Ilkley Baptist

A wet day on Friday (0.71 inches) has been followed by an even wetter one today (0.92 inches and counting). We need a lot of rain to change the picture for the year though. Of the nine months so far, only two have exceeded the average, one, February, was exactly on the average figure, and all the rest have been drier, two of them, April and May, extremely dry, with less than an inch of rain in either.

This means that the first nine months of the year have totalled just 18.11 inches. We would expect almost ten inches more, so we are massively behind, and unless these last three months of the year are very wet indeed, this will be the driest year since I've lived in Ilkley. Currently 2006 was the driest, with 30.85 inches.

I might be getting somewhere with my attempt to build a new spiritual discipline. I'm trying to devise a form of 'office' or regular prayer liturgy. I want something complicated that won't bore me, but also a bit mechanical, that keeps me busy even if I'm not in the mood. What I'm doing at the moment is looking up the daily data for the sun, moon and major planets. I can then work out where I am in relation to them. For instance, Venus, which is very visible at the moment, is coming towards us from behind the sun.

The data is wonderfully arcane. There are traditional symbols for the sun and planets. As well as the times when the sun rises and sets, it has a right ascension value that changes during the year. At the moment it's 2 hours, 43 minutes. It was nought on 21st March, because the zero point is where the sun crosses the equator on the vernal equinox. It then progresses leftwards around the sky. A whole revolution is considered to be 24 hours, so the sun is coming up to an eighth of the way round.

The sun is pretty predictable, of course, changing steadily day by day. The planets move in a complicated way in relation to each other. Jupiter and Saturn are almost directly opposite each other, for instance. The complex patterns of the five major planets will not repeat in a lifetime. Meanwhile the moon does its own thing on a 29 day cycle.

Thomas Merton wrote that he had a great need, at times, to see the sunrise. One of the oldest Christian prayers is 'Hail gladdening light' which talks about the sun, and the coming of the evening darkness.

O radiant light, O sun divine
Of God the Father's deathless face,
O image of the light sublime
That fills the heav'nly dwelling place.

Lord Jesus Christ, as daylight fades,
As shine the lights of eventide,
We praise the Father with the Son,
The Spirit blest and with them one.

O Son of God, the source of life,
Praise is your due by night and day;
Unsullied lips must raise the strain
Of your proclaimed and splendid name.

I think I need to make my own translation, though. There are at least half a dozen words in this version that are not normal English.

This is only a start, but it's already fun.

I've just seen the first swifts of the year. I think I like the exuberant birds best, so I love oystercatchers with their fantastic piping calls, and swifts with their screaming, hell for leather flight. And, of course, they mean it's long days and, before too long, warmth. My shorts appeared before the swifts this year, though.

In church tomorrow I will be talking about 'The Samaritan Woman.' That's what it says on the handout. The Samaritan woman in question being the one in John chapter 4 that Jesus has a long conversation with, leading her to go back to her village and tell her neighbours to 'come and see the man who told me everything I ever did.' She comes up tomorrow as part of a series on women in the New Testament who show leadership. She is the first missionary.

But why 'The Samaritan Woman?' There is another Samaritan in the gospels, of course, the Good Samaritan, who features in a story told by Jesus in Luke's gospel. But why is he just a Samaritan, and she a Samaritan woman? He is never called the Samaritan Man. Are they not both Samaritans? In the Greek, they are both simply Samaritans, one male, the other female. Why does her gender need pointing out, but his doesn't? Men are not the default or standard gender, are they? And why is he the Good Samaritan? Jesus never calls him that, it's just a traditional name that he has acquired. Isn't she a good Samaritan, too?

I saw my first local swallow today. They've been around a few weeks, I'm told, but apart from one glimpsed on the 11th on the south coast, these are the first I've seen this year, hunting beside the Wharfe in the sunshine this afternoon. Sighting first swallows, and perhaps even more so, the first swifts each year, is a special moment. These small creatures which spend most of the year in Africa, come back to the same locations to breed. I wonder if they missed us as I missed them.