Only in England can you find such a peaceful place
Philip Morris wrote:
As one who has coached corporations in public speaking let me be clear….this was NOT master class in public speaking, but rabble rousing. He broke numerous rules reminiscent of a mafia leader happy to be vindictive, to spout lies, to divide his audience, to exploit even his allies….the list goes on. You don’t win an audience by letting your narcisstic traits race to the fore.. nor by adopting a bullying, boastful & boring aggression towards so many. His economic policies may well cause a recession while his bowing to Putin is reprehensible. Compared to almost every other President before him he comes over as an arrogant, ignorant, bully, a leader without a moral compass, without calm intelligent inspiring rhetoric and dangerously naive in assuming Putin will maintain a peace. God help us!
The face that was familiar is no more Yet he haunts me in my dreams and in my days I miss him for his judgment and his art The face that was familiar is no more Yet in my mind’s eye I can see him plain Humorous and kind , a rare blessed soul He haunts me in my dreams and in my days The face that was familiar is no more
I cannot mend the lamp that we both chose The top and bottom split when he fell down But I can make it look as if it glows
The candle burns, has fragrance of a rose That takes away my sadness and my frown I cannot mend the lamp that we both chose
I find it hard to bear the pain of loss The concept is more verbal than it’s noun But in my home the candle brightly glows
In Blythburgh church, a lighted candle bless See the painted angels and their crowns! I will bear this breakage and its cost
I will get the strength to bear my cross Oh,haul me, holy one, if I fall down. Beyond these lights we sense the Light of God
Bless the hand that points us past the known Where each of us must travel, perhaps alone I cannot mend our lamp that we both chose I wander in my grief amongst the low
By Salthouse Church the wind blew off your hat We watched it flying like an unstrung kite Then snow fell in cold Cromer,see the map! A cat dosed by the fire in the warm pub Yet near Salthouse winds blew off your hat I’d have blown off too, were I less fat These gales would give the sailing boats a fright By Salthouse Church the wind blew off your hat We watched it flying up in cold sunlight
“The idea that painful emotions are better kept conscious and simply suffered until they go away of their own accord is one which may not have entered their heads.”
Like trying to reduce mathematics to a mere branch of logic as Russell and Whitehead did [didn’t succeed,in fact],trying to write the rules of English grammar is difficult
Mary was sitting in the kitchen drinking some tea whilst admiring the wild plum tree in blossom.
Suddenly her neighbour Annie ran into the room wearing a pink corduroy dress with long sleeves buttoned at the wrist and her legs were covered by striped tights that she had a bought in Woolworths in 1998.
She looked at Mary quizzically
You don’t look yourself this morning
No I’m not myself today I think it’s that schizoid remoteness that I have heard about recently. Could you become schizoid when you’re over 70? Annie teased her gently.
I don’t suppose it’s paranoid anhedonia.
Just plain and simple grief.
When was grief ever pkain and simple Mary wondered out loud
I’ve never heard of ak Anhedonia before. It sounds like a very good name for a cat
Come here Anhedonia.
Emil Mary’s beautiful cat woke up and cried out, I told you I should have learned Greek at school, mother.
But you didn’t go to school Mary told him kindly
You could have got me a private tutor in that case but first of all I would have to learn to read and write which is something I never got round to.
So what made you think that that word was Greek?
It just reminds me of things I heard you saying to Stan before he died.
Oh yes it was probably when I was discussing my anisometropia with him.
Is that a house plant Annie asked nervously.
No it’s something to do with the fact that you can’t get both of your eyes sorted with super suitable lenses simultaneously
That sounds dreadful cried Annie mournfully.
And you know what the optician said to me Mary told her
He said you’ve got 90% of your eyesight back compared to a blind person but only 60% back compared to someone with perfect vision.
So I said to him don’t talk to me like that I am a mathematician I used to teach statistics to trade union students. You can’t do that with percentages they’re not metaphors you know or similes.
But on reflection I realised that I could understand perfectly well what he meant.
It reminded me of Stan when he used to say
The distance between 0 and 1 is bigger than the distance from one to two
That would not be allowed in a mathematics book but actually he was 100% right compared to a human being but only t 10% compared to God. And even that’s an exaggeration.
We have just sorted out the Greek alphabet and mathematics and percentages and metaphors why don’t we put the kettle on and make nice cup of tea. A coal fire in this room would make it perfect why we could even boil the kettle on it and reduce the electricity bill
Oh mother you are so funny cried Emile graciously I just love the way you talk I could listen to you all day long
Thank you very much Emile that’s wonderful to know that you don’t mind listening to me like this all day because I have no one else to talk to
Excuse me said Annie you can talk to me.
Thank you dear I know I can but sometimes I remember that you only went to Grey’s road polytechnic whereas I went to Cambridge university on a scholarship although I would rather have gone on the train
You went to Cambridge university but did you actually go inside and learn anything?
That’s what we’re all wondering but sk at least she has a little humility.
I wish that we could say the same for the most powerful man in the world.
Yet even a modest poet is more powerful in reality than someone who rules by lies power and force and probably even death.
The poet alters our vision.
Though sometimes it’s easier to get new spectacles instead
He wanted some companion during the night but nobody was able to be with him.
I’m sure that some of us have had a similar experience.
So would a helper have said to Jesus
Why don’t you listen to some music I know the radio has not been invented yet but you are God…. So make yourself a radio and listen to music
Why don’t you turn your mind away from fear of death I’m thinking about signing up for an art class,myself.
I know that Jews can’t worship images but there’s no harm in making some images was paint or pastels.
It might lift your mood..
Now Jesus, have you drunk enough water today? Have you had a proper meal?
(Well they had the last supper I believe.)
Don’t you think we should all go home and go to bed and have a good rest and forget about this event that’s going to happen?
Now Jesus what you need is a good holiday.
You know it’s not so far to Cyprus and it would be a break from living in this occupied territory.
The Romans have a lot to answer for.
And would Jesus have lost his temper and called out to the disciples
Satan get thee hence.
Then somebody will just say, if you feel bad at three o’clock in the morning it’s often a sign of depression and I believe there are some new antidepressants on the market now.
Why don’t you see the doctor tomorrow and ask him can you have a free sample because there is no NHS in the holy land.
And that’s why Jesus stayed in the Garden of Gethsemane by himself because he did not like what his followers were saying to him. And it was all because they didn’t want to actually know how he was feeling: that he was sweating blood that he was afraid that he was terrified but he was going to continue on the path that he believed God had set him on.
And after all he was the son of God. So he believed and there is some evidence to favor that view.
How flexible. How charming. How alarming How creative How festive. what an idea! what a notion what emotion! But you are too big for me to knit so, I’ll just touch your hand with my fingers. and you may touch my hand with your fingers. What good hands we have with such fingers. Fingers are for touch. fingers are keen to touch. I like touch. what would we do without fingers? I like your skin. Skin is good.
We love skin. We love. We are. I want skin to be ours, and yours is mine, and mine is yours. Where is the edge of the world? Skin has no end. it’s infinity, au naturel. What order! What design! What wonder. What awe. What a tune What a rhyme! What good time! Where is the world’s skin? Tenderly we touch the world as the world embraces us. It’s called love. Love.
Tucked away in William Blake’s poem, “The Mental Traveller,” is a line that elucidates one of the great mysteries of ancient and modern thought. He wrote, “The eye altering alters all.” Obviously, our own thoughts and feelings color our experience of the world. But Blake was getting at something much more fundamental. In effect, he was saying that how we see the world changes the world. We are not mere passive observers of reality but collaborators with it.
I have read that creative artists need humility in order to be creative
But what is humility?
As far as I can gather it means accepting emptiness. I have seen it expressed in the following sentence which I believe was first mentioned by Thomas Aquinas and it was also mention by the Psycho analyst Wilfred Bion.
This is it
You say, I have nothing I am nothing, I know nothing. In the emptiness of total humility there is a space into which creativity can enter.
Of course these artists and writers do not feel humble all the time I am laughing as I’m thinking of Picasso.
Apparently not knowing is part of getting to know something. If you think you’re already know everything then you’re not going to discover anything new, are you?
But we are taught to be frightened of emptiness and nothingness yet it is out of nothingness that something emerges.
How my heart speaks 