was presented with a Safenet shortwave radio for use in the Tea Room. We've had a series of thefts and other small incidents which have resulted in us acquiring second hand CCTV cameras (old ones links to Video recorders rather than hard disk recorders), courtesy of the city centre management. There's been genuine concern at some of the local rogues preying upon mothers with kids and old ladies who think they are safe and sound in church. The radio link keeps us in contact with the community safety network in the city centre, and forewarns us of trouble. The CCTV deters the opportunist thieves. But once again people aren't quite so tense and unsure of themselves in their usual familiar safe place. We are fortunate that there's such good will towards the Parish Church by fellow workers in the City.

Churches and civil society - raising the debate

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It's nearly three weeks since my last written posting. I've been somewhat sapped of creative energy due to a persistent virus on the one hand and persistent problems with getting the religious communities research project up to the launch pad. Slowly, mostly by trial and error, the right people have become involved and CDF, the funding agency seems to be OK with our proposed way of approach. I would have happily renounced the good fortune of a large grant to pursue an investigation I feel very strongly should be made, had I known about the hassles in advance. However, at last Wednesday's City Centre Churches Together there was unanimous support for the path we propose to take - more on this when the deals are clinched and working.

At the same meeting we had two Local Government officers from Community Planning giving a presentation on the recently launched City Centre Strategy document 2007-2010. It's the first time they've attended a church meeting, as opposed to church members attending one of their meetings. And to be fair, they seemed pleased to have been invited, even though they were given a hard time. There was some very strong articulation of concerns felt by churches about the impact of taking traffic out of the city centre - top of the planners' wish list, when there's such inadequate Sunday public transport at times to permit people to attend worship.

It was also interesting to hear people other than myself expressing concerns about the way religious communities don't seem to appear even photographically, to figure as part and parcel of Cardiff's social and cultural life. Airbrushed out of the picture, was my phrase for this kind of social engineering. I've been striving to awaken some kind of desire for dialogue between city centre churches and the local authority about plans and development policies ever since I discovered the poverty of the situation over four years ago. Now the churches are, it seems, taking notice, finding a voice. So there's all the more reason to continue with the religious communities survey project, and deliver a quality product into the public realm to stimulate the much needed debate.

Also, of late I've put more time and energy into publishing photographs, rather than writing, but even this has slowed down somewhat now. Almost all the redevelopment site has been levelled and now piles are being sunk and foundations excavated. There remains one huge mountain of rubble as high as a house, being kept in reserve for use on-site. For most of the past four months over six thousand tonnes of rubble a week has been removed by lorry to other sites. New tower cranes and piling rigs have sprung up to add to the ones on the former Toys 'r us and Ice Rink sites. Movement is now more restrained. The sense of drama conveyed by the changing scene of demolition has been replaced by a kind of calm purpose.

A new angle on progress

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On my way around the city centre redevelopment site today, in search of new photographic perspectives, I found myself climbing the stairs of the sole remaining multi-storey car park that hasn't been demolished, in Mary-Ann Street. I don't know why I didn't ever think of doing it before, as I soon discovered that it offers a grandstand view of areas I have been photographing regularly since the beginning of the year. If offers a view of the whole site westwards, close to the remains of the 'New' library, and the huge multi-screen cinema that has pagoda-like pretensions with upturned roof edges as if it was beamed in from another continent.

Apart from finding fresh views I ran into the Safety Officer for Cuddys, the demolition contractor, who was up on the roof with his video camera, logging the scene for the firm. He told me with satisfaction that over the past six months there had been only one non-serious accident on this vast, dangerous looking site. He also remarked with pride that the demolition of the car park sited within three metres of the cinema had taken place with only two cracked windows on the neighbouring building as collateral damage. Now that's something I reckon is worthy of pride, looking at the hundreds of photos I've taken of Cuddy's monster machines munching away at steel and concrete. It's a tribute to the skill of their drivers, who truly deserve their 'significant' wages.

I had wondered why the last wall and end section of the Library was still standing when the rest had been taken down without interruption. It turns out that the final stretch overlooks the ramp which serves as a service entrance to the St David's One shopping centre, in use 24 hours a day. The external wall is clad with heavy stone panelling which cannot be allowed to fall and demolish the ramp. So, very careful preparation has to be made to guarantee that when the walls come down they are sure to fall in the opposite direction. Nothing can be left to chance when the impact on business in the main shopping centre is so critical.

One last thing. That tree growing next to the outer east wall of the Tredegar Street car part, which survived through to the levelling of the entire site, offering first its blossom and now its bright green leaves to the delight of all passers by, is doomed. It sits inside the line of walls soon the be built and will have to be removed. It could have been trashed ages ago I guess, but something in the hearts of all those demolition site workers has left it in place as long as possible. Hopefully when it goes it will be lifted out carefully and given a home somewhere else, even if it's in the garden of one of those involved in site clearance.

There is also the last remaining flowering cherry tree on the Hayes, still tucked in at the base of the last remaining stump of Oxford House. Will it stay? Unlikely. But I did learn from my conversation that its roots are contained within a structure that make its removal and its transplantation possible. Let's hope someone responsible at the other side of the site knows this. The rest of the trees on the Hayes were grubbed out unceremoniously and dumped - something which scandalised me when I noticed this in an early photographic foray.

Meetings that matter - God on Mondays

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Having run 'God on Mondays' successfully for the past eighteen months in partnership with a clerical colleague, I honestly wondered how I might continue to sustain something worth attending, now that I am working on my own. When we started, Jenny organised others from St James' to provide refreshments. This looked as if it might stop when we moved pastoral operations into the school, but it didn't. Julie, one of the school mums, a regular participant since the beginning, baptized at the 'God on Mondays' service this time last year, offered to help organise refreshments, and has ended up taking charge of it. She enjoys doing it and that just gives me so much pleasure.

But, how to continue without the worship becoming literally a one man band? For me one of the best things about 'God on Mondays' was working with a female colleague. The complementary partnership of a man and a woman offering worship and teaching is just a great way of breaking the institutionalised mould of expectations - and it goes down well with people.

I put my problem to the teaching staff by posing the question of sustainability. If far too much depended on me, then it might fail if I got sick. Could anybody help? The answer wasn't long in coming. Kelly, one of the class teachers, responsible for Computers in the school curriculum, and thus someone I'd already got to know as Governor interested in these matters, offered her help. She's an evangelical Christian, actively involved in her own church community, and therefore not a newcomer to leading worship.

After an initial conversation and a planning session for the term, we re-started 'God on Mondays' this afternoon, with Kelly leading worship and me telling the story of the Road to Emmaus, and playing the guitar, as usual. It all went very well, and quite surprisingly to me, Kelly admitted her nervousness afterwards, despite her being a confident class teacher, at home with the kids. Well, I guess that was quite a new role for her. Such courage to be prepared to have a go at it.

It was a most encouraging new beginning, and not only for this reason.

Among those attending 'God on Mondays' today was the familiar face of a woman I had seen before, and mentioned in a previous posting, standing beneath the underpass by City Hall, quietly simply proclaiming the essential Gospel message to passers by. In recent weeks, she's also come into St John's to pray, after her sessions in the subway. Last Monday she was in school, collecting a grandchild. This week she and the grandchild joined us for 'God on Mondays' It was delightful, seeing her piece together the fact that I was the guy riding through the underpass on the bike who smiled at her; the same who was there in St John's dressed up and going through these rituals that 'Church' people do; The same man behind a guitar in the school with the kids. Small world.

Across all the different 'cultural' paths we devise for ourselves, meetings happen between people who treasure the same essential things in life, things which unite us, no matter how different our origins, our interests, our struggle to make life meaningful. At the end of the day these are meetings that matter, to thank God for at the end of the day.

The meaning of icons

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The equally distinctive eighties octagonal glass pyramid that tops the atrium of the former 'New Library' along with one length of external wall is all that remains of that edifice. The atrium has been stripped of its outer panelling, changing its colour from silvery white to pale blue, the colour of the thermal insulation beneath almost the colour of today's sky. Since yesterday one quarter of the octagonal top has been taken down. I guess by tomorrow lunchtime, when the guys knock off for the weekend, another distinctive townscape feature will be only a matter of photographic record. But will anybody remember them? Are there any stories attached to them that made them in a real since 'iconic'.
I hate the use of the word 'iconic' applied to any fancy edifice whose image PR people and politicians propose as representative of the thriving status of a city or an institution. I hear our poorly educated young graduate professionals talk about 'iconic' images. How oxymoronic can you get? Icons are pictures telling stories, usually sacred stories. There's little sacred about the modern vanities that 'iconic images' promote. But stories do give places and their distinctive edifices meaning approaching the 'iconic' - they earn the right to be regarded thus with the passage of time, rather than because somebody with cash or political clout decides it must be like that.
So are there, I wonder, any stories that might have attached some symbolic meaning to these two disappeared images from Cardiff's townscape. There have been many a moan from passers-by about the disappearance of these buildings so recently erected in the memories of most older Cardiffians, but I'm not aware of any protest campaigns to try and save them. Did they really matter to nobody? Or is it that people learned not to care when the original eighteenth and nineteenth century tenement buildings in the city centre fell to the developers' ambitions.
It's also important not to forget that there's nothing new in what happened to 'our heritage' in the city centre during the 1970s. My Grandmother lived in an old tenement building not far from the city market where the family had a stall in the 1880s. This was pulled down in the 1890s to make way for the final expansion stage of the venerable David Morgan department store, currently being recycled as prestigious expensive apartments and posh retail outlets.

Plus ca change!

Not with a bang but a whimper

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Lately, I've been out almost daily with the camera capturing changes in the cityscape, as the final stages of the SD2 demolition work draw nearer, then publishing them on the church website. Last week the Western Mail ran an article on my project, but I still haven't seen it. For once, none of the congregation have saved me a copy, as they usually do. So I'm not even sure if the journalist included the website address, which to my mind was the whole point of the exercise.
At the very last remaining corner of the Oxford House building the distinctive, very sixties 'modern' ironwork and glass brick lantern top began to list over the weekend, as the supporting structure was progressively eaten away by the huge 'lobster claw' demolition machine. It was still there last night when I left at four, but at this morning's Retail Partnership Board meeting, the chair, David Hughes Lewis, reported that it had disappeared overnight. Apparently it was taken down just after I'd gone home with a camera full of pictures last night. Taken down without ceremony. An icon that has outlived its usefulness. No even anyone cheering or booing as with Saddam's statue in Baghdad. I have published a shot of the crumpled lantern ironwork sitting on top of of a fifteen foot high pile of concrete rubble. It's still discernable, if you know what you're expecting to pick out in all that visual chaos, but so insignificant now it's not on the skyline.
It's rather strange to think that it's just gone from public view to the scrapheap with hardly a mention. Did anyone take a photo? If so, I'd be very jealous. Why? Because it's part of the story I want to tell, I guess.
The cherry tree just underneath the safety cladding at the foot of the building over which this lantern presided is now thick with pink blossom, and surrounded by white plastic shrouds that protect passers by from small flying particles. The tree is glorious, its setting is as bizarre as one of those expensive art installations that involve parcelling up public buildings. I remember seeing a park full of trees in winter thus wrapped, not against the cold, but to draw attention to their shapes (on the theory "you don't know what you've got till it's gone"?). Daft, but it made me think, as I watched the buildings to be demolished having shrouds up over them - like those to be executed .... defiant or otherwise.

Holy Week

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On the first five days of Holy Week, we had an average of a dozen people altogether attending two daily Eucharists, one at noon and one in the evening with a short address less than in previous years when people from all the congregations of Central Cardiff Parish gathered together to observe Holy Week. I can only hope that the daily Holy Week attendance in Cathays with their new priest was sufficient to show an overall increase in the total numbers attending. In the end that's all that matters, as many people as possible sharing in the re-telling of Christ's Passion.

The pattern of numbers attending our Good Friday Three Hours vigil at the Cross was identical to previous years - forty at the first hour, thirty at the second and fifty at the third, overall around seventy people passing through. It's quite consistent, even the same familiar faces of parishioners, and others from around the city who come because they always come to St John's on Good Friday, plus, inevitably a handful of visitors, this year notably young Asians - there are quite a few Christians around in Cardiff, from South India, working in advanced computer programming.

One thing that was very special for me was the appearance of Lynne at the last hour of the Vigil. She was one of the handful who came up and venerated the Cross. I've been preparing her for Baptism for the past two months, although our conversations about this go back into the end of last year. After some discussion, she opted to be Baptized at the Easter Vigil, rather than wait until a Confirmation service some time around Pentecost. I was delighted with this, as an Easter Vigil Baptism is something of a rarity these days.

Saturday evening, a dozen of us gathered at St John's, and settled down to wait in quiet until it was dusk, about half an hour. We kindled the Easter fire out in the porch, and processed into the darkened church with the Paschal Candle. There being so few of us, we stood in a circle around the Candle for the proclamation. Then, after the Epistle and Gospel only (we left out the multitude of OT lessons, in favour of the time of silence together), we circled the font in darkness, holding our candles for the declaration and renewal of baptismal vows, before taking Lynne through the waters and presenting her with a huge baptismal candle to keep. The look of light in her eyes as she stepped down from the font was unmistakable, something I've only ever seen in the eyes of adults and children old enough to know what's happening. It doesn't belong to this world. I think it explains why the writer of Hebrews could use the metaphor 'enlightenment' to refer to Baptism.

A very special Easter gift.

Easter Sunday morning was a joyous occasion with around sixty people attending, and a party to follow in honour of Percy's eightieth birthday. After Evensong, I worked out I'd taken twenty services and given eighteen addresses (seven during the Three Hours) over the past eight days. In a city parish one has to cater for both the core community, who tend to want to gather in the evenings, after work hours, and the 'passing trade' of people visiting the city centre during work hours. It has to be both, and it's a tough assignment for one person single handed. Amazingly, the virus that has been pulling me down for the past three weeks, only made life unpleasant, it didn't knock me out. So I survived. This time.

April Fool

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There was a big football match on at the Millennium Stadium, and today was Palm Sunday. The early gathering crowds were from Bristol and Doncaster, forty thousand of them, more than had been originally anticipated. The consequence of this was that a Palm Sunday afternoon march through the city centre, proposed by the Ely Council of Churches, inviting all the churches of Cardiff to join in, had to be cancelled at short notice. It would have been possible, with the crowds being in the stadium for the match at the time of the march and service outside St John's at the end, but the prospect of people rallying for the march having no buses to come in on, or having to park miles out because of the visitors from out of town, was enough discouragement to lead to cancellation.

When first asked about the idea of a march, I'd consulted my events timetable and mentioned there was a match this day. But the organisers had been told by the police that the march could go ahead anyway. The police didn't tell the city centre management of their 'giving permission', I did. And to be fair, Paul, the city centre manager, told me that he didn't think that it would be impossible for the two events to go on side by side. However, we're all so dependent on transport to allow us to schedule participation in an event like this into the rest of our busy lives, that most of us wouldn't have the time or the energy to walk across the city into the centre - at the most four miles - to take part. It's a sign of the times. I'm not sure what it reads.

Our numbers were down 20% in the morning, and I undertook to say Evensong alone if returning match crowds made it impossible for people to come in and join me. In the event there were a dozen people with me, and town was almost clear when I rode through on my bike to church.

Later in the evening, I decided to re-cycle a redundant external hard disk by installing a Linux distribution on it. I made the mistake of listening to Radio 4 while I did this. An interesting programme about slavery and the foundation of Sierra Leone. At a crucial moment, I got distracted in my task by the radio programme and destroyed the content of my computer's main hard disk - my new machine, only two months old! Even its recovery partition was unrepairable. I've had hard disks die on me before, but never made such a monumental irrecoverable error.

Thankfully I had most of my data backed up, and only lost a handful of stuff since my most recent backup about eight days ago. But one way or another, quite a shock, and a sobering experience. It made me realise just how much the arrangement of one's little chunk of cyberspace becomes an extension of ones working mind, so to speak. Suddenly it's no longer there. A small taste of bereavement to accompany Holy Week.

Speaking of which, I have noon and 7.30pm Eucharist Monday to Thursday, and the Three Hours of Friday. I wiped the disk just hours after finishing my seven Good Friday addresses, before backing them up. April Fool indeed.

Posted from my faithful lappy, later, after much sleep loss.

Different kinds of ground-breaking

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Palm Sunday arrived early for us today at Tredegarville School, where Fr Roy Doxsey, Chris and I shared in an end of term Eucharist with distribution of palm branches in the school hall. Roy had already been up to St Teilo's Church Comprehensive school to do an assembly there, in the rush hour traffic, and dashed back to Adamsdown, joining us ten minutes behind schedule. It's a good three miles journey either way, and the driving is very stressful. Unfortunately, a sense of duty isn't always good for the health.

For Chris, this was her last service with us in the Parish, before moving on to Radyr. She was clearly moved by the children's cheery singing and shouting Hosannas. I'm sorry to see her go, and won't enjoy working solo as an ordained pastor in our setting. Being on the 'edge of the centre' is one thing, but being on the edge of the church is rather different. And that's what it feels like when your colleagues are all somewhere else ploughing their own furrows, too busy to down tools and catch up on life, or make plans together.

Anyway, I got back to St John's well before the midday Eucharist, as I had an appointment with Danny McGee, the site foreman for the southern churchyard work, to bury the bits and pieces of bone which had been carefully sifted out of the earth moved and set aside for re-burial. Apparently in one corner of the area excavated for the path, a concentration of disconnected bones had been unearthed, probably buried there last time work was done to create an entrance to the Old Library cellar. At that time headstones were all placed in a unnatural straight line in from of the boundary fence, and concreted in.

A small plastic sachet was unearthed with notes on it giving the reference numbers of the plots from which the bones had been gathered. This was re-buried in the metre square pit the men had dug to re-house the bones - about 15 kilos worth in all. This time they were re-buried in the middle of a bed containing shrubs, with a mark incised on the nearby path to record the spot. I said some appropriate prayers of thanksgiving and committal over them before the hole was filled in. It was really good to see that this small team of construction workers were conscientious about doing this, as a duty to our Cardiffian forebears. One sometimes gets the impression that very little is sacred any more, especially when you come into church to find one of the city centre's 'street people' puffing away at a cigarette in a side chapel.

Tonight I joined a small working group assembled by Fr Peter Collins, administrator of the Roman Catholic Metropolitan Cathedral of St David, is preparing for a major development funding appeal, to enable their strategically sited building to be able to play a fuller role in the life of both the city and the Archdiocese of Cardiff. The Cathedral's congregation is growing significantly, not least because of the number of new foreign nationals, among the students and workers of the city. The Cathedral Council has started exploring how it may be possible to make more of the responses of the prime site building, right next to the new SDII development.

What I was able to share with them was some of the experience I've accumulated in the past three years of doing city centre mission, and learning about how much all our churches need to do in order to get the recognition they deserve and play a full part in shaping the future of the city. If was comforting to hear other people echoing my discoveries from their own experience ... at least we know what we have to work at together. Not least learning how to dialogue with people who belong to the foreign culture of local government and civil service.

Yesterday lunchtime I attended a ground breaking ceremony to inaugurate formally the construction work for the new city library on the site of the old Marriott hotel car park. My friend Denzil John, Pastor of Tabernacl Baptist church was there with his organist and a couple of deacons. I often find myself in this kind of 'social?' event the only cleric among the politicians and executive 'suits', so it was good to be able to share the moment with a colleague. I may be the lone Anglican in the city, centre, but I am consoled by having fine ecumenical colleagues.

Urban Mission - post script

I just received the minutes from Friday's meeting. I found the following points made about city centre mission worth sharing.

i). This is a dimension of ministry with its own distinctive, if not exclusive challenges and opportunities that has been grossly overlooked, under resourced and neglected by the churches. (A shared experience and gripe)

ii). The city centre is also at the hub of the urban complex and therefore integral to the notion of urban mission in its widest expression.

iii). There is need, therefore, to:
a). find ways of keeping it on the Church’s agenda.
b). support those who are engaged in this ministry.
c). seek ways to provide an induction for those who are asked to take up this ministry;
d). introduce into theological education the notion of city centre ministry alongside inner-city, rural and suburban ministries.

Yes, it was a fruitful meeting. The remorable comment I recall went something this: "City Centre Mission involves being there where the business is done - looking, listening, waiting and learning for a long time in order to know when, where and how to contribute in a Christian way." No a popular discipline in this era of quick fixes 'spin' and makeovers.