In the last week I have encountered once anti-semitism and once fear of and confusion about different types of Jewish folk and their clothing  in  people who might have been able to know better as they were both teachers

In the first case,someone told me  she didn’t like Zionists,ok.That is alright.We can choose our view.Did  she  mean she didn’t like them or their  political beliefs though?

Then she said she used to drive into Manchester on a Saturday and used to see Jews,the men in their black  hats etc, and she didn’t like them,was afraid thought she was inside her car,So in her mind she connected Zionism and Hasidic    Jews.But quite a  number of very religious orthodox Jews are not Zionists at all.

I can understand that in terms of  humans and .animals are afraid of strangers….. but she jumped so quickly from one to the other it would be easy to  begin to treat them differently.

After we talked about it she then changed and said she thought it was brave of them to wear those clothes.It was the dress of  folk in Russia a t the time of savage pogroms

When I see the weird outfits that many folk go  into town in I’d prefer a man who wore a black suit.Similarly many Muslim women look more elegant in their modest clothing.We are happy to see youngsters revealing their vulvas and butts  to the world in their tight leggings and cropped tops… no doubt folk of  other faiths might see them as demons.Ad I’d have to tell them they were prejudiced…

In the second case I was talking to a former Catholic who no longer believes nor goes to church.For some reason we got  talking about Jews and she said very angrily

I”t was perfectly and completely obvious from the Bible that Jesus was the Messiah and they just would not accept him”

.I refrained from asking why she had rejected him in that case.But I did say that the Hebrew Bible was edited  into our Old Testament by Christian writers to enhance those parts which pointed to the arrival of a Messiah.And that Jesus  was him.

It’s not pure prejudice,it’s ignorance of the origins of Christianity as  it is when people say,An eye for an eye is very savage

Excuse me, but when that was said it was 2,500 years ago and it was a big advance on killing people for an offence.It meant justice was best served by making the punishment fir the crime,as it were.Not killing people for lesser offences

Most people don’t have a chance  or a place in which to talk about such things and so I don’t blame them completely but this ex Christian  atheist attacking Jews  for rejecting Christ struck me as  very odd.I imagine she’s recalling what she leatned in her Catholic school 50 years ago and has never thought about it or read about it since…

So she’s not really an atheist at all,is she? Or  mind is full of unthoughtout assumptions still at a childish level

I’d have thought it more rational to  praise the Jewish religion for producing  such people as Jesus,Moses,Jeremiah and …………………The psalms etc

My main ambition in early  life was to become Daniel in the lion’s den but my gender and other factors have not allowed it so far.I am very disappointed.

Anarchic.atheistic,alienated

With hard words my mind has been sated.

I need someone to  practise on

Until my mind catches on.

A visitor is gladly awaited.

As hidebound as a leather chair-

As thoughtless as a broom;

He is more stuck  than is despair

Which hovers round his room

Hurt by  bullies in his school.

He made protective rules.

Never go out  with a girl

Never aid a fool.

Never vote in case you err

Never wear red  socks.

Be angry that life’s  so unfair

Live inside a box.

Always say your prayers at night#

Never read in bed

And never ever think about

What  you might do instead.

His menu was so regular,

From  change he gained no pleasure

He cut his meat up with  an axe

To make it hard to measure.

He counted every step he took

And every time he  wheezed.

He wrote it in his diary

And this act made him sneeze.

He was allergic to the air;

Allergic to the sun;

At least the tickle in his throat,

Made him laugh in fun.

He had a job with a big bank

He always wore a suit

Till one day his colleague said

That only plants had roots.

The implication seemed to be

He was in stasis glued.

He always wore the same old clothes

And ate the same old food.

Could he help himself and how?

Could he be softer skinned?

He dreamed he climbed up a great cliff

Despite  the gale and wind.

And so he  left the bank and moved

To work in a coal mine.

He crawled along the tunnels black

And measured them with twine

.

As I wrote recently, many of us are unconsciously prejudiced against some other types of people.We may be able to discover this by accident as when we  have never had a black doctor when we do see one we may catch ourselves wondering if they are any good.

It is painful to find these things out when  our self image is of a “good” person.I read it is not easy to change these prejudices.However by becoming aware of them we can stop ourselves acting on them using  our will power.I feel now that Confession in the church was misinterpreted.Just confessing sins  may not change much.It’s discovering our “sins” which is is hard.

Of course some of us may discover such things and not care especially if   our friends also have these habits.We may be fully conscious of this but  be unwilling to change.Or we wrongly believe that women or Jews or black people really are inferior to white men.Now many of us fear Muslims we are inclined to lump them all together and condemn them.Ironically I have been invited at Xmas by a Muslim and a Jew but not as yet by a Christian nor an atheist.

When we become aware of our mistaken subconscious harmful beliefs we have a chance of reining them in.If we can’t or won’t we may harm others seriously.As we look at history we can see this.At one time ,in the USA, it was legal to shoot  native  Red Indians [as we called them when I was little]

In other words it is easy for human beings to see a different ethnic group as sub-human.This is how the Nazis operated against the Jews in the 1930’s.Once that happens then you can easily kill them like you would a wild animal.. we had rat poison here last winter.We only had one!I’d prefer not to kill them but  they are bad for our health and can also    gnaw the plastic on electric wiring… we had that!!

Commitment is an anachronism now

We might like it but we don’t know how.

Duty is despised.

Long term love is derided.

But with my  holy love I  you endow

Your face is map enough for me ,

Your gaze,your smile,your frown,your glee.

And if I want to know the rest.

The shape your posture‘s made is best

Forknowing what  you ‘re feeling now.

A look,a gesture all this show,

Till whom  you are is then disclosed

And I am in your arms enrobed.

Love vanishes when analysed,

And thinking too by  Love’s despised

Choose the means to fit the end

And then I’ll be whom you intend

I wrote a letter with an old  dip in pen.

It was an anachronism excusable then.

Now I must type

My poems so ripe

Or be invisible to  both women and men.

Watches are anachronisms   too

And maps on real paper will not do

It’s all on yoour smartphone

Phone  me when my heart’s home

Especially today when I’m blue.

one

Online Language Dictionaries

English Dictionary | anachronistic
anachronistic

/əˌnækrəˈnɪstɪk/

Word Reference  Random House Learner’s   Dictionary of American English © 2015
a•nach•ro•nis•tic /əˌnækrəˈnɪstɪk/ adj.
being or characteristic of an anachronism:A biplane is an anachronistic sight in the age of the Space Shuttle.
a•nach•ro•nis•ti•cal•ly,adv.

WordReference Random House Unabridged Dictionary of American English © 2015
a•nach•ro•nis•tic (ə nak′rə nis′tik),
adj.
pertaining to or containing an anachronism.
Also,a•nach′ro•nis′ti•cal.
Etymology:
anachron(ism) + -istic 1765–75
a•nach′ro•nis′ti•cal•ly, adv.

WordReference Random House Learner’s Dictionary of American English © 2015
a•nach•ro•nism /əˈnækrəˌnɪzəm/ n. [countable]
an error made in which a person, object, happening, etc., is assigned a date or period other than the correct one:It is an anachronism to write that atomic bombs were used in the Civil War.
a thing or person that belongs to an earlier time and is out of place in the present.
See -chron-.
WordReference Random House Unabridged Dictionary of American English © 2015
a•nach•ro•nism (ə nak′rə niz′əm),
n.
something or someone that is not in its correct historical or chronological time, esp. a thing or person that belongs to an earlier time:The sword is an anachronism in modern warfare.
an error in chronology in which a person, object, event, etc., is assigned a date or period other than the correct one:To assign Michelangelo to the 14th century is an anachronism.Cf. parachronism, prochronism.
Etymology:1640–50; Latin anachronismus Greek anachronismós a wrong time reference, equivalent. to anachron(ízein) to make a wrong time reference (see ana-, chron-, -ize) + -ismos -ism
an•a•chron•i•cal•ly (an′ə kron′ik lē),
adv.

Collins Concise English Dictionary © HarperCollins Publishers::

anachronism /əˈnækrəˌnɪzəm/n
the representation of an event, person, or thing in a historical context in which it could not have occurred or existed
a person or thing that belongs or seems to belong to another time

Etymology: 17th Century: from Latin anachronismus, from Greekanakhronismos a mistake in chronology, from anakhronizein to err in a time reference, from ana- + khronos time

A-theist.a-typical,arboreal.

Who will forever rotate on a wheel?

The circle of life

Repeats without strife.

As motif it becomes what is real.

I’m agnostic and believe with deep trust

The birth of a saviour is unjust.

For man cannot change

Nor grace be arranged.

We choose to remain ever cursed

Waxy flowers poking through
Snow so white
Flowers bright.
Made me think of you.

I see once more your light  brown hair,
Soft as snow,
On pillow.
Now my bed is bleak and bare

,
Face alight,flower to sun,
I loved you.
Love so true.
Fear by love,overcome.

Cyclamen in the snow,
Pink and red,
Now frozen,dead.
Love was,oh,so long ago.

But never gone from in my mind.
Thoughts so deep,
Upwards seep.
Love was gentle,love was kind,
Always in my mind

Nice to see this happy little family

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2015/12/the-poetry-foundations-2015-staff-book-picks/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Poetryfoundationorg%20Newsletter&utm_content=Poetryfoundationorg%20Newsletter+CID_05528cbf2bf0d3e06c502a7602da1ffb&utm_source=Campaign%20Monitor&utm_term=The%20Poetry%20Foundations%202015%20Staff%20Book%20Picks

I’m  so  exceedingly  over  incorrect

politically;what do you expect?

My kitchen’s not fitted

I don’t want it gutted

I am not going to be one of the Elect

I am not au fait with decor

I have never re- decorated before.

We had a new flat

And a  Tottenham tom cat

What woman could ask   her husband for  more?

It’s Christmas and I am alone

But my husband is visiting this room

I heard his slight cough

And that was enough

I asked him was he worried  by my moans?

I am feeling a little unwell

He looked down from heaven and could tell.

So he’s come for a permission

To abide by the decision

God made when my man was so ill.

I told him I have  got some new friends

Who read my poems  right to the end.

I hope that I amuse

And also bemuse.

As it stops me from going round the bend.

I said he can stay here and watch

As I sew up my skirt with a patch.

The moths were  so vicious

They made holes in my knickers.

Yet somehow they still seem to match.

I know he is there by the door;

Because he has been here before.

I don’t turn my head

Because he is dead.

Yet he  often-times crosses the floor.

I miss him,I miss him, I do.

How to live on, I don’t have a clue.

I am here writing  stories

And studying mores.

So I wish he could polish my shoe.

Strange reciprocity:

The circumstances we cause

In time give rise to us.

Philip Larkin

http://www.howtogeek.com/208276/how-to-hide-the-cortana-search-box-on-the-windows-10-taskbar/

There’s a limit to words’ possibilities.

For even those with great capabilities

Beyond  the edge of our language

More worlds are sandwiched.

At least that’s what the probablility is

I’m agnostic about others’ existence.

My therapist says it’s my resistance.

If  she is separate

I might feel desperate

So I cling onto her with persistance

To tell you the truth I’m an atheist

Possibly one of the craziest

Church services bore me

But incense consoles me

As I doze in my pew,I’m the laziest

agnostic (n.) 1870, “one who professes that the existence of a First Cause and the essential nature of things are not and cannot be known” [Klein]; coined by T.H. Huxley (1825-1895), supposedly in September 1869, from Greek agnostos “unknown, unknowable,” from a- “not” + gnostos “(to be) known” (see gnostic). Sometimes said to be a reference to Paul’s mention of the altar to “the Unknown God,” but according to Huxley it was coined with reference to the early Church movement known as Gnosticism (see Gnostic).

I … invented what I conceived to be the appropriate title of ‘agnostic,’ … antithetic to the ‘Gnostic’ of Church history who professed to know so much about the very things of which I was ignorant. [T.H. Huxley, “Science and Christian Tradition,” 1889]

The adjective is first recorded 1878