St Joseph´s Day. Quite cold this morning (-6C) but bright and sunny. At least the wind has died down, but who knows. As I heard each day, ‘Don´t forget, this is Iceland.’ Icelanders seems not to have much tolerance for the cold; they like to keep their geothermally heated homes toasty.

Last evening (Sunday) at 8 I attended the regular prayer meeting in the basement of Grafavogskirkja. A quick note on this group which is part n´ parcel of my life here. About 15 years ago two women decided to get together to pray about every other week. Not long afterwards they were joined by several others until the group too big for a home. Then one particpant approached the pastor of Grafavogskirkja to use the church, but he was hesitant. However, not long afterwards he relented, knowing that the prayer group was serious and had grown in a relatively short time. And so the group—and it has remained informal until this day—but now has an average of 15 core particpants. Some people come for a while and then leave, so on occasion 20 plus may attend. The only time a meeting isn´t held is during July and part of August or on Sundays of a major holiday.

The phrase ‘prayer group´is open to many interpretations. I´d say the Grafavogskirkja one tends towards contemplative prayer, and many are quite advanced, given that they lead normal family lives along with that involves. The process is simple. First they sit in a semi-circle before an altar in the church´s basement. One chair is in the center used by someone who starts off with very quite, slow words of prayer after which there´s a long interval of silence. After about an hour, someone else sits there and reads off names of people with their requests for prayer which taks about 20 minutes. Again, this is done slowly and very quietly. Upon conclusion, everyone sits down at a table for about 30 minutes for a peculiarly Icelandic custom. A small glass container has small tags on which are written scriptural references. Each person picks one at random and reads the brief passage. I understand that practice has pagan roots and has been taken over by Christianity from the very beginning. And so ends the prayer group, this about 10pm.

My informal political poll over the past few days has Barak Obamah clearly in the lead. Surprised at the low support for Hillary Clinton. No one has anything good to say about Republican candidates, probably because of Bush. Icelanders are keen followers of the American political scene, quite informed.