https://www.smh.com.au/culture/books/stephanie-dowrick-s-lessons-of-intimacy-and-solitude-from-the-pandemic-20210102-p56rb4.html

D

the answers she gave to a New Zealand journalist recently about the effects of loneliness and the “beautiful benefits” of solitude. And here’s her blog about how desperately important connection and communication can be in a time of pandemic.

“I know how distracting it can be if you are having an interesting conversation and have to eat and order as well,” she says. “Although I won’t be eating much. But you must order something that you would really like, perhaps duck or prawns; that would make me feel a lot better.” I tell her that I am happy with her vegetarian choices of golden tofu (which she says “sounds lovely”), crispy dumplings and pad Thai.

Infuzions Thai in Cammeray is our venue because of its proximity to a studio where the Balmain-based Dowrick has been recording the audio book for Intimacy and Solitude. As it happens, recording has been completed, so there is plenty of time to move around the largely empty restaurant in search of the best spot for recording and photography.

Dowrick’s vibrantly patterned dress, in what interior designers would call “jewel” colours, blends well with the richly coloured Thai cushions and warm woods. “Lead, Kindly Light,” she jokes, quoting a famous hymn, as we search for the most flattering spot. In addition to being a versatile author of almost 20 fiction and non-fiction books, and a psychotherapist, Dowrick is an interfaith minister who was based at Pitt Street Uniting Church from 2006 to 2017. More recently she has been co-leading “sacred gatherings” at the InnerSpace Centre in Five Dock.

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It quickly becomes clear that the meal is secondary to Dowrick, who I have met several times over the years through her publishing work and journalism. She wrote a popular Inner Life column for Good Weekend between 2001 and 2010, and was a regular guest of both Geraldine Doogue and Tony Delroy on ABC radio. These days she contributes opinion pieces to newspapers, primarily on social justice, human rights and ethical issues. And as she is my friend on Facebook, I am also aware of the joy she reaps as a mother and grandparent – and of her “later life” marriage in 2017 to Darwin-based paediatrician and health activist Paul Bauert. (“Because he lives 4000 kilometres from my home, I can continue to evolve my understanding of intimacy as well as solitude!”)

Today, and perhaps always, conversation and ideas interest her. Dowrick is a woman of intense blue eyes, a direct gaze and gently probing questions; she invites confidence and confidences, and indeed becomes the interviewer as much as the subject. It is fortunate that she arrived with her background dossier.

First published in 1991, Intimacy and Solitude was an international bestseller and has been revised and expanded several times since then. The latest edition was sparked by a recognition that the unpredictable events of 2020 had made the book’s message more relevant than ever. It is an encouragement for readers, a message of hope that blends readable case studies with deeply considered but accessible wisdom. Dowrick is convinced that we all have the potential to respond to both familiar and new situations freshly and creatively, especially if we renew our closeness to ourselves and to other people.

Comedian and author Magda Szubanski, musician Clare Bowditch and politician Kristina Keneally are among her raft of fans.

“If the pandemic taught us anything at all, it is that we are utterly and inevitably connected – and not only with this earth on which we wholly depend in all its brilliance, beauty, fearsomenesss and biodiversity,” Dowrick writes in her new 7000-word introductory essay. “COVID-19 showed us plainly that we protect ourselves best by willingly and generously protecting one another – even when separate or ‘distanced’.

“As powerful as those two potent words are individually – intimacy and solitude – they together describe and evoke a steadiness of inner support and resourcefulness that brings more than resilience and inevitably extends beyond ourselves to other people.”

‘My instinct has been unwavering: that not just I, but most of us, want to do at least somewhat better in our connections with others.’

Dowrick says that in addition to interviewing many people for the book, and “surveying screeds of psychological wisdom for the finest ideas”, she reviewed her own rich catalogue of “missteps” as well as what had made life “most worth living”. “My instinct has been unwavering: that not just I, but most of us, want to do at least somewhat better in our connections with others.

“A relatively healthy sense of self lets you accept what others can give you, even when it isn’t quite what you yearned for … It’s also dependent on trusting that your life matters – whether or not it is lauded by others. And that you deserve to care for yourself as respectfully and supportively as you would a trusted and cared-for friend.”

Dowrick was born in New Zealand and spent some of her formative years in isolated Maori and Pacific Island communities, where her parents were teaching. Her mother, Mary, died in her late 30s, when Dowrick was eight. It was, of course, a truly terrible experience and not one that she wishes to dwell on overly in an interview.

However, in her book she writes of the loss, which has affected the rest of her life: “Unsurprisingly, I was incapable of much self-care, never mind what ‘independence’ adds up to. I had gained immeasurably from the years of unstinting love my mother could give me when she lived. She was also, in her moral and emotional intelligence, in her creativity and pride in her profession as a gifted teacher and her commitment to service to others, an exceptional example to me.”

In the late 1960s, a lack of career opportunities in New Zealand for a clever and determined young woman led Dowrick to head for London where, with delight, she fell into book publishing (where senior women were still a rarity and her colleagues, mostly men from public schools, addressed each other by their surnames).

Her star rose. At the height of “second wave” feminism, in 1977, she convinced British publishing entrepreneur Naim Attallah to back a groundbreaking feminist imprint, The Women’s Press, and became its first managing director. Writers Janet Frame, Andrea Dworkin, Michele Roberts and Lisa Alther were among those who joined the list and, in 1983, with the Commonwealth publication of Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Color Purple, commercial success was added to its cult status.

Shortly afterwards, Dowrick moved to Sydney and had two children, Kezia and Gabriel, in quick succession; her first novel, Running Backwards over Sand, which tells of a journey of self-exploration by a young woman who has lost her mother, was published in 1985. Subsequently, she worked part-time as a publisher at Allen & Unwin and broadened her writing to focus on self-development and further explored spirituality, most particularly through the work of German poet Rainer Maria Rilke (on whom she wrote a PhD thesis that evolved into a book, In the Company of Rilke).

On learning to live with isolation, the author, an “impatient patient” who fell ill for four months and was in hospital for 10 weeks before the pandemic hit, says that while the lockdown was a crisis of communication for social beings it could also offer “an opportunity to consider with fresh interest how we can more thoughtfully support others – receiving with grace and gratitude what they may have to give”.

While many have been feeling “flat”, she says it is important to be more consciously open to receiving, even when what’s coming your way doesn’t quite fit your expectations of how things should be. Like any change, some detachment is needed to see things anew, as is stillness, which is best achieved by not being constantly busy. (“Being busy is for me a psychological defence.”)

“In illness, our world shrinks. In social isolation, our world shrinks. Yet it’s precisely now that our vision must enlarge. Choosing to be the smallest bit more generous, perhaps more tolerant in both directions (giving and receiving), is itself an act of empowerment, an act of self-respect and even love – for ourselves and for all with whom we share this planet.

“When we’re down, our thoughts leap into a future that’s frightening. When we slow down, by contrast, we can experience this moment and – when we can – infuse it with greater vitality and hope. We can surround people and situations with the energies of loving-kindness and care, rather than anxiety or raw terror. And when we do this, we ourselves will benefit.”

The afternoon is slipping away, but Dowrick proposes we move on to coffee and pavlova. She wants to ask me some more questions.

Infuzions Cammeray

439 Miller St, Cammeray

(02) 9957 1122

Daily, 11.30am-9.30pm

Intimacy and Solitude by Stephanie Dowrick is out now from Allen & Unwin.Save

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Shona Martyn is Spectrum Editor at The Sydney Morning Herald. She was previously the Publishing Director of HarperCollins, the founding editor of HQ magazine and an editor of Good Weekend.Connect via email.

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http://www.bewilderingstories.com/issue121/armstrong_rev.html

 

 

 

Le cœur a ses raisons  que la raison ne connaît point.

— Blaise Pascal

The heart has its reasons that reason knows not of.

I. Why this review, and why here?

Karen Armstrong is a historian of religion whose erudition and insights have justly earned her great renown. Her books, such as A History of God and The Battle for God establish her as a social philosopher, as well. As such, she is a companion to Jane Jacobs, whose latest book Dark Age Ahead was reviewed in issue 104. The two of them are essential to understanding the present time. They show in both grand outline and detail how culture, politics and economics have interwoven to shape the world we live in at the beginning of the 21st century.

Bewildering Stories is very happy to have published articles and reviews in non-fiction. Our fiction has frequently featured alternate history and alternate futures. We now find ourselves at a historical juncture that many science-fiction writers have foreseen or alluded to but, I suggest, have not fully understood. They and we need to know what our history really is and what alternatives it proposes. It behooves us to listen intently to Jane Jacobs and Karen Armstrong.

II. What is fundamentalism?

[ for III. The history of fundamentalism see the entire article]

Armstrong traces the history of three fundamentalist movements:

1. in Judaism, especially in the state of Israel;
2. in Islam, first in Egypt among the Sunnis and then in Iran, among the Shi’ites;
3. and, finally, in American Protestantism.]

 

A. A general description

The best summary can be found in Karen Armstrong’s own “New Preface,” written a month or two after September 11, 2001. The terrorist attacks — “made for television” — on the centers of American economic and military power changed nothing in the conclusions of the first edition, published the year before; they only confirmed Karen Armstrong’s worst fears: a worldwide cultural rift is headed — in my terms — toward a global civil war. At best it is being fought in the realms of culture, politics and economics; at worst it spills over onto battlefields.

Karen Armstrong doesn’t like the term “fundamentalism.” It originated in the United States in the early 20th century, and its use has only recently spread to include more than some forms of American Protestantism. The term implies that fundamentalism is a monolithic reactionary movement and is similar in all religions.

Fundamentalism is not monolithic: it is as faction-ridden as any religion. And it is only vaguely similar between religions: the Jewish and Moslem versions emphasize observance and practice; Christianity is unique in emphasizing adherence to formal doctrine. Nor is fundamentalism reactionary: “The term also gives the impression that fundamentalists are inherently conservative and wedded to the past, whereas their ideas are essentially modern and highly innovative” (p. xii).

But Armstrong admits that the term has been consecrated by usage; we’re stuck with it. It is a “militant piety” that has emerged in every major religious tradition. She summarizes the definition proposed by the eminent scholars Martin Marty and R. Scott Appleby: “[Fundamentalisms] are embattled forms of spirituality, which have emerged as a response to a perceived crisis. They are engaged in a conflict with enemies whose secularist policies and beliefs seem inimical to religion itself” (p. xiii).

The fundamentalist world view implies some corollaries. Fundamentalists…see their struggle not as one of conventional politics but as a cosmic war between good and evil;fear annihilation;affirm their identity by selecting doctrines and practices from the past;often withdraw from mainstream society and create a counterculture;absorb the pragmatic rationalism of modernity;create an ideology and action plan under the guidance of charismatic leaders;
eventually fight back and attempt to resacralize a skeptical world.
Armstrong sums up the confrontation:

Even the most peaceful and law-abiding are perplexing, because they seem so adamantly opposed to many of the most positive values of modern society. Fundamentalists have no time for democracy, pluralism, religious toleration, peacekeeping, free speech, or the separation of church and state (p. xi).

B. The fundamentalist rationale

Why would anyone embrace such authoritarian thinking? For reasons that seemed good at the time: “This battle for God was an attempt to fill the void at the heart of a society based on scientific rationalism” (p. 370).
“Human beings find it almost impossible to live without a sense that, despite the distressing evidence to the contrary, life has ultimate meaning and value” (p. 135). Mythos — mythology and its cults — provides that meaning; it basically answers the question “why.” Logos — rationalism and science — answers the question “how.” Logos may heal the body but only mythos can heal the spirit.

In the pre-modern world, both mythology and rationalism were mutually indispensable. In our time, logos has become predominant and, according to an epigram of Jean-Paul Sartre’s that Armstrong is fond of citing, it has left a “God-shaped hole” in modern consciousness. And that “hole” is going to be filled somehow.

A similar philosophical adaptation has happened before. In the Axial Age of 700-200 BCE, trade began to replace agriculture as a prime source of wealth. The pagan fertility gods became irrelevant to people who were gaining a wider knowledge of the world. Ever practical, humanity replaced the old, local gods with the world religions we know today.

Now we are living in a Second Axial Age, where science has been added to land and trade as a prime source of wealth. And the old religions must once again redefine themselves and adapt lest they be discarded as irrelevant

 

Cartology,,…….how to manage a horse and cart.

Cynicism,,… cultivating cynics.

Pointillism,,….. giving meaning to even very small things.

Logisticalist,,…..imitating logic.

Impressionism,……looking better than you ought to

Premodernism,…,a forward looking philosophy

Fictionalology,,,. The science of invention

Maternalism,….the love of people of all kinds

What do you say to  a  new teapot?
We’re  both going to be in hot water soon

What do you say when you are thirsty?
Show me a photo of Warren Beatty.He makes my mouth water

Why don’t we drink sea water?
Fish pee into it.Whales drown in it

What do you say to a  coffee mug?
Won’t you at least try this tea?

What do you say to a rabbit?
Have you no warren of your own to go to?

What do you  feel  for when you get a  text message at 3 am
My husband

What kind of flour do you use?
It depends on how strong the bombs need to be

Why  do you like hand writing?
We can’t afford writing paper

Which pens are the best?
The ones with ink inside.

Is it hard to write a poem?
No, it’s only 5 letters.Maybe A should be capital?

Are you autistic?
Is it so black and white?

Why do you like maths?
It stops me  turning schizophrenic

Did you work  on differential equations?
No they were too  dirty for women to stand on

How about topology?
I prefer jam doughnuts to actually eat.

How did you find   the University?
We had  maps then ,much cheaper than  android phones

I mean  how did you feel?
With maths you don’t need to feel

So what does make you feel?
Love, glue and hot water

What advice would you give to a   person now?
Never give advice.

What do you think of the Corona virus?
It makes no difference what I think.It’s what we do that matter

 

 

 

 

Show me a poem written in lines with 5 beats so-so poetry is like music it’s more like music than a kiss.
This is really funny what it’s coming out with Siri absolutely hilarious I can’t type my laughter

I can hear it myself I can hear it anyway all the different forms of poetry have some of the qualities in music even free verse those although it’s hard to explain it sometimes I remember when I first began writing that all my writing is in free verse and my brother said to me how do you know when to end the line and I said you just get a sense of it the fence and then you go onto a new line but before someone else might disagree with I think when I think back to him as a long ones that I wrote like him but the one about the end man or possibly young woman leaving to join the army because I’m always broken out saying goodbye to her mother and the mother is grieving the Lions are actually very short um which seem to fit in with um the feelings and although I didn’t realise it was on the 11th of September also some people in America route to me to thank you for writing it because it was 9/11 but I didn’t I didn’t contraflow I think a lot of things that we knew my husband is going to die before I even though the doctor salty with left till about November and he died on the 1st of June but we already celebrating 30th anniversary I don’t know whether he really but you know they gave me some tears, a special kind of cake and um at least I felt in myself doing had his and say when it turns I didn’t find it too painful although unfortunately the next year I did find it very painful but then that’s the price you paid until I find that 7 people want to know soon as they seem to be angry when you’re grieving Mr if they’ll never been married or had a close relationship they must be so envious that the fitness think you shouldn’t complain when you lose it and when you’re grieving you know exactly complaining that you lost it but you’re trying to adapt yourself to being one person without someone who is always like part of yourself in some ways although my husband was actually very much further than private and we both work for with another in fish outside of our relationship but you know what is the Silverstone Home and away is scanning emotional security that you know that when you go home with somebody that will listen to you I’m just sending middle of writing a book or something but they will listen to you and possibly come for you if you need it I know that adults can live without having the same with all the time but we are animals and animals tend to like to be with her animals ,animals like themselves because with animals like themselves there is a mate when it’s the right season and the home hunt together and they can now look after their young together this is sleeping it really that they want to which types of Arran to like to do that human being this day seem to like to sleep in the heat not anymore but I think in the past and in the house like the ones where I live out there any similar only had two bedrooms wh for the mother and the father are all the children respect to the dead in the other room at the top of the bottom I don’t know when I don’t know what happened when they reach puberty Avenue in one family only have two children the morning when the children reach puberty they’re all slept with the mother and the boys check with the follow through the mother and the father themselves didn’t after sleep together praxitelous plastic wrap suit practice trip together with me and children at school right now shouldn’t be saying this way if it’s not very nice visit me while I’m just kind of thinking about the fact that turn to be alone in the house in which you lived with your loved ones for many years is quite difficult but on the other hand it’s familiar I don’t think I’d like to go somewhere completely different at the moment but some people my02 you know I’ll get married a few weeks after they’ve been removed because of the contrary to be in the same house all to be alone. There’s an American writer called Joyce Carol Oates and she wrote a book about at the death of Ivan and how it affected her and not matter of fact she got married again and see ya Rafi died and she’s got heavily criticised for having written this week about loss and pain and Mirena when probably by the time it was published showing already remarried but I mean she didn’t mean that she hasn’t started losing the first husband. Actually they do you say that if you been happily married you more likely to get married again but I don’t think that I would like to get married again because it is quite an old phone to get to know somebody and it will be very easy to find someone who sings pleasant it interesting in a certain amount of chemistry how much to tell if you’d expect at this ungodly reason but there are some things I believe that smell is very important that you like the way they smell that that’s so but then you might find out there and all sorts of peculiar habits so light I want to see friends of mine they had a man the friend who is the at the weekend or with whom they went out to concerts and things like that and and left them in the Mail on Sunday but they didn’t actually live together in the same house all the time ironically what are these women displaying Me toys and me because I was talking to her on the phone and my husband will learn quite well I need to cook them in and he came in and he said and they didn’t read it and she said I don’t owe anyone just I thought to myself that’s because you wouldn’t marry your partner who wanted to marry you and you refuse and if you had married him it was very well you could have bought all your food in, you could have gone to a restaurant or you have 2 boxes in Marks and Spencer’s with you and pretending that you can have it or eat it must have been able to cook because it is period wanted split up because of her and then I don’t know what he lived on that Tuesday feeling well Friday Saturday and Sunday so that’s how the leftovers for those when he will need to make himself and me London if you think you’ll be happy until he got you won’t feel and then they laugh died

They are like some other beings altogether

the cry more animal than human

The wordless pathos,

musical,disturbing

They have gone back to a troubled and unimagined infancy

but no mother responds to such a nightmare of overgrown voice boxes

the cry of a rabbit wolf in a trap

it’s the shriek in the wall cry of a baby in a psychotic nightmare.

Nicholas haunts Sylvia in the evocative memory of Ariel

And so it will end for you and me

Trapped in this old body with its old brain

on and on they cry

help me, help me,help me

nurse nurse

I want the manager I want the manager

I don’t want to be here I don’t want to be here

I want to go home

Help me

we don’t listen because they have dementia

what they say has no meaning.

that’s our defence

I am the norm

You are abnormal

but you smiled when I asked you if you would like your hair dyed pink

and I know you love the music therapist.

Your smell repels

Alas

Is this where Jesus dwells

If you did this to the least of my little ones, you did it to me. We

you haven’t forgotten about Eros

you are still hoping to find love

you are not dead yet but you can’ wait to go home

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/cynical

While Mary sat in the kitchen on a large pine chair looking at Hotter’s latest shoe catalogue,Annie was creeping up the garden path in a pair of turquoise suede elegantly heeled shoes matching her teal tencel culottes and matching blouse.Round her neck was a large lump of amber on a gold chain handy for beating off muggers or lustful men and women
Despite the heat she was in full splendour with golden beige tinted moisturiser from Langone of Lyons on her lovely complexion,pink eyeshadow from Yves St Current and dark brown boot polish as her mascara had run out and she’d not been out for a while to buy more
Annie ran the last few yards and darted like an eel into Mary’s 1970’s kitchen.
What on earth are you doing,dear? Mary asked her.Those shoes look unsuitable for leading anyone up the garden path.Mind you,I do like them
Oh,I’ll explain,Annie said huskily.
I told that therapist across the road I was living with you.
What exactly do you mean by living,Mary asked anxiously.
Well,he said yesterday that anyone who lives alone must be lacking in some way.Except for him of course as he had full analysis with Alfred Zion.
You mean Wilfred Bion,Mary told her.
Zion,Bion,what’s the difference?
It shows your lack of education,Mary told her.Not that education nowadays makes much difference
That’s not quite what I would have done, said Annie.A degree in flirtation and pleasing men would be more up my street.And cooking of course although I once did have an interest in Hebrew and Aramaic.
It’s not a way to progress in a neo-liberal economy,although reading the Hebrew Bible is always interesting.Personally I prefer that to the New Vex-a man.The stories,the love songs,the action.Mary’s round eyes gleamed with intellectual life and a bit of languorous lust
How about God? Annie asked her.
He seems to have changed as he related to his people.But he was a friend despite being an abstract concept.Though one could hardly call him a concept as he is inconceivable.
Mary’s voice faltered as she was stunned by her own articulacy and wondered what she might say next that could offend millions around the globe all at once
You should write a book,Annie said kindly.
I think I am ill-equipped to write about God.And ,also ,I am saddened to see how his own people have been treated.I can’t dwell on it over much as I already feel weak and weepy.
Why what have you been doing,asked Annie.
I have been sorting out clothes to give to the hospice shop. I’ve got a big bag full already and 2 bags of newspapers and rubbish of various kinds which somehow creeps into my bedroom… tissues,cotton wool, old hairbrushes.I am hoping to get it nice and neat before my sister comes to see me
And now I realise I have far too many pans despite burning several.But it’s a big decision for a woman who was famed for entertaining friends with scorching Beef Vindaloo and lemon mousse that tasted like rubber.Giving that up is a big wrench.
Why can’t you carry on, asked Annie.
Carrying on is precisely why I can’t do it.Now I am a widow the wives of my former colleagues and my own women friends are afraid I will steal their husbands.
Emile miaowed in ecstasy as any talk about the love lives of his family were always intriguing.He was hiding as usual behind the stone flour bin.
Don’t you see,said Annie.If we pretend we are living together then you can mingle with men without suspicion.
This is beginning to sound like a spy story,Mary told her.And do not drag me into a character part in the play based on your romantic love for that psychoanalyst.
He looks ugly and boring to me.
Oh,that’s just a projection,Annie told her.You are defending yourself against acknowledging how much you long to lie in his arms and let him smother you in kisses.
Well,said Mary,I see you have been reading Freud for beginners again.
Or is it Freud for Dummies?
Mary recalled how nice her dummy used to taste when it was dipped into a jar of malt and codliver oil.Maybe that is the answer,she thought.
I’m going to Mothercare,she called as she ran out of the house in her green trainers and denim trouser suit.See you later.
Annie sat in the kitchen wondering how soon she could see the psychoanalyst again without being accused of sexual harassment.Even old age has not deterred her from seeking a replacement for dear old Stan.A few tears ran down her cheek and Emile jumped out and sat on her knee

https://www.writersandartists.co.uk/advice/interview-jami-attenberg

Jack had just taken early retirement from his old job as a maths researcher. in Knittingham university.His large collection of books was overwhelming the home he shared with his excitable French wife Simone.Simone was still working at the university cleaning computers heads all day long.
Now she was hoping that she and Jack could do more entertaining.If only he would get [rid of some of the books!No-one could climb over them to get into the dining room unless they had climbed the Alps]
Simone left for work wearing her new pink cord trousers and a dark blue denim knit jumper and she had a long lasting beige foundation from Max Factor covering her red face.
Jack gave the cat,Louisa, a hot bath in goat’s milk.Now instead of being grey she was cream coloured!
I’ve been dyed,she shrieked politely but Jack never replied.
He pondered,as he dried her what to do with all his maths books.He had thought of making a large collage but who would want it?
Or he could donate them to the university or have a fire in the back garden.
Suddenly he looked up and saw a very charmingly pink faced woman peering into the window.
It was his neighbour Kim whose husband had disappeared last year,possibly inside a wheelie bin,though no-one was sure.
Hello,Kim,did you want me?” he cried nervously
I thought you might like some company for morning coffee.What a pretty cat.What’s her name?”
Louisa was wary of Kim.Maybe the purple trousers and orange jumper might give the cat an epileptic fit… she was a sufferer, just like St Paul.She hoped to be converted but so far was disappointed.She longed to see a vision of cat food in the sky.
Can cats go to Mass? she mioawed to Jack.
Yes,but they can’t have Communion,he responded shyly.
Well,we don’t eat bread but I love wine!
I’ll mention it to the Pope next time I see him,Kim said with a roguish smile.Her make up looked to be waterproof as the drip in the ceiling was right above her head and heavy rain was falling.
But first Louisa,you would have to confess your sins.All your sins
I never did a thing wrong,the cat replied haughtily.
Well,you know the Church is only for repentant sinners,so if you never sin,you can’t repent. so it follows indubitably that you can’t join the Church!i studied Aristotle once that’s why
I get all logical with emotion.I only wish I’d got to Wittgenstein..I could have loved that man….though now I seem to recall he was gay…still,who knows?
If that were true about theChurch,would Jesus be allowed to join?
Certainly not.He was perfect and also he was Jewish.So why would he want to join the Christian church?
As he began it, he might like to see its holy life,Louisa purred loudly.
Really,I think this is a very odd conversation murmured the parrot,Felix Semper.
Not so odd,responded a tall dark man who just appeared from nowhere.
I am called Jesus he said,but I’m from Malaga.
In Spain many men are called Jesus,he continued mellifluously.
Is that so, cried Kim murmured tenderly
I never met a Jesus before.If you married me it would give people a shock if I said I was married to Jesus! she whispered loudly behind her hand.
Marry you!Is it leap year? Women have never proposed to me before.
I was just thinking out loud,she replied demurely.
Nuns used to be married to Jesus and wore a silver wedding ring.
I was educated at a convent school.That’s why I’m so very neurotic.
Are you really neurotic? Jack,screamed silently
I have a whole shelf of books by Karen Horney here.Self Analysis, is just one.
I could give it to you now….
Not in front of Jesus,she muttered chastely.
Have you no moral feelings?
No,I’ve never had any feelings of any sort. but it’s done me no harm.
I’ll ask Simone when she gets back, we’ll see if she agrees!
I’m just like a computer with a human body.
I sometimes think I’d like a suit of silver armour.
Bless you,my child,Jesus murmured.
When they looked up the tall dark man was gone.
They looked around but he had left no footprints.
Should we call the police?He came in with no permission!
How disgraceful.
How dastardly.
How disgusting
How damnable.
How divine.
How dumb.
How deplorable.
So on they murmured until it was time to cook lunch. for the cats and birds

Written
on January 31, 2018

Half of me feels glad and half feels sad
I wonder which will take the higher place
I feel a need for stillness without dread
To let the hints of grace in me be read
Without obsession over what you said
Or listening to that fearful heavy tread
I sometimes hear when I have gone to bed
Where is the essence of the love we had?
Somewhere there must be a hint or trace
Part of me is sad and part is glad
Can they each accept and then embrace?

When God came down , the rivers overflowed
Great trees were floating ,angled and exposed
The houses broke up like a loaf to crumbs
The hearts of humans trembled till they hummed

The winds deceived, the gusts unmeasured stung
The churcbells shuddered then untimely rang
The power was cut and all our screens were dark
Where were the rulers, where the saving Ark?

The women giving birth were paralysed
The babies in the womb took ill and died
Their cradles rocked the world, they swung so fast
And in a moment all of life had passed

In the void, God started his new world
Rich and strange, the grit and then the pearls4

I came to see you leave, it was well done

I saw your faces blurred and indistinct

My eyes were full of tears I had to blink

Where I looked again the train has gone)

Kindertransport helped you to survive

I hope the children in Ukraine will live

I’m a ghost there’s nothing I can give

But tell you that my children are alive

My children have got children of their own

They live in in English towns, they play their games

English both in manners and names

Jewish in the blood and in the bones

I float away to join the other lost

I died and now you live, at what a cost

A strange and lonely feeling held my heart
Gripping like some pincers made of steel.
From my beloved, I had had to part
Then numbness  folded round me like a shield

And quietness loved,  has now turned into threat
Nero-like, I  fiddle with my  tunes
Pie Jesu’s not made top ten yet!
Larks’ ascents aren’t worth much to a loon!

I phoned a friend, her voice did me no good
It echoed in the chambers of my mind
Where metal walls echo the coursing blood
And escalate these feelings so unkind

Though he l loved has gone and is now dead.
I  see his face upon my  heartless bed

As I read  the newspaper I had one eye on the clock and the other one on the cooker

I roll my eyes in desperation but I could see no way out of my head

His eyes were like knives and evens his remarks were cutting

His nose was completely blocked. Have you lost your marbles, I asked him politely?

If looks could kill we would all be dead

I walked across the red carpet as his eyes

struck me a glancing blow.

We all need rhymes in the back of our head

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/02/27/dementia-radically-reduces-seven-simple-lifestyle-habits-scientists/

When our father left we were alone

Living on this planet with no home

Existential dread became the rage

The dining table made familial stage

Once he was in heaven then came to earth

On Salisbury plain the sheep displayed much mirth

In the field of Parliament Hill we saw

Sheep could safely graze until the war.

Did they have a shepherd, was it Christ?

Now we have no metaphors,no taste.

Now sheep are made machines they do not graze

The battery hens are clockwork in disgrace

Our father haha ba he is not here.

I think I’d rather drown myself in beer

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/feb/18/evil-sheep-mariko-klugs-best-phone-picture?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

She gave me a withering look

She showed contempt

She glared

She flashed her eyes and I took the hint

He rolled his eyes when I rolled my cigarettes

I thought she was the Gorgon but I didn’t check.

She looked daggers

If looks could kill

She screwed her eyes up by as I screwed my courage up

He stared at me non-stop while I gave the lecture.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/feb/27/labour-britain-change-hope?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

https://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/eat-your-words

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2023/feb/26/sunday-with-lucy-beaumont-i-only-take-cbd-oil-when-my-husband-is-here?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Twas British and the tug of war

Perspired to jungle like heat waves

So whimsical the fallen girls

Till the home rafts did save.

Keep putting one love in front of the other

Never say why.

When you are going in the right direction don’t turn right.

When you’re going in the wrong direction just stop completely until you can find a guide.

Do you think the past has gone away?
A War to end all wars; what paradox!
Hell, we’re seeing more of it today

They’ll soon be selling gas masks on E bay.
They’ll make them  glow to go with summer frocks
Did you think the past had gone away?

Hell is here,  see Gaza  on display
Israel debased, unorthodox
Weighs “Arabs”   down with  years of martial law

Who divided Palestine, I say?
The British with their thinking in the box.
Hell, we’re seeing more of it today.

Can Jews themselves grieve  millions murdered, flayed
Can tortured people mourn when they’ve  been mocked?
Did you think the past had gone away?

The war might end, the Nazis us outfoxed
Their actions travel down the years so cracked.
Did you think the past had gone away?
Hell is here on earth  this very day

Like a broken shell, our world  has cracked
Whose the foot  that  heavily did tread?
Now we wander  in  this City sacked

Once worlds break  how can we bring them back?
Must we  mourn  until our hearts are fed?
Like a pretty shell, our world  has cracked

Where once stood towers  the buildings lie down  flat
A jagged silence taunts from overhead
 As we wander  in  this City sacked

What New Messiah can  find  and love the gap?
Who will give the wine and whose the bread?
Like a cockleshell, our world  has cracked

The death of  God in Auschwitz  on the Rack
The torture of  the Arabs, children  bleed
We cry out , the slouching beast is back

Did we ever think of those in need?
The children of the genocide still plead
Like a broken shell, the world   has cracked
Now we stumble,blind to what we lack

I should forget my husband I shoulf forget my dad

I should forget my mother I should not feel so sad

Forget my little sister forget my brother Paul

I should not feel about them I should not feel at all.

We all sat at the table and we should number seven

Now there are just three of us, the rest may be in heaven

Love and hate are very close perhaps they’ve gone to hell

So I should be a sinner so I’ll go there as well.

Oh daddy how we loved you and and we loved mammy too

Where was sibling rivalry in our Human zoo

We scratched and bit we pinched their toys, what kinds of sister do ?

I used to squeeze the oranges when they all had flu

Now we are growing older and and I shall be alone

So may my heart be with warm with blood and never a cold stone

My body turns to water I’m going to dissolve

I’ll go to earth and then to sky with all my problems solved