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

Climbing up the hill  with a great Cross
The tortured God recalls his childhood days
Now he faces death and total loss

Did  Jesus  fear his  mission  and its cost
Would humans  ever learn to see his way
Climbing up the hill  with a great Cross

Crucified, beheaded, killed by us
John  the Baptist,Jesus,Jews  have paid
Did Jesus fear his Mission and its cost

How we love the baby, yet we’re lost
Was it ever true that we are saved?
Climbing up the hills  with our own cross

Where is God’s great spirit, Holy Ghost
Alienated from the human race?
Did Jesus fear his Mission and its cost

Shall we ever see that Holy Face
Onto  refugees it has been placed
Climbing up the hill  like Sisyphus
He repeats his actions, feels  his loss