Available Light

I've had quite a hectic December, what with one thing and another, and one of the another things was a trip to Christchurch last weekend to preach at the installation of Lynda Patterson as Dean of the Transitional Cathedral . I flew up, booked into my accommodation, had a meal and drove to the Cathedral through once familiar streets. Suburban Christchurch, though battle-scarred, still looks much as it did when I lived there and knew it. Once inside the four avenues however it's a different story. All of the familiar way-points are gone and in their place are broken walls, piles of rubble and, here and there, the foundations of the  way-points which are not yet. The layout of the streets is unchanged of course, but many of them are closed or are obstructed by containers and chain-link fences. I picked my way through  in the general direction of where I thought St. John's Latimer Square used to stand, hoping I was heading the right way and then I saw it: a blazing triangle...

I took this picture with my phone on my walk through the streets of Galdstone this morning. about the only thing this river has in common with the one in what follows is that they're both wet. When I was Vicar of Sumner in Christchurch, with a very large congregation of young people, we held baptisms at least five or six times a year on Sumner beach. I and the people professing their faith would wade out into the waves or stand in a small perfectly sized pool which formed under Cave Rock if the tides were right. Dates were set in advance and we went ahead regardless of weather, so that the first one of these I ever performed was in August with snow covering the Port Hills. Others were on fine clear days with an audience of the curious licking their icecreams and puzzling. Some of those baptised were new converts and some were people who were reaffirming their faith, which meant that often enough the ones walking bravely into the sea with me had been baptised as babies; but not...