Our father Aneurin Bevan
Uploded was thy game;
Why,Kingdom come, Before thy will be done. No N.H.S.No Heaven. Give us fair pay,our daily bread
Don’t leave us with C-PTSD
As we confront those who legislate against us.
But deliver us from Weasels.
For thine was the Fair Game,the Hour and the Story
Maybe once but will it be ever again? …
When Mary woke up she could see the sun shining through the curtains. How lucky, it was going to be another bright day. She lay in bed trying to decide what to do. then she remembered that she could not go out because she was waiting for the pharmacy to deliver her medication.
Owing to the cutbacks in the NHS the pharmacy was struggling to cope with all the prescriptions received especially from the older folk of Knittingham who have been put onto statins,calcium channel blockers, beta blockers, tranquilizers, antidepressants mini aspirin, warfarin and even anti-psychotic drugs because they did not believe Theresa May was a was a real living person so were diagnosed with schizophrenia.
If Ronald Laing was here now he would be rolling in his grave because he said schizophrenia was caused by people being put into an intolerable situation within the family of origin or more likely within Society if we can still iue the word
Is Boris Johnson real? Michael Gove… he’s hardly looks human;you see if you do not agree with what the majority of people think then you are defined as mad.
This means that all the Jews in Germany and Austria and other countries in Eastern Europe were crazy in 1938 because they did not believe that Adolf Hitler was a good leader for Germany and indeed was a dangerous and evil human
And when they were taken to Concentration Camps and murdered or shot in their thousands by the advancing German army on its way to “defeat” the Soviet Union in 1941……….. were they out of their minds?
Who do you think was crazy then?
Who is crazy now?
Well, Mary thought this is not going to get me very far I better make myself a big mug full of hot tea so I can take my antibiotics.
I really wonder now if original sin is real or whether it is a society that is evil. Western societies have nuclear bombs, military forces and many such things. That must tell us something.
Mary was looking in her wardrobe trying to find something to wear. She picked out a skirt of many colours rather like Joseph’s coat would have been in the Bible. That didn’t do Joseph much good do it?. With that, she wore a blue acrylic jumper whose neck was too low so underneath she had to wear a purple camisole
My goodness, she thought it takes me half the morning just getting dressed; however did we manage to go to work years back?
Of course, when Mary was working she wore just jeans and a sweater.. She even wore underwear but nobody could see it except on one occasion when the zip on her trousers broke in the middle of a lecture.However, the students were very kind and none of them seemed to be looking at it. that was because her lectures were so fascinating that none of the students was looking at her as a woman despite the fact they could have seen her blue silk knickers poking out through the broken zip.
After that Mary realised that it was better to wear a very long sweater when out of the house. How kind her students had been
Downstairs she noticed that although she had vacuumed the carpet in the hall the day before it was still covered in little bits of paper and other tiny objects. I suppose you can’t have it clean all the time she murmured to her cat Emile
It’s not natural to be clean. Are forests clean, are woods clean, is the sea clean? I’d better think about the latter one she thought. after reading the news about the environmentshe knew there were different kinds of cleanliness
There was a kind of a harmonious dirtiness which fostered the growth of plants and seeds and then there was the inharmonious dirtiness of grass verges being covered in crisp packets and empty bottles of Coke and the inharmonious depths of the sea where plastic bags were waiting to kill the whales or the dolphins Yes it is rather difficult to define she decided.
In the kitchen, her cordless vacuum cleaner was waiting to be charged. Had it committed a crime. Of course not, it was waiting to be charged with electricity.
Through the glass door, she saw her friend Annie approaching slowly as she was wearing very high heeled shoes
Good grief Mary cried. I thought all the top people were wearing white trainers this year with designer clothes
Well, I am not, said Annie. I bought these shoes because I have got an invitation to have dinner with that psychotherapist who lives across the road
You haven’t mentioned him for a long time, smiled Mary but in any case, it’s not the time for dinner yet
No it’s not till tomorrow actually but I thought I would try these shoes out and see what I can get used to wearing them so it won’t look as if I’m making an effort to look especially good for him.
The shoes were shiny red patent leather with 5-inch heels.
What makes you think that he will like them, asked Mary tentatively
All men like these sort of shoes and Annie told her.
You can’t prove that. I don’t suppose that the native peoples of North America would have liked women to wear shoes like that
They probably did not even wear shoes at all : they had moccasins with soles, made from buffalos hides…
Well it’s different nowadays
Modern life has made men’s sexual desire disappear so we need to do things to bring it back again
Why, even teenagers have given up sex now!
I don’t think that psychotherapist is a teenager whispered Mary with a smile on her face.
You may be right
When he was growing up women would have been wearing stiletto heels. I had some myself until they got stuck in a groove in the pavement and I had to leave them behind.
That’s why I did mathematics at University. I wanted something more.
That’s ridiculous,replied Annie. I wore stiletto heels and have been married five times and I never wanted to go to university to read anything at all. Especially not physics, mathematics or engineering or difficult subjects like that.
I think it will be a big mistake for women to believe they can get married after they have read mathematics for 6 years at university.
Well I got married said Mary bluntly
You must be the exception to the rule as you are so stunningly lovely and not dominating at all.
Some men like a dominating woman, Mary kindly informed her.
Well, I’ve never met a man like that so far. her friend responded
Maybe you will
I wonder what that psychotherapist likes. Do you not think he will be married already
I don’t mind. I can be his mistress.
But wearing red patent leather shoes makes it all too obvious to the neighbours ; they will think that you are a tart
What, at my age?
There’s no tart like an old tart
That doesn’t mean anything said Annie nervously.
Not logically but it means something even if it’s only humorous. What kind of dress are you going to wear with this?
I got a dress from Dash last year it’s what they call a wrap dress it’s blue and quite demure but I would like you to see me in it to make sure it is not too tight. I hate a dress that is too tight on a woman
But not on a man, I suppose, Mary replied whimsically
I don’t mind what men wear. If they want to wear a wrap dress let them wear it especially in the summertime as these cotton dresses are very comfy in hot weather
But that’s not why you’re wearing one is it? You are wearing it because you think it will make you look sexually attractive
Well, it might make a man look sexually attractive too.
I suppose we don’t really know exactly what makes people look sexually attractive. But why don’t you want to be friends with this psychotherapist first and get to know him and to understand where he is coming from before you decide to wear provocative clothing. if he’s a Freudian he might think you’ve got hysteria
Oh no no, psychotherapists can’t decide something like that from one meeting
We should not rush to judgment.A woman might be wearing a wrap dress that clings to her curvaceous body because all her other clothes are in the washing machine
It would have to be a very big washing machine to put your clothes into it all at once
Don’t be snide it doesn’t suit your nature, Mary!.
Perhaps my nature will change now that I am a widow. perhaps I will say nasty things to people and steal you fruit from their Orchards
Will you start doing armed robbery asked her friend because if you do I would like to come with you
Do you really mean that, Mary asked
Yes of course I do. although I have no guns and I have no knives except the ones in the kitchen
Well they can be deadly. Marital violence has occurred where a long-suffering wife has killed the cruel husband with the carving knife when she was trying to cook the Sunday dinner and he was asking her to cut his toe nails
That’s true but I am thinking of robbing banks and they will not be cooking a Sunday dinner in there will they?
No ,they’re probably going to McDonald’s for their dinner
That’s alright then
I was just thinking of pretending to have a gun and staring at them brazenly
Give me your money I want £50,000
it’s no use, Mary. you look too kind and gentle to be convincing
In that case, I will have to start practicing looking nasty and aggressive
Please don’t do it to me Annie asked. it might bring out the demon in me
I didn’t know you had got a demon inside you said, Mary. has it got a name?
Not so far but I will think of one soon because I am going to buy it its own mobile phone
Why would a demon want a mobile phone? asked Mary
Don’t be so logical. not everything has a reason. I expect they like to look modern like you and I do
Well don’t spend a lot of money on it You can get a Nokia 1 unlocked for £79.99 on Amazon and then you have to buy a SIM card
I would have thought a SIN card will be most suitable for demons,.I shall go and put my new dress on and return here in a few minutes so that you can tell me what you think
Why Annie thinks that Mary is a good judge of clothing is a mystery to all of us as her main interest is in mending gadgets and studying philosophy while listening to Leonard Cohen singing The Future
And it is to all
“One thinks of Isaiah — ”Thou hast drunken the dregs of the cup of trembling” — and of Psalm 137: ”By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat, sat and wept as we thought of Zion.” The great poems remind us that grief cannot be avoided, nor forgotten, but can be incorporated into a deeper understanding of the human condition, as in Emily Dickinson’s ”After great pain, a formal feeling comes”:
This is the Hour of Lead —
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow —
First — Chill — then Stupor — then the letting go —
It is that union of experience, insight and the simple beauty of language that helps us to give our own grief a name, that gives us a kind of company, that extends a wise hand. Many experiencing intense, even unbearable personal loss have found redemptive meaning in the famous poem Ben Jonson wrote in 1603 at the death of his son, the one in which he declares, ”My sin was too much hope of thee, loved boy.” There is no full consolation for a parent who loses a child, and indeed Jonson does not offer consolation. But he at least gives a form to what most of us only dimly understand: that the source of grief is the intensity of the hopes that have been lost, and that without the possibility of grief there would have been no joy.”
I
I have not seen forsythia glow so bright
The flowers exult in yellow on the shed
Even in the darkening of the light
For many days my mind has been upset
I did not know where I had lost my head
I have not seen forsythia glow so bright
My eyes were focussed where our terrors bite
Without love’s consolations in my bed
Even in the darkening of the light
Barbaric words of humans hate incite
As the Prophets sadly have long said
I have not seen the sun glow quite so bright
The dirty look, the eye so sly, the night
The terror in our dreams, the bloody heads
Here they come, in darkness, in our flight
Come my dearest,take me as I’m read
By words expressed, the dangers have now fled
I have not seen forsythia glow so bright
Now the darkness dances with the light
The agent is the one who makes the choice
Who are we and how do we decide?
If we’re passive, we will lose our voice
Consolation comes in many ways
The love of other people is a guide
The agent is the one who has the choice
Consolation visits, cannot stay
Will not come if we are stiff with pride
If to power we’re passive, we must pray
A wife was once a slave, though well embraced
Her unique self and agency denied
The agent is the one who makes the choice
Now the unemployed dwell in disgrace
The monsters in the government deride
If by power disabled ,find a voice
Christian armies thought God on their side;
As if he cared what they meant by their lies!
The agent believes he’s in charge,has choice
We feel lost , where is the still,small voice?
Now the black sheep’s back inside the fold.
The lost are found,the gate is open wide
We all eat together,timid bold
We weep for joy,our love is not denied
The years of trudging on . through mud and mire
The wounded heart the tears love wiped away
Consolation came, the saints conspired.
The children learnt in stages what to say.
Before we reach the end of earthly life
Before our minds dissolve, before the fire.
Before the husband’s dragged away from wife
Before the eye of God, beyond desire..
The final act of love is reached at last
We know so clearly now that love is just
In the bitter depths of winter night
Boil the kettle, lose your human rights
If you feel depressed then eat our bread
It will remove the skull from off your head
Are you feeling lonesome in the crowd?
Buy our lipstick then men will be cowed
Did you think ceramic hobs were best?
Come to us and have your IQ blessed
I want a pan for halogen hot plates
I’d ask the cat but he’s out on a date .
I need to boil my head and clean my feet
I guess that I ain’t smelling very sweet
Does Confession really help the damned?
God have mercy as the Devil can’t.
What did all those sermons do?
Did they say he was a Jew?
Oh, Jesus.
Did he want the First Crusade
It is his blood the priest creates
Lord Jesus.
I don’t like the way things are
I am getting tired of war
Kill Jesus.
What has human wisdom done
From Wittgenstein to Abraham?
Cripes, Jesus!
Does research improve our lives
As for grants, the scholars strive?
Ask Jesus.
We may have chemotherapy
Radiation, history.
Where’s Jesus?
You’d think that after all the years
We’d have used up all our tears
Sweet Jesus.
Love your neighbour as yourself
Give 10 % of all your wealth
Aye, Jesus
.Do what’s better, not what’s worse
I see another fragrant hearse.
It’s Jesus.
See the plastic Crucifix
See him dying with dry lips
Bend your knees, confess your sins
Otherwise, the Devil wins
Not Jesus
.We destroy the good we hate
Envy writhes and with pride mates.
The progeny will wreck the earth
Eden’s burning as drones pass.
No, Jesus.No Jesus.
Know Jesus.
They want to x-ray God to check his age
But God is here and there and everywhere.
He only had one child so he will swear
The British are annoyed in fact outraged
They think he wants to claim a child’s allowance
God was not born here ,oh refugee
God was never born can they not see ?
Send Bravermann to jail, she must do penance
Jesus died in Auschwitz more than once
Don’t let him come in here we have no room
We have no stables now, his birth is doomed.
The Stations of the Cross are undispensed.
Will they make failed immigrants wear stars
Here we’ve got bad eggs, let’s make a start
Hurl the eggs towards their bleeding hearts
Then get drunk again in some old bar.
They say the country is Christian by and large
So that they can send religious cards.
And Satan pokes the fire, burns all x-rays
The MRI scans now are all the rage.
Scan them x-ray put them into boats
The evil fires are hot, our eyes are closed.
Wasting life when we would like to dance
Walk in ferny woods. exchange a glance
Can we have a decent person at our head?
Jesus Christ,no b*gger understood
Why be happy when you could feel mad?
Glad that Donald Trump is not your dad
Don’t let logic, reason or plain thought
Sell you something Mother never bought
Why not let the police take all control?
They know how to score a self made goal
They can kill a man and wound a child
Yet kneel down in Church along the aisle
Holding a black Bible in one hand
Will not take you to the Promised Land
Cain and Abel,Jacob and Esau
Does he hope to start another War?
As the old man fell towards his death
They offered us a handrail for the bath
Shattered by their honest,wilful lies
I could not speak, my saliva had all dried
He was walking albeit slowly when at home
When they took him off I heard the groan
Lost inside his head, no wife nearby
Even Satan would have wept that night
Gabriel and Satan, hand- in -hand
Neither one will ever understand
We humans waste so much,we’re almost blind
Full of envy,hate and so unkind
G
A bird taps on this window every day,
Frail as flying leaves are in a gale.
But now he perches on the potted bay.
He feels the weather like the blind do braille.
This bird is faithful and I hold him dear.
He’s fearless as he pecks upon the glass.
We hope he has a modicum of fear,
For who knows when a sparrow hawk will pass?
I see him like a human soul forlorn
Struggling to discern his fateful way.
For soon he may be taken by a storm
But blithely he will eat, and after play.
The smallest bird has trust in the Unknown
By his example, our own way is sho
There was an old lady from Mells
Who had a strange story to tell
Her husband had died
While while out for a ride .
And his poor old horse died as well.
Coincidence or chance what do you think?
What was the cause of this link?
They were both of an age
When it’s bad to feel rage
Keep your anger in check if you’re drunk.
“We are great fools. ‘He has spent his life in idleness,’ we say, and ‘I have done nothing today.’ What! have you not lived? That is not only the fundamental, but the most noble of your occupations. ‘If I had been put in charge of some great affair, I might have shown what I could do.’ Have you been able to reflect on your life and control it? Then you have performed the greatest work of all. To reveal herself and do her work, nature has no need of fortune. She manifests herself equally at all levels, and behind curtains as well as in the open. Our duty is to compose our character, not to compose books, to win not battles and provinces, but order and tranquility in our conduct. Our great and glorious masterpiece is to live properly. All other things — to reign, to lay up treasure, to build — are at best but little aids and additions.” Montaigne.
The doctor says I’ve got the sickest jokes ever
My blood tests were superlative. I’ve got diabetes, pernicious anaemia and a virus. in the computer.
I have got bow legs as well, but no double bass
I think I’ll get married but the doctor won’t approve,I want to marry the dentist.
I believe that if I learn Russian I won’t get dementia just detentia.
I dream in other languages especially Latin. Quo Vadis? Tantrum virgo?
Why don’t we give 10% of our money to the poor? They would waste it on food?
My mother and father were very intelligent.Yet my IQ is only 65..I must have brain fever
Do we really have any IQ? Plato didn’t!
So many new diseases it seems unfair.
But life is unfair
Is it not?
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/jul/21/michael-rosen-writer?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
Now the evening of the day before
The wedding and the guests not yet estranged
Then I a dress of golden satin wore.
It was the evening
The priest he prayed and love was emphasized
Which looking at that world seems now so strange
Like hatred of the Jews who Christ provide.
They provided him
We took Communion, sang the hymns of praise
The wedding feast was already arranged
Thank God for Jesus whom he did not raise.
We took Communion
Like an absent father of the present day
God let Mary raise his child dismayed
Impregnating her then going off to play
An absent father
If God did choose a Jew to be his bride
He must have liked her profile well displayed
Who knows that, his ways are not our ways?
His Jewish lover
Strangely, Catholics cannot marry Jews
Though would a Jew desire a Nazi’s heirs?
In their lairs in souls of Europe, Nazis brood
We’re Nazis below deck
We think the Shoah was sickening just for Jews
But it’s we who’re sick and need a great repair
Europe’s down the chute, just watch the News.
Watch the News.
A wedding day should have both joy and care
For all of those who have affect to share
When all of humankind can watch the play
On a scream near you, they want to say
No affect dare
I don’t want to see reality
But I don’t want to lose your care.
I want to go on being selfish
And having you always there.
I don’t want to feel your feelings.
I am aware that I’ve been very curt.
I want to go on ignoring you,
Because real knowledge will hurt.
The longer I pretend to be ignorant,
The longer I opt not see,
The more I shall hurt my loved ones.
The more unkind and cruel I’ll be.
I don’t want to see reality.
I’m frightened of what I might find.
I need a dear friend to be with me
Whilst I traverse the dark glades of my mind.
I am afraid to discover reality,
But it’s better for us all if we do.
I hope I can get enough courage
To be able to bear what is true.
Mary and Anny were looking in the wardrobe trying to find things to give to the charity shop . What’s this, cried Annie Oh my goodness, that is the shirt that Stan wore for our wedding It is very bright said Annie. Still in the 60s that was what people wore even men. and what is this black jacket over it? That is the jacket that I wore for Stan’s funeral. Goodness me .I hope it doesn’t make you feel sad to look at them now that you are all alone Well I’m not really all alone. I have got you and Dave and Emile.And several penfriends and my ex- work colleagues not to mention my sister and her offspring who are all very kind But that’s not the same as having a husband, Annie responded sadly. I should know I have lost three Where did you lose them, asked Mary.I know that your last one died mysteriously but what about the others? Well my first husband was a coal miner and I got tired of washing all his clothes because in those days there were no automatic washing machines. I left him and I married a builder who built was a very nice house out in the Peak District . He refused to have any children and I wanted children.I decided to leave him. then I am married my last husband, James. He didn’t die. her ran away with his sister-in-law but I did not want people to know that so I pretended he had died whilst on holiday Some people think you killed him and put him into the wheelie bin ,Mary I told her stupidly How ridiculous he was much too big to fit into a wheelie bin and I could not have lifted him up when he was a dead weight Ahahaha that’s very funny, the cat mewed , a dead weight. Did you kill him? No but I will when I find him again. I can’t get a divorce without revealing his sinful deeds and so I have to be a mistress and not a wife. Since Stan died I have no one to be a mistress to. I keep hoping that Mary will get married again but so far she has not bothered That is not as easy as you seem to think , said Mary Why not ?You are still very attractive you have lovely clothes and big blue eyes. you can do French provincial cooking and plain English cooking; you can speak 4 languages and explain quantum theory to anyone interested, and you are very good at playing the piano. Well if I am so wonderful where are all the men queueing up to offer me their hand in marriage? I don’t think men like clever women even when they are as beautiful and gorgeous as I am. I suppose that men don’t like women who know things that they don’t know. Well I know things nobody else knows like when I had my last menstrual period when I first used Tampax; when I lost my virginity which I’m still hoping to find again. How I set my hair on fire opening the door of the oven when I’d not cleaned it for 5 years ——-there’s lots of things I know that nobody else knows What are the things that someone would want to know , Annie asked her ? Well who knows what men want to know? Do they want to know that I have bought a pair of size 9 Nike trainers in pale lemon and I have darned the hole in a brown pleated skirt …….by the way, why do moths make the holes on the front of skirts? I am sure that a moth does not know the back from the front on your skirts maybe it’s the direction that you hang them in . perhaps you should hang them in the bathroom and throw some Dettol on them How do you throw Dettol. Mary said quizzically, do you mean spray? Oh,let’s not get bogged down in details. you know what I mean you need to clean the wardrobe Well you’re wrong there,Annie because when preparing a moth free environment what I should really do is bring in Emile’s offerings from the garden where he is burying them and put them in the wardrobe Oh my God meowed Emile I couldn’t bear to put my crap in the wardrobe I quite understand st. Mary and I have no intention of putting anybody’s crap in the wardrobe as it is full of clothes thaty are already mostly crap . I don’t agree with you said Annie; you have got some beautiful clothes on you always look really glorious Well everybody has a different taste and it’s unfortunate if you get married to somebody whose taste is the opposite of your own Did Stan like the way you dressed? Well when we got married we were very poor and so I could not do anything about it I had one skirt which I bought for a shilling in a jumble sale at a church in Holland Park; it was extremely short and Stan and liked it very much. then a blouse with long sleeves that I bought for sixpence in the same jumble sale.I had a pair of black trousers from Marks and Spencer’s and a big white jumper from up north and a grey dress that my landlady in Oxford gave me when she was collecting jumble . In North Oxford they have some very good quality jumble. I’m telling you I’ve never been so well dressed in my entire life as I was then .The only problem was that most of the dresses that she gave me were too big for me but I didn’t really worry about that I had a black dress which I wore to have dinner at the High Table in Hertford College I was about a size 6 and the dress was a size 12 but it is very good fabric and quite formal so I thought it would do Then I had a black dress with long sleeves which did fit me but it was very very short and showed most of my thighs; it was rather foolish of me to wear it to a mathematical conference in Dundee in April 1970. You see I didn’t think people would look at me I didn’t exist I was a blank I was nothing but when I saw people staring at me, at me I realised my error When Stan and I had more money I did have some clothes and he liked me to wear bright colours and good cloth that hung well so I did try to please him now and then otherwise I wore jeans with woollen jumpers over the top for warmth,Mary whispered silently I think you are the best dressed woman in Knittingham now .You look better than any middle class woman Go on, which class am I in as Mary humorously. Don’t say that I’ve got to marry somebody in the royal family as I can’t stand Balmoral You’ve never been there. No I don’t want to go there it’s full of midges and blackfly and the Queen goes riding on a horse. I have never ridden a horse in mylLife Mary said sadly How about the Rocking Horse that you had in the nursery That’s not quite the same as a real life horse is it ,Mary said angrily? Don’t upset me ;it’s not my fault that your mother couldn’t afford to buy you a horse’ it was very rare in those days to buy children horses especially when they lived in a two bedroom house with no bathroom inside I don’t think the horse would mind no bathroom as they don’t tend to get washed in the bathroom .I could have washed the horse in the backyard near the toilet and the Coal Shed Or by the air raid shelter Your parents couldn’t afford to buy the food for a horse; they need more than your leftovers That’s true, muttered Mary sadly, but you know I never really wanted a horse I did want a bicycle. Mum would not listen;l so I had to go to Oxford and that was very hard work studying mathematics for years and years so I got in to that course . Then I was able to get a bicycle like everybody else . Now I wish I just stayed at home and got a job working in a supermarket. Why screamed Anny you would have been very bored. not to mention the money I am never bored said Mary because my mind is very rich and I should have been able to daydream and lose myself in reveries while I was serving customers Well God serves those who serve themself Annie said ,to finish the conversation Wat rubbish said Mary;she stalked into the house and put the kettle on to make some breakfast tea even though it was supper time. What we need is a good hot drink and to keep quiet and stop talking all this nonsense. if God wants me to get married again then he will send men to find me and even though I have all these problems like I am very neurotic I am obsessed with details,I write poetry while others eat their dinner. I like mending holes in people’s clothes even if they don’t want me to mend them. I like to go to the toilet once every 4 hours and every 2 hours on Sundays or Good Friday.I like Jews and Muslims and anyone else who seems decent My God I think there’s something wrong with you ! So you’ve only just noticed replied Mary I’ve had something wrong with me ever since I was born But you wouldn’t know that when you were a baby. I suppose not said Mary wildly, but you know being a baby is not always a very pleasant experience,to put it mildly And so say all of us
Enjoy yourself at Christmas
Overspend on your credit cards getting presents that nobody really wants and and then buy ing things you do really want in the boxing day sales
Why not get all your relatives together in an overheated room have a lot of alcohol and have a great big row.
Watch all sorts of rubbish on the television just because it’s Christmas when you would like to spend a time doing something that you really want to do but you think it’s rude so you make yourself comply after all it’s only once a year.
So much depends on mood and time of day
We interpret or mis-shape what we perceive.
The sun may shine to show a better way
Or absent that, a transient cloud deceive.
No lowing herds wind down our oil fumed roads.
Tranquillity at dusk has disappeared.
With artificial light the daytime mode’s
Prolonged and reverie’s feared.
To truly live we must be incarnate.
God himself has paid this price alone.
For time misspent we do not get rebate.
As ,like the leaves in wind, away we’re blown.
To live aright perception must be clear
Including in its breadth all that we fear.
In a stable with no heat or light
Who will celebrate the birth of God
When we each deny our rage and spite
Psychosis swallows up the dark of night
The star that shepherds saw has filled with blood
Above a stable with no heat or light
We live with fear, we know who has the might
Can our minds contain both bad and good
When we each deny our rage and spite?
We fail to know how others suffer fright
That they are persons too , not understood
Christ came down as weak as candle light
We are each a world, there is no fate
I see the tears run down the face of God
When we each engage our rage and spite
Shall we lose in darkness or in flood?
Asked a man bereft of his true love
In a stable with no heat or light
Love is born, is frozen, is denied
Jack opened the door and saw his elegantly thin wife Simone riding her bicycle along the pavement without even holding the handlebars
That is absolutely and utterly wrong, he told her rudely yet patiently.
You are giving a bad example to the cat and to many other people who may be looking out of their windows or driving along this intriguingly bland suburban road
Louisa grinned like a Cheshire cat would
Don’t be so ridiculous she cried, cats can’t ride bicycles. Their legs are not long enough
You’re missing the more subtle point that you are breaking the law in a particular way Now the cat or any cat, a dog or a human being may not be able to ride a bicycle but they can break the law.
Well of course they can because we all have free will or we are just too lazy to think she cried merrily.
So if you ride a bicycle along the pavement especially when there are people about you are giving the impression that you do not have any thought for the good of others. In modern terminology you are a narcissist or in Christian terminology you are a sinner although it’s not a mortal sin unless you kill somebody deliberately and wilfully. Who knows who is guilty of mortal sin ?
Don’t ask me I’m only a writer
Oh dear Jack you are so scrupulous. I have never done it before but it was so inviting when I came around the corner I felt like a child. I thought how lovely it will be to ride along the pavement
It’s very sad Jack sald that people see being an adult as a deprivation of pleasure. There are adult pleasures of course that we can’t talk about those in front of the cat can we?
Why not, the little cat wondered to herself. I would like them to talk about is in front of me.
The elderly couple rolled into the sweet little kitchen on their milk bottle like legs and their cruelly deformed feet and rolled onto the wooden bench behind the kitchen table. But close to the grand piano as well
What are we having for our tea?
Jack said, I found a teapot in the dining room so we can have tea in the pot instead of in mugs with tea bags I think you will enjoy that my dear
I definitely will. I love a nice teapot. And have you made a cake?
I’ve made a lot of cakes but they are potato cakes!
Well my mother used to make those in the 1950s or was it the 1960s ? We still had a coal fire with an oven at the side. Those were the days.
Jack put the potato cakes on the table along with some co-op best butter.
Then little Louisa climbed onto the table and licked the butter with her red tongue.
See I told you that you were leading the cat into sin and now she’s been licking this butter. I will have to throw it away m
A cat can do something wrong but is it a sin?
Are there cats in hell?
But she didn’t see me riding on the pavement, his beautiful brave wife exclaimed with a subtle yet obvious hint of violence.
Unfortunately the cat has got second sight being half Irish and she definitely did see her mother riding the bicycle along the pavement breaking the law with every turn of the pedals
What the cat was thinking was this:
is doing something illegal automatically a sin and is something legal always good?
The second question is easier to answer because we know that in world war two many things were done in Germany that were legal under their leader Hitler but they were definitely not good to put it mildly
To be plain they were evil
But breaking the law by riding a bicycle along the pavement is not in the list of sins in most Catholic missals
I suppose in the time of the Apostles there were no pavements and there were no bicycles so you would have to look for a general principle.
Give unto Caesar what is Caesars and give to God what is God’s
After that Jack got some fresh butter from the fridge and he and his wife demolished the potato cakes along with some bacon and egg
And so would all of us
Who would feed the cat?
My cells are opening up like tiny flowers
To the yellow sun and summer showers
And so I love the world with all my being
With all my senses hearing feeling, seeing.
When I was ill my self was tight and cramped.
As if I were in darkness with no lamp
Even though the sky is dull today
Gratitude alone will make me pray.
Must our human world be full of fear?
If only we could hold a stranger dear.
For touch, above all else, delights the heart.
This is why we kiss when we must part
Great Bardfield and Dunmow by meadows of blue
Linseed and poppies delight
Narrow lanes curving are leading us to
The Essex of Constable ‘s sight
At Manningtree swans jostle near the stone edge
I recall we have seen them in flight
Like a god might descend to fulfill an old pledge;
A humbling and marvellous sight.
In Dedham, all’s still and wisteria hangs
From a house with the door painted white.
The church was quite empty and no bell was rung
But a prayer could ascend to its height.
After the quiet of the village out here
The A12 was revealed as a blight
We crossed it then turned down a lane that was near
We drove home in the cool of the night.
Windmills not turning and churches not used
Yet a beauty to charm and delight
No mills as in Yorkshire,no hills to denude.
Long Melford and Eleigh ,oh wait!
Photo by Katherine
When I cannot tell you how I feel
When I want your presence without speech
I talk about the weather like a fool
Sometimes when I’m tired I feel unreal
Or life seems lost and meaning outward leaks
Then I can not tell you how I feel.
Some months have their winds to make misrule
Others throttle throats and freeze the cheeks
I talk about the weather , as its cool.
We must keep moving or our blood congeals
So sheep must on moorland frosty, bleak
I don’t want to lie , for life is real
When winter mocks our age I find it cruel
Yet you are old and for amusement look
I talk about the sunshine like a fool
Oh, happy snowfalls keeping us from school
As on the ice we tumbled with loud shrieks
When I cannor tell you how I feel
The weather stands for what I have concealed
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/dec/26/relax-life-changing-how-to-find-comfort-zone
The need for some simple source of relaxation can be seen in the initial surge in popularity of the adult colouring book, as well as last year’s 13.3% increase in sales of books providing spiritual guidance on how to live in a hectic world, and the mindfulness “mega trend” seen in Hehadspace, the meditation app that has been downloaded more than 15m times. Those of us who spent our money on these products were presumably searching for answers to some of the same questions – and many of us are still looking. The bottom has now dropped out of the colouring book market, with Forbes declaring it “dead” in May, and, in June last year, Headspace laid off 13 staff members.
According to a report by Ofcom this summer: “Most people in the UK are dependent on their digital devices and need a constant connection to the internet.” It found that 78% of us now own a smartphone – rising to 95% of 16- to 24-year-olds. We check these phones on average every 12 minutes of our waking lives, with 54% of us feeling that the devices interrupt our conversations with friends and family, and 43% of us feeling that we spend too much time online. We can’t relax with them, and we don’t know how to relax without them. Seven in 10 of us never turn them off.
The clinical psychologist Rachel Andrew says she sees the problem every day in her consulting room, and it is getting worse. “I’ve noticed a rise in my practice, certainly over the last three to five years, of people finding it increasingly difficult to switch off and relax. And it’s across the lifespan, from age 12 to 70,” she says. The same issues come up again and again: technology, phones, work emails and social media.
Kicking back in front of one screen or another does have its place, says Andrew – but it depends how you do it. “Sometimes people describe not being engaged in what they’re looking at – totally zoning out, not knowing what they’ve done for the last half-hour,” she says. “You can view this almost as dissociation, periods of time when your mind is so exhausted and overwhelmed it takes itself out of the situation. That’s unlikely to be nourishing in any way.” Maybe that is why, after I have spent an evening staring emptily at Twitter, or dropping off in front of the TV – less Netflix and chill, more Netflix and nap – I wake up feeling as if I have eaten a load of junk food. I have confused feeling brain-dead with feeling relaxed.
The psychoanalyst David Morgan, of the Institute of Psychoanalysis, believes that for many of us this deadening retreat to our screens is both a reason for and a consequence of the fact that we no longer know how to relax and enjoy ourselves. Our screens and what we use them for are all techniques of distraction, he says. “People have got so used to looking for distraction that they actually cannot stand an evening with themselves. It is a way of not seeing oneself, because to have insight into oneself requires mental space, and all these distraction techniques are used as a way of avoiding getting close to the self.”
Some of her patients, Andrew explains, simply never get around to thinking about how they want to spend their time. “People say they are so busy doing the ‘shoulds’,” she says – whether that is working, caring for family or being a part of demanding friendships – that by the time an evening or weekend comes around when they might do what they want, there is no energy or motivation left for anything but “flopping out”. She adds: “That’s a difficulty – because how is life enjoyable or satisfying in the long term if you’re only doing what you should do the whole time?”
For others, the notion of being in touch with their own needs and desires is totally alien, says Andrew. People who grew up in a family environment that centred around the needs of a sibling or a parent might have spent their whole lives never being asked about what they wanted to do. “It might genuinely be something they’ve never considered before,” she says. For those people, identifying something they might find enjoyably relaxing, and pursuing it, can be a huge, life-changing shift. “It can be quite dramatic.”
Another problem is that it can be tricky to untangle our own wishes from those of the people around us, says Nina Grunfeld, the founder of Life Clubs, an organisation that aims to help people live more fulfilling lives. It can take a lot of effort to discover where your enjoyment ends and your partner’s begins. “When my husband and I were young,” she says, “we went to Rome on holiday, and he wanted to go to every church, every restaurant, every everything. And I got home completely shattered. It was only after coming to know myself, after thinking about my life without him and what I like as an individual, that I realised that for me to enjoy a holiday and to come back feeling relaxed and refreshed, I need to read and be still. Now we’ll go on holiday and he goes off to do the churches by himself, but I’m very happy just lying by the beach, pool or fire and reading. It’s a real treat. I might join him for the restaurants, though.”
Speaking to Grunfeld and Andrew, and hearing their advice (see ) on how to identify different occupations that might relax and reinvigorate me, I begin to feel optimistic. I think back to how I liked to pass the time when I was young; the quiet times sitting reading a book, the rowdier times baking with friends. I resolve to make more time to do the adult versions of these things over the next year – then realise I am making excuses. If I could redirect the evenings I am already wasting on screens, that would be a good start.
The fact is, I do already do all those ideal things occasionally, but sometimes it feels as if being in the world is too much, and I need to disappear from it by losing myself in a screen. It is as if I crave that brain-dead feeling, even though I know it isn’t good for me. Having psychoanalytic psychotherapy is helping me to think about the reasons why I might do this – and for Morgan, therapy can be an important pathway out of being stuck in a screen-gazing rut, because it is somewhere a person is encouraged to use his or her mind. “The therapeutic space is the opposite of distraction – it’s concentration,” he says. “When people come into my consulting room, they often tell me it’s the first time they have ever felt they have had a space where they can’t run away from things.”
I have found that not running away from things, but confronting them and reflecting on them, can feel as exhausting as the running itself. It is difficult, disturbing work. But in a room with someone who can listen and help me to make sense of things, it can also be a relief. Morgan tells me: “We have all these various ways of distracting ourselves from the most important fact of life – that we live, and then we die. Having a mind to help you think about things, having a person who can think deeply about things with you, is a way to manage this very frightening fact of life.”
The flip side of that frightening fact is, of course, the realisation that since we don’t have much time on this planet, it is a shame to waste any of it voluntarily making ourselves brain-dead.
• If you are spending time with family or friends over the festive period, Nina Grunfeld recommends assigning each person one hour in which they are in charge of the group’s schedule, when they can choose whichever activity they consider most relaxing. “One of my children might decide we all have to play a video game; another will decide we are all going for a walk; another will make us all bake cakes. That way you all get a bit of ‘me-time’, and you can experience someone else’s – and it’s very relaxing not having to make decisions for the whole day,” she says.
• Try to remember what you most enjoyed doing as a child, then identify the most important aspect of that activity and find the adult version. Grunfeld says: “It might be that you can’t remember, and you have to ask friends or family, or look at old photo albums. There are normally themes in all of our lives, and if we’re missing those themes as an adult, it’s almost as if we’re not a whole person.” If you loved playing in the sandpit, you might want to try pottery, or if you liked building things, you might want to make bread.
• Experiment with looking at the world in a new way. “Allow yourself to explore. Just walk around wherever you are and see what you can find that is completely new. Try to get lost – whenever you get to a turning, ask yourself do you want to go left or right, and see where you end up,” says Grunfeld.
• If you have no idea how to start relaxing, look at the science, says Rachel Andrew. “There is a growing body of research to suggest being out in nature is uplifting and nourishing.”
Q
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How my heart speaks 