How much more so now.
“The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the large centers has owned the Government since the days of Andrew Jackson.” so says Franklin Roosevelt in 1933.
In a world dominated by crisis management, an aspect of the prisoner swap between Israel and Palestine didn’t rate a mention.
One Israeli soldier’s life is worth ..... what was it?...... a thousand Palestinians..... although the last five hundred are perhaps still in limbo.
What a silly and grandiose vision of one’s worth.
Based on what?
What’s the point of a religion - apart from serving the interests of the religion itself - if it doesn’t facilitate a relationship with the Divine.
Equally, how does chanting “God is Great’ reconcile with grenades hurled at a church?
A religion becomes no more than a gang when violence rules over either love or reason.
Religious warriors like to take heart from David and Goliath situations ... of course, they’re always David - even if they’re really Goliath - and they end up winning lots of prizes by cutting short both lives and Commandments.
Steven Fry puts forward the idea that the ten Commandments were cobbled together by some hysterical tribesmen.
Not so. What greater challenge is there but to live within those limitations. Life is limited in as many directions as you choose to look but not so within our inner core.
We get given the body but construct the mind.... and for that purpose, what serves as an enduring foundation?
These questions may well occupy some time but as she hitches to the shoulder the hemline of her modesty, she says. “I’ve been dying of a lonely heart.”
Brings it back to now.
No longer dying of a lonely heart, she - a ‘problem child’ by her own estimation - rises, by dint of correct conduct over extended time, to a new dawn with a partner with whom she’s had a slow, respectful dance.
It’s wonderful - in the true sense of that word - to see time used as an instrument in which lives take shape and, in another place, same time, another ‘problem child’ makes headway in a difficult situation.
In neither case was wishful thinking going to achieve anything and in each case, clear family obligations and responsibilities helped clarify the situation and guide actions which, in turn, allows for real feelings of self worth to arise.
What’s it worth to move a life from imprisonment to relative freedom?
It means a great deal - none of its worth is truly measured in numbers.
My own relationship with whatever God IS, is direct. Why would it be otherwise. Why would anyone want it otherwise.
Did a certain fear enter into this relationship for me? Absolutely.
Fear and trembling is a reality when confronted with the faintest hint of such Presence. I think it’s the ego which is afraid. The soul perhaps knows no separation and thus no fear arises. Laughter, good humour come later.
Holy, holy, holy - a religion is only a vehicle and they all rust to nothing over time.
Brilliant red Roses bloom along with the mauve, nipple high Irises. A King Parrot calls, a Sunday in Spring, and playing at the Rhododendron Festival yesterday was fun, a bit on the edge, and all too quick.
Got to meet Chris who liked my songs and wouldn’t mind bringing me into play at the Blackheath folk club. Perhaps early next year.
Played electric - two guitars and a saxophone, on the back of a truck in a closed off street, and all as the western sun went down across our eyes - and I appreciate that Chris could still see it as folk.