Geneva in early August

I can think of a half dozen lovely vistas which I have seen - in Canada and around the world. I have to add this one - the Geneva waterfront with the "jet d'eau" and Mont Blanc in the distance. We spent a week there with an old seminary pal of mine (now the Rector of Geneva) and his lady wife.

Orson Wells was not entirely wrong about the Swiss - they are tidy and orderly and life is a bit dull at times. They are fastidious recyclers and the busses/trams/trains/harbour-boats are all on an honour system. People "tut" at you when you cross the street at an unauthorized time and place.

But it's a lovely town.

It's too expensive to buy much of course. Every currency has fallen against the Swiss Franc. You see tourist families from nations with falling currencies negotiating with their children about limiting their sweets at waterfront stalls for reasons which have more to do with family finance than with sound dental health or good dietary habits.

The smugness about the Swiss Franc being the most stable currency in the world is wearing off with the realization that nobody can afford to buy their stuff any more and there are all sorts of folks being laid off in Switzerland.

Everything is advertised as being on sale. Still, I'm glad we went. It was a lovely trip to a beautiful place.

Beans on toast now for the next few months.

A million last minute details before Caireen and I leave for Ghana along with a few others from the Diocese of Edinburgh on a visit to various points in the Diocese of Cape Coast. We decided to spend a few shekels and to bring our children along as well. Baby Rabbit has just finished her exams at Concordia University in Montreal. She arrives in Edinburgh tomorrow. Young Master Step-Rabbit is being taken out of High School (with the Head's permission) for two weeks. Surprisingly he is not objecting.

After an overnight in Accra, I'm going to speaking at the Seminary in Cape Coast for an evening series with the students. We've been scheduled in for all sorts of 'courtesy visits' with the Bishop and sundry other individuals and groups. Caireen is hoping to visit one of the childrens' homes which is being established by the daughter of a friend here in Scotland. There's also the 'mental health' side of things in Ghana which is of interest to her.

After a few days we will be proceeding to the village of Saltpond which is between Accra and Cape Coast. One of my churches' Sunday School is in the process of establishing some links with the Sunday School at Saints Peter and Paul in Saltpond. When our Vestry Secretary from Saint Mungo's was out a few months back we managed to provide some X Ray equipment to the local medical clinic. There's room this time in my suitcase for some dental equipment.

Cameras are all packed - film and digital.

Little to no blogging after the 26th but much to come afterwards.

A few leftover photos

So I'm back in grey and murky Scotland after having spent 5 wonderful days in Italy. I sorta wangled a place for myself on a retreat thanks, in large part, to an old seminary pal of mine from Montreal days who is now the priest at the Church in Geneva which is part of the American Convocation of Churches in Europe. It was their clergy retreat.

Cheeky, I know, but a guy's gotta do what a guy's gotta do. I got a chance to meet Pierre Whalon - the Bishop in Charge of the Convocation and a whole heap of clergy that I'd never met before. Frank Griswold, the former Presiding bishop of TEC was leading the retreat.

I've never been that much of a wall-flower and the words of my third grade teacher ("Bobby makes friends easily but has trouble concentrating and needs to work on his handwriting") proved yet again to be prophetic. I can't read all the notes I took. I will be less able to read them when a few weeks have passed and the memories have dimmed.

The retreat took place at the Convento di Palazzolo which is about twenty miles outside of town perched high above a volcanic lake which is, itself, perched quite high above the city. Castel Gandolfo, the Pope's summer retreat, is just across the lake and we walked the five or so miles around the lake along a wooded trail one afternoon. The weather was crisp but sunny pretty well the whole time we were there.

I had a day in Rome itself before the retreat began and the better part of a day at the end. I managed to get around to the Colosseum and a few of the ruins on the Palatine Hill. The trip to the Vatican museum was taken up largely with wending my way through crowds on the way to the Sistine Chapel. All I have to say to anyone else who thinks that seeing the Sistine Chapel would be a good idea on your next trip to Rome is - think again! One follows a slow crowd for the better part of 40 minutes past the various entrances to other (more interesting) exhibits finally to be herded into the Sistine Chapel where you spend the entire time being bellowed at by security guards crying out 'Silencio' - 'No photos' - 'No videos' - 'Silencio'.

It would be a far better idea to get yourself a good book with glossy photos of the Sistine Chapel, find yourself a pleasant cafe, order up a Cafe Macchiato and turn your Ipod on to something appropriate.

A visit to the Sistine Chapel will leave you feeling "yuck". I cannot imagine what the visit would have been like in the hottest parts of the Roman summer but can only imagine it would more resemble the bottom right hand corner of the Last Judgement and not the top centre.

There's a great feeling in Saint Peter's Square on a fine day. It's one of those places where you emerge into the square and your heart leaps. The taxi I was taking from the train station turned a corner on the evening I arrived and I was suddenly looking at the Colosseum - again a real thrill for somebody who, if not quite a 'country boy, didn't get to see a lot of these sights when he was young since we were perched on the West Coast of Canada and everything old and classical was far away.

Rome is absolutely packed with restaurants and everybody there seems to be talking - talking all the time - talking on their mobile phones while they're driving your bus, or taking your money at the cash register.

Or talking to each other, or flirting or going over the rugby match while they're supposed to be looking at the X-rayed contents or your hand luggage pass by their screens - dagger, bomb, hand grenade, Uzi - at the airport.
There's some utility in getting away for a retreat. That's why we're allowed to do so from time to time. Utility is a bit over-rated - but, even so, I came back with ideas and having revisited a few old promises and plans. I've said my offices with a little more regularity since and I'm half curious to see if that devotion to task remains as strong after a few weeks have passed and the cold rain of Scotland has seeped back in or whether the new resolutions will all have flown away - like pigeons in Saint Peter's Square.

Snowdome

At over 11,000 feet, this glacier-capped massif drains in three direction. It is a (possibly 'the') hydrological apex of North America. Its glaciers drain into the Pacific Ocean via the Columbia River, the Arctic Ocean via the Athabasca and Mackenzie Rivers and into Hudson Bay via the North Saskatchewan and Nelson Rivers.

If you've got a big screen you might click on the picture. I'm pleased with how it turned out.

Back in the saddle

Scotland is suitably grey and rainy. Will look idly out the window for an hour or so this morning and get back into it. Coming back from holidays isn't always easy. But we did see bears, and mountains. We spent time with my family in British Columbia and a week in a great summer community in Sorrento. Good worship - new friends. The whole nine yards.

The picture above is of two nice little people standing in the Columbia Ice Fields with somebody who looks like the rector of Weyburn Saskatchewan.

I can report that a wonderful time is being had by all at the Sorrento Centre in the interior of British Columbia. All the good ghosts - all those memories of past summers - are still well and truly in place. Many new friends and insights. I am probably not the first to discover that placing one's self in the tutelage of brothers and sisters in the faith is a good idea. I must do more of this. Caireen and I are in different courses - a good idea - Stewart is spending hours climbing onto the wobbly little dock out on the lake with his friends until it begins to upend, falling off with great shrieks of delight and then climbing up onto it again.

A good time being had by all.

RR

I'm leaving on a jet plane.......

Off on holidays with my wife and stepson.

Three days with the folks on Saltspring Island, British Columbia and then off for a week to the Sorrento Centre in the interior of the Province. I first went to Sorrento with my parents in about 1967 or thereabouts and have made my way back there periodically.

It's a magical place filled with grace and good memories. I'm hoping that my new family will sense some of what I sensed there.

Will finish up with a couple of days bumping around the Rockies before getting on the plane in Calgary and returning to Scotland.

Have just witnessed a wonderful exchange between Andy Duncan, the Chief Executive at Channel 4, sitting alongside Mark Browning, the Programme Director at Heart Radio and a group of BBC types sitting in the audience.

They'd both had a good half hour each to explain to us the changes in radio and television - the explosion of new stations tailored to the needs of subgroups, the new role of ' the consumer' as the one who sets the agenda and plots the course and the media as those who merely respond to changing needs and tastes. Marketing in such an environment becomes an appeal to a small group - a gathering together of like minded people into a tribe - and not a matter of convincing folks to tune into a 'one size fits all' programme schedule.

One of the media type working for the Church of England asks why - given that 70% of the general population expressed an 'interest' in 'spiritual issues' there was such a paucity of such programming on commercial radio and television? Could it be that only 20% of those involved in professional media production had a similar 'interest'. The answer was that such programs had been tried and had received low ratings - Priest Idol was one example given by the Director of Channel 4

Another C of E clergyman involved in commercial radio pipes in that he considers it his job to find the interesting angle on a religious theme - to ferret out the people who can speak in such a way as to animate a subject. If it's simply a matter of responding to 'what is the case' then we should simply be broadcasting pornography since it has a market which can be demonstrated. If a religious program is poorly rated it may be the program which is at fault and not the audience which is disinterested. Many rumbles of assent from the audience. BBC Manchester man jumps the queue and suggests loudly to the two hapless guests at the front that it's their job to find a stimulating way of responding to the market and that their disinterest in the subject is more notable than the market

At which point the two speakers make the major error of the morning and state that the BBC hasn't fared any better in their religious programming - something which the BBC religious programmers in the audience - numerous and all sitting in a row - take great exception to and begin to list off the BBC shows - Monastery, Son of God - along with others in the process of sale to BBC 1 and 2 which they believed had more than adequately linked the 'interest' in spiritual matters.

Blogging from the Churches' Media Council

"A Future and a Hope"

Having just gotten off a plane from Canada I was not looking forward, initially, to hopping back onto a train but it happened nonetheless. By day I'm here in Derbyshire representing a little organization in Edinburgh in support of Local Broadcasting - here as well because I do a little broadcasting on commercial radio in Edinburgh. But by night and herein I am merely looking for all the good scoops, gossips and interesting personalities - of which there are several.

Every second person I've met so far is from either London, Manchester or with the Evangelical Alliance - lots of these latter. I shared a taxi from Derby with Joel Edwards, the Chairman of the Churches' Media Council and another fellow from Tearfund. We're starting in a couple of minutes with our first plenary. Plenty of workshops upcoming on New Media and Old Media. I'll tell you what happens

Long Beach on the West Coast of Vancouver Island. I haven't been here for a while. Magical.




It just gets better.

Saltspring Island, British Columbia



Okay. So it is paradise. Weather has been lovely - being serenaded by a chorus of frogs every night has been the icing on the cake. The parents are having a 50th wedding anniversary which is the occasion for the visit. Family are all arriving in the next day or two so there are decorations to put up, music to sort and caterers to cajole.


Everybody here has a hobby. A number of people sail or play golf. A few do pottery or fancy woodwork. There's a fellow down the road from my folks who raises Tibetan Yaks. I find myself wondering whether this was a long term goal of his - the sort of thing one does after having spent 20 years selling stocks and bonds - was there ever a dreamy expression on his face as he looked out of his office window. Yaks, he said, that'll be just the ticket!

So now all of a sudden I'm wondering whether I''ve been shooting below the mark with my little flock of ten hens and a cockerel in Penicuik. Yaks! Maybe a few Yaks in the Rectory garden would be just the ticket. A memorable way to put the church on the map. The rector of Penicuik - right, him, the fellow with the Yaks!

Holidays

Following a (hopefully) stonking good Pentecost service on Sunday (baptisms and red helium balloons!) we are hopping on an airplane for a flight to the country of my birth. For those of you who haven't been to Canada I helpfully regurgitate the following public information video on real Canadian life.

Don't let anyone tell you that Canada has changed and that most of the country lives in quite typical North American suburban bliss. That's bollocks! Canada is still the land of great expanses, Indians, French Canadian trappers, Mounties, the lot. We've got 'em all. The mounties still sing to girls in the forest. I don't know where they hide the orchestra - probably behind trees.



Saltspring Island (where my folks live) is perhaps populated a tad more extensively by retired folk wearing pastel golf shirts. I shall post a few pics when I get there.