8.30 am. I responded to emails, and set up my appointments and tasks for the week. In the latter respect, I try to create a menu that combines the interesting with the irksome but necessary things to be done. I’m an inveterate list maker (and completer). A list makes a lot look doable. (There’s one for the T-shirt.) 9.45 am. First task on the ‘research’ list: Matt. 19.15 — the shortest verse of the two chapters — which was completed by 10.30 pm. Thereafter, a period of sourcing, resourcing, and sounding out my precision carpenter before making a start on Matt. 19.16 (a moderately long verse):

Completed just before lunch. 1.30 pm. I began constructing a new set of handboard networks to process ‘Graven Image II’. This could get wonderfully complicated:

2.00 pm. On to ‘Sindebt (Cheirographon)’, and into the Greek lexicon. The source text is ‘… blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us … nailing it to his cross’ (Col. 2.14).  The form of the artefact and the process of manipulating the text is given in the text itself: ‘ handwriting’ and ‘blotting out’ — a smearing, obliteration, and rubbing and wiping off, suggested by the word exaleipho.

Appalling news is now circulating on the internet and via Facebook regarding the whereabouts and safety of Stephen Chilton. He was a student and remains a cherished friend:

He has been missing since Thursday. One’s instinct is to fear for the worst. (Perhaps, that’s how we prepare ourselves.) But rarely do these incidents end well. This is one of those times in life when I desperately want to be proved wrong. ‘Scaled down’. Does that mean the search is now more focussed or less optimistic and determined?

6.15 pm. Practise session 1. 7.40 pm. I push on with finalising the feedback sheet for the Art/Sound workshop tomorrow morning. My heart is not in it this evening. But I’ve always had the capacity to separate heart and mind. (The gift should not be envied.) Throughout the evening there was a flurry a Facebook messages between his friends and associates expressing shock, profound concern, and deep affection. This is happening to one of us …  to one of the family. And to us, he’s not a ‘missing person’ (nonesuch ever are to those who know and love them). This is Steve; he’s a ‘missed person’. For we are presently without him and (as yet) a reason to be hopeful.

Task complete. 9.40 pm. Practise session 2. 10.40 pm. ‘The night watch’. A vigil: