Sabbatical Diary – Day 54

More of Aberdaron beach. Taken from just beside our B&B.

Colin (the Bardsey ferryman) got up this morning and sniffed the air. He didn’t like it. No boats to Bardsey today, coracles or otherwise.

We set off for St Hywyn’s for the bilingual (Welsh and English) communion service at 10.00am. The last bilingual communion service I went to was in Nazareth, and was in Arabic and English. I was invited to read the Gospel (in English), and assist with communion. St Hywyn’s did not need my help. Barry Morgan (Archbishop Emeritus of Wales) led communion (and preached) and Rowan Williams (Rowan Williams) read the first lesson (in Welsh).

The prevalence of Archbishops was related to the Literature and Art conference that had been going on in and around Aberdaron over the last few days.

The service booklets contained the liturgy in Welsh and English. Archbishop Barry and Janet (Associate Vicar) switched between the two and the congregation followed along, and joined in, in their preferred language. Much like in Nazareth.

The Gospel Reading was Luke 4: Jesus reading and preaching in the Synagogue in Nazareth.

The service was great and the sermon was really interesting, covering things I have been thinking about relating to the importance of ‘place’ in our relationship with God. All pretty wonderful. Thank you Colin.

We’ve booked another night here, and I’m hoping to get to Bardsey tomorrow. We’ll see what Colin sniffs tomorrow. Hopefully I’ll get out there tomorrow, can’t really stay any longer.

In other news:

Good conversation with another ‘triking’ couple. (Self converted Honda Goldwing. A very impressive piece of engineering.)

Finished reading Phoebe. Interesting. Clever.

Good food. Good views.

God bless,

Mike