https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/01/opinion/diplomats-training-foreign-policy.html
D
T0
The face that was familiar is no more
The image in my mind has faded now
You seem as distant as a falling star.
When you died,I felt my own heart tear.
If such pain and suffering allowed?
The face that was familiar is no more.
Can the well of tears help the repair
Who will help me comfort me somehow?
You seem as distant as a falling star
Let the mourning people hear your prayer.
Help them from the lake in case they drown
The face that was familiar is no more.
In Blythburgh church we saw the angels stare.
Lift me up or I shall see them frown
As icy cold as any falling star
Before the Lord all beings need to bow.
I feel with love my heart is well endowed.
The face that was familiar is no more.
I will look up up.and see the host of stars.
The face that was familiar is no more.
The world we made seems empty and remote.
I do not feel the love I felt before.
I’m homeless world-less, comfortless at core
Wandering like the Jews with death ripped coats.
The face that was familiar is no more
Why can this man’s life not be restored?
I cannot eat, a lump has blocked my throat
I do not feel the love I felt before.
In my nightmares, I look for a door.
Or I search the lake from my small boat
That face that was familiar is no more
I beg for grace like some abandoned whore.
That time itself evaporates is gross.
I do not feel the love I felt before
The well is empty,like my husband’s clothes.
When they are gone, what can I then propose?
The face that was familiar is no more.
The love I lost can never be restored.

The mind is deeper than a well and wider than a star
I lose myself in waters deep ,symbolic ,sweet and clear
I rest embraced by this love and wish for nothing more
I dream I walk in meadows sweet
The daisies in my hair
The heart has reasons and desires as if it were a mind
If it’s soft as cashmere wool then it will remain kind
Yet if it’s hard then it may crack and we will split ,divide
I dream I walk by river fleet
With heart and mind combined
The other self that dwells alone in privacy divine
Needs sacred care and sweet respect and peace from what’s malign
The inner nature of us all is given and then transformed
I dream I walk on long white sands
By seas blue crystalline.
I remember riding on his back
It was summer; I was only two
He had an old tweed jacket full of smoke
Woodbines, they would probably kill you too
Walking with my sister in her pram
Mam looked as happy as a summer lark
My brothers were pretending to be soldiers
We walked along, right into the deep dark
A few years later Dad was sat there crying
They never told me he was very bad
Eight years old, I pushed the baby
My sister walked while clutching at my side
I was worried Grandad would be angry
Seeing us three coming up the lane
We usually went there only at the weekend
On, on, on, went my brain
Going back home it was the evening
The sun had gone ,time to go to bed
I pushed my little sisters up our street
Auntie told me Daddy was now dead
No more rides on his thin shoulder
No more walking in the flowery park
Only the anguish of our feelings
Only children weeping in the dark

Are you a Catholic?
No I’m just practising.
Are you a born Protestant?
I’ve not been reborn yet.
Do you believe in rites?
Please put that in writing
Are you superstitious?
Give me the salt to throw over my left shoulder.
Is the left one right?
That’s what my Irish grandmother used to do.
When she broke the mirror?
Yes in case Satan was inside it.
Why, are you going to eat him ?
It’s a new economy Christmas dinner
Don’t forget to shake vigorously before you put your potatoes into the oven. Alternatively tremble
Make sure you are at least a foot away from the cooker before you move
In our double bed, mi dad had died
Mammy slept w’t baby, a release
Now I slept, mi sister by mi side
A wooden frame, flock mattress where I lied
Making up long stories for mi sis.
In the double bed, owa dad had died
Up the stairs, we smelled the bacon fried
All the food was cloaked with grief and grease
And I slept mi sister by mi side
I was trapped by guilt don’t you deride
I disobeyed mi daddy, now deceased
In the double bed, he thought to die
He punished me, I never even cried
We had no phone to send for the police
Did I sleep mi sister by mi side?
He wore a green tweed jacket and a tie
While his overalls dried hanging underline
In our double bed where daddy died
We kids both slept, my sister, oh my child
June 30th 2015 : Funeral of my husband
My sister died unexpectedly 10 years ago.
Pray for the dead…. it can’t do any harm

I Know That My Vindicator Lives: Job 19:1, 23-27
A reading from the book of Job
Then Job answered and said: Oh, would that my words were written down! Would that they were inscribed in a record: that with an iron chisel and with lead they were cut in the rock forever! But as for me, I know that my Vindicator lives, and that he will at last stand forth upon the dust; whom I myself shall see: my own eyes, not another’s, shall behold him, and from my flesh I shall see God; my inmost being is consumed with longing

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/23/opinion/christmas-holidays-alone-covid.html
Few can better understand the challenge of self-love better than the orphaned and disowned. I belong to that club. My mother and father both abandoned me in my teens. As an only child, with no family in the United States, I endured the first of many solo Christmases my senior year of high school.
When you are forced to spend a holiday by yourself, the first inclination is often to ignore the holiday entirely. For years, I employed this strategy. I didn’t leave my home, because I didn’t want to see lights and decorations. Instead, I worked through the holidays and maybe watched some DVDs (no festive commercials to endure). But I always eventually learned: The more you try to push the festivities away, the more they’ll haunt you, like mischievous specters, until eventually you find yourself at 2 a.m. listening to Death Cab’s “Someday You Will be Loved.”
My first succssful holiday was an Easter. I went with the Sunday paper to a sushi buffet, and sat reading and munching on unagi for the entire afternoon. It felt ridiculous and self-indulgent, and that grandiosity was just big enough to shake off my grief over lost childhood traditions. Maybe, I thought, if I embraced the holidays but twisted them into something inventive and entirely my own, I could enjoy them on my own terms.
One Christmas Eve, I went to a fancy restaurant in my neighborhood that I couldn’t really afford but had always wanted to try. I ordered osso buco and ate it slowly, relishing it. The owner dropped by my table and asked why I was eating alone. I told him I didn’t have anyone to celebrate with, so he poured me a glass of wine and sat down. He said he didn’t have anyone to celebrate with, either. He’d been persecuted as an Alevi Kurd living in Turkey, so he fled to the United States, where he learned to cook Italian food and eventually opened his own restaurant. We swapped stories
For venturing outside, ensure that your relative wraps up warm in gloves, a scarf and hat. Elderly people should change out of damp or wet clothes immediately to prevent extreme coldness or even hypothermia.
Socks and slippers are essential for keeping feet warm, and a blanket over the legs can be used for some extra heat if necessary. If your relative suffers with coldness, electric blankets and hot water bottles can be a great investment to provide some additional warmth at night.
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
She’d never seem rainwater deeper than eyes
Mystery undisguised.
Round the big puddle she ran and ran;
Too much for her dolly’s pan.
By reflections of trees she was hypnotised.
Curiousity’s often so wise
Oh,my dear sister what see you there?
I hope it’s a vision fair.
What are these ships and the tugs and the tide
Where are the sailors who died?
This is an ocean and I’m in my boat
Come sisters dear,let us float.
We’ll never see daddy again, ‘cos he’s here
And down her face travelled one tear.
I see him afar off, he’s meeting the Lord
There’s the archangel with his sharp sword.
We cannot follow,no, we must go back
We each must stay on our own track.
Three little children with long golden hair
On this road going to where?
Once three small sisters ,but now only two;
Eyes of one green, the other’s blue.
By the park gate by a pool of sea rain
We shall be three again.
One in a pushchair and one gripping tight.
I push my dear sisters into the light.
Keep hold of the handle and never let go
I loved my sisters so.
Keep hold of my hands as Dad crosses the sea.
Don’t hope for what cannot be.
I told her it’s only a rainwater pool,
Held in God’s hand like a jewel.
But she saw the patterns and she saw the tides
Which all human beings must ride.
For nothing is “only” and nothing is “just”.
All we can live by is trust
The crushing grief when someone chooses death
When life had shown much promise and much hope
Turns the ones who loved to find new paths
Some may sin, encouraged by cruel wrath
Against the one who chose the wicked rope
The shock of grief at such too early death
Others freeze and cannot take a breath
Scarcely moving as their mind elopes
Making then impossible their path
The mountains of deep grief I could not pass
Until a warm gold light caressed my heart
The wounds of grief , the sacrifice, the Mass
Do not dwell in darkness and distress
Follow me he murmured while we start
I will help you find a different path
The golden light had brought for me a chart
The sea of life had ripples ,brilliant sparks
The suffering and the grief from such a death
Turned the one who loved onto this path.

Thisl two-line poem by Emily Dickinson is formal verse because it rhymes and its lines contain the same number of syllables (ten) with the same stress pattern of unstressed and stressed syllables: “In this short Life that only lasts an hour / How much – how little – is within our power.”
https://www.litcharts.com/literary-devices-and-terms/formal-verse
Saturday was shopping then a walk
Epping,Ongar,Finchingfield by car
Reading book reviews and chewing stalks
Buttercups and meadows,Henry Moore
Driving back from Chelmsford, cornfields flamed
Smoke and fire and earth, the sun dismayed
Farmers working hard, a harvest, grain
The sky through mist a cobalt blue displayed
Standon with its fords and wandering cows
Little rivers,Essex, flowing down
The Stort joins with the Lea,a gurglimg sound
Water for the Thames and mossy ground
The earth feels like my body sacrificed
An artist’s canvas stretched , a matricide

I was the only beginner in the class and I was terrified well also enjoying it to some extent. It is not as bad as I thought it was when I was doing it but I have no confidence at that time in Now I don’t mind what people think of it.
Growing up, “instead of cowboys and Indians, we played Israelis and Palestinians. She would come over and kick me out of my house.” She said that gag often gets the biggest laugh in the show. “I try to find humor in the awful things that are happening to both of us,” she explained.
The revue features more Jewish comedians than Muslim ones. “Jews invented stand-up comedy in North America,” Eman conceded. “But it’s definitely booming in the Muslim community.” Eman, who’s appeared at comedy shows in Jordan and Israel and runs the revue with Jewish comic Jeff Schouela, said she’s encountered no tension in mixed Muslim/Jewish audiences. In fact, she said, tensions tend to melt away. “Last year, we were kind of worried. But I felt that the name of the event got almost 400 people to the venue. Our sense of humour is so similar.”
I once bought my kids a set of batteries for Christmas with a note on it saying, toys not included.
Bernard Manning

Autonomy is defined as our ability to know who we are at our core, and to act on our own feelings, beliefs, and interests. Our development of self-love and self-trust is fundamental to having a sense of autonomy.
When a child’s basic needs for independence and autonomy are not met, this can create developmental “holes” where they may have gone unseen, unheard, or controlled as a child. If a child is not taught how to be autonomous, they are also not being taught how to establish a sense of self-identity, or how to trust their judgment.

D
Trustworthiness
If you say you will do something and always follow through or are always there for support or a shoulder to cry on, you are a trustworthy friend. If a friend tells you something in confidence and asks you not to say anything, you need to keep that locked up tight in your brain vault. When friends find out that you told someone about something that was supposed to be private information that could be grounds for dissolution of that friendship. Friends need to know that you will keep information private and that you are a person of your word.
Support

When you are going through a rough patch, it is important to have someone to turn to. You may have a significant other who is part of your support systeml
WRITERS ON WRITING; Timeless Tact Helps Sustain A Literary Time Traveler https://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/02/arts/writers-on-writing-timeless-tact-helps-sustain-a-literary-time-traveler.html

Mary was feeling very bad tempered.Wearing her good brown coat without its fake fur collar she had ventured into Waterbones Bookshop.Putting her crutch against the wall she sat down on a small metal folding chair for a few minutes., pondering whether to buy a book for £20 or to go into Boots and buy some foundation cream and pink nail varnish
Suddenly a young woman approached and said in a strangely peremptory manner
If you want to sit down, you will have to go upstairsâl
I can’t get up the stairs Mary told her truthfully.You have no lift
Well, you are next to the Crime Section, it is very popular
There’s nobody here right now.So if people come I shall have left
No,get up cried the assistant
As the woman seemed unable to leave her alone, Mary left the shop.She decided to use Amazon.
So much for protecting her High Street!
As she approached her home. a neighbour came by and said a very offensive few sentences.Maybe she had an aversion to women
In the evening Mary received a text
I realise I offended you.I was in a hurry.Apologies.
After a few days Mary replied
I am sorry I could not stay to allow you to insult me further.I am in severe pain when standing still.If you wish to verbally attack me or insult me please invite me to your house and let me sit down .Then you can ring 999 and ask for Dave.
Later on Dave the transexual,transvestite and transforming paramedic ran in with a chocolate cake in his hand.He wore his denim dress with a yellow pinny decorated with embroidered ladybirds and some pink velvet shoes he had just got in the Market
Would you like me to make you a cup of tea,Mary? Where’s Annie? Dave said anxiously
Annie is down in Brighton for the weekend.She wants to see the sea,Mary lied
What’s wrong with Sheringham? Dave asked thoughtlessly?
She liked the shops in the Brighton.She likes to wander aimlessly about the lanes bumping into men now and then,Mary cried ironically
She could be arrested and imprisoned,Dave said untherapeutilcally
The men don’t seem to mind! Mary muttered loudly with envy on her voicel
You look pale,Mary,Dave whispered into her ear.Are you ok?
No , she murmured.Why are people so cruel to me?
Why not hit one with your stick, he suggested brilliantly
I am a pacifist and anyway they might hit me, back she thought out loud
How about :The gentle art of verbal self defence? I saw you read it/
I’d rather kick them, she answered pointedly
Now I have an idea,said Dave.I’ll put a suit on and accompany you out to the town
I can’t believe I need a “man” to protect me, she said in a low voice
But I am not a “man”, he cried desperately
Are you ” other” she queried
I am all and nothing, he said in a puzzled tone.
Are you God? she said in a sudden panic
Not yet, he cried.It’s Emile who is to be the New Messiah
No, mewed Emile.I am still not fully converted to Judaism.It is complex.
Well, get a move on.We can’t keep living the way we are,Mary sighed
Would you like to walk on water in this weather, the cat answered . Many are called and a few are frozen, he continued philosophically.
It would make a change, from the Gaza protests, Dave cried
I wish the PM would try it,Mary giggled fervently.Would her leopard skin shoes get wet?
We will never know.She’s into ankle boots now.
Next it will be knee high boots
Heil Theresa…..
Heil Boris
Who’d have Brexited that?
Send us peace in our rhymes,Lord

Stan the aged yet sexy senior citizen was outside polishing the brass doorstep till it gleamed in the early sunshine leaking from a blue and orange sky.
“My goodness,these microfibre cloths are wonderful” he thought intrigued.Mary was out taking a load of clothes to the Oxfam Shop.Suddenly he heard a loud cry.,then he felt a pair of hands fondling the top of his bald head and tugging on his beard.
“Eeh,no rest for the wicked,even at 81,” he screamed.He staggered to his feet and rubbed his nose with his knees.
“Just give me a hand” ,he said,”I’ll have to stretch my hamstrings.They tighten up so.”
“I’ll stretch them for you!” Annie whispered naughtily.Stan leant forward to touch his toes and she could not resist the temptation to give his bottom a hearty slap.
“For God’s sake,Annie” he shouted faintly.”Someone might see that.”
“Don’t worry,there’s no-one around at this time of the day” she tittered in her usual female manner..
“Oh,yes there is!”
It was Dave,the paramedic.He had been lying behind the wheelie bins,all three of them standing plaintively and unwanted in the tiny front garden.
“I’m an MI5 spy,and I’ve been reading your blog,Mr Brown.”We need you to answer a question”
“I’m not called Brown”,said Stan nerdishly.
“Refuses to accept reality,”Dave wrote in his little notepad with some blood he had taken from himself earlier,
“Jesus Christ!”, said Stan.”Now,now” said Dave,”that’s not your name.
“No my name is Tan,not Brown,you’ve been reading the wrong blog!” “Stan Tan!”
Dave appeared crestfallen,”Any chairs need mending today?”
“My what beautiful ears you have,sweetheart,” he said to Annie,
“They look like sea shells by the Dead Sea”
“Your eyes are like shallow pools in Lake Windermere during a summer thunderstorm.”Annie replied womanfully,sarcasm being alien to her nature.
“Are you still a transvestite?” she followed on incoherently yet logically.
“No,I had a mystical experience and now I’m a Zen Buddhist”
“How did that happen?” demanded Stan querulously.And can’t you be both?
“Well,I was knitting myself a Shetland lace sweater in pale blue mohair,and I suddenly had the feeling that everything was interwoven.
Going forward or backwards,sideways or straight ahead,it is all part of the warp and weft of life.
“mistakes don’t matter” he continued emotionally.
“Oh,yes,they do,”Annie said pouting her full lips,cherry pink by courtesy of L’oreal of Paris and New York,lip balm by Yves St Laurent,peach foundation by Lancome also of Paris,toning smokey grey mascara by Max Factor,handbag Annie’s own,deep burgundy 70 denier tights by M&S,Grey pointed ballet slippers by Bally of Switzerland.[also available in black,red and teal].Raspberry lingerie by ,strangely,M&S.
“As I was saying..,”
Dave dived back behind the wheelie bin.
Stan polished the brass and Annie disappeared in a patch of woodbine..
It was Mary’s famous and loud vocal imitation of a bicycle bell that had alerted them to her imminent return from the Oxfam shop.
“Don’t they make bike bells any more?” Dave boringly wondered as he carried on reading the new life of Emily Dickinson “A loaded gun.” He thought it was an army training manual,but,hey,mistakes don’t matter!Or do they?Read the next instalment yesterday at your local newsagent or here free of interest,hope or love.Any additions welcome.
All donations to Oxfam.
F
Hello Mary what are you doing today?
I’m going to see the Pope in Rome Mary cried out
Are you being sarcastic, ironic, or have you gone mad? Annie replied
Well I was trying to be sarcastic but I am not very good at it yet but I hope to improve as time goes by because research shows being sarcastic improveyour creativity
But can you be sure which part of your life will become more creative Annie ask her thoughtfully
For example you might become more creative in the way you trying to attract men
Well that would not be difficult said Mary as I do nothing to try to attract them at the moment and on the other hand it could be rather time-consuming
Would it improve my ability to write in a creative manner or to be more creative in what I cook
I have no idea Annie told her. the only problem is is that if you practice on me it might affect our friendship
You are far too childish Mary told her. Is that sarcastic?
Tell me, the ex mistress of your ancient husband
What do you mean ancient he was only 23”
23 what? said Annie?
Are we being sarcastic?
Well if we can’t know the answer then we are not being sarcastic because I am sure we would realise if we were
I am glad you can express yourself in such a brief manner
What have briefs got to do with it?
I just found a bag full of dry ones and I have been Folding them and putting them into the draw.er
Do you mean knickers?
Yes I do but I couldn’t remember the name
You’re pulling my leg
No I’m not I’m nowhere near your leg
Don’t tell me that you are not familiar with the expression meaning that you are joking
Why do you assume I am not familiar with anything?
I am giving you the benefit of the doubt
Doubt is a very dangerous State of Mind
Shall I wear the pink knickers or the blue ones I spend all morning trying to decide so it is best not to doubt anything but to believe that what you do must be correct and everybody else is wrong
That’s alright as long as you’re not stealing people’s husbands
If they can be stolen so easily what does that tell us about the state of the marriage?
nothing nothing at all, men are so easily beguiled that is in the best of marriages they’re not be enough to keep them faithful for ever
Don’t be so horrible
I was trying to be sarcastic
Should it not come naturally like loving
What kind of loving do you mean?If you mean physical loving it doesn’t always come naturally to human beings’many couples go for help in having a baby and the doctor discovers but they didn’t realise what sex was
They thought by sleeping in the same bed the wife will get pregnant
It seems very hard to believe but compared to thinking about Donald Trump
and his lies it is nothing
Shall I put the kettle on said Mary
That is sarcastic Annie said because you know that I always put it on when I am here
it is more like dropping hints Mary cried
All these things are very hard for scientists. you don’t solve mathematical problems by dropping a hint nor does anyone drop hints to you whereas in interpersonal relationships it is very important to be able to drop hintd and to be able to take hints when they’re dropped in front of you
Mathematics and physics much easier than everyday life because they contain no sarcasm no irony and no hints whatsoever
I wonder if Wittgenstein would agree with you>
as he is dead we cannot know
I was just being sarcastic that’s all!
It seems like that Mary and Annie are going to have to spend much longer practicing sarcasm before they were able to go outside and be sarcastic to neighbours or Friends
well Emile’s view is that he will not accept sarcasm from anybody
he will bite the hand that feeds and in necessary
because he knows that Mary will forgive him when he apologizes
On the other hand it will be easier if he didn’t bite anyone As God might be angry with Emile for being trying animal to live with
Hello Mary what are you doing today?
I’m going to see the Pope in Rome Mary cried out
Are you being sarcastic, ironic, or have you gone ma? Annie replied
Well I was trying to be sarcastic but I am not very good at it yet but I hope to improve as time goes by because research shows being sarcastic improveyour creativity
But can you be sure which part of your live will become more creative Annie ask her thoughtfully
For example you might become more creative in the way you trying to sttact
Well that would not be difficult said Mary as I do nothing to try to attract them at the moment and on the other hand it could be rather time-consuming
Would it improve my ability to write in a creative manner or to be more creative in what I cook
I have no idea Annie told her. the only problem is is that if you practice on me it might affect our friendship
You are far too childish Mary told her. Is that sarcastic?
Tell me, the ex mistress of your ancient husband
What do you mean ancient he was only 23”
23 what? said Annie?
Are we being sarcastic?
Well if we can’t know the answer then we are not being sarcastic because I am sure we would realise if we were
I am glad you can express yourself in such a brief manner
What are briefs got to do with it?
I just found a bag full of dry ones and I have been Folding them and putting them into the draw.er
Do you mean knickers?
Yes I do but I couldn’t remember the name
You’re pulling my leg
No I’m not I’m nowhere near your leg
Don’t tell me that you are not familiar with the expression meaning that you are joking
Why do you assume I am not familiar with anything?
I am giving you the benefit of the doubt
Doubt is a very dangerous State of Mind
Shall I wear the pink knickers or the blue ones I spend all morning trying to decide so it is best not to doubt anything but to believe that what you do must be correct and everybody else is wrong
That’s alright as long as you’re not stealing people’s husbands
If they can be stolen so easily what does that tell us about the size of the marriage?
nothing nothing at all, men are so easily beguiled that is in the best of marriages they’re not be enough to keep them faithful for ever
Don’t be so horrible
I was trying to be sarcastic
Should it not come naturally like loving
What kind of loving do you mean?If you mean physical loving it doesn’t always come naturally to human beings’many couples go for help in having a baby and the doctor discovers but they didn’t realise what sex was
They thought by sleeping in the same bed the wife will get pregnant
It seems very hard to believe but compared to thinking about Donald Trump
and his lies it is nothing
Shall I put the kettle on said Mary
That is sarcastic Annie said because you know that I always put it on when I am here
it is more like dropping hints Mary cried
All these things are very hard for scientists. you don’t solve mathematical problems by dropping a hint nor does anyone drop hints to you whereas in interpersonal relationships it is very important to be able to drop hintd and to be able to take hints when they’re dropped in front of you
Mathematics and physics much easier than everyday life because they contain no sarcasm no irony and no hints whatsoever
I wonder if Wittgenstein would agree with you>
as he is dead we cannot know
I was just being sarcastic that’s all!
It seems like that Mary and Annie are going to have to spend much longer practicing sarcasm before they were able to go outside and be sarcastic to neighbours or Friends
well Emile’s view is that he will not accept sarcasm from anybody
he will bite the hand that feeds and in necessary
because he knows that Mary will forgive him when he apologizes
O
On the other hand it will be easier if he didn’t bite anyone As God might be angry with Emile for being trying animal to live with