Mary’s cousin John had come to stay for a few days. He had a view of life very different from hers.
People here are too lazy to work
he said.
You’ve been reading the Times again,she teased him.
He blushed with rage,People with colds or headaches can work.Women have to look after babies regardless of how they feel.
And look how Jews worked in concentration camps even when they were dying
That’s the most horrible thing anyone has ever said in front of me. How can you even say those words?
I just meant to say that if the Jews could work when they were dying in concentration camps, people here could work with minor illnesses.
What happened to you John what happened? I’ve never heard you say things like this before.
Actually I’ve been made redundant and the manager is Jewish.
But he’s not making people redundant because he’s Jewish it is because his business is making much less money. It’s probably because of the pandemic.
If you are unemployed why are you not ⁰ sympathetic to others at the same position?
I don’t want people to know I’m unemployed.. so if I criticise them I don’t need to look at my own feelings.
Well do not say anything like that about Jewish people ever again.
It was an immeasurable unthinkable merciless crime and you seem to condone it. You don’t want our government however terrible it is to imprison because they have lost their jobs. How would you like it. You know quite well that prison is not the soft option that some people believe it is.
Mary was very worried by what John said and she realized that people were lookng for a scapegoat to blame for the state of the country.
Many of us know the truth.
The meek do not inherit the earth literally. They are given the lowest wages that the firm can get away with.
Sayings of Jesus are sometimes paradoxical and v hard to understand.
It’s a way of making us think by turning everything upside down.
Mary had several books about art including
On not being able to paint, by Marion Milner. And this is where Mary got some of her ideas from
But only the receptive will receive creative ideas. If you think you’re the best thing since fried bread you are not likelyto receive spiritual guidance from the Holy One
I wish I had some fried bread right now because I’m hungry
Once the Soviet troops were welcome there
In Auschwitz thousands.millions disappeared.
The Soviet Army came in winter’s chill
Nazis were advised to speed their cull
It was not just Jews gassed daily there
Gypsies,gays were disappeared.
Can Christian faith permit such genocide?
On this ground, the Holy Spirit died.
What God exists depends upon our minds;
When we choose evil, what God can we find?
The end of Christian practices came here,
As Christ was killed again in chamber bare
God is dead to us for we have sinned
Against the Holy Spirit whom we killed
The opposite of poverty isn’t property. The opposite of both poverty and property is community.
For in community we become rich: rich in friends, in neighbours, in colleagues, in comrades, in brothers and sisters. Together, as a community, we can help ourselves in most of our difficulties.
For after all, there are enough people and enough ideas, capabilities and energies to be had. They are only lying fallow, or are stunted and suppressed. So let us discover our wealth; let us discover our solidarity; let us build up communities; let us take our lives into our own
hands, and at long last out of the hands of the people who want to dominate and exploit us.”
― Jürgen Moltmann, The Source of Life: The Holy Spirit and the Theology of Life
I had to go to the hospital for a Custord Capote.A A cursed analogy in other words.
If that’s artificial intelligence then give me real intelligence any day.
The doctor said,
I want to put a camera into your bladder.
So I said to her Doctor, you must be deluded; how can you expect me to believe that you can put a camera like the one I’ve got here in my pocket into my bladder when the only way in is a very very tiny hole about 5 millimeters in diameter.
And anyway what were her motives?
She smiled belligerently. It’s a very small camera.
But it is still bigger than a molecule, I said superstitiously.
Well I don’t know she said wisely because I’ve never seen a molecule.
Anyway, if you put this camera into my bladder, how on earth will you get it out again? Or is it going to be a permanent fixture so that you can see into my bladder any time of the night or day? I’ve never heard of this before but spies are everywhere now
Don’t worry it’s in a little plastic tube and at the end there’s a little pointed knife so I can cut a bit of your skin off. I may not have to do that but we can if it’s necessary.
Well doctor I know that men are afraid of having their penis cut off and now I feel a little bit like that although I know the bladder is not a sexual organ.
Do stop overthinking she told me courageously. Just shut up and keep quiet like all the other patients do.
Then lie down on this bed and pull your trousers down. I’ve never had such a nuanced conversation. The British are famous for being tactful and also for being ironical; can you guess which I am being now?
As soon as I did what she wanted she’s stuck her great big needle into my bum claiming it was an antibiotic.
Well I know that was a lie because antibiotics come in little bottles from the pharmacy. Antibiotics don’t come in the shape of needles although I am not very knowledgeable about biochemistry or any kind of chemistry except the chemistry of love.
Well after that it’s all a blur .The nurse gave me a piece of kitchen paper.
That’s to wipe yourself she said.
What’s the point when your bladder is always leaking unless you’re on penicillin or ciprofloxacin or another very dangerous drug which can affect your mental state profoundly.
So I’d rather leak than go mad. People seem to think that if you go mad you don’t know what is happening you don’t know what you’re doing and so you’re happy but it’s not true.If you go mad it’s terrifying. And the mental health services in Britain are not very good so you might be discharged after two days treatment a and hang yourself. Yes, it’s that bad for some people. On a lighter note sometimes the madness only lasts for a few hours like when you’re on steroids
I might be more likely to believe in god if there were some medication for rheumatoid arthritis or drug resistant infections that did not cause such side effects.
Anyway they gave me a cup of tea and then I went to the Loo.
Then I came back and I thought to myself
They never showed me the pictures from the camera
I could have put them in the computer and changed the colours and used them to illustrate my blog
It’s like going through the labours of Hercules or some other initiation process. And what happens when you get to the end of the seven horrible events or trials? That is something that I have yet to find out but when I do you’ll be the first to learn about it
And if they give me the photographs I’ll publish them here as I know you can’t wait to see them.
I think my vocation is sacred
I keep seeing visions of God
He’s like a bright light
Exceedingly right
Does anything seem to be odd?
I have a calling to follow
I just do not know the details
I pray and I wait
By yonder lychgate
Do vocations ever get into the Sales?
I would like it if I could buy one
I’ll give you all the money I’ve saved
Sell my idea?
My dear,no fear!
Just consider how well I’ve behaved.
Everyone has a vocation
To be who they know that they are.
Yet I am not me
Without you to be
Here in my arms by the fire.
I’ll get an answer tomorrow
As I dream of God during the night
She will give me an image
And the much needed courage
To go on till I see the new Light.
The problem is one of translation,
For God speaks in symbols not words Symbols are wells in which truth dwells.
And the Spirit swoops down like a bird.
Why not find your vocation?
It’s possible whatever your age.
Attend to your dreams
and how your life seems
Vocations are now all the rage.
Pray Father,give me some washing.I’ve got Wikileaks and a new obsession. Tell me more,my child.I am feeling bored. I think someone has been inside my computer. They can’t be human. so why worry? Why not,Father? Well, we are not thin enough to get into the computer. Ah, they turn themselves into particles and come in with the current.. when it’s high tide. Do you mean tied? No,Father.I’ve not been reading that book.Fifty Blades All Gay Neither have I but in the confessional I’ve heard it all and more. And how does that make you feel,Father? Why pay to read a fantasy when you can dream up your own? Some are born dim… others become dimner by choice Well,any sins tonight,my dear? I’m so sorry.I was planning to tell a lie but I forgot. There’s a list of sins in the Missal…have you read those? Yes,I’ve not tried most of them yet… though I just got a slight pang of anger when a brick fell onto my head from a clear blue sky. That’s natural anger,my child.but I feel it was odd for a brick to fall like that Has a brick ever fallen on your head,Father. Not yet but I’m only 97.I must buy a hard hat Wow,you look much olde than 97 r.Are you longing to diet? Why, is there no food in heaven? I wonder who cooks if they eat up food Maybe they live on manna. Does God eat food? That was one topic we never did in the cemetery. Do you mean the seminary. At my age, they are all one. You have reached Nirvana….congratulations. Well.I’d prefer a cup of tea. You English! What are you? I’m a great Dane. Did you say a grey Dane. That too. Well perk up;the show’s not quite over till the gnat really stings. Do gnats eat string? String… it’s my passion.Love it or mate it…get involved. Live a little. And for your penance… you must have a bath… Why? I don’t like the way you smell. Well,I am a dog.. we like to sniff.May I borrow your hanky? Definitely,I shall dry your tears for you and please try to commit few intriguing sins before you come back here. I’ll wash it for you.And dry it out of doors Well,it’s not over till that gnat gets its sting and the phone gets a ring
What was so wrong about asking About your absence from this world And trying to grab you back holding onto your coat tail Eternity’s long enough already We don’t need your vapour trails. Was it a wicked thing to do As you floated so far away To reach out to touch you once more I admit I never knew you kept score. When I beat you at chess so long ago Were you already packing bags to throw out the door? I knew it was the real thing But some men never do. You have your expectations And your tests and rules But we never learned those In our higher math schools. We learned rigour and icy vision We learned definition and precision. But what use are they in loving I didn’t know how to steer with no maps You were off anyhow. The orchestra stoped playing When they saw the gap. You can’t fly forever But I do be leaving you. In the circumstances What else does a woman like me do. You can smile and squeeze your eyes tight Suck in those cheeks and hide your love. What’s coming after you’s an eagle or a crow Not a dove…it’s black I know When you toss it all away then Seems like it’s long past time and emotion to call it a day. Come again…..you must be crazy Love is clear to me now like the face of a new born daisy
Originally written in 1866, a fragment from “The Habit of Perfection” was first published in Robert Seymour Bridges’s anthology The Spirit of Man: An Anthology in English & French from the Philosophers & Poets (Longmans Green & Co., 1916). In “Food Metaphors in Gerard Manley Hopkins,” published in Victorian Poetry, vol. 55, no. 3 (Fall 2017), Mariaconcetta Costantini, professor of English at D’Annunzio University of Chieti–Pescara, Italy, writes, “Another struggle against the lure of the senses, including taste, is dramatized in ‘The Habit of Perfection.’ Like other lyrics of Hopkins’s university years, this poem in quatrains exalts the human capacity for renouncing physical pleasures in favor of spiritual ones [. . .]. [T]he poet turns the body and its perceptive organs into vehicles for achieving a condition of bliss that entails the final rejection of corporeality. Such a strategy is evident at the beginning of each quatrain, which opens with a direct reference to man’s sensual powers of perception / communication: hearing, speaking, seeing, tasting, smelling and touching. Stanza four, in particular, focuses on the pleasures of the palate—‘the hutch of tasty lust’—which are visibly evoked before the invitation to transcend them. Despite the use of negation, the speaker gives flesh to the palate’s ‘desire . . . to be rinsed with wine,’ while the other references to drinks and aliments (‘The can . . . so sweet, the crust / So fresh’) attach physical valences to the ‘fasts divine.’”
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The boughs, the boughs are bare enough, But earth has not yet felt the snow. Frost-fringed our ivies are, and rough
With spiked rime the brambles show, The hoarse leaves crawl on hissing ground, What time the sighing wind is low.
No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief, More pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring. Comforter, where, where is your comforting? Mary, mother of us, where is your relief? My cries heave, herds-long; huddle in a main, a chief Woe, world-sorrow; on an age-old anvil wince and sing—
I must be far from men and women To love their ways. I must be on a mountain Breathing greatly like a tree If my heart would yearn a little For the peopled, placid valley. I must be in a bare place And lonely as a moon To find the graceless ways of people
I walked along the countryside At eventide, And everywhere The road was fair With moons of water here and there, Into whose heart the grasses spied. And suddenly upon them shone The light of the City’s eye, Reflected from a bulb on high.
It is a beauteous evening, calm and free, The holy time is quiet as a Nun Breathless with adoration; the broad sun Is sinking down in its tranquility; The gentleness of heaven broods o’er the Sea; Listen! the mighty Being is awake, And doth with his eternal motion make A sound like thunder—everlastingly.
In the 60’s women wore a tiny mini- skirts
[Which seems odd now, as we wear trousers most]
Then bought longer ones should Vogue direct
We wore minis, stockings with grip welts
Cool in summer, chilly in the frost
Once all women wore wool winter skirts
Trousers made us free from fashions cracked
As long as we had slender tapered waists
We bought versions of Parisian taste direct.
But recently we see the trousers whacked
They must be short this year or lack good taste
They’re up and down our calves just like the skirts
And though we hated belts, suspender packed
We now must buy a longer type of sock
To close the gap the shorter trousers make.
So I make my case that women’s trousers lack
Virtue, beauty, wonder, colour based
I think it’s time that skirts should now be backed
Let us admire the daring females most
Who wander flower-skirted to the coast
Let us humans tear off all that hurts!
We need comfort, let the fashions flirt!
Through the TV series fun on Saturdays, They educate us to our foreign ways We’re blind to our own prejudice, you see. But we can see it on our dramatised TV.
Our mind’s a stranger to our self; As Freud discovered with his stealth We make believe we are all saints. In words, by gum, it doesn’t half sound quaint!
Tonight on Taggart we see Poles Shot at close range, here, look, bullet holes. They’re foreign though they were born here. And, by the way, your auntie’s queer.
We want a game like chess with rules Make it black and white, we’re fools. We forget the Last Judgment’s here today And God is foreign, by the way.
God’s the foreigner par excellence He sent us Son down here just once But like we often do, we killed They’re using TV now to change our wills.
Enlighten us, dear God, by screens of blue Make us understand we’re foreign too We don’t need to go to Church The TV’s on and here I perch
The Lord’s my Shepherd,I’ll not scratch.
Oh, raise me with words
Underneath the arches,I’ll sit and eat my shoe.
Scarlet ribbons made her glare.
Guardian angels set heaven alight.
Wraiths of our fathers ‘ living bill.
God blessed our Hope
Yesterpray.
Welcome to the Communist State of Diarrhea.
You keep sewing your way.
In search of lost crimes with Marred Cell Pouffe.
A still small choice .
Ezekiel,why are you Lear?
My fiance was a Jew until he met me.Then there were three.His mother made a big impression on me… with her shoe!
Don’t believe all I write.I have blurred derision and fantasy.
The Lord’s my shepherd,so he taunts.
When true love’s gone and doom hangs over head When life runs like a river to the sea Then shall I take new lovers to my bed And with their carnal touch consoled be?
When lovers lie and break my woman’s heart. When life seems grey and rocks bestrew my path. Then, shall I my life of evil start And on the world shall I bestow my wrath?
When my love lies and wrecks all loyalty. When puzzlement makes all the world seem mad. Then I shall upend causality And let myself do deeds which make me glad. I have the fruits of love within my heart.
Jack had just taken early retirement from his old job as a maths researcher. in Knittingham university.His large collection of books was overwhelming the home he shared with his excitable French wife Simone.
Simone was still working at the university cleaning computers heads all day long.Now she was hoping that she and Jack could do more entertaining.If only he would get rid of some of the many books he owned!
Simone left for work wearing her new pink cord trousers and a dark blue denim knit jumper with a long lasting beige foundation from Max Factor covering her red complexion.
Jack gave the cat,Louisa, a hot bath in goat’s milk.Now instead of being grey she was cream coloured!
I’ve been dyed,she shrieked politely but Jack never replied.
He pondered,as he dried her what to do with all his maths books.He had thought of making a large collage but who would want it?
Or he could donate them to the university or have a fire in the back garden.
Suddenly he looked up and saw a very charmingly pink faced woman peering into the window.
It was his neighbour Mima whose husband had disappeared last year,possibly inside a wheelie bin,though no-one was sure.
Hello,l,did you want me?” he cried nervously
I thought you might like some company for morning coffee.What a pretty cat.what is her name?”
Louisa was wary of Mima.Maybe the purple trousers and orange jumper might give the cat an epileptic fit… she was a sufferer, just like St Paul.She hoped to be converted but so far was disappointed.She longed to see a vision of heavenly cat food in the sky.
Can cats go to Mass? she mioawed to Jack.
Yes,but they can’t have Communion,he responded furtively
Well,we don’t eat bread but I love wine!
I’ll mention it to the Pope next time I see him,Mima said with a roguish smile.Her make up looked to be waterproof as the drip in the ceiling was right above her head and heavy rain was falling yet her face did not change at all.Was it plastic coated?
But Louisa,you would have to confess your sins.All your sins
I never did a thing wrong in my whole life ,the cat replied haughtily.
Well,you know the Church is only for repentant sinners,so if you never sin,you can’t repent. so it follows indubitably that you can’t join the Church! I studied Aristotle once so
I get all logical with emotion.I only wish I’d got to Wittgenstein..I could have loved that man….though now I seem to recall he was gay…still,who knows?
If that were true about the Church,would Jesus be allowed to join?
Certainly not.He was perfect and also he was Jewish.So why would he want to join a Christian church?
As he began it, he might like to see its holy life,Louisa purred loudly.
Really,I think this is a very odd conversation murmured the parrot,Felix Semper.
Not so odd,responded a tall dark man who just appeared from nowhere.
I am called Jesus he said,but I’m from Malaga.
In Spain many men are called Jesus,he continued mellifluously.
Is that so, cried she murmured tenderly.
I never met a Jesus before.If you married me it would give people a shock if I said I was married to Jesus! she whispered loudly behind her hand.
Marry you! Is it leap year? Women have never proposed to me before.
I was just thinking out loud,she replied demurely in her soft voice.
Nuns used to be married to Jesus and wore a silver wedding ring.
I was educated at a convent school.That’s why I’m so very neurotic.
Are you really neurotic? Jack,screamed neurotically
I have a whole shelf of books by Karen Horney here.Self Analysis, is just one.
I could give it to you now….
Not in front of Jesus,she muttered chastely.
Have you no moral feelings?
No,I’ve never had any feelings of any sort in my entire. bu life but it’s done me no harm.
I’ll ask Simone when she gets back, we’ll see if she agrees!
I’m just like a computer with a human body.
I sometimes think I’d like a suit of silver armour.
Bless you,my child,Jesus murmured.
When they looked up the tall dark man was gone.
They looked around but he had left no footprints.
Should we call the police?He came in with no permission!
How disgraceful.
How dastardly.
How disgusting
How damnable.
How divine.
How dumb.
How deplorable.
So on they murmured until it was time to cook lunch. for the cats and birds.What a morning,what a life.
Oh, mug, so noble, men might worship you
You hold a pint of Earl Grey Tea with milk.
That’s more than I can fit inside my shoe.
The very notion makes my body wilt.
From Amazon, you traveled all alone
Until I took you to my heart complete.
I shall never stir my tea with bones.
Not shall I for my writing press, delete.
I drink a pint of tea when dawn arrives
I dream of broken teeth and opiate drugs.
But when I waken, I am still alive
And to an opiate,I prefer a mug.
Yet has my life been abstinent and harsh?
Still my mouth can never , now, be parched!
Next they’ll be putting cameras into our ears but are the eustachian tubes large enough?
Which is larger the urethra or the eye of a needle?
Just think what might be living inside your kidney and you won’t even know until one day you have a terrible pain and it’s not your period.
I have had sepsis twice but will I make it through a third episode? On the one hand yes I must be very strong to survive twice so on that basis I predict I will go on surviving it forever until I die of something else
But my infirmity is no reason at all for Trump to bomb Iran or indeed to bomb anywhere at all in the world.
There’s probably a name for this but it’s the opposite of feeling that you are responsible for all the sin and suffering in the world.
We just have to accept we’re responsible for a small amount of it but we’re also responsible for a larger amount of goodness kindness decency humour love friendship care and community spirit. And much more . Like the preservation of ancient churches and other buildings. On the medical research that’s ongoing in the NHS and our universities.
The opposite of poverty isn’t property. The opposite of both poverty and property is community.
How my heart speaks 