I am pleasantly tired, after a satisfying few days. We have just sung Evensong to a minute congregation. There were two middle aged black men in the stalls. Whether their presence had occasioned the prayers for the Church in Sudan I know not. Both the lessons were 'End of Days' material; from Daniel, the Abomination of Desolation and, from Revelation, the Beast No. 666.

Christopher Tye's 'Nunc Dimitis' and psalm 119 with 3 tunes were more thrilling for me than that awkward poem by Ursula Vaughan Williams for St. Cecilia's Day. Yes, the Howells' setting is dramatic but cannot stop 'a silver chain and golden as her hair' from jarring.

Bilborough students continue to impress me; they pick up dance steps very quickly and the accomplished are solicitous in aiding their peers who struggle. The Christian Union 'Grill a Christian' session was remarkable on two counts. The skeptic students had done their biblical research and deftly pointed out several contradictions. The 'panel of experts' were obnoxiously self righteous. They knew exactly which bits of the Bible were merely 'period oddities' to be ignored, and which were eternal divine truth. In other words they trashed the bits they did not like and built their arrogance on supposed adherence to their particular take.

Last night's St. Cecilia's Day Concert at the Minster was superb. Marcus' bass voice has improved no end with training, experience and maturity. Such variety there was from music entirely early 20th century and French. My current fatigue arises from the three hours of post concert dancing. It was great to watch Wilson and Amanda make such variety from the merengue. Anna was predictably wonderful dancing the salsa with me, but declined a later invitiation to join me in a bachata.

Back to the 'Grill a Christian' reflection. 'The panel' felt able to dismiss St. Paul on haircuts and the silence of women but were convinced of JC's miracle working. Albert Schweitzer writes of early C19 theologians, some of them Christian, who realised that for a readership enlightened, rational and scientific, the miracles were no longer credible. Stories about them had, however been essential in 1st century Palestine for any preacher, never mind a potentially Messianic one, to have any credibility. Tomorrow must address the disorder in the home and wardrobe and make plans for making money in between reading 'The Jewish War'; yes, I have at last finished the 'Antiquities'. It finishes with war loomin ever closer. The last chapters were more 'I Claudius' than the Bible. Palestine comes across as very much a Roman colony, dependent upon successive emperor's whims.