Porthkerry Park

Yesterday was finally a day when it was not raining had the option of carrying on with my MA essay or going for a walk. The walk won out I have never been to Porthkerry Park before but I will certainly be going again. What a fantastic walk on a beautiful clear day!

Exercise Day Two

Plucked up the courage have been awoken by the phone at 8am and headed off for Day Two at the gym. Was quite impressed by the fact that I managed the running machine and cycling machine without minor heart attack! Relief by the time that I managed to get into the pool and do a bit of cycling. To be honest feel very out of condition and overweight but there is at least home. All things withstanding maybe I will give it a try again tomorrow and make the most of it before the week's free membership runs out.
After sorting out a pastoral matter when I came home I then settled down to do a bit more of my MA essay.I cannot believe how long this has taken me a further expression of how out of condition everything has become really. Look forward to getting more shape and structure to it but with a 1000 of the 5000 words needed that is at least a start. Anyway all that exertion is quite enough for today so I am now off to relax with some well deserved television!

A weighty problem!

Well after all the cycling (all two days of it!) I weighed in at a mighty 14st 4lbs not good for someone who is only 5 ft 7in. Worse than that when the doctor took my blood pressure the results were not good. Anyway it transpires that this situation has got be checked regularly now and I cannot put off exercise any longer. After discussing this and my other general woes over lunch with a friend I was resolved to join a gym and to at least make a start. So I finally plucked up the courage got some kit, got a week complementary membership and headed for the swimming pool for what must be the first time in twenty odd years. Well I've lived to tell the tale but realised just quite how unfit I am. Time I think to do something about it and be serious about it too!

Taff trail

Finally the rain seems to have stopped so it was good this morning to get on the bike for the first time in months and cycle around Llandaff fields, Bute Park and the Taff trail

Stop and Stare, Read and Reflect

I was lucky on Tuesday morning to be able to grab two hours just to relax and enjoy a good quality coffee and read the paper. In a world of what can seem to be unending busyness there seems to be less and less time to do this. But this is not just sheer idleness but an opportunity for recreation to read the news and inform oneself and ones prayer life of what is going on in the world. Quality time in the best sense of the word!

Slow start

Made a slow start to work today having been out on the Llandaff Cathedral Stewards annual dinner last night. This managed to give me indigestion for most of the night and meant that I slept poorly. Nevertheless by about 9am I managed to get up and at it finishing off my sermon for St Brides-super-Ely where I am Presiding and Preaching at the Eucharist tomorrow. Off then to get some shopping. One thing I know for sure is that the harder I hit my body as I get older the more it seems to effect me. So as far as eating healthily goes now is the time! So I stocked up on plenty of green veg, some antipasta and plenty of cous cous. There has to be hope or very soon I will be getting back up to 14st again. Following that and trying at least to begin to be healthy I lunched on some spinach and tomatoes and cous cous and plenty of mineral water. This has at least meant that I feel a little more human again. Glad yesterday despite quite a busy day I was able to make good progress on one of my study skills assignments for my MA just need now the determination and the peace to stick at it.

Begin at the beginning.

So far most of this week has been taken up by schools work. As well as the usual parish prayers at the Bishop of Llandaff High School and the regular Junior School assembly at our local church primary school I went into to talk to Year 4 about Baptism and to perform a mock baptism. It was good that all this took place in the context of us thinking about the Baptism of Jesus on Sunday, I do not know if this was coincidence or whether it was carefully planned. I encouraged them to think about what baptism was really about, what it meant, and what degree of commitment it meant that they should have. I was please to bring up the subject of commitment as it is something I have found that people lack. Perhaps it is because we no longer make enough emphasis about it, but I am convinced that if perhaps we taught it more would see greater results of the fruit of our labour. The response of a life of faith must be commitment, that does not mean at times that is not severely challenged, but it should if we have any seriousness about the concept of God be something that we are faithful in discerning.

Meditation and Prayer

For about the last year I have been using the method of meditation set out by the World Community for Christian Meditation founded by John Main. It is based on meditating for 30 minutes each morning and evening on a mantra, WCCM recommends the use of the word Marantha. I have decided for the moment to use this as my morning office along with the Jesus Prayer. Saying the morning office on my own each day I am finding it increasingly difficult to use one of the fixed forms. Over the last four years I have tried many : - The Divine Office. Celebrating Common Prayer, The Mirfield Offices, and the Short Offices of the Episcopal Church of Scotland but none of them seem to be able to sustain me at this time. So beginning this morning I am using the John Main method accompanied at the beginning by reading one of the homilies from Word into Silence - A Manual for Christian Meditation by John Main. I will try that for a month and see how I get on.

Back to my roots

Good fortune meant that I had a Sunday off. Having dropped Rhodri back in Carmarthen yesterday and staying over in our other home in Neath I decided to go back to my home parish of Port Talbot St Theodore. http://www.st-theodores.org/ There was a United Parish Mass for the Feast of the Epiphany. St Theodore's is a parish of the Forward in Faith integrity and staffed by members of the Society of the Holy Cross. http://www.sscwales.org.uk/ It was an unlifting experience an Eastward facing Concelebrated Mass with Fr Colin Amos the Vicar as the principle celebrant and preacher. The sermon looked at the gifts of Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh and how their different qualities could apply to our own lives. The sermon was a dialogue one done with the Sunday School. A brave attempt indeed! St Theodore's is looking in fine condition the inside stone chemically cleaned and a new reredos installed having been moved from the redunant church of St James the Great in Newport Road, Cardiff. The church too seemed fuller than I remember it as a child and it was good to catch up with some people I have lost touch with. All in all quite an inspiring occasion.

Inspiration in activity!!

Perhaps a strange title for a day that has been taken up in part by writing an article for the Franciscan Teritary newsletter for solitaries and contemplatives!!! Today has been one of those days that has been both steady and busy. Quite a few phone calls, some letters to answer and two sick communions and other visits and a trip to give blood on the way. But I was inspired when going to celebrate the Eucharist at the home of Mary Morris by her Crib and so we used the table that the Crib was on as the altar and I presided on that. What a wonderful experience and different than what I am normally used to when presiding at the Eucharist