Tuesday....Went to the gospel singing this morning at the Senior Centre. Being close to Valentine's Day, I told them the story of St Valentine. The Emperor Claudius outlawed marriage, thinking married men made bad soldiers. He also outlawed Christianity, wanting to be the one supreme god. Valentine - a bishop - thought people should be free to love God and to marry so he secretly performed marriage ceremonies. Inevitably he was caught, and refusing to renounce Christ the Emperor sentenced him to a three part execution. He was beaten, stoned and finally decapitated. Valentine died February 14th 270. However, when in prison he fell in love with the jailer's blind daughter, Asterius, who miraculously regained her sight, Valentine sent her a final farewell note "From your Valentine".....and the rest you know.
On Tuesday evening I went to a movie with Sharon, but not a regular one in a cinema. This was just on for one night and screened at OBU.
OBU have an annual Focus Week helping their members and students strengthen relationships. This year's Focus Week theme is "Building Strong Relationships through Faith, Hope, Love and Forgiveness. Hence the movie.
Thirty years ago a family in Oklahoma, who had been missionaries in Brazil suffered a home invasion. The parents were shot dead, the brother and sister were 16 and 12 at the time, they were also shot but survived although left for dead and the sister was raped. The US legal justice system is not as good as ours, the brother, Brook Doulass, became the youngest Oklahoma senator and introduced a Bill giving rights to victims of crime because he and his sister were forced to keep reliving the incident in court in order to keep the killers in prison.
However, eventually they did forgive the killers, and their story and the movie is primarily of love and forgiveness, The brother - who had been a student at OBU - and his sister attended the movie, and there was a panel discussion afterwards, where they told of how they had moved on in their lives. Brooke Douglass, in the film, played the part of his father. It was very interesting. Everyone in the auditorium over the age of 40 remembered the case, it was a very big thing in Oklahoma, and they were visibly moved by the film.
Wednesday...
I went to the hospital this morning and did most of my chaplaincy round before lunch. Leaving a patient's room I overheard the patient say to her visitor that I had a beautiful voice. Remembering the little boy on Monday I thought "beautiful beats very weird".
I was just pottering on the computer in the afternoon until it was time to take the dessert to the church for the Wednesday meal. I'd bought some brownies and cake at the Kiwanis bake sale, and took them.
The new interim priest, Fr Gary (who will be with us for a year) came to the Wednesday meal. He seems very nice, he came in while I was hanging out chatting in the youth pastor's office and I was introduced to him. Later over the meal, he was telling me he and his wife love watching British murder mysteries; Midsomer Murders, Foyle's War, Morse (they get them all here) I was glad he didn't inundate me with personal questions like so many people do, but Tim Sean, the youth pastor, might have quietly filled him in when I left his office. I noticed he was being quietly filled in on different people in the
church hall. I don't know where he went after the meal, if he was observing any of the activities. He didn't join the group of us who formed an impromptu discussion group on a variety of subjects.
The weather has been lovely and warm lately, really spring like. In England temperatures in the 70s would be summer, but summer here is in triple digits.
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