A  wonderful word is coercion
On it I cast no aspersions.
But to coerce is not good,
Force unwithstood
Is not what will grow our nasturiums.

Sometimes our will is a force
But virtue can’t come just by choice.
Like a flower from a seed
Our virtues we breed
As we listen for that still,little voice.

In school we were given an impression
That knowledge implies good decisions;
So we learned   virtues and vice
The wrong and  the  nice
The existence of hell as a prison.

Believing that terror is a good,
They frightened us with their cold blood
In the Confessional we shivered;
And the wood round us quivered
They’d have tortured us more if they could.

So this education itself was a vice
The nuns and the priests hit us twice
Once in the class
And again during Mass
Where we wondered if the Wafer was Christ.

And having this question in mind
Was a sin of a serious kind
We sinned against Faith
That delicate Wraith
So no personal truths could we find

I have found God in the depths
Where with kindness he surrounds those who’ve wept
But he makes no demands
As his Love understands
To the paths of our own truths we’ve kept

• Mary Midgley

• It is this claim to a monopoly of meaning, rather than any special scientific doctrine, that makes science and religion look like competitors today. Scientism emerged not as the conclusion of scientific argument but as a chosen element in a worldview – a vision that attracted people by its contrast with what went before – which is, of course, how people very often do make such decisions, even ones that they afterwards call scientific.

  Mary Midgley

Read more at: http://www.azquotes.com/author/18982-Mary_Midgley

KODAK Digital Still Camera

When I was growing up as a Christian I was taught about sin,punishment,hell and heaven.
The implication seemed to be that if you found you were inclined to envy or anger or other sins,you could change by will power.Now,may be you can,but often you can’t so you have an extra sin and anxiety that you are a grave sinner.
Now I have been thinking that it may be Perception which matters.If you can change your perception your actions and thoughts will be changed,It’s like changing your perspective or changing your focus,
And about imaginatively exploring what that person who  tempts you to anger,lust,greed,envy, is truly feeling.So you get out of the two person

ME and YOU
It’s like a three person relationship.I can see my views and your views and somehow
then see both differently.I am finding it hard to put into words,If we can change our perception we will change our thoughts and actions

A new person whom we get to know can be a window to a different world.For this to function we have to realise that we are all different and we are all of value.
Even within one culture big differences are there between one person and another.
And in London we have people from hundreds of other countries and we British ourselves are multicultural.Some people find this frightening and our ancestors probably only met people from their own village.
But looked at another way,seeing how a friend from another culture views his/her world is enlightening even if only to give a new perspective on our own culture which we may be unaware of.We may see life from a new perspective.These metaphors from Art are very useful.The artist must see as well as  possible and in different ways.So in that sense Art is important not just for pleasure but for living a reasonable life
We may in a metaphorical sense look through this friend’s eyes and see a new world.
Or we may scoff and say how silly and that our culture and our own self are the only ones  of value.Or we may wander on,not really  looking  so not seeing and so miss many chances of enlightenmentAnd enlightenment is the best that a new window can offer us.How full of metaphors our languages are.How poetic.

In my  previous post I said it was not a good idea to use cliches as they are second hand.But prayers or songs are words which have been used many times before.And will  go on being used until we blow ourselves up.And fairy tales and stories are also repeated down the generations.
Are these cliches?
With prayers I suppose for ones which are in the liturgy we need something we can all say together.Yet even such a prayer can become a meaningless habit.Similarly we will hear tomorrow hymns about Jesus and the Resurrection;hymns  in which we promise to be good,compassionate etc
Then we leave the church and return to our usual mode of life.So being too familiar we do not always hear the prayers or hymns.So in that sense thay have become cliched language which has been emptied of meaning by over-use.
Maybe that’s why Quakers are silent until a person gets a thought they want to share.It is spontaneous.
Some prayers and chants are meant to alter our consciousness.Repeating words is usual in meditation.But unless we want to do it it can be meaningless like saying the rosary may be.It was a trial to me as a child.

In the end we can only reduce the amount of second hand language we use anut d try to look at our loved ones afresh daily.We can’t  recreate the world every hour.But maybe we can become more aware of what we say.

http://www.writersdigest.com/online-editor/12-cliches-all-writers-should-avoid

I don’t know what the answer will be in Israel/Palestine in the long term.But last night I read an article and it seems Israel is about 8% the size of the UK.That is very small. They have airlifted 18  Jews from the Yemen [thus ending a 2,000 year history as the 500 year old scroll of the Torah has been brought out.A few Jews remain in a compound by the American embassy.Maybe they feel too old to relocate]
I recall reading that most of the Jews were airlifted out  of the Yemen in 1950 to Israel  with the aid of Britain because they would have been attacked or killed.They were mainly peasants and had to walk to Aden where Britain had got an airbase and some planes.As they were from such remote places they had never seen planes before.The story is that they were told they were angels as mentioned in the Hebrew Bible.The plane had to go to and fro  a few times.
I used to teach with a Jewish man from Iraq.They  were expelled too after a long history.Britain did not offer to take any of the Yemeni refugees.Judging by the Saatchi brothers who are from Iraq,Britain lost some bright entrepreneurs.Then we get such idiots ruling us.Or am I just getting old and sad?

Is God Happy?

They ask if  our God  may be sad
Or if people in heaven are glad
For if they look down
To us foolish clowns
The vision must drive them all mad.

Is eternity here in the now?
Do puzzles have to wrinkle the brow?
Live like a flower
Content in its bower.
And never ask God why or how.

As Jesus said,we  all know
That what we reap we may  have sown.
Purified intentions
Are worthy of mention.
And help all us humans to grow.

I  remember a few  years ago reading an article about people who were  bereaved.One woman said,
I have plenty of people to do things with but no-one to do nothing with.
I was reminded of that  lately because I have felt very sad and stricken again.And I can visit somebody but I will have to talk to them.Unless they had  other people there so I could just sit quietly.Being with people is nice but  not if constant conversation is required.That is where those who’ve been blessed with   ahappy partnership or marriage have really been fortunate.I suppose years ago we lived near our extended family so that would have given us some protection.But  here  not many people do.Or maybe their  relatives have died.Being with people but not having to talk…
One reason living to be very old is painful is that your own age group has thinned out a lot and people don’t realise very old people still have desires and wishes and don’t want to watch TV all day.Many times they do want to talk but nobody is there.I am not VERY old yet.But I have friends who are.And actually even young people can have disabilities  or  go blind  etc.

There is  no doubt we  all do this reading between the lines…sometimes consciously,sometimes unwittingly.We attempt to fill in gaps in our knowledge.There are a few problems.One is in cultural differences which may affect us here on the web.We come from very different societies and the meanings of certain words and attitudes does vary considerably;

And another factor is our own desires which we are  not always aware of.We may then interpret someone’s words in a way which fits with our desire or interpret someone using bad language to signify that they do not respect us.If the Soaps are an indication it seems in much of Britain every other word has just four letters. which to me shows poverty of feelings and language… but it means many people are not offended by them…But many still are.

So wishful thinking,ignorance,wanting to believe something,,,,,..cultural ignorance.. all these may make communication difficult.Perhaps we should not read too much between the lines at the beginning of a friendship…and be wary of imputing desires to another when they seem to offer what we are hoping for.

It’s a bit like the way here nearly everyone puts “love” or “xxxxx” at the end of a letter or email… so that in reality it means  almost nothing at all;Words become meaningless through overuse and we  will have to judge in other ways what a person feels for us..

Some people are more prone to seeing patterns or meanings in things which can be creative but it can also lead to paranoia in the insecure or lonely individual who has become the center of a huge important plot.When I was ill as a child I remember seeing faces leering at me from the wallpaper and the oil heater hissed menacingly,,, it was the fever but I was afraid…We need friends to tell us if our interpretations seem sensible and to comfort us when we are low.. and we need to be wary of assuming too much especially when we come from different cultures