9th July 2010

A Chaplain’s Diary

 

Sea Sunday 4^th July

 

Today we kept Sea Sunday. Since time immemorial people have sailed upon it, swum in it, played in it, fought both on it and under it, traded on it, feared it and explored on it.  I suppose it’s not surprising when you consider we are a tiny island surrounded by it.  Each morning I sit having my breakfast on the terrace, watching the supply ships come round the headland from Puerto Andraitx, past Camp de Mar, into the port of Palma.  Laden with lorries and containers, they supply the things that we can neither grow nor build on Mallorca, and they keep life going in the way that we in 21^st century Spain insist upon. 

 

Jesus would probably never have seen the sea; those were not the days of buckets and spades and building sandcastles.  The nearest sea to where he lived and worked was probably eighty miles away and that wasn’t exactly a Sunday afternoon’s walk.  The only sea he would have known would have been the Sea of Galilee and possibly the Dead Sea.  Both below sea level, they were a huge contrast to each other, Galilee lying between the green, verdant hills with the Golan Heights and Mount Hermon to the north, an inland lake alive with fish and life.  To the south the Dead Sea, sitting like a corpse in the middle of the arid desert, so saline that life was impossible.  There has to be a sermon in there somewhere but perhaps that’s for next year.

 

In the morning service my mind went back to my days as a boy going fishing with my dad off Flamborough Head on the Yorkshire coast.  My mother could always rely on two large plastic bags of cod for a fried fish supper.  The last time I went fishing in my brother’s coble we trudged home with four small mackerel.  The North Sea has been fished dry. 

 

Sea Sunday always reminds me of starting out as a young curate at Liverpool Parish Church.  St. Nick’s, as it was affectionately called, was known as the sailor’s church.  As the ships entered Liverpool Bay, there in the distance they could see the lantern tower of the church, which even Hitler’s Luftwaffe couldn’t destroy, though they succeeded in bombing the rest of the church and lots of the surrounding housing as well.  Unlike many other churches it didn’t have a cockerel for its weathervane; it was an old fashioned sailing ship which spun with the wind on top of the steeple, and every Sunday night at the end of the prayers we would solemnly sing, “Eternal Father strong to save, for those in peril on the sea”. It always brought a lump to the throat. It wasn’t romantic because only a few years ago the importance of it was underlined as a memorial was unveiled to those who died in the 90,000 ton bulk container ship MV Derbyshire when it mysteriously and unexplainedly sank off Japan with the loss of 44 Liverpool lives, and was eventually the subject of an official enquiry.

 

Sea Sunday always follows hard on the heels of St. Peter the Fisherman’s Day on June 29^th.  We are usually on annual leave and therefore the decorated fishing boats, festooned with bunting and balloons, surprised me as I drove along the Paseo Maritimo.  Suddenly it dawned on me what it was all about and the joyous procession of the statue of St. Peter around the docks on Tuesday made sense. 

 

It’s this same sea which we delight to sail on and which provides so much employment in the yachting world that we seem to delight in polluting.  Oh yes, there’s the hoary old joke about, “I would never swim in the sea, because you know what fish do in it”, but we still continue to pump our rubbish into it in the same way that medieval housewives used to dump their rubbish into the stinking street sewers of their towns.  Now the streets are pristine, but only because our effluent and chemicals finish up in the rivers and seas of the world which we claim to love so much.  As for the BP oil accident, well I’m not even going to go there, nor will I add my two pennyworth to the ban on whaling debate, which was the subject of much heated argument and backtracking last week.  Hunt them to extinction if you want but we shall rue the day that we signed up to such stupid strategy.

 

Add to that the fact that thousands of economic and political refugees are prepared to risk their lives on it, and the sea is not quite the romantic place we make it.  The indignant cries of those who see their lifestyle challenged by people trying to make a more secure, safe and better life for themselves beg the question when fellow human beings are prepared to risk finishing up as a bloated corpse on some foreign shore.  Talk about sharing the world’s wealth and resources – don’t make me laugh, though I’m somewhat relieved to know the paltry figure the U.K. government sets aside for overseas development is at least ring-fenced in the present economic cuts….and the UK is one of the countries leading the field!

 

Three thousand years ago, the unknown psalmist said it all:

 

“Those who go down to the sea in ships: and follow their trade on great waters, these men have seen the works of God: and seen his wonders in the deep. For he spoke and raised the storm-wind: and it lifted high the waves of the sea. They go up to the sky and down again to the depths: their courage melts away in the face of disaster. They reel and stagger like drunken men: and are at their wits’ end. Then they cried to the Lord in their distress: and he took them out of their trouble. He calmed the storm to a silence: and the waves of the sea were stilled. Then they were glad because they were quiet: and he brought them to the haven they longed for.”

 

Tuesday 6^th July

 

Our treasurer has just given me the full list of the donations we have made recently to charitable organisations.  Our Chaplaincy Policy for all three congregations is that we give away ten percent of our income towards overseas Third World development and local charities.  I have to say that I find it quite reassuring the ease and commitment with which our Palma Church Council carefully works out where the money should go.  I list the charities not to show off, because technically we shouldn’t be letting our right hand know what the left hand is doing, but as we are dealing with other peoples’ money, we have to be squeaky clean, open and accountable.

 

          Christian Aid                                             £ 3,000

          Save the Children                                    £ 2,000

          Haiti Earthquake Appeal                         €1,500

          Third World Development in Peru          €1,000

          Mary’s Meals                                            €1,000

          Joan March Hospice                                €1,000

          Mamalena Childrens’ Hospice                €1,000

          Amiticia                                                      €4,500

         

 

Included in this list is the concert which The Georgie Insull Singers and friends did recently which raised €1,500 for the work of the local childrens’ charity, Amiticia.  Every euro from the ticket and raffle money went to the charity thanks to the sponsorship of Revival, who provided the wine, Nice Price and local restaurants Fabrica 23, Toque, Caso Paco’s and Max’s Bistro who provided raffle prizes.

 

 

 Georgie Insull presents a cheque for €1,500 to Nuria of the local charity Amiticia

 

Fr Robert Ellis is the Anglican Chaplain of Mallorca

St Philip and St James Church

Calle Nunez de Balboa 6,

Son Armadans, Palma 07014

Tel: 971 737279

e-mail:anglicanpalma@gmail.com

www.anglican-mallorca.org