Firedjinn

Someone has started painting "autumn" ...

2011-10-11T07:00:00.000-07:00

Today Someone had splashed vibrant colours on the wet pavement. The canvas of Norn Iron is having its grey landscape splashed with red, orange, yellow, brown. Well at least a jolly good attempt is being made, and it makes a nice contrast - one has to give it that.

I scuffled through the bright leaves wondering if I can pick up the colour and preserve it for the winter...just splotches of yellow, orange and red when it goes all dark and cold. Imagine a frieze of autumnal leaves filling the living room wall? :) Now that kind of art really is fabulous - it will brighten up winter and create a permanent living firey blaze in the room. I bet it will even *feel* warmer just to have the colours on the wall.

I used to revel in Keats - but I have to confess that reading "Ode to Autumn" in Norn Iron is always depressing. There is now a dawning realisation that there is always going to be a distinct absence of the good old sunny blaze of Keatsian Autmnal Glory over here. All that palaver that Keats makes about "Seasons of mists and mellow fruitfulness" is quite out of sync here. As for "the maturing sun" it is detinitely more weedy here and I haven't seen much of it at all. I wonder how many of us in Norn Iron here sat glaring at the TV displaying the inhabitants of England flaunting their warm blazing "end of summer" frolics. How inconsiderate of them to lie languidly and supinely on the grass and beach! How provocating of them to go swimming with barely any clothes on while we - Norn Ironers - piled on the fleeces and cardigans, and cowered submissively indoors. While they waved their bbq implements around and let the smoke rise from their happily burning sausages, we switched on the oven, grilled our chicken and crouched on our sofas.

Keats hadn't a flipping clue. I seriously don't think that bees in Norn Iron will think that the "warm days will never cease" - more likely they are cursing and swearing under their breath as they get soaked and drenched. More likely the Norn Iron bees will be really bad-tempered unlike their happy sunny English bee cousins. Keats obviously did *not* have Norn Iron in mind when he wrote.

Now Shelley - now he was more with the Norn Iron scene.
O West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,"

That is more like it. Dear old Autumn blowing in the Winter. Now Norn Iron does proper winters. I love autumn, but I also love the stark beauty of winter (provided it doesn't do an overdripping season). The shapes and silhouettes of trees - which we never see at any other season. The dark scuptured branches and tree trunks. It is like seeing the world pared back to its bare essentials - sans flowers, green, colours - and realising it is still magical, still artistically maginficent.

Hats off to good ole Shelley for capturing the essence of an autumn we recognise. An autumn that "HAH" as it throws pre-winter rain, winds and cold at us. . Norn Iron extends a hand of comradeship and congratulations to the ole young handsome Romantic.

Cabbages and Kings. And doggies.

2011-01-11T08:45:00.000-08:00

A friend told me today that I oughta restart the blog.
I am restarting my blog.
Today I am writing about Cabbages.
And Kings
And Doggies.

Cabbages are only tasty if they do not taste like cabbage - fuzband said the other day. "What is the point of that?" he asked. If I am being honest...I fail to see the point. Ditto for brussel sprouts, although to be quite honest, in a world that is big on looks the brussel sprout at least *looks* interesting. Pity that we have to eat it though. Trouble with both is that they smell evil when being cooked.

Kings. They go with cabbages apparently. For some reason. Although the Walrus is not really a reputed source of information. Or trustworthy for that matter. After all it ate the Oysters.
Kings anyway are a bit similar because often they can be tasteless. And the smell of evil sits heavily on some of them...even without them being boiled. In these progessive days, however, kings are a bit obsolete - what with bankers, prime ministers, presidents. Democracy. Instead of a cabbage or king then.

Now doggies. That is what is most interesting. We are going to be catted and dogged. Awww. I personally prefer a Marley although fuzband pervesely maintains that having a dog bouncing around and knocking things over is not really useful. Tchhh. No imagination at all. What we need to remember is that a cat expects a servant, and the dog expects a master/mistress. More about that later I suppose.

Trivia - the vague passing stream of consciousness!

2010-05-28T15:46:00.000-07:00

I live in the stream of consciousness. Everything sort of flowing through my brain like a veritable flood of "thought bites". Virginia Woolf was quite right in a way - even though sometimes reading it gets a bit tiresome - to experiment on the technique of representing the flow of human consciousness through our minds all through our day (or the sleepless nights) for that matter.

Here, for the record are some of mine!
"Shall I be inspired to paint a complex polychromatic image on paper or keep it simple and go for a monochromatic effect of painting the town red...Should I be an artist or an artful wrecker?"

"Married life, we have realised, is made up of a massive content of the everyday. How then to enjoy life through the repetetive trivia that floods in - organising of meal rituals, grocery shopping, cleaning, washing?
A sense of humour and a bit of hilarity help. Also having both spouse and spice immersed in a barrage of... domesticity is definitely better than one being footloose in a fancy free manner."

"I am thinking that having a mother who likes to cook a full blown Sri Lankan meal is not a bad thing! Although I am not sure I like the murmurs about "poor boy" (which translated means "why don't you wait on him hand on foot"!)"

"I am supremely tired with a Media that appears determined to scupper the ConDems efforts at a Productive future."

"So we have the unholy alliance on. What strange bedfellows indeed. ;) methinks it might do the Tories a world of good to have some jolly good LibDem policy.
I have to say that having two fairly good looking men leading the nation is almost as good as having a man and a woman. What you lose in intellectual and staying... power, you gain in visual dynamics."

Fuzband would point that the stream of consciousness flows unhindered through my brain!
Sheez, if I was disciplined enough to write a stream of consciousness tome, I could be living with riches, fame and scandal. Unfortunately, it hasn't happened yet!

Give them a brush! They need to tar Gordon Brown... or someone.

2010-05-28T15:35:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, Gordon Brown did one of the rarest things a politican can do. He admitted failure publicly.

I for one was filled with respect and admiration for a man, who not just resigned, but who did so publicly and accepted his failure before the nation. It takes a man of some stature to do that. Let us not forget this. Not many politicians of today will stand up and say - "I failed", and we better appreciate it because we won't see many doing it in the future. Very few people of today, least of all politicians, can do what Gordon Brown did yesterday. And Britain should be proud of politicians such as him. He may have failed, made mistakes, but please everyone, he admitted it and left.

Yet very few in the media or the political arena highlighted this or dwelt much on this. It was passed lightly over. What did arise was much bad press for resigning at "this point of time", speculation of his motive, judgement about his holding on after elections. All of which may or may not be true. None of us will know, because that is in his conscience and between him and his God.

I thought much about this. And came up with a few puzzling things. For instance, when else could he have resigned - just before elections leaving the Labour party without a leader and destabilised? Maybe Labour did not at that point have a suitable leader to match GB's expertise or stature - and a new face just before elections may have been suicidal. Maybe. I don't know.

If he resigned soon after the elections would he not have left the country destabilised? I wonder if people are aware that Gordon Brown followed due constitutional process in the event of a hung parliament. A document drawn up prior to the election for just such a prcess.
He did so to the letter, as yesterdays general political consultancy indicated (an official political process with an official committee of consultants televised during its discussion on the process and governance - not a mindless wittering from a passing politician or opnionated wotsisname!). GB was "expected" to act the way he did, or else the nation would have been paralysed at a time when it was fragile and unstable (although I am really not sure I understand why every flipping thing in this world depends on the MARKET! It is a bit of a sorry state is it not?).

What were people muttering? A lot of unkind things. He would have to be "hosed out of No. 10" said one. That he was "camping there and would have to be removed" said another. For goodness sake...get a grip! I find these uninformed and malicious responses quite abhorrent. Mostly because they are incorrect, and unkind. And made without a clue about what it is like to stand in the shoes of GB!

Is it so wrong for GB to put the future of the party first in the precipitous resignation? Is it one hundred percent clear that all he did was because he was a selfish moron? If it is the case that he was the reason Labour failed - which is what everyone said (and I am sure the Labour party said it again), then he was merely doing what was right by them. Of course the timing was vital - because it appeared that even after *three* days the Libdem and Tory talks were not yet conclusive. Surely, the Labour party are "obliged" to offer a coallition in a situation like this? Unless of course the entire country wanted to go for another election and leave the country in so called "peril" at the mercy of "market forces". In the event of Tory-LibDem talks falling through, where would a minority government of the Tories, with LibDem and Labour votes going against their policy in the economic crisis leave the nation? In chaos I suspect. Where would a delayed offer from Labour to the LibDems - a week after their talks with the Tories concluded - leave the nation? In chaos I suspect. There is an urgent definite need for even a small majority vote in parliament to take the nation through the recession. Or at least the next few months.
Without that the nation's future is not very stable.

We might do well to consider, just a little bit, the difficulties politicians and parties face right now. We need to believe in the possibility that there might be principled (yet fallible) people in there - Tory, LibDem and Labour - working towards the best decision for the nation. We need to believe that leaders might be trying to put aside differences to ensure the stability of the nation. Not everyone is a Devil or Deep Blue sea all the time. Or a yellow submarine for that matter.

We are looking of a group of fallible people, with fallible parties, prone to mistakes, prone to be unsure, prone to not be omnipotent, omniscient or in any sense "god" in this situation.

Can we just treat them as such and appreciate what they are attempting to do!

Released today "Sleeping with the Enemy"...the new hot political movie

2010-05-28T15:20:00.000-07:00

You have to admit that the current situation - post election is one that deserves a place in the epic movie genre. "Sleeping with the Enemy" is not really an epic movie, but one can always have a "adaptation" scenario whence which it mutates into one.

Of course who is the enemy? In this case the mutual bedfellows - which ever they turn out to be. Currently his Toryness is talking to the man who holds the trump card. Can you imagine these being happy bedfellows? How in the name of all that is sacred, profane, holy, and unholy, can his Toryness do a deal with the Trumper? The mind boggles.

The trump card holder must be feeling pretty powerful and uncomfortable at the moment...the poor man. It is definitely the classic case of "between the red devil and the deep blue sea". Imagine the Trumpcard man's position: if he leaps into the deep blue sea, he will have to stomp on his moral conscience, back track on all his policy and lie down to be tickled. And tormented of course. If by some chance (or cunning plan) the poor man to lie down with the devil in red, his conscience will still be tormented (by unhappy citizens) for backing the old lost horse that should have been shaking a hoof and retiring to the stable, leaving No. 10 free for his rightful Torynesses.

To be honest, when watching a programme on the elections (fuzband describes it as "endless witter" which is more or less true after you hear the information and discussion once!), the clever technology and computery pals had done a cool trick. They tweaked the electorate colours of the map of the British Isles to reflect the actual proportion more closely - and guess what? The reds and blues were almost equal. You see a seat of 500 is equal to a seat of 5000 (to stretch it a bit). It therefore does *not* follow immediately that those with the most seats technically have the most votes. What it does indicate is that they techincally have the "right to govern"! In fact a close colour spectrum across the island seems to me a pretty close election.

The voting system is another story that is too complicated to go into here, but fact of the matter is that the Deep Blue sea and the Devil in Red were pretty close. There is a purity of statement here - no one has been given a vote of confidence. It is more the indication of a lack of confidence than not. The red patches and blue patches were almost equal. This is why we have not seen the Hon. incumbent of Downing Street packing and leaving immediately with the stately wave from the door and car, and wise words (maybe another apology to Ms Hysterical Duffy - thought personally at this stage he might be inclined to tell her to "sod off" in public...what has he to lose now!).

Let's not get too carried away in vilifiying the present incumbent of No. 10, even if he made some big mistakes. People might be pissed off with him for what has happened to the nation, but let's be honest - everyone wants, no, the word here is "needs", a scape goat; His Browness has been the proverbial goat. In more ways than one! So everyone wants him sent off into the wilderness with their misdemeanours, their mistakes, their overspending, their greed laid on his shoulder. Especially some in the Labour party whose sins are many! The way that people hoohaad about Gordon Brown, one was hard pressed to remember that a large number in the Labour govt, as well as the banking cohorts needed a good kicking where it hurts - in their seats and their pockets respectively.

Ok, so the man made mistakes...but the man is a flipping human being is he not? Does anyone *really* think that his Toryness or his Colin Firthiness is going to govern faultlessly, perfectly and with absoulte spot on judgements. Believe me they will fail. Not because they are evil monsters, but because they too are simply human. Unless one is prepared to believe that one of the is God and, despite the wideness and strangeness of beliefs people acquire like the "Jedi Faith", I doubt anyone believing that.

What one needs is not infallible women or men for good governance, but decent well intentioned humans who have in place good measures and restrictions now put in place to prevent fallible men and women allowing their humanity to lead them into places they should not go. A safeguard against their own humanity. No amount of good will, charm and sweet smiles is going to make a man or woman an infallible leader.

So let's face it - his Browness is not "worse" than his Toryness or Cleggy Firthiness. He may not have the looks and social graces of the latter two, but social graces do not a good leader make. It just makes for a good public profile (especially when looking sideways - which one needs to do with a lot of the politics!)

The latest is the call from SNP for an alliance of Labour, Lib Dem, Plaid Cymru (please someone explain why Cymru pronounced Cumry - honestly can't someone reverse those letters or something!) in a "progressive alliance". It seems the easiest in terms of seeing eye to eye on policy to some degree, and could make for a happier "British" nation with representation at governance from its varied parts (where is Norn Iron in this bedfellow choice time?). Nick Clegg is at the moment considering the offer from His Toryness and it is bound to twist people's knickers into a knot if he goes for a swim in the deep blue sea. But I wouldn't like to be in his shoes. What is the right thing to do? Could any one of us know the right thing? Either way he is bound to be damned by some, and so is His Toryness. You can bet on that.

Whatever the case may be, what we do not need is an unholy alliance that results in unnecessary breeding. Imagine what can be bred - my imagination writhes at the thought. We would not like to have the spawn of an unholy alliance turning into tadpoles and stalking the nation. And who would ultimately want a breed of frogs emerging at the end of the day.
(I suppose if there were any princes among them - one could take to kissing them regularly, but given that the royalty are not much of a catch either...that puts paid to any benefits)

Camer on to it, Brown - it, or Nick it!

2010-05-04T09:53:00.000-07:00

In the past few days fuzzband and I have been avidly following the political debates - the national as well as Norn Iron ones. We have been poring over the newspapers reading bits out, arguing (ahem I mean "discussing"). It is the big question these days: How are we supposed to vote?

Actually the title of this piece has absolutely no relevance to the choice that we have here in Norn Iron. Nevertheless... the clans, cohorts and names do not matter at this point; the principles of how I vote as a christian do.

I was a bit appalled to read a supposedly thinking "christian" website giving advice to christians on "how to vote". It seemed to boil down to a few myopic perspectives such as "abortion bad", "marriage good", "gay rights bad"...which I need hardly point out is a misguided and grossly inadequate view of what justice, morals, integrity, voting, governance, society and wellbeing of a nation is about. I mean does everything boil down to sex, reproduction, or family life? There are bigger things to think about. Read the Old Testament, and it will demonstrate that God is far more furious, far more passionate about injustice, oppression, greed, dishonesty. To be quite honest, and this might make some of us uncomfortable, God did not really focus too much on the sexual misdemeanours of His chosen prophets and patriarchs. Neither did He root much for the now idolised "nuclear family". Witness, if you have forgotten, the many wives, concubines, affairs and wandering hands of our forefathers. Listen again to the relative silence of God on this, and hear again His thundering statements about His displeasure at the treatment of aliens, widows, the weak, the vulnerable and the oppressed. Listen as God lays down standards for a just society - a society where the weak and vulnerable are important, where personal prosperity and individual success are not encouraged, if the cost is the life and livelihood of the poor.

Now, I do not want to sound anti moral - but it seems to me that a sound overview of the Old Testament can tell us what really is at the Heart of God's thinking in terms of the outcome of the elections. Obviously God cares about sexual purity, about marriage and about family (extended, not just nuclear). However He cares as much, perhaps even more, about some of these other things. Discomfitting!

I have also been thinking of how God selected David to be the King of Israel - how did a young shepherd boy qualify in the eyes of God, to lead a troubled nation.

So how should we vote, as Christians?

I listed a few principles for myself about how I should vote, and how I should not vote :) Not that anyone ought to take what I say, but perhaps it is good for us to think through who we vote for and why.

1. Do not vote for any party, or person out of
a) habit (I have always voted for the llama)
b) family tradition and generational loyalty (My family has always voted for the monkeys)

No person or party and no policy is infallible enough to demand our unquestioning loyalty.

2. Do not vote irresponsibly without thinking about the basis of your vote.
We are called to have the mind of Christ, and to think the thoughts of Christ in all of our deliberations - be they spiritual, material, political. Or anything else.

3. Do vote for a person or party who upholds the wellbeing of not just your own little world, but God's world.
Vote for someone who cares about this nation as well as other nations, who is passionate about the wellbeing of the Earth, and is concerned about the exploitation of the poorer nations and the oppressed in all nations.

4.If voting for "the devil you know", do not vote in a vacuum. This is not year zero.
Democracy is a process by which we remind our politicians that they are accountable to us, and that if they betray trust, they will not be trusted. On the other hand, being human, I suppose no political party will be perfect, all knowing. Remember the past actions of the parties - without forgetting that people and parties can (sometimes) change! We are not judging human fallibility, for all governments are fallible. We are judging the failure in integrity, the levels of dishonesty.

5. Do not discredit a new party simply because it is new.
New brooms not only do sweep well, but they are often required when old ones have worn out. God did choose a very new and unlikely "broom" to be the King of Israel... :) This said, new is not always good; we need to give the new brooms a fair consideration as to whether their fibres bode well for a good sweep (and clean up).

6. Do read through the manifestos - they are the summary and statement of intention of any party.

As I informed fusband, I will not vote for Nick Clegg on the basis that he looks like Colin Firth ;) Actually, I am in no danger of voting for him as the lib dems do not stand in Norn Iron... but that is neither here nor there! What matters is what his manifesto states. In a similar vein, Gordon Brown's clumsiness at the camera and debates, his gawkiness and absence of social "camera polish" - they do not really count in our decision. What matters is what the Labour party declares in its maniefsto. By implication then, the camera polish of David Cameron's slick "buffed" (as one newspaper put it) appearance has no weight in our decisions. Look where Tony Blair's flair took the nation!

It is the manifestos, the declarations, intentions of a party that matter to me. However ugly, gauche, grumpy, slicked, polished, buffed, or Firth-ian, its leader might be!

As far as possible we should vote for a man, or woman, who is someone after the things of God's heart and upholds His care for nations and the world. Even if they are not Christian!

What the donkey did that day

2010-03-30T04:38:00.000-07:00

Palm Sunday thinkings after the Palm Sunday service.

The setting
Before the Jewish passover feast. Now known as Palm Sunday. A few men, a discussion, a donkey selected, a ride into Jerusalem, and an outpouring of celebration. Most importantly the declaration of Majesty and Kingship.

So I solved a mystery this Lent. A few mysteries really.

I learnt that Jesus chose the donkey for His entry into Jerusalem not just in fulfilemnt of prophecy (in Zechariah your king comes to you...gentle and riding on a donkey). It was also in a long line of tradition of old testament practice: Judges and Kings rode a donkey (instead of a majestic horse, camel or limousine...or whatever regal ride they had) when they went on a mission or visit of peace! Jesus was clearly making a statement, and one that the crowd immediately recognised.

The crowds recognised His stature and hailed Him as King of Israel, Son of David, He who comes in the name of the Lord, while hailing the era as the coming kingdom of our father David. I always wondered why and how the crowds were so astute in hailing Him that way, when He had all along tried to keep His head down, and been recognised or seen as Teacher, Rabbi, Master, Lord. Never as King! But the donkey not only echoed prophecy, it echoed the practice that the crowd recognised...a king, with his subjects, *entering* a city on a donkey. This was a King who was bringing them Peace.

It could also have been the deciding factor which catupulted Judas into betrayal. Judas would have recognised the gesture too - this was a King who was bringing peace and truce, not a Messiah intent on deliverance. Perhaps the gesture of feet washing that followed was only further evidence to Judas that Jesus was not going to be the "king triumphant" he longed to see arise against the Romans.

Perhaps it also explains why, when Jesus was arrested and tried, the crowd turned against him because they probably saw Him as a false king who had somehow made them believe something that was not true. Instead of bringing peace with the Romans - as His entry into Jerusalem suggested - Jesus had not even negotiated or attempted to establish this truce or peace. Instead, the crowd probably felt that He had failed in the mission of peace (that they had so correctly recognised when He rode into Jerusalem) when He got arrested. Which was why they asked for Barabbas instead.

Palm Sunday...what a day!

...is this possible...?

2009-07-16T02:17:00.000-07:00

I like this, but I do not know if it is just an ideal pointless dream!

"If there is light in the soul, there will be beauty in the person. If there is beauty in the person, there will be harmony in the house. If there is harmony in the house, there will be order in the nation. If there is order in the nation, there will be peace in the world." (Chinese Proverb)

Looking around at the world, and at the nation, it really does seem as if there is little peace in the world. Working backwards one realises that it could actually be true that there is little light in the soul of people...everyone is too busy making money, getting somewhere, moving up the ladder, keeping up a stylish life style...that there is no time to cultivate our souls.

But then again, maybe I am just a Puddlegum! Or as a few people tell me, I am prone to always see the glass half full!

Other people...

2009-07-15T09:02:00.000-07:00

Have you heard the phrase in common parlance "he or she gave someone hell"?

In his fascinating play, "No Exit", Jean-Paul Sartre puts a startling line on the lips of one of the characters. Three people arrive in hell - a small room. They then realise that each will soon become the source of torture to the other, not by intent or desire, but by mere personality and behaviour. "Hell" says one of the characters, "is other people".

Sartre explains that the statement “hell is other people” has always been misunderstood:
"It has been thought that what I meant by that was that our relations with other people are always poisoned, that they are invariably hellish relations. But what I really mean is something totally different. I mean that if relations with someone else are twisted, vitiated, then that other person can only be hell. Why? because…when we think about ourselves, when we try to know ourselves, … we use the knowledge of us which other people already have. We judge ourselves with the means other people have and have given us for judging ourselves. Into whatever I say about myself someone else’s judgement always enters. Into whatever I feel within myself someone else’s judgement enters. … But that does not at all mean that one cannot have relations with other people. It simply brings out the capital importance of all other people for each one of us. (From the Imago playbill)

Conversely, is it not true, as well, that heaven is other people. As 1 John puts it, the person who loves is born of God and knows God, for God is love.

So both heaven and hell can be - and I certainly do think they are - other people! What a sobering thought.

Living my life over...

2009-03-30T03:15:00.000-07:00

"If I had my life to live over" by Erma Bombeck - written when she was dying of cancer is the classic 'looking back in regret', wishing she had lived to the full. Wishing she had lived by 'seize the day' principles, no-regret filled moments.

We all ARE Erma Bombecks of a sort. We may not have the luxury of *knowing* we are dying or be given the chance to put life in order. Life can just be taken from us - any time, any day, any moment. Today, tomorrow, now.

Knowing one is dying is a privilege not a burden - at least in my books! It gives one the ability to try and do what one wanted to do, put things right, restore relationships - do an audit of life and have no regrets when the time comes. Yet sometimes when one knows, it is already too late. One has no time for 'living', only time for regrets - like Erma's.

So I have been thinking of a list of things that I want to live by. If I die today I would have lived life to the full, left no unwanted pain or anguish, created no barriers.

* I will love to the deepest and fullest that I can. Even when it hurts. Because love is all that will be left when I go...the love I gave and the love I left behind to bless the lives of those I cherished.

* I will give of my time, myself, my money, my life to those God has placed in my life - those I love, and those who love me - and to those who need my care.

* I will laugh more and whinge less. I would find laughter and joy wherever I can - even in the little moments of each day.

* I will care more about the things that matter in life - other people. And about the well being of our world. Not about my public image, money, success, fame, popularity, my reputation, my profiles.

* I will be kind. Kinder. Especially when unkind words or thoughts come to mind in the heat of a moment.

* I will be gentle with those I love.

* I will forgive seventy times seven. And then seventy times more.

* I will be more careful about whom I give my trust to - for trust is not a commodity I will waste on any one passing through my life.

* I will be more vulnerable with the people who love me, and more discreet with those who don't.

* I will reach out with both hands to enjoy whatever opportunities that come my way. I will not deny the good times of the now, because of the shadows of yesterday or the fears of tomorrow.

* I will try to know God - deeper, stronger, and with more of myself - not in the 'what can God give me today' way but in the 'what can I do for God more' way.

* I will choose to find work, and meaning, and activity in the things that change this world and make a difference. So that I give to the world instead of taking endlessly from it.

* I will appreciate the simple, everyday things of life - a great piece of music, a meaningful song, a good poem, a great novel, an enjoyable conversation, a kiss, a hug, a moment of humour. And so many more...

I will live life to the fullest. Abundant. And more. And when I die, I will hope there is no excessive grieving or sadness for my leaving, but instead a celebration of my life, memories of love, and a rejoicing in the past, despite the pain of a goodbye.

Blown up, Bombed and Beat...

2009-01-23T09:42:00.000-08:00

Some things are totally out of proportion.

Like the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq - those euphemistic "Crusades", "Shock and Awe Invasions", "War on terror". Euphemistic because obviously they had to be baptised (a favourite past time of the previous American administration), justified, sanctified. It also added the complication that 'they are terrorists' and 'we are liberators'. They are evil and misguided, we are the good and guided using misguided guided missiles.

So the outcome - that some people in a way out wildernesses of Afghanistan, barely able to find some food for the next day find that their hovel is exploded and a couple of children killed (could be considered a culling of future terrorists if one pushes logical illogic far enough). They are the justified, sanctified, crusaded targets of the misguided guided missile.

A big explosion, big mistake. But no apologies at all for that kind of thing. Oh no the gunmen do not apologise. There is no remorse. There is always justification, purification of motive and vilification of the bombed out target (it was a terrorist bunker).

Similarly do people act.

I am always baffled when people treat someone else way beyond proportion to a 'mistake'. When for a couple of words spoken or sometimes NOT spoken - what is given in return is vicious attacks of various kinds. Verbal attacks of course.

We all know the power of words - the way they can heal or wound, restore or damage, bring love or destruction, pain or joy. We all know that words can be bombs. Something blown up out of proportion, and someone is bombed and beat. Words cut across peace, break the spirit, rip the heart. I am not a saint and I am as culpable in using words wrong, of making mistakes.

But there is something deeply disturbing when people desire to to wound intentionally, to damage, to insult, to cause pain. And never want to ask forgiveness, to apologise, to make attempts at restoration.

I cannot fathom why people do not give someone the chance for a defence, to explain their side, why what is just dealt out is "bombs" and "misguided missiles" that land on someone's unsuspecting brain, and then proceed to fry it and burn it to cinders.

I remember what someone told me long ago about marriage - the only important thing in deciding to marry someone is to judge whether they are kind. Perhaps that is something we have to also ask ourselves about ourselves...are we kind?

Sometimes human behaviour on the individual and collective, the personal and national scale have me totally mystified. People and nations are unkind.

Bonhoeffer - a wonderful image of advent and Christmas

2008-12-19T05:32:00.000-08:00

"A prison cell, in which one waits, hopes ... and is completely dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened from the outside, is not a bad picture of Advent."
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer (German pastor and philosopher (1906-1945) imprisoned and executed for his attempt to overthrow Adolf Hitler.)

How better to present the incredible moment that a sleeping hushed humanity 2000+ years ago experienced? A humanity that then failed to notice that the door to freedom had been opened from the outside and that they were prisoners no more.

How paradoxical that Bonhoeffer, a prisoner facing execution, has the door opened to true freedom, while we who are free are trapped and imprsoned by the darkness within and around,

heartbeats ...

2008-10-10T13:58:00.000-07:00

"Show me a dreamer and I’ll show you one of God’s heartbeats for the human race."
(Joan Chittister)

Where would we be without those who hope and dream. who care enough to put a vision for humanity before their own success, who give themselves to dreaming the dreams of God for this world. Where would we be without those who dare to believe that despite their frailty and weakness, despite their mistakes and failures, God is still big enough to use the ones who dare to dream for Him.

To dream of the possibility of goodness, wholeness and beauty is the most courageous thing one can do in the face of the evil, brokenness and ugliness of our world.

show me a dreamer and I'll show you one of God's heartbeats for the human race!

2008-09-27T10:37:00.000-07:00

Some people create hinky punks, Hobbits, Electric Monks, and Wee Free Men, others construct human characters. Some create Discworlds, Hogwarts, and Mordor, while others re-map Earth's land spaces and the interior landscapes of its inhabitants. Sometimes we get a glimpse of the blue green planet we call our "home" from far away, sometimes we are too close to see the alien view.

The Otherworldliness of the Other verses the re-inscriptions of the Real world. Whose to judge between them to present one above the other? Yet I am increasingly drawn to the Other World, as are many others. Does this indicate the deep rooted human intimation of Otherworldliness? Intimations of the deep desire we have for the Othering of our existence in a place far beyond, Worlds beyond and far away.

I am just re-encountering the Electric Monk. With his cowl and bemused horse, his predisposition to see things as pink (that doesn't endear him to me), to shoot humans at blank range and then worry that the reaction of the human was rather strange and excessive, and his wide-eyed view of the world he enters. I am also relishing the fundamental interconnectedness of things, time travel, sofas stuck on stairways.

For sheer genius one cannot beat the imagination of some 20th century writers of fantasy: J.R.R. Tolkien, Douglas Adams, C.S. Lewis. Terry Pratchett, J.K. Rowlings. There are few realistic novels I re-read, but as for the niovels of these brilliant Otherworlders - I am compelled to revisit their work time and again, and each time I relish their power to excite, entertain, enthrall, and fire the imagination. Thank God for the visionary Otherworld writers who remind us of the Spaces beyond our blue green and the traces of the divine and supernatural that lurk within and around us.

Spec-tacular

2008-09-19T13:33:00.000-07:00

Is there a cure for CDT - I have an acute case of it.

Something there is that does not like a second pair of eyes. I sit on them, stand on them, drop them, lose them.

I am allergic to specs. I destroy them with alarming regularity. I also break them with variety - today it might be an arm, tomorrow it might be the lens, the next it might be the frame. So regular it is that the opticians know me very well, and greet me with a smile and the query "Your glasses broken again madam", This time around one of them tactfully suggested that I get a "Stronger pair" with "flexible unbreakable arms" :D

I still remember one particularly bad breaking moment - the horrible "kerunch snap" that I heard when I climbed onto the table to reach over and close the window. I felt the thought zoom through me "It can't be my glasses...not again". Well it was. Again!

What does one do with Chronic Destructive Tendency? I need to be able to sustain a FES (Four Eyed State) without it burning holes in my purse. Someone suggested Contacts - but that has an even more alarming range of possible cases of CDT: I can not only break them, I can drop them, lose them when washing my face, see then go down the toilet (I have dropped mobile phones and books down the toilet, as well as a earing) A contact lens is easy peasy.

And one of these days I will get behind the wheel of a car - by myself. Sceeeerrruuunch. Tinkle Crinkle Bang...tinkle tinkle tinkle...I can almost hear it myself. At that point of time CDT targeted at specs seems a very minor matter in terms of other, bigger possible scenes of devastation.

Is there a cure for CDT - I have an acute case of it?

2008-09-17T09:25:00.000-07:00

I was thinking the other day about the paradoxes in life.

That our birth is the beginnings of a pilgrim journey, that is beset with vagaries and has no set or known destination except the final one.
That although we are creatures with intimations of eternity we know time by that which we read by the hands of the clock.
That loving is like a two sided coin - intense love is wedded to intense pain.
That we are given life only with the assurance of our death.
That we desire predictability in life, when the only predictable thing about it is its unpredictability.
That we expect others to know us deeply and intimately. and understand us, when we scarecly scratch the surface of knowing and understanding ourselves.
That we often choose a path of destruction with open eyes and clear sight.
That people we least expect, turn out to be friends for life.
That people we place our trust in, are often the quickest to destroy us.

And...best of all...
We encounter God, and God meets us at the places that we least expect Him to.

The Only Dream worth having...Arundhati Roy

2008-09-15T09:47:00.000-07:00

"The only dream worth having ...
...is to dream that you will live while you’re alive and die only when you’re dead ...
To love. To be loved.
To never forget your own insignificance.
To never get used to the unspeakable violence and vulgar disparity of life around you.
To seek joy in the saddest places.
To pursue beauty to its lair.
To never simplify what is complicated or to complicate what is simple.
To respect strength, never power.
Above all, to watch.
To try and understand.
To never look away.
And never, never to forget."
Arundhati Roy - The Algebra of Infinite Justice

Sometimes a passage you read, rings like music in your mind, and commits itself to memory and almost instantaneously at that. Not that you remember every word but you remember phrases, and you certainly remember the powerful thought within it. This is one such.

Arundhati Roy is perhaps not only one of the greatest wordsmiths, but one of the greatest painters of emotion. Besides which she is also a woman of passion - not just the passion of an individual with deep feeling, but passion for the humanity of the world, and a passion for life.

For those who never read Arundhati Roy's God of Small Things, and Algebra of Infinite Justice, I would say read them! They are powerful words of passion, power and hope. Hope because one human being dares to write about the things that matter. The former is perhaps the only tragic novel I have read, that nevertheless has a vibrant hope within its celebration of life itself. The latter is a powerful, even if sometimes emotional (this is for some who feel that if writing is emotional it is unreliable!), honest appraisal of the way the world works the way it does, and why. We may not agree with all she says, but she has cared enough to think, feel, research, agonise, and write. And that perhaps for me counts.

If I can do half as much with words and live the same passion for life and the world, I would be satisfied.

I've looked at Clouds, Love and Life

2008-09-04T13:18:00.000-07:00

People turn up their noses at "pop music" but sometimes it says things so excellently, and actually hearing the words makes a lot of sense. Joni Mitchell's Song "Both Sides Now" is one such.

When one is flying you get to see Clouds from Both Sides. It really doesn't help you to know clouds at all. They remain a mystery. In fact they are more of a mystery. And they get in the way of the beautiful landscapes that you fly over, and instead of seeing the contours of land and mountain, there is just white fluff.

Bows and flows of angel hair and ice cream castles in the air
And feather canyons everywhere, i've looked at cloud that way.
But now they only block the sun, they rain and snow on everyone.
So many things i would have done but clouds got in my way.

I've looked at clouds from both sides now,
From up and down, and still somehow
It's cloud illusions i recall.
I really don't know clouds at all.

And then again many of us have looked at love from many ways now. The dizzy dancing ferris wheels and fairy tale romances. One just has to follow them up 10 years later to find that there is little of the Moons and Junes and wheels. Unless of course it is a treadmill type of Hamster cage wheel! How many laugh, maybe cynically, and never say what it feels like.

Moons and junes and ferris wheels, the dizzy dancing way you feel
As every fairy tale comes real; i've looked at love that way.
But now it's just another show. you leave 'em laughing when you go
And if you care, don't let them know, don't give yourself away.

I've looked at love from both sides now,
From give and take, and still somehow
It's love's illusions i recall.
I really don't know love at all.

Something's lost and something's gained in living everyday. I am trying to focus on life's realities, not the illusions. But when there is so much lose and when one struggles for the win, one's attention moves to the illusory and one can end up a cynic. Looking at life from both sides now is a eye opening experience. In childhood we see life through a spangled veil and then we grow up and see the other side of life, we understand illusion and reality.

Tears and fears and feeling proud, to say "i love you" right out loud,
Dreams and schemes and circus crowds, i've looked at life that way.
But now old friends are acting strange, they shake their heads,
they say I've changed.
Something's lost but something's gained in living every day.

I've looked at life from both sides now,
From win and lose, and still somehow
It's life's illusions i recall.
I really don't know life at all.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediment...

2008-09-03T14:24:00.000-07:00

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
   If this be error and upon me proved,
   I never writ, nor no man ever loved. (Shakespeare - Sonnet CXVI)

I think this sonnet of Shakespeare's is my favourite. Specially the first few
lines. I love the musicality of its ryhythmic lines as well as its suggestion
about what love might be. In the endless productions and reproductions, the
centuries of contemplations on Love, I find this to always stand out. I wonder
how many will love with a marriage of true minds, and find a love that does not
alter or bend, which is a ever fixed mark, looking on tempests and not shaken.
Having said all of this, I am not quite sure that Shakespeare was the greatest
of lovers after all! Which makes it a bit dubious after all. But then at the end of
the day, there are many whose theory might be celebrated although they are
unable to sustain it. Still I like the poem - it epitomises a kind of relationship
that one suspects is somewhat rare - both then and now.

2008-08-31T14:09:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you find a passage that is incredibly moving and true. This is one such.

"Love is a temporary madness, it erupts like a volcano and then it subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because that is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion…it is not lying awake at night imagining that he is kissing every cranny of your body…That is just being in love, which any fool can do. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew toward each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two. But sometimes the petals fall away and the roots have not entwined. Imagine giving up your home and your people, only to discover after six months, a year, three years, that the trees have no roots and have fallen over. Imagine the desolation. Imagine the imprisonment." (Captain Corelli's Mandolin)

On love...and responses!

2008-08-31T09:49:00.000-07:00

"I never knew how to worship until I knew how to love." (Henry Ward Beecher)
M3 - Maybe if I know how to worship, I would learn to love better?

"Love is an exploding cigar we willingly smoke." (Lynda Barry)
M3 - And burn our fingers?

"A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous." (Ingrid Bergman)
M3 - A kiss is always a lovely trick - no matter what the circumstances of its execution.

"Love is the answer, but while you are waiting for the answer, sex raises some pretty good questions." (Woody Allen)
M3 - Some say that sex is a pretty good answer, and that love raises some difficult questions

"Life is short and we have never too much time for gladdening the hearts of those who are traveling the dark journey with us. Oh be swift to love, make haste to be kind." (Henri-Frederic Amiel)
M3 - Are we often swifter to be unloving and hastier to be unkind?

"If you have only one smile in you, give it to the people you love. Don't be surly at home, then go out in the street and start grinning 'Good morning' at total strangers." (Maya Angelou)
M3 - Is it because we give the only smile we have to strangers on the street that love becomes lost on the way. My mother used to quote this to me:
"We have smiles for the passing stranger
and warmth for the one time guest
But oft for the ones who love us most
We give far less than our best"

"Love is like a violin. The music may stop now and then, but the strings remain forever." (June Masters Bacher)
M3 - Ms Masters B obviously never played a violin!

"I love you, and because I love you, I would sooner have you hate me for telling you the truth than adore me for telling you lies." (Pietro Aretino)
M3 - maybe if love practiced this 'way of love' we would be better people and better lovers.

"The last time I saw him he was walking down Lover's Lane holding his own hand." (Fred Allen)
M3 - I hate to be a cynic, but then there are those who love only themselves

"To be capable of steady friendship or lasting love, are the two greatest proofs, not only of goodness of heart, but of strength of mind." (Paul Aubuchon)
M3 - Goodness of heart and strength of mind are after all the true greatest indications of the possibility of deep abiding love and faithful unbroken friendship.

"The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out (James A Baldwin)
M3 - We all have felt the light going out, and how we pray that we learn to keep holding each other...when the light falls and the sea rises, when lovers cling to each other and children cling to us.

"A woman knows the face of the man she loves like a sailor knows the open sea." (HonorÃ de Balzac)
M3 - I have often thought that no one else reads the heart of a man better than a woman who loves him.

"Wanted naughty conversation" - Facebook faces the graduation from Innuendo to Direct

2008-08-24T02:53:00.001-07:00

So Facebook now has the "pick up" brigade.

To be sure I worried about facebook a little while ago. About how it can do in friendships, create liaisons, destroy relationships. I have a few reservations - still unabated.

I am all for sustaining friendship - through laughter, sharing pictures, jokes, articles, conversation, serious moments, dear warm emails, mad comments; I am all for enjoying a virtual community of friends interacting with each other. I am all for maintaining relationships that in a 21st century world would die - with the scatterings of friends and family that we face. For that reason, Facebook can be great. I admit it. I am able to sustain friends with those whom I might never be able to keep in touch. Play scrabble (wotsit renamed thing) with friends. I can chat, say things, enter a discussion. With friends.

But what about the rest. The adverts that now get thrown in your face. They will increase I suspect. And then there were always those that were there for the kick of it. The innumerable randoms they pick up from cyber space - strangers walking in off cyber space into the rooms we sit in to become "virtual friends". The flirtations, the flatterings, the admiration for pictures, the trivial pursuits of "boost my ego". Then there are the random strangers who just enter your personal space and become virtual friends, creating a virtually real world, that makes you forget the real world that you belong to - the warm, loving, real things. You forget that in a conversation - the expression in the eyes matter, the tone of laughter or sadness in the voice mattrers, the gentle touch of a hand matters, a kiss and a hug matters. What matters now is the excitement of newness. Of strangers entering personal intimate space.

Also what I do not enjoy is the element of exhibitionism on Facebook. Especially when one is not interacting with just close friends and family. We are busy presenting our selves, putting on faces to meet the faces that we meet - to garble T S Eliot. We all succumb to that. Even in real life. But we get away with it much more online. We can wear our faces to suit the places that we visit in virtual reality. I am not sure what good it does us.

But yesterday, my reservations about Facebook took an all time low. I was looking for people to play scrabble-wotsit-renamed thing, looking at "host tables" and found the following invitations for the game: "lesbians only"; "naughty word game only"; "I am horny tonight - any ladies out there feeling the same"; "I am in a mood for a naughty conversation; "please make your picture visible for the game" (I didn't even know that was possible). This is FOR SCRABBLE? Please. If people want to pick up online shag possibilities, why do they not go to the sites that offer it. Why bring it into the scrabble arena?

I still stick with Facebook for the sake of the close dear people and good friends I have on it - and with whom it enables me to connect in a deeper and more engaging way. But I have reservations all the time - discomfort at what Facebook is generating in this world, and the possible effect it has on our lives on the long term.

textures...

2008-08-22T13:14:00.000-07:00

There is something about touch...the sheer physicality of it that is wonderful. I don't know what we would do with the touchiness of life...the textures, the nuances of different surfaces, the sheer variety of sensations we have from the skin of our palms and the tips of our fingers. Even lips glory in texture.

I love texture. The sheer feelingfulness of things. The thingyness of different things. Beautiful. Wonderful. Makes you feel alive.

I was touching textures in cloth. Silks, organza, raw silk, satin, chiffon. Oh soo wonderful. But nothing to beat the silk. Natural silk. Done by worms...I mean how incredible is that? The creatures that spin it out, never see it in all its glory. They never see it a deep red rich glowing wonderful cascade of colour and softness. We do. We reap the benefits of all that nature and its creatures do. The sheep give us winter clothes, the worms give us silk for celebration, the bowels of the earth our diamonds to keep sparkling forever, the cattle our shoes and bags, the cotton pods our summer wear and tropical comfort and so it goes.

So I thought tonight about the wonder of touch...the textures we relish but never think about or give thanks for. Starting with silk. Remembering other feelings of touch...the beauty and joy it was. Remembering how hands relish feelings - the way our fingertips instinctively explore things and cast them to memory.

I love silk. Silk with glowing colour and vibrant luxuriant texture. And I love the fact that we are created with the blessing of touch.

Madhu

2008-08-20T11:35:00.000-07:00

It is two months. Madhu is two months - persona non grata - in terms of actual living. Was just a second. A flash that did it. I still find it hard to comprehend.

She is now conscious. I never thought that it would be worse than unconsciousness. Now her eyes are open and filled with anguish. She is 'awake' and knows - she is lifeless and helpless. One side of her brain is damaged. Irreparable they said. So one side of her body has no life.

Her eyes are eloquent. Fluid with pain. Long eyelashes. She was pretty, petite, and girlish. Now she is gaunt. Skin and bone. Ravaged.

I hate it. I have no answers about life at times like these. Who can answer the whys?
Least of all to her. Who has no future or hope. Certainly very little in this country, when one comes from the background she does - where one lives a hand to mouth existence most of the time.

At times like these even prayer falters and dries up on the lips. For prayer does not save everyone, or prevent suffering, or the onset of vegetablehood. It never has and never will. That is life in all its spectrum say some.

I for one could have done without one end of that spectrum. Especially when I see Madhu. Lying there - wordless, helplees, and now aware of it all.

changes

2008-08-20T10:11:00.000-07:00

Changes come all the time. I realise this. I fight them but I can't stop them. I haven't learned to sit back serenely and let change happen without kicking and screaming. WIthout crying. Without hurting. Without the angst. Without the fury at life, the universe, and everything.

We say goodbyes, hellos, leave familiar places to walk unfamiliar paths. Life changes - todays plenty is left for a tomorrow of lack. Todays pain is replaced by joy. The passions we have now might become the indifference of next year. The indifferences of this year might become the passions of the next. Our bodies change, our hearts and minds change. We change; I know this. Like I know the palm of my hand. It is familiar. Known. Our very lives can change in the tick of a second.

Someone I know says 'change is baaad'. it is like the sky has fallen on his head when he is confronted with throwing out decades of old magazines piled up in a study! Like Chicken Little and the Acorn. It is a calamity. Change is baaaad.

But it happens. Like the sun rising the next day. Like rain during the monsoons (definitely not like rain in UK which is unpredictable). Change arriving is like breathing - regular, even, inevitable. Non-negotiable.

Perhaps change is inevitable, regular, even. Non-negotiable.

But what if, knowing change is coming, you intervene to move it forwards. To enhance it.

Like the changes that come into a marriage.
When children arrive into the twoness of a couple, and the dynamic of two, the intimate dynamic of one to one, now become a dynamic of many facets of many 'people'. I have seen the change become a source of destruction of the intimacy of the relationship. Couples relate to each other as the complementing 'parent' and not as the lover they once knew. Some even start calling the spouse 'mama' or 'dad'. The intricate nuances of intimacy, lovering, mystery are gone. Sometimes growing up - when married, makes people grow in different directions - and become different people. Does that mean the love ends, the dynamic dies, the joy fizzles out. I suspect if you dislike what the other is growing into - then the marriage is doomed. But still one can grow together - guarding the love and the dynamic, making choices that will not pull apart and damage. I suspect it takes the 'fighting change' policy to guard against growing apart. Maybe? Maybe one has to fight for the 'us' while giving space for the 'you' and 'me'.

Like the changes that buffet a friendship
Friendship has the winds of weather blowing against it. The winds of distancing, conflict, betrayal, disagreement, hurt. Negotiating this is difficult - I have no answers. I do not know if there is some way a friendship can be saved, and the fact is I have lost friends over the years.
From all of the above.
For unlike marriage, friendships are fluid - they come and go at different periods of ones' life. Some just do not last, even if you scream and kick violently to keep them. After all, unlike a marriage vow, a commitment to love, friendship has no vows or promises. It can end as and when required by either party. And so it does.

Sometimes it has been a betrayal that, despite all efforts to fight it, has brought a subtle change. Sometimes it has been a deep hurt that somehow leaves scars that do not fade with time, and have a slight tinge of pain ever after.
Sometimes levels of conflict and disagreement lead to a parting of ways. Abrupt, unexplained, knife sharp ends.
Sometimes it has been distance - where lives move in such varied directions there is nothing to pick up. That being said, I must add that distance can sometimes have no bearing on the depth of a friendship. I just met up with a lifetime friend with whom I pick up at any any time; we talk freely, intimately, honestly. But that is very rare, and I know it. He and I both know it and cherish it. But we have weathered many changes - of distance, growing, occasional disagreement. And the root of its survival is a deep love and trust in each other. We continue to like each other and the people we become.

Change will come. I know that.
I just hope I will have the grace and wisdom to know when to fight it, when to guard it and when to let it blow its weathering winds over my soul and submit to its ravages with serenity and peace.

Cold frozen Degrees

2008-08-04T10:20:00.000-07:00

There is nothing so deterring in life as correcting mind numbing, mind destroying substandard examination papers. WHY do students, who know perfectly well that they know nothing sit for an exam? Why do they waste our time? Why do students who know they cannot string sentences together, insist on stringing a motley collection of words in order drive us insane? Why do students waste their money in registering for courses they can never pass and never complete?

What a mystery! Some say fondly that it is perseverance and determination. Some say it is commitment to hard work. Some say it is ambition. Maybe.

But maybe it is just foolishness - the determination to leap on the bandwagon of degree acquiring, in order to be a graduate. Maybe it is just a myopic view of the future that indicates that THIS ineffective step is what paves the way to a bright future. What happened to the dignity of work - the recognition of different skills, the value given to all honestly done jobs, the respect due to people who excel in the area they choose - be it cooking, gardening, teaching, writing research papers, cleaning the house, sewing clothes, presenting a paper. Surely we have lost something in this world in terms of the wholeness of life, when some undefinable demon propels young people down a degree path with the desire for 'success'.

I have met graduates working as clerks in government offices. Graduates who have done a special degree - honours course in subjects like Politics, Physics, Sociology and many others. Some of them even possess a 2.1 class. And yet they are doomed to sit at desks. I use the word 'doomed' because they are now dissatisfied workers, frustrated at getting no where, aware that the degree gave them nothing better than an O/L qualification might have. Many of them might have been excellent craftsmen, wonderful farmers, great carpenters, skilled tailors...the list is endless.

But they sit here, these young qualified graduates, intelligent, fine young people. They sit behind desks in dingy offices, carrying around large books, remembering dreams they once had of a 'successful' career. They own memories of a univerrsity degree course that they did with much hope, a pittance of salary in their pockets and wish they had made another choice.

How far is too far?

2008-08-03T14:11:00.000-07:00

How much is too far? Like when should we not turn the other cheek? Or when should we stop forgiving? Or when should we stop having mercy? Should there ever be an eye for an eye...or at least some eyelashes for an eye?

Oh well - with some people you cannot just turn the other cheek - you have to catch them and thrash them so badly, that they or their cheeks will never darken your doors again. Sometimes you have to stop forgiving, because forgiveness is taken to be weakness, and weakness to which more strength and pain is inflicted. Sometimes you have to stop having mercy, because mercy is seen as inactivity and fear, and is a code for generating more pain or disaster.

Sometimes there has to be the policy of taking out both eyes, the teeth, the nose, ears and tongue. So that eyes can do no more harm by being able to see and spy, so that the mouth bleeds so bad that nothing more can be said, so that breathing is difficult, hearing is impossible and the tongue can generate no more threats or vileness, speak no more filth, throw no more obscenity, produce no more terror, induce no more pain.

Sometimes I think, that in giving forgiveness, having mercy, and turning the other cheek you permit the unleashing of unbridled poison that spills over, and marrs life. Sometimes Justice is required and not mercy. Sometimes punishment is required and not forgiveness. Sometimes, just sometimes I think, wisdom should dictate that the only cheek that should be turned is one that has its teeth punched in.

Some people might say this is unchristian, that this is violent. But one learns with hindsight, and often too late, that another course of action would have made such a big difference. One hates violence. One abhors revenge. But surely one should uphold justice and righteousness at all times, and these two should never be sacrificed for the sake of mercy and forgiveness.

2008-07-29T08:09:00.000-07:00

Found these on an email and they are rather funny :) They are apparently real church bulletein blipz.

The sermon this morning: 'Jesus Walks on Water.'

The sermon tonight: 'Searching for Jesus.'

Remember in prayer the many who are sick of our community. Smile at someone who is hard to love. Say 'Hell' to someone who doesn't care much about you.

Irving Benson and Jessie Carter were married on October 24 in the church. So, ends a friendship that began in their school days.

At the evening service tonight, the sermon topic will be: 'What Is Hell?' Come early and listen to our choir practice.

Please place your donation in the envelope along with the deceased person you want remembered.

The church will host an evening of fine dining, super entertainment and gracious hostility.

The ladies of the Church have cast off clothing of every kind. They may be seen in the basement on Friday afternoon.

This evening at 7 PM there will be a hymn singing in the park across from the Church. Bring a blanket and come prepared to sin.

The pastor would appreciate it if the ladies of the congregation would lend him their electric girdles for the pancake breakfast next Sunday.

Favourite Things

2008-07-24T10:09:00.000-07:00

Trying to think of beautiful things. Don't want to be a Pollyanna 'thinkhappythoughtsandbegood' sort of person. But just want to remember the beautiful things of life. Amidst the debris around.

Things that are a joy to the skin, to touch and remember:
Soft silky things. Rough tough things. So many: Petals of flowers - today it was alamanders and frangipani. Silks that rustle. Fur of kittens. Skin. Satin. The feel of the rug under the feet. The roughness of beach sand inbetween your toes. The breaking of sea waves over your legs and sometimes over you. The feel of hard wood that is smooth and polished. The feel of the bark of a tree that is silk smooth but unpolished. The texture of leaves. A baby's grip on your finger. The licking tongue of a puppy smelling of milk and puppiness. The inexpressible comfort of being held by someone you love. The reassurance of a hug. The softness of a kiss. The velvety warmth of a horse's nose.

Colours that are a feast to the eyes:
Cinnamony white (someone I know insists that Cinnamon is not a colour). Wine red of a sari. Soft blue of the sky. Lemony green of the newly washed lawn. Yellow of the frangipani, orangey brown of alamander. Gold of skin. Blackness of newly washed hair. The glitter of clay colours on pebbles. Shiny grey of the polished floor. Browny, orangey, reddy bits of the new bracelet. The neon white flash of lightning splitting the sky. The rainbow spanning the grey. The clouds lit up with the proverbial silver or gold lining. Sparkling pinpoints of the diamond. The splendourous clouds of the sunset skies.

Smells that drift around and creep into your senses, that evoke poignant memories:
Freshly cooked rice drifting from next door. Newly brewed coffee early morning. Freshly baked bread when walking past a bakery. Chocolate when it is being unwrapped. Mint from the springy mint leaves. Frangipani from the large twisted trees. Jasmine from the bushes around. The scent of rain fresh on dry ground. Mown grass drying in the sun. Gardenia from the garden. The smell of a loved one particularly distinctive. The fragrance of skin. The scent of sandalwood when having a shower. The smell of linen freshly sunned after being washed with fragrant soap. The smell of christmas cake baking. The fragrance of cloves drying in the garden. The scent of the coffee flowers that drifts into the room. Burnt sugar with its caramelised fumes. Strawberries when you bite into them. A baby newly bathed and powdered. The milky smell of puppy yawns. The scent of lilies blossoming. The Queen of the night - Atteriya - drifting across large spaces in the late night times.

Tastes that comfort, awaken, shock, delight:
Red rice, Del curry, dry fish, and pol sambol.Bagels and cream cheese with smoked salmon.Coffee. Ambarella curry, mango curry. Mango pickle - freshly cut with chillie and salt. Pineapple. Peppers in Olive Oil. Salad made out of sundried tomatoes in olive oil, mango, mozarella cheese and sprinkles of smoked salmon. Coconut and pineapple smoothie. Dark chocolate with mint. Cashewnuts. Sharon fruit. Fish baked in foil with herbs and butter. A dark polos curry that takes hours to cook correctly. The fresh minty flavour of after brushing teeth. The savoured taste of a kiss. Almond icing. Chocolate eclairs. Sweet sugar cane...chewed to pulp. Chicken unhealthily cooked in coke. The tastes of mangoes - Kartha kolomban, gira amba, beti amba, and all the other varieties. Avacado salad. Mustard that stings the eyes and throat. Horseradish. Ginger beer. Marshmallows toasted.

The myriads of sounds around that swiftly pass:
the beating of the waves, the rush, the crush and thunder of the water arriving on the sand. The cooing of a dove. The gurgling laughter of children. The whistle of a bird with varying notes of trilling, and whistling and piping. The Beat of drums that excite the blood and hammer out rhythm into the atmosphere. The grandeur of thunder. The swish and flow of rain through the air as it approaches. The dub dub of a heart. The softness in tender words spoken. The low voice of passion. The Song of a clear unaffected singer. The notes of a violin. The poignancy of music heard from a room far away drifting down a stairway. The Cry of a night bird as it flies past. The chirping of cicadas. The chirrup of a gecko scuttling for its titbit that is scuttling across the ceiling. The sound of a shower tinkling on the roof beating tattoos of diverse rhythms. The sound of low voices that are loving and happy. The soft muted whisper of love that finds words difficult. The excited tones of children at play. The cheeping of newly hatched ducklings gathering around like school kids.

Oh there are so many good things in this world dear God...Give me grace to see the beautiful and the precious things. Despite the pain, the struggles, the betrayals, the hurtful, the murderous, the diabolic, the dangerous, the uncertain...amidst all these and more....give me grace to rejoice in the gift of life itself.

Freedom,,,and peace

2008-07-13T18:00:00.001-07:00

For those who live with fear and who have to watch their back or check the footsteps behind them, for those who know the taste of dryness in their mouth and the thumping of their heart in the still of the night at the slightest sound, for those who lie awake in the dark with their nerves taut, for those who walk the days with uncertainty in every minute - for them freedom and peace have so much meaning. Freedom is so obvious when one does not have it, and peace is recognised and valued, when one has known the restlessness of a peace-less existence of walking on shards of emotional glass.

For those who do not know the meaning of what it means to have each day arrive as an unwelcome intruder into the blessedness of sleep and oblivion, and for those who do not awake in the night screaming in terror at the nightmares galloping through the brain - for these the only appropriate response is to wake up every morning and give thanks for the gift of freedom and peace. Freedom to live and peace to love, laugh and enjoy life.

For many around the world, freedom and peace are but words they read and expressions they understand from other people's faces. Never in their own faces that stare back at them from their mirrors.

I wonder what the "peace that passes all understanding" is like? I have never been very sure about what it really means.

It is not how clever you are but the privileges you have...

2008-07-03T10:25:00.000-07:00

Some unpleasant hometruths struck the past few days. Going for an academic conference might seem the easiest thing in the world for most people. But that is just a fraction of the story told from one side of the world.

A student/academic in the Scientific sort of subjects - Maths, Physics, Engineering (perhaps many other scientific fields) is often sponsored for conferences. Those lucky to be in the Sciences are paid for going for conferences, paid for giving papers, sometimes in five star hotels with all expenses met.

The Arts contingent are not as fortunate. We pay for our conference attendance, even if we are presenting a paper. And finding funding for going for one, even in the UK, is virtually impossible. But still if one earns in £s paying for such conferences is not an issue. It is trivial.

For those in the Arts, living in the 'other world' where life is a bit more basic, where surviving the day, and making the salary stretch to survive the month, a conference is a different ball game. We do not pay a portion of our salaries, or savings. We clean out our savings and reduce ourselves to a zero in order to engage internationally with acedmia. And ofcourse we choose at that point, whether to progress in terms of our physical material needs, ie seek better living conditions, or seek intellectual progress. What a choice to make! Unfortunately those organising these conferences have no clue about the world we belong to. We are humilated into asking for concessions, and then treated haughtily as if we were begging. We often ask because we do not have...a humiliating position to be in to say the least. So, we save for months, maybe even years, wipe out our bank balances, and pay up in order to keep our intellectual interests alive. Alternatively we just give up and dry up, and just forget that we ever thought or engaged with issues.

Balance these odds in this lopsided game of academic excellence. The University I work for has little or no computer or internet facilities in the arts faculty. It has little or no books that one can borrow on any recent discourse from its library, and the British Council is closing down its library as it is not financially beneficial. We rehash photocopies of articles, that gradually fade as they are photocopied, we photocopy entire novels as there are no novels available for purchase. Few of us own computers or printers for that matter. Getting a print out is a long arduous journey to an internet cafe, that charges exhorbitant amounts for a single page.

Then add the vagaries of life. The regular bomb blasts, the rising costs of living, the imminent ethnic violence, the struggle to make ends meet, the exhaustion of using public transport, the unhappiness of suffering people around you...and you have an emotional minefield slamming across that thing called 'academic life'.

So how fair is this game then? Is the game not balanced heavily against those who are richer and have easier access to academic facilities and discourse? It is not surprising that very few voices arise from the 'other world' that are heard. Even less become famous and are respected as leaders in their fields. To be famous one has to be heard. To be heard, one needs to be in the right places. To be in the right places one needs the cash. But to have the cash one needs to be in the right places. It is a kind of circular loselose situation. And if you don't have the cash, you are not heard. However intelligent you might be. You are silenced.

My conclusion is that it is not so much the intelligent people out there, with something valid to say, with thoughts that can change the world and add to its richness that often get the platform to speak, the right to be heard, and the emergent fame. It is more often than not those who have the latest laptops, the infinite internet access, the unlimited supply of material and books, the leisure to pursue research and the luxury of insulation from suffering. It is also sadly those who have the means to be at the right place, at the right time, on the right side of the world.

Endings...

2008-07-02T05:07:00.000-07:00

One wonders about beginnings and endings of all sorts. And then realises that sometimes they are linked...connected by fine threads. Sometimes they are not; then an ending is like a sharp blunt axe falling across a vulnerable unsuspecting neck, slicing through with no hope of reconciling head and body to wholeness again.

Beginnings are often linked to endings - new beginnings arise phoenix like from the ashes of an ending. And that is good. Leaving behind one life, to begin another - that is so ambiguous, so full of pain, so full of promise. An ending immersed in the emotions of tears and goodbyes, can be bouyed up by the flurry of hellos and welcomes at the other side. Or not as the case may be, when the hello never surfaces and the beginning at the other end is like crawling through a dark tunnel.

Relationships too, I realise, have beginnings and endings. Some relationships survive and grow, flourish like well tended plants imbibing nourishment from the dynamics of the give and take, turning ones face to the sun of warmth, or resting beneath the shade of gentleness. Relationships can be shelters and refuges from the vagaries of life. Some relationships are like finely crafted works of art - worked on with care, faithfulness and deep abiding love. Like Jane Austen's novels that took her 18 years to write - to craft every sentence to what she wanted it to be. Like many paintings that take years to finish.

But relationships sometimes end. And end in many ways. Some peter out to a listless end, with time, distance, interest effacing what was shared. Some do not stand the test of time and people grow apart fired by different trajectories of their paths. Some end with bitter words or unresolved conflict that kills like a slow poison. I am reminded of Blake's poem "the poison tree":

I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe;
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I water'd it in fears,
Night & morning with my tears;
And I sunned it with my smiles
And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright;
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine,

And into my garden stole
When the night had veil'd the pole:
In the morning glad I see
My foe outstretch'd beneath the tree

Perhaps we all face the end of relationships at some point or the other, and the wisest thing to do is to understand the kind of ending you face and take it gracefully. Perhaps we ought to pray for honesty at endings - where no one is left blundering in the dark fog of nuances and emotions they do not understand or even begin to make any sense of.

And if we face an end, perhaps we ought to pray, that somehow we are spared the felling of an axe, the bitterness, the anger and knife sharp edge of a violent end.

Dear Blog...I return to you...

2008-07-01T07:49:00.002-07:00

Oh well I have returned to ye olde faithfulle blogge for my writing ventures. Tired of Facebook - more or less. More, I suspect. Too much trivia, too much of everything. Too much of gush and mush with people sending each other drinks and throwing sheep, people kicking, biting, pinching and licking each other...I mean who would want to lick someone? Euggghh.

Facebook complicates life...maybe that is why there is a relationship status in it that says "it's complicated" and an XKCD cartoon that puts it extremely pithily see http://xkcd.com/355/

I mean I still like Scrabble - one of the redeeming features of the enterprise. I will hang on for the Scrabble scrabbling. Although some people are so pedantic about the words they put! You have to wait forever for a word to appear...but still! I like the flowers - they are a nice way to express something, or even the animals, though some of the flowers are people's heads or shoes, or hats?!

One wouldn't mind having close friends because it is great for sharing pictures or other stuff. But then so many random people add you in passing, then say nothing at all to you thereafter, and so you exist in limbo like a 'non-friend' forever. I fail to see the point of this. It then puts you in the position of having strangers who have access to your information, but who are declaring themselves to be friends. I have been baffled by at least 30 people that I have added, at their request, who have never said a single thing to me. Not even 'Hi nice seeing you after ages'. This is where virtual reality beggars belief...when friends are actually 'not friends'.

Facebook propels strangers into being intimate friends. A friendship in real life takes years of hard work to build; years of love and sometimes pain, real give and take, up and downs, disagreements, restorations, forgiveness, of knowing the real person - all of which isn't that easy at times. It takes a lot of commitment and love to sustain friendships through reality. Could real friendships become a nuisance, be seen as unnecessary because the online ones available are much more exciting and enjoyable?

And then there is the ultimate sadness - when someone actually takes you off their friend list, and then blocks your access and permanently closes the door to any chance of restoration. Happened to me so I ought to know. In real life, without the complication of internet, there would have been the possibility of giving time, and with time restoring through conversation something that was lost. Not anymore. Facebook puts paid to that option and the door to friendship is closed for good.

Deare blogge I return to you. It is less complicated.

Fork-wits

2008-07-01T07:49:00.001-07:00

Admittedly using four letter words is not the polite thing to do. But it cannot be helped when someone IS clearly a FW, or committing FWge. Call a spade a fork? Call a fork a fork really.

Mentionitis - when the regular mentioning of a name indicates a underground trickle of tinkles
F***wits - (aka Daniel Cleaver) those who play mind games with others
F***wittage - the games people play with others.

A few more:
Forkwits - those who use the fork for purpose other than the culinary
Fork wittage - the blithering blathering of forkwits
Men-shone-itis - the complex men have regarding their shining qualities which they dont have.

Moving lightly on...

The English Language

2008-07-01T07:48:00.003-07:00

I discovered a few pithy, excellent phrases from Bridget Jones. One of my favourite books...even though I am supposed to read highfaluting arty farty stuff (As a friend calls it).

1. Mentionitis
2. f***Wit
3. Emotional F***wittage

So when I described a particular disturbing situation I had to deal with someone, a friend texted me saying "must be a F***wit who needs a good wop" :)

The English Language in its richness and variety.

silence and suffering

2008-07-01T07:48:00.001-07:00

Madhushani - she lies in hospital right now. Hooked up to tubes. On a ventilator because if she breathes the internal haemorrhaging will start again. She is just 21 years, pretty, lively, smiling eyes, soft spoken and shy.

She went out with her sister. Stepped out of our garden to buy something from the shop nearby. They were walking down the road together, giggling, and chattering as I often saw them do - more friends than sisters.

The prada four wheel drive, a woman hanging on a mobile. A fraction of a distance. It was just the mirror that slammed her skull. She dropped like a stone unconscious. She hasn't opened her eyes yet. And it is now three days. If she moves, the bleeding in the brain begins again. They removed one clot, but they can't keep opening up her brain to mop up, so they say.

Dilky is just sixteen. Her sister. I don't want to see her everyday - her eyes listless and tired. Helpless really. You can see the agony written across her face...her voice is low and subdued.

There are no answers. None at all. Suffering and pain always faces silence.

the earthworm is a lucky beastie...

2008-07-01T07:46:00.000-07:00

If memory serves me right, and I recall my zoology lessons accurately, the earthworm is a lucky beastie. I dissected the wretched things - all rubberised in formalin and laid out stiff under my scalpel - so I ought to remember.

The earthworm, you see, is a heamaphrodite.
Apparently so is the snail.
Now WHY were we - humans, the species that could have made use of it most - not given this amazing two in one offer?

Ok, so humans are not very savvy with giftings and nature - tend to mess the system big time. Ok, so lower the intelligence the less likely it will go pear shaped. Ok, so it can't be that much fun if you don't have the brain to appreciate it.

Still imagine the benefits!
- I wouldn't have to be afraid of a psychotic sex maniac trying to do me in - I could use my maleness and thrash the living daylights out of him.
- Women could, when required, travel around at night as a male unscathed, unraped, unmolested. Unafraid.
- One can read the dim recesses of the mind of a man much better - given that one already has half the mind of a man, and delve into the intricacies of worrying logical reasoning and BALANCE off all that with some good old intuition.
- Reproduction, child bearing, rearing, would have been a breeze.
- There would be no such thing as man flu!
-

;) There ARE, of course, other benefits (as Leslie Durrell of Gerald Durrell "My family and Other Animals" fame pointed out bitterly when he discovered these details about the gender intricacies of the low-life). But I won't go into that.

ah yes...the mother country

2007-11-03T06:21:00.000-07:00

Whoever thought of calling ones country of birth 'mother' as in 'mother country', had forgotten that the word does not have a blanket meaning.

Take for instance a mother with an illegitimate child she gives away at birth and does not look for, or if she does look, does not find again; or a mother that abandons her baby; or a mother who keeps it and is cruel or indifferent; or a mother who has other children and ignores this particular one because of bad memories she has about it.

If there are 'bad' mothers, indifferent, cruel, selfish ones, then sure a country can have the same nature. I am just awakening to a few unpleasant truths about my 'mother country' here.

To begin with I definitely am adopted, I am not completely legit. This now is evident by my alien status and discomfort in operating here. So last week I picked up some forms from the University I work in, and lo and behold every single one was in the 'mother tongue' which means that I don't understand it. Gentle enquiry into whether I could have it in the language I could understand was met with a firm no. The same goes for whatever information I am given at my place of work. Clearly I am not this mother's daughter. I am quite simply an alien intruding into the family, and as such I better learn the family's way of doing things or I am out. Fair nuff. I think I want out.

Then there is the fact that this mother is dishonest. I realised that I spend a large portion of my energy and time, either returning stuff I bought, and in cases where the offending shop refuses to return or refund, either getting it repaired or writing to the consumer authority. For eg. I buy a table lamp. Day 2 it does not work. I take it back and because I foolishly have binned the receipt - I have no choice but to get it repaired by the shop OR buy some fiddly bits of unnecessary things for the same cost. By the time the lamp is repaired, and ensconsed on my desk, it has cost me literally 4 times what I paid for it. Take a simple bottle of jam. I pay 200 Rs for it. I come home, open it and lo and behold it is spoilt. So I take it back. Cost of bottle of jam - 200 + cost of trishaw to and back.Thus my bottle of jam is 400 Rs. I buy an apple...same story. Take the water bill - wrong reading, Rs 4000 more than is right. Several calls, a trip to the water board and Lo the water bill is immediate Rs 400 more. So my conclusion this is a dishonest Unmother country.

This mother also has become murderous. Not one off accidental murder, or inevitable murder. Her children are killed. Regularly. With no compassion. Or conscience. Which is not just sad, but unacceptable. At least if the mother was distressed, or attempted to stop the death rate - sometimes of families, and even children - that would be something. But no. That does not happen. Your mother should not be a murderer. Period. What do you do if she is?

I just will bide my time, until I can leave this adopted parent, who clearly does not want me here. And is clearly not interested in my welfare.

Perhaps we would all do well, to wake up and take stock of our birthing national parent and ask ourselves what we see. It might be that some of the parents quirks are just human fallibilities of a mild kind, some might be inevitable snags of personality. But there also might be great big ugly
things visible. Its one thing to choose to love a mother, but then one assumes it is a choice made with eyes wide open, not shut.

Conversely, those of us who are adopted, and have left our birth parents for another chosen foster home parent, would do as well to take stock. What sort of adopted parent nation have we chosen? It is possible to have love, with clear sighted vision; acceptance of the weaknesses while rejoicing in the strengths. Too many of us are either too fervent in both praise and criticism of an adopted parent country.

Parent country? Motherland? I have been taking a long hard look at mine - not at the big issues but the little ones, the everyday ones. And I do not like what I see.

What do dreams...

2007-10-31T13:53:00.000-07:00

Where is that novel? I get asked this regularly. From someone who wants to see me published, and earning my rightful share of filthy lucre, fame and scandal. Well really I would love some of all three. The first will enable me to live a decadent life; the second to make heads turn when I walk down the street and people scream orgasmically as they recognise me (think Elvis or Britteny); the third to liven up my dull existence - what WOULDN'T I give for a bit of nice scandal in my life.

If you have read Virginia Woolfe's A Room of Ones Own then you will understand my predicament.

Take today for example. I was talking of not experiencing floods yesterday, well I came home after a long tired day at university, and found part of the house flooded. One inch of water. And mud - because it was a rainy day and people had been traipsing in and out to repair the damn thing. The kitchen tap had broken and so there had been a merry fountain for a couple of hours before it was fixed. Charming end to the day - sweeping out water for an hour. Still more to be done tomorrow in terms of clearing up. But for now I have sought oblivion Online - Scrabble (getting eaten up in one game was cheerful) , interweb conversation with friends, and some beautiful paintings by an 18 year old painter. Not to mention finishing Amber Spyglass. It is a bit like seeking Nirvana in the midst of a traffic jam at Pettah.

But writing a novel or even editing it, for THAT I need peace and quiet. Space. Inner and outer space. Which seems almost an impossibility sometimes. And then one needs an element of freedom to be able to write. And then there are lectures - almost a 24/7 nightmare once the semester gets into form. Lecturing is great, I would be the first to say that, but I realise I haven't a life anymore. And I want a life. I want to be able to dream, to paint, to write, to think. I want to do both, but it appears now to me, that both working and following a dream are mutually exclusive. What to do? I haven't the faintest idea what to do.

Add to that the litany of woes - exhaustion with travel by public transport in the heat, migraine, grocery shopping and ongoing housework, endless cleaning, bill payment et cetera et cetera. I just realised what a significant time I spend returning defective goods (and fighting with the shop owners), returning to claim money not returned from places I shopped, repairing defective things that have packed up, not to mention sorting out erroneous bills for water and electricity! Part of me refuses to let people cheat me, but then on the other hand at what price am I having this insane moral high ground. In this country it is like stepping into the Adamsian Total Perspetive Vortex. Black Hole. I mean what can I say. Is this a life?

What is my moral obligation to this world? Is it to use my gift of teaching or my gift of writing and thinking? Or am I called to serve with the daily grind of existence under difficult circumstances and forget my dreams? I know now I cannot do both, a shattering discovery, for one has to live to write or think, but to live one has to eat, and to eat one has to earm, and to earn one has to work. Where does that leave me? Fugged up as a friend would agree. Totally fugged up.

Maybe Virginia Woolfe was right. I need ROOM of my own. Please can I have some. Sometime. Somehow. Someday.

the rains...are still raining

2007-10-30T08:11:00.000-07:00

I am thinking that 'The' rain god is in love with me. You know the chief one. The Zeus type big boss. Is that Narcissistic or what. I am well aware that the world around me is not very pleased with this ongoing deluges that seem to be ...um ...deluging us.

Look at it this way. Even if I am traveling in an air conditioned vehicle, and have a bit of sun filtering through, I open the umbrella. Yeah you heard me. Electrified the driver when I did it, but then its my comfort or his surprise. Guess what I chose?

Forget the air conditioned vehicles. That is the one off luxury. Think instead tin roofed, hot pulsating buses. Generally the sun comes blazing down and making the tin buses like little cooking ovens. You get into a bus, and it is a bit like clambering into a large public oven. I now am probably famous because I have my own towel that travels around with me. Every frood needs his towel, according to Ford Prefect, and lets face it, Hitch-hiking through the galaxy is a piece of cake compared to public transport in this country. I take advice from wherever I get it, if it seems wise. And just because Ford Prefect is not human, why should I balk at sound useful advice on travel. Ok, I don't suck my towel and it doesn't taste like blackberry juice or passion fruit, but still it is wet, cool and useful.

Why should I complain that my towel is getting a rest? It needs a rest, it deserves a break. It has a tiring life day after day, lots of heat and grime left on it, not to mention sweat. A decent towel deserves a decent break. It is brightly coloured, and I noticed of late that it is wilting a bit, looking faded and downcast.

I don't escape the vagaries of violent rain and bad weather...the roof leaks something bad. And where are the builders, roof repair men? Search me...I am searching for one still.
And the clothes don't dry (we don't have a tumble dryer), the garden is soggy.

I know that others suffer more :( Floods etc But I can't do anything about the weather so why should I feel guilty about the weather. I am not a brazen hussy going out and wiggling my hips at the rain god. Believe me I do nothing to draw his favour. I can't help my ravishing good looks, and the scintillating mind I have. I can't help it that he has an eye for the delectable. :D

I disclaim all responsibility for the rain god's actions. Here and now.
ps - if one is searching for him, he might be driving down the highway, um ok we don't have highways, he might be driving down a bumpy road or path in a lorry. He will have a little black cloud following him wherever he goes and belging little drops of water from above.

the Rain god

2007-10-07T02:00:00.000-07:00

ye gods. the rain god walks the land. that in itself is fine by me. the trouble is that in matters of doubt the rain god dishes out high humidity. so you swelter under the tantalising rain clouds that hover but sometimes do not deliver as promised.

but today it is raining. kittens cats puppies and dogs kind of rain. leeches rain. you want to enjoy the rain in kandy? step out onto the lawn and have an exodus of leeches that are definitely viewing you as their 'promised land'. that sours the pleasures of gardening you know...leech paradise can hardly be gardeners' paradise can it.

but there you go. it is raining and who am i to complain. i of the heat hating ilk, the sun despising cult, the humidity rejecting clan. i will not complain. come leeches and invasions, i still remain in a state of fervent rejoicing.

although the delight in the rain gods seductive presence is tempered by having 60+ external degree exam papers to correct. i mean it is really dampening to be told that the augustan poets wrote during the time of augustus caesar, and that they were not romantic poets. it is enough to make one suicidal - rain or no rain.

Hmmm diabolic really

2007-09-05T12:36:00.000-07:00

Arrrgghhh.
I think it is only in Sri Lanka that a rustling of a bag, and a noise under your bed can freeze you into a little quivering jelly. "I am sure it is a snake" (a tentative peering under mattress by hanging head upside down from bed)..."Oh maaaan if I put my feet down now it might bite me" (feet hurriedly swung back onto bed. A few seconds pass - just feel I have to go to the loo)...."Oh geeeeez it must be snake come in out of the heat for some coolness" (even though my house is far hotter inside than it is outside; there is an element of 'goodbye, logic' here)..."Aaaarrrghhh it might get onto the bed" (Remembering some horrible film about unexpected but true stories of a snake creeping into a man's bed...Frantic lowering and manic tucking in of the sides of the mosquito net, that is now a snake excluder. Terrible horror in remembering that the aforementioned snake got in despite the net)...

Silence now reigns. No rustles. A sigh of relief. Must have not been a snake...must be just an insect then. A visible exhaling of strangled breath. A lie back on the pillows. Relax. Decide I can go to the loo now. Lower legs blithely off the bed and flounce off to the loo. I saunter back.

Three feet away from the bed and "rustle rustle rustle". A leap backwards almost falling over the stool. "Ohmygodohmygod...there IS a snake". Freeze. "Oh goodgrief don't move because if it is a viper it will leap out at you" (no fairmindedness or sportsmanship with your average viper...it likes the attack...the element of 'take em by surprise'). A measured step forward and a frantic leap across the remaining 2 ft into bed. The bed shudders and shakes. You dive under the net and tuck up frantically. "Oh geeez it might bite my hand from under the bed" (Snatch hand back from tucking in the net). Heart beat like the annual army tattoo.

I settle down for a peaceful night of dreamless sleep.

Morning. Mother - "you were screaming in your sleep...I couldn't stop you"

Oh well you can hardly call it a boring life can you?

Snakes in the Sky

2007-09-03T08:59:00.000-07:00

You are really not going to believe it but I saw Nagini floating in the sky! No really. You know the great big evil snake that lounges around Lord Voldermort in a slithery gut slitting vomitous way. If you read the scene of her floating there in her little safe magic bubble - that picture is quite startling - you have to hand it to JKR, that was one of the most ghastly evocative scenes I have read.

So there was this writhing snake. All those shivers, and curving sinuous snaking movements, the flicking head etc. I FROZE. For a moment, I don't know what I thought. It didn't help that the background for it was perfect - a black sky, promising thunder and lightening, and that dull shine of prerain skies.

WHO in their right minds would fashion a kite out of black - make it several feet long and the exact image of a flipping snake?! For a few moments I thought I lost a few lifetimes as I stood watching it. I mean I am phobic with snakes so having one floating above me in curvy wavy subtle slithery moves was hardly a joyous experience.

Some people need their heads examined. Really

Rain Pain with Bliss

2007-08-31T12:30:00.000-07:00

Hmm. I pined for coolness, rain, wet, cold, damp. I suffered in the heat, sun, dryness. I despised the state of sunny weather and longed for the monsoon. .It is raining catz and dogz, and a few kittenz and puppiez as well. And I love the rain, enjoy the coolness, wetness. I set out blithely in the showers and walk under blackened skies and thundercloud threats. The bliss of coolness is mixed. Joyous and costly. Rain is

* Lying in bed at night and listening to the outburst of frog-songs all around
* Seeing the grass turning emerald green and clean, washed of the powderings of dust
* Hearing the cicadas and crickets chirrup thru the night, like a benediction on your sleep thoughts
* Happy plants that are cheerful and suddenly spurting to chase themselves to grow fast
* More jasmines that are more luscious
* Bright purple bourganvillea outside the kitchen window
* The absence of glare in your eyes, the mellowed landscapes of sunless sombre skies, that are a boon to the migraine prone
* Seas of coloured umbrellas on the road floating along like Toadstool Festival Day
* Rough riotous seas that are magnificent and majestic, leaving one with visions of the Leviathan and the deep sea creatures
* Wonderful nights in bed without the aid of hot air circulated by a fan in the futile gestures of cooling
* Cool pillows and sheets, and the ability snuggle and curl up instead of throwing oneself spreadeagle, heated body with heated mattress to produce sweaty thrashing around
* Hair let down and thrown back in blissful freedom, instead of knotted up onto the head. No lank hair dank with sweat
* Bus journeys without wet towel on face. Instead a half open window blowing raindrops in your face and cooling it

AND

* A leaking house with buckets all over, and a steady drip drip drip even through the night.
* A muddy hall and lounge area, because the leak is the worst there, and no matter how much you clear it, it just muddies fast again.
* Piles of wet, damp clothes hanging all over the house, with dismal efforts to dry. No radiators to dry wet clothes on, and no fully automatic washing machine or tumble dryer to dry the wet clothes.
* Mud mud mud. Cars driving heedlessly past and covering you with dirty water as they pass.
* Broken roads with yukky muddy water pools that one *Has* to walk through because there is no other way around
* Brrrrrrr cold water showers because the water is several degrees colder and there are no hot showers in the house. A warm wash means boiling water in pans and emptying into buckets, hence the braved OWWW of a freezing dousing of water in the mornings.
* Sly lingering snakes attempting to creep into houses to get away from excess rain AAAARRRGGGHHHH There was one curled up on the wall the other day. Yuk
* Power failures due to heavy wind and rain...the electricity wires catching fire with merry crackles, the frenetic flashing failing lights and the sudden darkness. Blackness like the coming of the dementors of Azkhaban
* Phone lines going dead as doornails

WORST of all ...the very worst of all. The rain brings untold suffering to some.
Stories of suffering from ares of the country - especially the North and East from war/tsunami victims. Families sleeping on ground sheets in makeshift shelters in deserted remote areas huddling for warmth, unable to avoid the cold, and rain. Teenage pregnancies, destitute school kids, sick children, hopeless adults. Now burdened with the wet, damp and cold.

I don't know how to rejoice in my personal easing of distress from the heat, when I know the same source is bringing suffering to many :S I wish there was some way that the weather could be meted out to the needy as required. The worst is that the sun brings the suffering of terrible heat with no proper shelter, dryness, discomfort of another kind.

Moonshine and Burbles

2007-08-18T12:28:00.000-07:00

I really MUST get around to keeping the world uptodate about me, my non-existent cat, the invisible dog, and the imaginary talking canary that is not in a cage.

Well actually I definitely intend to make this a serious commentary on life and the universe. The animals - the moose and leopard...the ones that are real but not alive, they wish to make a few views known to the general public. Too long have animal rights been denied and now the animals demand a voice. The right to be heard, they said, looking me full in the eye. Sternly. We need to raise our voices to tell the world what we think about it.

Anyways I have been busy with Harry Potter. Yup that is right. Count me in. I will tell you at some point why it has held my imagination. Re-reading HP that is what I am doing. Yup, the series. Almost as good as the first time around. Reading Nothern Lights too. I am hooked on fantasy. No really...I realise I am. Reading realistic fiction is terribly difficult for me. I have to lecture on them so I am forced to re-read some texts! It is called 'work', 'career'. 'vocation' or something like that. Basically I am obliged to read these things, and impart the great nature of it to my students. Every nerve in me rebels and says 'give them fantasy'.

;) So I have. There sits Terry Pratchett's Equal Rites, proudly, beside the rest of literature in my module. It IS after all Contemporary New Literature.

Anyways more later. This is just blathering. On to more serious things...later.

ah yes there is this blog i forgot about

2007-05-11T06:43:00.000-07:00

Indeed. why have i not been updating the info about my exciting life? why have i deprived the world of deep thoughts and deeper blatherings? how irresponsible of me. i repent in sack cloth and ashes and don't swear never to do it again. i should have given you all the fiddly iddly piddly bits of information about what my cat threw out - the cat i don't have - and how the dog (the one i don't have) barked melodiously at the postman that didn't come. i could tell you about the bird (which i do have) which might decide to leave soon.

all next time. this time i return for a brief pology. a short bout of repentance. a confession and promise. a declaration to be faithful to this blog and to the millions of readers dying to hear about what i coffed up yesterday, and how i sneezed, and what colour the rain was and did it fall smoothly.

goodnight one and all...for now

ye gods and little fishes

2007-03-04T10:15:00.000-08:00

(hmm is it fishes or fish? the plural i mean. :s) Anyway friends, non-romans and non-countrywomen, we are not here to bury any defunct disintegrated roman. it would be a waste of effort and space. we are here for greater things than that.

i am here to bury my brain. ye gods. i want to bury this brain and request a downgraded one. please. can the gods who attend to little fishes (or fish) help me out in this urgent requirement. i find it is pointless having a brain right now. i would like a little bit of fluff - sufficient to get the daily tasks thought through.

i definitely do not want a "bird brain" (see my next entry on my opinion on avian grey matter). just a bit of basic grey and white fluff. thank you very much. instead of a proper intenstinal looking convoluted bit of sponge.

can i also have an extra pair of hands. thank you. i need them to mark exam scripts. no don't even ask me about it. hear the desperation in my voice and the drastic nature of my actions. and make your judgement.

i am weary of academia. i cannot tolerate it - i see myself buried feet deep in examination papers, endlessly. this is why the removal of the brain might be useful. it would provide another pair of hands to mechanically mark the papers. possession of a brain in this diabolic activity, will render me suicidal. so can i please have brain removal. there are 1500 more 1st papers from feb 2006 to be marked. and going by the final year paper standards, i have little hope for any shred of sanity. and hold your breath...the next batch of first year papers will soon be in. not to mention the internal exam papers.

while we are about the re-installation of a fluff brain, can i hope that an internal self-cooling system will be installed (without too many additional pipes and such like). i need it sorely.

and, finally,
whoever is out there is at it, can i have a spiffing new pair of feet. i really need those because the current ones are killing me slowly (nothing to do with killing me softly with anybody's love). i can't promise not to pain the toenails - i mean with two pairs of hands, i have to keep everything busy and occupied.

i have balked at the thought of acupuncture...although the thought is being processed out of sheer desperation. needles in head and feet! now isn't that an appropriate singular conclusion to a phd. my head needs pins in it. i mean what can i say? well whenever i do go, IF i do go, i will have to be tied and dragged into the surgery. the dr is not that goodlooking though. not that these things matter to me - no really they don't. but look at it this way, if someone is sticking needles into you, it helps to look up appreciate the aesthetic alignment of the item that is inflicting such torture. i would hate to look up and see something that was not pleasing to the eye.

i wonder whoever is out there - you don't get tired of these requests. at least be thankful that i am not asking you for things like an empty parking space, or a seat in the bus. god, just think about that, those are the kind of the requests HE gets on a daily basis. i at least am channeling my trivia in the right directions.

2007-03-01T08:00:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine said 'why don't you start a blog that your friends can read?" At this point I remembered that I did have a blog somewhere ;) Admittedly there were not many entries, least of all daily. I have somehow never reconciled myself with the airing of private life on the wash-lines of public cyberspace. Nor do I hold to the idea of a public diary for all to read, about what a wonderful reunion I had with the other half, or whether my lovelife is going well, or whether my underwear fits and the travails I have in finding suitable nether garments.

Oh well - each to his or her own.

Just a word of "warning". There will be no gory details in this blog about private events in my life. Most of you will know about them via email. I refuse to supply the general world - however benevolent and friendly - with titillating bits and pieces. There are always Soaps if one wants that. But I will update the spaces here - when a computer and internet give themselves to my itching hands.

For starters I am back. In the pearl of the Indian Ocean. Although to be brutally honest it sometimes feels like a rock around my neck. Not a precious expensive rock either...just a "sink that bloody thing" type of rock. Oh yeah - my sense of nationhood, sense of belonging are well and truly screwed up now. I don't know where I belong anymore. Someone said we are citizens of the world, but hey I like to feel I belong somewhere. I somehow feel like a bit of driftwood - floating around with no roots.

Question is are we supposed to belong somewhere? Or is belonging linked to love and relationships? Or to a place devoid of them? Or to a space of land that is named and claimed by a race with high stakes on ownership. Where should "belongingness" fit? Ah that is the question.

always look on the briiight side of life

2007-02-28T13:09:00.001-08:00

life back in sri lanka is a different ball game. most of the time i lose a grip and drop the ball. the game isn't lighthearted anymore, it is serious stuff.

you know that you are back in srilanka when various experiences ring alternate bells in your head:
when a candle is an item of necessity for frequent power cuts, and not often an item of decoration for a dinner table.
when the wind blows and it blows you hot air.
when you switch on the fan and it circulates the warmth instead of ushering in the cool.
when you have fruit that actually tastes of something, and is brightly coloured.
when a pineapple is a foot long and orange inside.
when a papaw is 2 kilos in weight and sweet as honey.
when home remedies for warts is papeine from papaw.
when golden beetles come and settle down on you in a gesture of friendship.
when geckos fall off the ceiling onto your bed in the throes of mating rituals or territorial fights.
when you have to leap off your bed to rescue a wee little gecko from a devouring adult gecko.
when you find ants appearing at the drop of a grain of sugar.
when snakes trip across the path.
when the iguana visits your garden and stares thoughtfully at you.
when the sun shines and forgets to go away.
when the buses are mostly shove and push, screeching of breaks and insane blarings of horns.
when the water you use is warm and not freezing cold.
when you have four showers a day. cold.
when you start counting in rupees and still the cost of things seem ridiculously high.
when people smile at you on the road and are friendly.
when children are content with little or with nothing.
when children are always smiling - even if they are in rags.
when people are smiling, even if they are living under a canvas sheet on the street.
when white people are accosted on the street.
when you see a paradise flycatcher fly past with a glorious white tail.
when the sound of the mynah birds wake you up in the morning.
when your toes become dusty if you walk down the street.
when you have to wash your clothes every time you wear them.
when your hair dries before you can come out of the shower.
when wearing a cloth tied around you is the coolest you can feel.
when you wear wet cloths and don't feel the wet or the cold.
when tv programmes are all with the american drawl.
when cnn blares out in the guise of "news".
when extended family think they have the right to tell you how to run your life, decorate your house and spend your money.
when the neighbours' dogs leave little stinky piles for people to tread on.
when neighbours' dogs spend half the night barking outside your house.
when neighbours's dogs chase you down the street trying to nip your ankles and no one bothers to stop them.
when you get your salary and you suddenly wake up to the fact that take home pay is hardly taken home - it finishes on the way there.
when internet is a luxury that you have to travel for an hour to access.
when a computer is something that you can't really afford.
when you wear sandals and never have to switch to boots.
when a jersey is "too hot" even in cold climate.
when friendship includes the fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles etc...of your friend.
when dogs and cats lie on the road looking forlorn and hot.
when a dogs life really means a dogs life.
when your privacy levels have suddenly shot up and you suddenly seem to have none.
when the "unkwown" neighbours on the road enquire as to whether you are married, whether you have found a member of the opposite sex to yoke up with.
when cats walk into your house and spray their territory on your tables and chairs.
when female cats and dogs are spayed and the males are left to excercise their god-given right for mating and procreation.
when a designer label has absolutely no meaning or value.
when a high street label is of no significance and may be sold on the pavement for 50p.
when air conditioning is like stepping into heaven.
when one carries a wet towel like arthur dent, and a bottle of large iced water.
when the buses give one compulsory entertainment at a million decibels.
when clothes are washed and dried in half an hour.
when kitchens are for utility and not for display.
when floors are uncarpeted but cool to the feet during the day.
when the sea is warm and you can bathe in it at 8pm at night.
when sunsets are spectacular and colour the sky.

when life is just so different....

Flowers....

2006-09-05T14:43:00.000-07:00

I have 15 amazing lilies in my room and when I come up the stairs I get the scent of their fragrance. I feel like sinking my face into them and letting the fragrance wrap itself around me.

Fragrances and scents have always affected me deeply - I identify people and places by their scent! Oh I know that flowers look pretty amazing, but when you get the scent of lavendar, lilies, lily of the valley, roses - to mention a few - there is something incredible about it. If I had been an atheist, the fragrance of flowers would have been one of the reasons that would have inclined me towards thinking "maybe there might be a Creator". And then there are jasmines the mostly heavenly smell of all, and the "queen of the night" that sort of fills the air all around at night.

If I had been an atheist, there are a few other things that would have made me think "He exists...He must exist". The delicate marvel of butterfly wings, the shapes and colours of shells, the migration patterns of birds, puppies and kittens - their softness and adorableness. And sex. Sex as in "making love". I often think that only a marvelous God could have given humans the joy of intimacy and love - we are the only "creatures" that have sex as an expression of love and pleasure, and not as a mating instinct towards procreation. Amazing. Incredible, Unbelievable.

What amazing senses all creatures have. We can touch, taste, hear, see and smell the "world" around us...I think God is unbelievably GREAT.

graduashens

2006-07-31T14:43:00.000-07:00

Graduashens are wonderful. It was the hottest day of the year! It was, we thought, a fitting end to a rather hot, fiery, PhD that was about to set fire to anything around it, including us. We worked so hard to keep her on track, to inspire, to fill her with intelleckshul thoughts, that we take great pride in all our graduashens.

"We three Drs of Orient are"..."following yonder star".

We all wore a cap, one of us wore a crimson gown, and all of us were very happy. We ate a lot, drank a lot, and became intelleckshul a lot.. Viva la Graduashens. Even on the hottest day.

Can someone tell us what comes next? We know there are people stampeding to get us on their band wagon (specially us animals) but somehow we seem to miss each other like ships in the night. Could a kind somebody send us all a good job, pots of money and an exciting life.

"pre-nuptial question"?!

2006-04-29T13:29:00.001-07:00

"If we did not believe in god, would we still desire to be married? Well the answer to that was and is an overwhelming yes." That's off Natala's blog. Made me think that did. About what marriage is?
Perhaps the most fundamental question in other words "what matters - the person or the intstitution?". It seems to be that this is what the question boils down to. It is a stripping away of the "marriage props" to the bare bones of it all.

I don't have the answers (as usual - just the questions). But in a relationship it would be wonderful to look across a room at the other person and know that given the choice over and over again, it would be the same one I make. I remember reading something in The Sparrow (Mary Doria Russel) where one of central characters - Anne - decribes her marriage:

"I have been married at least four times, to four different men. They've all been named George Edwards, but believe me, the man who is waiting for me down the hall is a whole different animal from the boy I marrried. Oh there are continuities. He has always been fun and he has never been able to budget his time properly.... George and I have faced the fact that we have changed and we've had to decide whether it makes sense to create a new marriage between these two new people...."

Makes sense that. Makes a lot of sense.

thinking about being "real"

2006-04-28T16:38:00.000-07:00

I am a bit tired of the god-talk that underlies everything...the god-talk that is a cover up and not an illumination of Him. The god-talk we use for our own benefit: "the Lord told me...", "the Lord led me to...", "the Lord opened this door..." (never mind that the door led to a job with deeply unethical roots). I am tired of the way we take God's name in vain - to cover up our tracks, to justify ourselves, to prop up fallen edifices in our lvies.

I felt a tremendous respect for Natala and Matt - for their courage and honesty in walking the path they do. I am not sure, but maybe they are closer to the heart of God than many of us.

I would like to excavate into the heart of people and see how many of us are doing what we do, and living the way we are, out of a subconscious need for acceptance and the fear of rejection. I think the good question to ask is that if ALL is stripped away - family, church, society - would we STILL live the way we do? What if our inner life was made public and people knew who we really were?

I am reminded of a sketch I wrote once about the different people I am:
- the person that I *think* I am
- the person that I *know* I am
- the person that I don't know I am
- the person that people *think* I am
- the person that God knows I am.

I have always wondered whether a truly Godly life is when all of these things are one and the same - albeit not completely but as close as they can be. At least a corelation of 3 might be good! One does need a bit of mystery and we can never know ourselves, others or God completely. But at least we can live transparently and be "real".

Dr Dido and Dr Aristophanes celebrate

2006-04-24T15:25:00.000-07:00

Dido and Aristopahnes celebrated.
They say it was "kewl". They have the distinction of possibly being the first pe-pellet life forms to have a viva from within a cloth bag. They thought that it was real fun. Especially when the examiners found a few things I said funny!

Dido and Aristo say that life needs celebrations. Gifts. Love. Laughter. Wine. Cards. Special times. They got it too.

Post-Viva celebrations? It celebrated the end of a long journey that often seemed too difficult to survive, and the benediction of love and friendship through the years.

It reminded me that life happened to on the way to a PhD, and I survived by the grace of God and the love of special people. It was a reminder that this is not a exploration I began or completed alone.

So I am thankful
for love and friendship - for people I have met as strangers and grown to love so very dearly.
for those who stood with me, beside me, prayed with and for me through these years.
for 6 years of invigorating study and research - despite the struggles and traumas inbetween.
for time to think, and meditate (I did meditate on my research!), formulate thinking and grow.
for laughter - Adams, Pratchett and Python - who are gifted with creating spaces to laugh!
for conversations that challenged my thinking and stretched my imagination.
for the caring I have had, especially through times of grief and bereavement.
for people who pushed me on and helped me to the finish line.

Aristo fired up

2006-04-13T05:35:00.000-07:00

Inaj0asifoibn

Don't let anyone tell you that travel is hazard free. I almost got ate up, I did.

A furry monster ravaged me...well alright it was called Daffy and it didn't xactly ravage me but it attacked fiercely - oh yes it did. I was lying helpless on the rug with this monster towering over me, drooling wickedly at me. Fortunately she got there in time or I shudder to think...WHY she left her bag open lying on the floor I don't know...

To add to the indignity I got called a "wee brown bear". TCHA.

aversion to tentacles

2006-04-12T08:50:00.000-07:00

Some conversations are very surreal. Like one I had recently. Someone said they never eat anything with tentacles. How very odd.

I tried to argue that tentacles are similar to limbs, and after all people munch on lamb chops and chicken drumsticks etc. The response to this was "can we describe a human being as having tentacles?".

I didn't think of it at that time, but I now realise that if it was an octopus or squid speaking, this is how they would describe us: "look darling, there goes that humanoid...have you noticed the branching tentacles they have...urrrggghh...remind me never to eat one".

But then what can one expect of male logic.

finely refined torture...alternatively called "A VIVA"

2006-04-12T08:42:00.000-07:00

I must say I would have loved to watch John Cleese or Terry Jones, or for that matter any of the Pythons face a viva. I can imagine what they might have spewed at examiners. A bit like the Spanish Inquisition skit in reverse.

I WISH I WAS John Cleese. I am sure anyone with something like the silly walk repotoire should be able to face a viva with the snooty aplomb required. I am unfortunately a quivering mass of jelly, probably trasmuted myself into some distant relative of a jelly fish. I think my brains have melted and run into the sand.

"am" at a.m

2006-04-11T20:45:00.000-07:00

Existential questions are a b***** nuisance, especially in the middle of the night. I am sitting up wondering "what makes me...me" and "who am I". "I thnk therefore I am" is what Descartes said - but thinking hasn't given me much "am" so far even though it is a.m!

Was thinking about whether we construct ourselves everyday - creating wonderful and varied "i"s and "me"s. And are these the "real" or just surface constructions like drama masks that we gotta wear for the parts we play.

Maybe the trick is to learn to create ourselves less and to let God do the creating more! Maybe the people we love and trust have a hand in creating who we are meant to become?!

I think I should sleep. It is after all morning now.

I believe...

2006-03-25T16:38:00.000-08:00

"Somewhere over the rainbow, Skies are blue, And the dreams that you dare to dream, Really do come true."

I would love to believe it but it is not always true. Dreams die. They burn in a bright blinding fire and then sometimes they turn to dust and ashes as we watch. Skies turn grey, black.
Sometimes a rainbow heralds a hurricane or floods.

I often wonder what we are supposed to do with broken dreams. I have watched people die, children die, love die. I wonder what one does then.

I remember my aunt. She was a kindred spirit. She had the gift of laughter. She taught me to laugh and gave me one of the greatest gifts in life - the ability to see humour lurking everywhere and the courage to aways choose life. It was she who introduced me, as a child, to Winnie the Pooh, the poems of Ogden Nash and the limericks of Stephen Leacock.

She laughed in the face of all the odds and pain. She lost a husband, after 10 suicide attempts and she survived. She made her life count even after that. She joined a Help Group in order to help those in trouble. And she laughed. I remember her peels of laughter ringing through time after time. And yet she suffered deep pain, so much so that she died after several years of dementia brought on by depression.Yet even through her depression she laughed and smiled.

She fought for life and for laughter. She loved greatly. She sought the beautiful - the colours of flowers, the feathers of a bird, the eyes of a cat. She had a sense of wonder about things around her. She had words of kindness to offer everyone she met - a beggar on the street, children. She had words of appreciation always for everyone - even those who fought with her. She gave - she gave away all she had to those around her.

And I remember a card she sent me - long ago. It was home made and a small piece of paper folded in two with a quotation on it. She said she hoped I would remember it all my life. I have!

"Sweeping across Germany at the end of World War II, Allied forces searched farms and houses looking for snipers. At one abandoned house, almost a heap of rubble, searchers with flashlights found their way to the basement. There, on the crumbling wall, a victim of the Holocaust had scratched a Star of David. And beneath it, in rough lettering, the message:
I believe in the sun--even when it does not shine;
I believe in love--even when it is not shown;
I believe in God--even when He does not speak."

I realise now that these words were so powerfully true for her, and I know now how she found hope in the midst of all her pain. It has taught me to hold on through the darkest times, to laugh, to hope and to love against life's amazing odds.

sleepless in seattle

2006-03-24T15:28:00.000-08:00

We spent the evening in front of the fire, indulging in that timeless, deep and profound activity. A charming way to spend an evening. Rapture. Complete and utter absorbtion "watching the screen". Now ask me what Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Sleepless and Seattle have in common? Definitely not Meg Ryan, Tom Hanks, blood sipping vampires or stake brandishing cuties. .

I asked myself will I ever walk into a zillion floored building and find a teddy bear AND the love of my life? Or for that matter be slaying demons and monsters AND having the love of my life rescue me with passionate kisses inbetween the slayings? I mean - what am I doing with my life? Where are the demons? Where are the teddy bears? Not to mention *anything* else!

I see the men sticking their fingers in the wind pipe, rolling their eyes and saying "uuurggh S in S? blerk...chick flicks" as if a "chick flick" is the most abnormal shameful activity they can indulge in or as if they never went absolutely stupidly in love and did the most idiotic things (Ok for "love" there read "stupidly in sex"! But still...)

Anwyay to return to topic, "Is there destiny" - in real life I mean? Is there that "magic"? From where did Hollywood and writers and poets through the ages get this picture of love? Is it just "fiction"? Is it fantasy? Has it *ever* been a real thing this "falling in love" and "magic" and "growing in love"? You see, for me one of the moving things in the film, is what love can mean, the fact that it can be magical, that it can be meaningful for many years. Annie is not a stupid bimbo just chasing any man! (ok she *was* chasing cute looking Tom Hanks and not all of us have the privilege!). She was chasing a man who had known how to love deeply!

I don't know - so many people limp through life and relationships like grim fighters, It makes one wonder what love is all about. I have watched friends who fell so madly in love. We rejoiced and sang "oh perfect love" at their weddings all misty eyed. Then a few years later - "bang", it was gone. Just gone! Scary. Love just died. Over. Tears, pain, anguish. They stayed together but actually in reality they moved on. Love, was a silly passing madness, and Sex, they tell me is over rated; a chore; boring; even a nuiscance. Passion? It dies, they tell me, and so does love. I sit there watching them sadly, sometimes thankful I have not had this terrible thing happen to me.

But something inside refuses to be fatalistic about the magic and the power of love.

Love is instinctive, primary and one of the most compelling of human desires. If love is created by God, and we are created to love and be loved, surely it is meant to be the most eternal and profound of experiences. There "abide faith, hope, love, these three, but the greatest of these is love". God couldn't have got it wrong. Right?

Maybe we have got it wrong. Love is not overated, neither is sex. It is underated by us, Maybe that is why people take it for granted. Maybe that is why they let it die. Maybe that is why they are fickle and indifferent. Maybe that is why they look for constant sexual excitement. Perhaps love IS this wonderful, mysterious thing - that thing which makes us most like God. And we have forgotten that.

We live in a money driven, success hunting, soul destroying, images loving, excitement seeking, power hungry, fulfilment demanding, busy generation and society. Christians, yeah you heard me, often Christians take the most profound vows of love that someone can make and turn it into grim duty and bondage. As Christians we are duty driven, grimly faithful, super spiritual, ultra-Godly, praying, bible study going, preaching, ministry fixated, worshipping people. We church talk, smooth talk, smile talk, platitude talk, cheerfulness talk, solemn talk, hallelujah brother talk and spiritual talk. Meanwhile we forget the wonder of love and get through life like zombies.

And in all of it we have forgotten how to love. We have forgotten the power of love. We have forgotten that it is in loving that we are most like God.

The definitive "apala velava"

2006-03-23T13:49:00.000-08:00

Sometimes life feels like Murphy's law: If anything can go wrong it will.

Not surprising that some philosophies and belief systems incorporate that in. In a certain Buddhist culture, there is a belief in what is called the "apala velava". It means "the time when everything will go wrong". Basically, it is a time when Murphy's law comes into operation. One is resigned during those times, because one knows that it is "bad times"; so if the sky falls on ones head one is not surprised or indignant. Ofcourse the sky is expected to fall!

In the Bible we have the classic example of Job! To think of Job is to have ones mind boggle in a very alarming way.

What do you do, when life feels a Murphy's Law excursion to the edge of the world from where you can fall off? What do you do when you feel blown into a million little pieces? Sometimes charms are done to keep the person safe from too much of the bad times, but I am not sure of how effetive it is. It probably offers a bit of security and feeling of safety!

The first comforting thing to realise is that it is normal - perfectly normal for Murphy's Law to operate. Nothing to shock one there - it has all happened before, or as Ecclesiastes puts it "there is nothing new under the sun". The second thing to realise is that once Murphy's Law is operational, you are not going to be surprised - all the askew things are to be *expected*.

Ultimately all one can do is hold ones head high, hide the tears, laugh when possible and believe that the "apala velava", the Murphy moments will pass.

Moose and Leopard Complaints...

2006-02-26T12:57:00.000-08:00

SHE went away and left us behind. LEFT US BEHIND. "No room in the bag" she said. We reminded her that 20 centuries ago an innkeeper said something similar and look what he missed out on. She turned her nose up and said that she was hardly going to miss experiencing the Divine because she left us behind.

Sometimes we put up with discrimination. So we demanded justice. Now. She asked us what we would like to do - whether we would like to be posted in a large envelope to the seaside. What an indignity - the mere thought of it. Tcha. Humans.

We are excusing all this for the moment - well for the next month because we are giving allowance for a limited level of stress. But after that we DEMAND JUSTICE.

problems of the heart

2006-02-22T02:12:00.000-08:00

I have been wondering which is better - having a metaphorically breaking heart (MBH) or a physically breaking heart (PBH)? Hmmm....

A MBH can be mended, more so when you realise that she or he is not worth weeping over anyway. There are many therapeutic activities to enable such a mending. A MBH is also quite common - in fact it is so common that it is now a cliche! A MBH is to be expected because most human beings have a predisposition towards fickleness and fecklessness; in fact there appears to be a definite congenital tendency towards this so we should actually *expect* broken hearts. A MBH, given its own fickleness, can sometimes (not always) respond very nicely to the soothing medication of a new interest on the horizon that taps at its auricles and ventricles.

A PBH is, however, a darn nuisance. It gets in the way of everything. There are very few remedies for it. It is a condition you live with - no bright alternatives on the horizons to distract and attract you. It is perfectly normal for a healthy metaphoric heart to be suddenly breathless with all manner of exciting feelings that can lead to varied charming conclusions. A PBH, unfortunately, leaves you breathless, period. Nothing exciting there - except the prospect of not breathing at all if breathing becomes too difficult.

I think I still prefer a PBH to a MBH because it is less painful. You can always try and keep the said organ - the metaphoric heart - well out of reach of anything liable to bruise, damage, or break it, and thus prevent a MBH. This is of course easier said than done, becuase humans are also heavily predisposed to foolishness - most prominently foolishness in terms of the metaphoric heart.

Dido and Aristo say that it is better to be stuffed with pe pellets than to have such dangerous organs lurking within their fur and stuffing.

absolutely flippin marvelous.

2005-11-01T11:57:00.000-08:00

Sometimes life can be absolutely flippin marvelous. Savouring the taming of the thesis animal is one such time, especially when the beastie lies on the table, calm and sedate. Not a sign of the chaos that hovered around it like an incipient tornado.

But looking back on it - I realise that the thesis animal wasn't just the product of a fevered brain and excited imagination. It also was the product of caring, love and support of different kinds throughout the years, but none of that is visible in the bound and restrained animal. It just looks like a product of brain, computer and ink.

The thesis animal was tamed by many others: those who offered a tired thesis animal tamer courage, support, love, scoldings, and a bit of spoiling enroute. It belongs to all of them too. How can I ever forget that often achievements which we might gloat over are the product of the invisible hearts and hands undergirding it.

Sometimes God's strength and grace come to us through human angels. Angels nevertheless.

Didotic Rules of life

2005-10-13T13:42:00.000-07:00

I realised Im a selective leopard. I don't like everybody. So why should everybody like me? Fair's fair. (That reminds me I dunno why people say "all is fair in love and war. Nothing is FAIR in love and war. When has it EVER been? Excuuse me? Where did such a nobrain saying come from.)

But that was not what I started out to say.

Leopards got claws don't they? To be used isn't it? Gotta use claws somewhere or will get atrophied. We don't want that do we? Stands to reason if folk like some folk. sometimes folk have to not like folk. It's natchral. Like breathing.

Rules of Dido
I will try to like a few bodies.
I will not try to like everybody.
I will not try to make everybody like me.
I will not expect everyone to like me. No skin off my nose as I said.
I will actively like the folk I like. It is not point liking them and not showing it. So more washings..."slurp slurp", more purrings, more cuddles.
I will actively dislike some folk (some *should* be disliked but I won't mention names). Flexing claws, teeth and other sharp instruments. (in the interest of evolution - so they don't get atrophied).
I will

...hmm. I don't know what else I will do. Go stttttrrrrreeetcchhh.

a leopard never changes its spots...

2005-10-08T15:53:00.000-07:00

I don't. I got the most permanent spots ever to exist. They get washed occasionally but they are still the same spots even if they fade a bit. I must say I get better looking each day though - well *some* people seem to think so, although there is a certain female human who generally says "piss off George" to me and Aristophanes...don't ask me why. None of us are called "George". Sometimes the human race can be baffling.

Humans, I notice, try to impress. Me - I am not interested in impressing anyone. (well maybe I like to impress a certain tiger...but *that* is a different story, and erm...well maybe I like to impress a certain moose to and *that* is also a different story). I am Dido - 1st grade leopard with svelte pelt and gorgeous eyes. Well that is what I have been told.

The way people wear masks is positively tiring for a well-bred leopard to watch. What a waste of energy, it would just be economical to set out for the day saying "here i come world...it's 'me' and not anyone else".

I mean there is only one of me - Dido. I am Queen of me-land. Also of bed-land. I can't bother to be someone else. If folk don't like me they can find someone else to like. Why would I want someone to like me for what I am not. Believe quite a lot of people don't really like me. In fact they find me a bit awkward and ignore me and pretend I don't exist.

Do I care? Not a jot. I like me. And a few people with good taste like me. The rest obviously have really bad tastes :D

Held in the Hands

2005-09-29T17:21:00.000-07:00

I am thinking of "vocation" in terms of a new meaning I picked up - it is the journey of becoming who I am called to be, in doing what I am called to do.

Today was the last episode of the documentary, that followed the spiritual journey of five men spending 6 weeks in a monastery. It was awesome to see the conclusion of that journey as God's spirit touched these men, and they encountered Him in the quietness of solitude and reflection. One of them especially - Tony who was working in the Porn Industry - emerged shaken with His encounter with God, and determined to live it out. He said it was the most profound moment in his entire life, and that as he returned to real life he would seek to bring that experience within the reach of others.

No one taught him how to go evangelise. No one told him to. No one even said anything about him having to preach to sinners. But there was living water springing from within him, and he wanted people to have it too. He couldn't help it.

Ever wonder why we are so apathetic about telling people about an awesome God. Because we are too bloody selfish, apathetic, and self centred. Because we have forgotten what it is like to truly know the Living God. Here was a man from the porn industry - STREETS ahead of most of our sanctimonious clean living pew christians. "Sister I don't have pre-marital sex", "No I don't drink", "ofcourse I don't have premarital sex". How NARROW can our christian faith and perspective become. Tony reminded me of many of the gospel encouters people had with Jesus - encounters that revolutionised and changed them.

For those of us who imagine that encounters with Christ come through rampant and blatant evangelisms and music, can think again. For here was God's Spirit and presence calling these five men - gently, patiently and clearly. And deeply. Very deeply.

At the end of the 6 weeks Tony met with his spiritual advicer - a moving encounter, both for Tony and those watching. Here was a grown man - crying because he was so profoundly touched by God. He was given a white stone by his advicer. The idea of the white stone, the advicer said, is taken from Revelations, where we are told that our new names will be written by God on a white stone that will last forever. He asked Tony to constantly ask himself, as he journeys through life, what name was being written on it. Not insignificantly the information at the end of the documentary, that had checked on the lives of the men, said that Tony no longer worked in the Porn industry. Not ONCE did any of the monks compel Tony to give up his life in the porn industry. They loved him as he was, shared God with him, and set him free to find God for himself.

I couldn't help but ask myself how profoundly are the depths of our lives being touched by the living God, so that it changes our direction, leaves us shaken with awe at the encounter, and then makes us quietly determined to go out and make sure that others can share in this miracle that we have found.

I think most of us, in our comfortable pews, fellowship groups, holy huddles have lost the depth and awe of the God we profess to know. We are busy singing songs, leaping around, talking big, discussing endlessly, listening to wonderful sermons, having warm fuzzies - but we have lost the point. As I once ranted before, most of us are consumer christians. We are there for what we can grab.

We have lost the springs of living water that come from quiet and profound experiences with Him. We have forgotten that solitude with God can literally save us from ourselves. We are indifferent to the name that we are called by God, and completely oblivious to the vocation - of doing what we are supposed to be doing, and becoming who we are called to be. And we have forgotten the deep compulsion and conviction of sharing God with those around us, because frankly we don't really experience Him anymore. It more a guilty burden we occasionally think of.

Forgive me for sounding singleminded, but until we learn to listen to the Heartbeat of God, and listen to our own heartbeats in the silence and serenity of solitude, we are never going to become the people we are meant to be. We will never find the name by which we are called by God, because we are too busy being christians.

I think we have all lost the point, because in this crowded, noise and image filled world, we have lost the gift of solitude. And we have actually forgotten the basic truth - that we cannot stand until and unless we fall into the hands of the Living God.

squirrels are us.

2005-09-17T20:00:00.000-07:00

Squirrels and people are the same. Both horde. I have been watching squirrels scurrying around with little flourishes of bushy tails to horde up larders. They horde for survival. People horde money mostly because they like it.

I love money. Lots of pots of it. Filled up and flowing over. Bank vaults full of it. Secret safes stuffed with it.

But I hate money too. I hate what it does to people, the way it makes them selfish and self centred. I hate the way it makes the world spin as if life does not matter. I hate the way it creates two classes of people. Money talks and I hate the the sound of its voice that drowns all other voices. I hate the way it break up homes, destroys relationships, seperates parents from children. I hate its lure and power. I hate its seductive strength. I hate its validity in today's world.

Yet it's true - I do love it. Because money can be turned into love. It can be turned into life. It can be turned into beauty. It can be lavished. On those who matter most, and those who need it most.

Lavish doesn't mean going out and buying useless expensive and meaningless stuff like a posher car or designer label bits. It means buying something that can bring someone joy. Even flowers! (There are a few people who I would like to buy flowers for regularly) A musical instrument, a book, a beautiful plant. Something meaningful. Something that can make a difference. Not dead gifts but living ones that do something. It means buying someone who is hungry a good meal, clothes for someone who is in rags, a house for those without a roof over their heads.

Some folk know what to do with their money.

I remember being gifted money to buy books by friends - a couple who had barely enough money to survive and who had just received some cash. I refused. They insisted. The rationale was that "the money we get is not for us to spend on ourselves, but to spend on those we love". Another friend of mine, saved up money, built her own house, and then worked extra to save money, to give away and bought her domestic helper a house. She could have spent it on herself...but she didn't. Still another friend of mine worked nights on extra shifts, in order to see a friend, who was depressive and broke, through his postgraduate studies. My friend actually lived on a shoe string budget in order to see the friend through, and paid his fees and living expenses (in the UK!)

It is sad that often money is a "me", "my", "I" thing. It enters a "me cycle".

Money combined with love and selflessness be a wonderful thing to possess. I am never going to be among the rich! So I guess (just settle for fame and scandal, especially since the latter is easy to come by!). But I sure would like to have a lot of money to spend it lavishly on loving.

Money is for loving. It is so that we can be spendthrifts for love. Money is for sharing. It is for holding lightly in our open palms so that it can be shared with those who need it.

Falling into the Hands

2005-09-15T16:35:00.001-07:00

I remember, with slight unease, the verse that has haunted me ever since I read it long ago.

It contrasts sharply with a lot of current prosperity God talk: "It is a fearful (terrible) thing to fall into the hands of the living God" (Hebrews).

On the other hand what a absolutely marvelous heart adventure "falling into the Hands" can mean. I think when my heart stops beating at the end of the final road, it would be great to look back and think "what a frightening but wonderful journey that was".

The Old and New testaments are full of evidence of "how fearful it was" to "fall into" the hands of Yahweh. The unnameable YHWH - as the Jews spoke it. Sometimes in our preoccupations with "living" we never get to the point of wanting to "fall into those awesome Hands".

I just watched a tv programme that is following the lives of a few men spending 6 weeks in a Benedictine monastery. The men - atheist, agnostic, criminal, skeptics - were bending and breaking, and changing with such humility and openness under the awesome Hand of God. They were beginning to "fall into the Hands" through the beautiful quietness and solitude.

It made me wonder whether our lack of solitude and silence with God, is robbing us of the greatest adventure of "falling into the Hands". Maybe we have crowded Him out with our mediocre, noisy, and often just plain activity filled and meaningless lives.

Making ripples in history

2005-09-11T10:08:00.000-07:00

Take a Saturday. A rainy day. Grey skies with not a glimmer of sunshine. Steady dripping. Puddles. Raincoats, opened umbrellas of varied sizes.

It's Saturday shopping fever. It's the "I want..." day of the week.

And in the midst of this was what a friend described "the rag tag army of God". A straggly group of Make Poverty History supporters. In the rain, steady dripping, in the midst of manic shoppers and Saturday enjoyers was this motley band of people.

Of striking diversity was this "army"; they were of different social backgrounds, spanned generations and ages (from 2year olds to 75 year olds), and different religious persuasions (muslims, christians and atheists). There were teenagers dancing to the drumbeats, their were the gothic contingent in full regalia - vividly black and wildly pierced, the demure elderly with shopping bags and cardigans, parents holding the hands of little lively 2year olds, a band of pulsating drummers, an over-enthusiastic labrador and even a green and cheery Robinhood.

If I had been tempted to think that it is pointless and despair of the leaders of the rich and powerful nations listening to voices scattered around the world, Saturday made me think again. We made a point - about Fair Trade, about justice, about changing lifestyles to accomodate a fairer and more equal world.

That was what Saturday did. It was a group of people saying something. Willing to look foolish, willing to be small but vociferous, willing to keep trying in the midst of discouraging odds against them. On a day that was so "I want" centred, a small group of people cared to dare the rain and focus not on "I, me, my", but justice for a part of the world they probably have never even seen.

Perhaps at the end of the day - changes may never come. I hope I am wrong and I hope that time will prove different. But at the end of the day what matters is that people care and want to make the changes.

And all we can do is try - where ever we are - to be different, to live differently and to speak out when and where we can.

Some days glow

2005-09-10T12:02:00.000-07:00

A day can positively glow with warmth and happiness - and this despite overcast skies, drippy rain and crowds. I am thankful for gentleness, loving eyes, warm smiles, looks exchanged at something funny, laughter, conversation, snacks that are "indulgent". Even shopping ;) Somehow the mundane things have a sparkle of their own when shared with a kindred spirit.

Sometimes God is not in the whirlwind, the storm or the noise. He is in the quietness of moments, the everyday things. God was in "today" with all its drippiness and grey. Some days are hallowed and graced by love, and the ordinary is touched by light when warmth and caring surround it.

Some days glow. They write themselves into memory - into the part that stores happiness, love and goodness. Not as obvious large "momentous" events but as quiet spaces that lifted the level of happiness and made life more liveable. I am thankful.

it is still a scandal

2005-09-09T16:17:00.000-07:00

I cannot believe that New Orleans continues to be such a horrifying scandal. Why is this disaster somehow morally a worse one than the tsunami of December 2004?

Perhaps because the sight of such poverty in the midst of one of the richest nations is horrifying. Because the rich are safe while the poor are dying. Because the American central government doesn't give a damn for it's own. Because the nation that parades it's democracy, equality and freedom conceals within it a terrible sore and wound of injustice and inequality. Because a nation that spends billions of dollars in days on its many missiles and bombs, and on its space programmes is one that harbours abject and miserable poverty that we see now on our tv screens.

The nation is reaping its indifference to environmental changes and global warming, and I wish to God it had been the policy makers and those in power had paid the price for their indifference. Instead it is the poorest of their people that pay now. As always.

Perhaps this is going to be the scourge of America's whitewashed piety and the touchstone by which its hypocrisy is made visible to the rest of the world.

Those who talk bullshit about the hand of God and His justice when they invade other nations, should stop and think about the God of justice they invoke and His view of their own nation and its racial inequalities. The God of justice and love, whom I know is not the same one paraded by these "born again" powerful, for whom " justice" comprises merely of their invasion of other nations in the disguise of the chosen of God.

There is clearly no justice within, but great yawing moral abysses that are successfully camouflaged. I read today, about the American citizens watching in horror at what lay within their own nation of freedom, and being appalled by the level of poverty and misery in New Orleans, and the kind of treatment meted out to the rich and the poor.

I should not I suppose be surprised by a nation that harbours the scar of Guantanamo bay, and the likes of Robertson who talk about "murder" as justice. I am angry, Yes I am. And I make no apologies for the use of "swear" words for sometimes it is only swear words that are appropriate.

Overdue introductions - Dido & Aristophanes

2005-09-06T03:13:00.000-07:00

I realise that there has been a gross oversight of important personages by the names Dido and Aristophanes. With profound apologies let me rectify that negligence.

Despite her early appearance in this blog, Dido never really had a decent introduction, well not an official one. She is a Standard Russ Leopard made to the highest toy safety regulations, and made of stern stuff such as pe pellets and polyester fibre. She does not, she requests me to point out, get washed in such evil contraptions such as washing machines. She has a soak bath complete with lavender and a glass of wine to boot. She is not the sort who swirls around with nondescript dirty linen. She begs me to inform the public that despite her strong intellectual inclinations, she has a gorgeous pelt, a divine colour and the most delightful eyes. She is named after an ancient and rather tragic queen of ancient Carthage, and occasionally dons the persona of a contemporary singer. She likes having her fur loved off, as is required in becoming real, enjoys "washing" people she likes with loud "slurps", and has most intelligent communications with a handsome tiger named Ringo over the phone. Her creator was an American star gazer.

Aristophanes insists he is a philosopher, with dramatic inclinations, and says that his ancestor's drama - Frogs - should be given a superior place in society (it is not tooo rude apparently, he says, and we live in rude days!). He is a visitor to these parts, and is due to return to his rightful pet soon. He lingers here (excuse me? really? oh ok) for the purposes (he says) of prestige, philandering and philosophy. (Aristophanes, Dido is not going to like that comment because it implicates her) (no I haven't forgotten your devastating good looks). He is a chocolate moose (NO Aristophanes, that's "mousse" not moose so no one is going to confuse anything...SIGH). He confirms to toy safety standards with pe pellets and polyester fibre (no they are NOT higher than Dido's and will you stop trying to compete). It is important apparently that every one knows he has experienced spiritual things...(Yes yes I know...) and transmigrated his soul from one body to another, bodies of identical physical appearance. He has piercing eyes, a vibrant personality, and stunning good looks (now wait a minute ...you can't make...ok ok ok).

RIght animals that's ALL. Gerrroff my back. And no I won't say anything more. What? Oh ok. Well they are talking animals (erm what? you are not animals? then what...oh ok). They are "real" folk apparently. With brains (fluff...ok ok ok I didn't really mean that). Now get lost that's enough narcissm for a century.

male/female dialogue on putting up a tent

2005-09-05T12:12:00.000-07:00

Putting up a tent might not, to the uninitiated, pose any diabolic dimensions. However a recent episode and conversation regarding the activity clearly highlights the perils involved.

She is asked to pick a suitable spot which she does - stating it is "away from the glare of the lights". He enquires if she is sure, and she says "yes". The job is nearing completion, and she steps back to view it. Horror. The huge bright blinding spotlight for the loos was shining right into the tent. She had misjudged the location.

He (happily whistling and pegging in last couple of pegs and standing up): "right that was easy and quick. Let's have some tea then".
She (humming nervously): "Erm we better move it I think".
He (laughing): "Ha ha ha that's a good one...ok let's go get some..."
She (interrupting in small voice): "no ...we gotta move it"
[Silence]
He (still laughing but nervously): "you are joking right?".
She: "erm no...".
He (aghast): "what????"
She: "erm the light is on it"
He (firmly): "YOU said this was fine and away from the light?"
She (sheepishly): "Yeah. I got it wrong. It isn't"
He (sounding hysterical and trying to ignore the light in his face): "WHAT?...No...it's fine...you will be fine...".
She: "no, the light is shining right at you and it will be the same in the tent"
[A long pause].
He: "you are not serious right?".
She: "erm..."
He (desperately babbling): "it's fine, just a little light, not too much, light is good ...otherwise dark, good to have some light..."
She: "don't want any light"
He (aghast): "you can't be serious ...we just put it up?"
She (in small voice): "yes"
[Loooong pause...]
He (shaking his head): "I don't believe it. I finish putting it up and she says 'move it'"
She (sheepish): "it's the light...it..."
He: "tcha WIMMIN"

And lo and behold the tent, it was moved. And thus move the delicate dynamics of men and women in the delicate opertation of putting up a tent.

Potted out after Potter

2005-09-04T16:52:00.000-07:00

(warning - this post is not meant for those who haven't yet finished reading the last Harry Potter).

I was shell shocked. Shattered when I closed the pages of Harry Potter. There is something gut wrenching about this book. I am not even sure if this is children's fiction, even though it involves those barely out childhood and their teens.

It is a brilliant piece of writing, moving inexorably and relentlessly to a conclusion one somehow senses, but never really fully expects. The death, the betrayal, the devastation at the end was completely unexpected. And yet the book ends on a note of sacrifice and courage, and indeed hope.

Rowling's series will grip the imagination of generations of children and adults to come. Because it is a narrative that draws on what C.S.Lewis has called the domains of "deep magic". The stories might appear childish, funny and at moments light hearted, but underneath like a strong current runs the serious and now chilling stream of awareness that these are not books about magic, wizards or even about boarding school.

These are books that point to the deepest fears and conflicts faces by humans - and in this case children: death of those loved, betrayal, the consequences of love, the consequences of the choices of evil over good, and good over evil. Above all the concept of sacrifice - a thread that runs constantly through the series.

Whether she intended it or not, Rowling's series is perhaps one of the most deeply spiritual stories one can encounter.

Some are more equal than others

2005-09-03T07:25:00.000-07:00

Has Katerina blown away USA's rags of decency and left her naked and exposed? In my native tongue there is a great word for it "varaheli"...which means shreds of dirty rags.

The scenes in New Orleans certainly don't look American. And from where I watched the people there felt the same way - they felt they weren't been treated fairly as citizens. I am mystified how a nation that spends billions of dollars on nuclear and space programs has such a scar within it.

USA should clean up its own racism, poverty and misery before it talks shop about other people in other parts of the world. Eye, speck, plank etc for those of us who know our Sermon on the Mount.
Much though I am fascinated about space exploration I cannot ever get my head around the fact that a country's first responsibility is its own people on its own shores - not imaginary microbes on far out planets it cannot reach. And for that matter how ethical is it for them to clean up other people's misdeeds by burning billions of dollars in explosives while ignoring their homegrown poverty? Let's not go into the billions spent on nuclear programs.

A friend of mine was in SanFran recently. And he said that what was shocking was the level of homeless people in the midst of all the riches and skyscraper world. He said it somehow was more obscene to see poverty in the midst of wealth, than poverty in overall poor nations.

There is a worm in the heart of the apple, or in Hamlet's words "there is something rotten in Denmark".

bumming and carved chicken mentality

2005-08-25T20:10:00.000-07:00

Having pondered (or maybe ranted is a better word) on the exhibitionism of spirit - in the form of gut spilling of detail and trivia - I sorta naturally moved to another kind of exhibitionism that is perhaps a counterpart to it?

I am thinking of exhibitionism of body. Well have you noticed how flesh is the in thing - well actually the out thing. I might be a bit oldfashioned but I can't help flinching with a shudder when I see someone's (male or female) jeans hanging merely by a thread of imagination with their derriere and its cleavage visible. WHY would I want to see that? "Excuse me...its a free world but I don't really want to see your bum". That's what freedom is, is it?

And then there's the matter of the cleavage of the upper regions. Ever notice that bending is now a precarious business...I hold my breath thinking something that shouldn't fall out will.

I am quite gobsmacked by the amount of bare flesh paraded around. "Why" is the question that haunts me. Why do we want to reveal all? Don't get me wrong I am not a prude and prism person but somehow I have this distinct unease with what I have now come to label exhibitionism. Be it spilling your guts, your derriere or your cleavage for general view and consumption - I find that worrying.

Yeah ok. So there is this ancient dynamic of the attraction of the sexes, and the physical does mattter (bit unrealistic to think it doesn't). But let's also face it - we have lost a sense of owning our bodies, or for that matter letting someone who has the right to it own it. Where does the intimacy of sex come in - if the body you relate to is one that hundreds have eyeballed, looked, fantasised about. Yeah sure it makes you feel sexy but I think there is a high degree of fall out in the loss of "privacy" in the body.

As a Christian, there is almost a holiness to the intimacy of sex. It's such a profound mystery this thing we call sex. For instance we are the only living creatures for whom sex actually has something more than procreation involved...its for pleasure, for love, for intimacy. We don't mate during the reproductive cycle like the rest of the animal kingdom, we take pleasure in the body of a mate. But now we seem to be detiorating and becoming like a herd of animals where sex is flaunted and acquired at random, and part of that flaunting is letting everyone see your "goods".

We are now living in an era of "carved chicken mentality". Have you realised that we rarely buy a whole chicken - or deal with the messy bits. Everything is cleared, cleaned, and packed into little packages of "thighs" or "wings" or "breasts". A whole chicken is a bit of a nuisance...we only want to savour the delicacy of the breasts.

Well sex and bodies have become like that. I can safely presume that most men and women now eye one another in terms of body parts. "She has gorgeous breasts" or "he has sexy shoulders" or "she has fantastic legs" or "he has a delightful bum". We don't really look at "people" anymore...we look at bodies. We are TUNED to look first at the bodies, and often that is all we will see. Our hormones are too inflamed to look beyond. And obviously this leads to dissatisfaction for exhibitionism doesn't help the situation...it's basically saying "here is a body part - sample it". Here is a breast or a thing or a bum.

I have nothing against nakedness. But I have a deep distrust of a social trend that is reducing sexuality to body parts, and reducing people to displayed flesh. Something is wrong. Maybe it's time we respected each other as people and stopped promoting the "body culture". Our bodies are PART of who we are...and that is something that is slowly and surely being forgotten.

Exhibition of body or soul. Scary

blogging your heart out?

2005-08-16T11:06:00.000-07:00

I am not sure what I feel about blogs. I mean this is an absolutely ridiculous statement to make about 4 months after starting one, but it's unfortunately true. I am meditating on the whole phenomenon of "blogging".

Is the blog a diary? But aren't diaries private and record things for our eyes alone? In fact one is generally mortified about someone actually finding the diary and reading it. One even gives strict instructions to a close friend - "please burn my diaries when I die, *without* reading them". One doesn't really write a diary and go waving it around and say "hey read this" to everyone passing by. You don't wave your personal life and information to passing strangers, or do you?

Don't many blogs seem to be diaries? That's what is puzzling. Why are we writing a diary for everyone to read and comment? And if everyone is commenting, it's not a diary it's a discussion board. If it's a discussion board why would you want the world to know personal stuff? I think this is all getting circular.

For instance lets say that you are waiting for your girl friend, boy friend (if you are double) or cat (if you are single) to come back after a jaunt somewhere? Why are you so hell bent on telling the world that you are just waiting for that great hot night, or cuddle and smooch (erm yes ofcourse cats don't smooch - I suppose they just swipe and loop around you with a throaty "Mrrrrrrrr")

And then there are personal things that no one needs to know. What does it matter to the rest of the world if I had a wonderful Korean meal last night, with lots of spice, got inebriated and had an outrageous flirtation with the waitress or waiter of the restuarant. (No I didn't really do that - that was just an example of "blog material").

I just worry about the entire world becoming a gut spilling venture where everyone peers into everybody's life (laid out colourfully in detail complete with pictures too).

I think its a trend - the talk show culture - where everything is public material. One discusses ones marital problems, family affairs, parental mess ups, sex lives, in front of a tv audience. I mean it makes me quiver with horror. Is there nothing sacred or personal anymore?

I am not sure if what is happening is a depersonalisation of ourselves by making it all public. Surely privacy in somethings is a good thing. Don't somethings deserve the sanctity of privacy? What I felt about the return of a long absent lover - that's deeply personal - something meant "for my eyes and hers/his". And surely some things are trivia. Like the details of the Korean meal.

On the other hand its good to have somethings up on a public space. I worry a bit about all the blogs out in cyberspace filled with trivia which all of us are busy wading through with some sort of voyeuristic pleasure of having a look into someone's life.

:S I dunno.

pawns and king pins

2005-08-02T13:43:00.000-07:00

One wonders about how long these cycles of violence will continue. The coalition forces bombing Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Al Queda bombing central cities. While the king pins sit behind closed doors, the pawns pay a price and pay it dearly. What will it take to put an end to the destruction of innocent lives on both sides of this divide?

I don't need to have done politics or have experience in the field to know that a "war against terror" is too abstract for success, and that its abstractness merely means that the innocent will die. As Arundhati Roy put it, how can one wage a war "against an abstract noun". I also know that terrorism has root causes that cannot be eradicated by counter violence, for causes live on after its proponents die. That is the nature of movements with causes for unlike armies these are phoenix-like, and from the ashes of their destruction new adherents are born. I have lived in a country that has had "terrorist" activity escalating into civil war, and it has not been counter-violence that solved the problem. In fact violence merely fuelled more cycles of revenge. It is the desire on both sides to see an end to it, that ends violence.

A "war on terror" is as laughable as those who magnanimously and gratiutously propound it in their lofty speeches. I didn't need to be a politicain or "special intelligence" to know that the terrain of Afghanistan would not yeild Osama Bin Laden (as predicted prior to the war) for he would never be located in the ant country landscape of Afghanistan. Or to know that the war on Iraq was a recipe for disaster and death. Did not the intelligence indicate this to those embarking? Did they not point out that removing a dictator in a tribal country is a recipe for mayhem and chaos? Lets not pretend that no one in the Western governments knew this. If they didn't it is an even greater shame and scar on their nations' intelligences. Or were they too swelled up with their own egoistic opinions that they can "sort it out"?

Maybe, just maybe, there is too much pride to believe the West can fail. But it did. And it still does. The war in Iraq was certainly not "won", for the Iraqi people.

So now the world reaps the seeds of violence sown, by both the West and Al Queda. and if a head count be taken, it would be safe to say that Al Queda is far stronger than they ever were. During the Iraq war, I watched reporters interview civilians in Iraq, Jordan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and despite the tensions between Middle Eastern nations, the cry was the same: "We will repay, for every life you destroy we will take ten". It was the voice of normal citizens. Not of Al Queda. Not of militants. But of ordinary men and women. even of children. The West is increasingly generating violence and, through it, hatred and anger, but hoping vainly that they can live in insular violence free societies. But violence breeds violence does it not?

However the West might define him, and whatever they might feel or say, Osama Bin Laden is a leader of a large part of the Islamic world, and now a leader to be reckoned with. For the sake of those who will pay the price if we don't, perhaps it's time to dialogue. The West presumably does not want to talk to this "leader" because he is a "savage" and "evil". If it wasn't so depressing I would find it almost "amusing" that the West is believed to be no different!

I often think of the one thing that can bring an end to cycles of violence and pride. The humility to ask "what have we done wrong" in our international relations with other nations. The West has too much pride to admit it has been wrong. As Blair and Bush demonstrate - they have always been right, they are always right, and they will always be right. They alone know whats best for the rest of the world and how to fix it. If they were wrong about the wmd, well who cares they got Saddam anyway and wasn't that "absolutely flipping marvelous", the ends justifies the means so it doesn't matter if we lied and we were wrong, we did this flipping good deed for the world.

How can one expect leaders to admit they were wrong to an "enemy" if they cannot admit it to their "friends" and nations?

But, for the arrogance of its leaders ordinary people will pay. For those who go to bed at night not knowing what "terror" means, it is difficult to imagine the absolute nerve twisting, gut wrenching feeling of "being a target" of violence. But people do. People in Iraq do, people in London now do. Its a "terror" you cannot get away from or fight back - you cannot stop the bombs from falling from the skies in Iraq onto your homes and streets nor can you prevent them from exploding on the underground or the streets.

No one should have to suffer for the pride, arrogance and evil of others. But people do, and no where more so, than when selfish and indifferent politicians play their power games across the chess board of the world. The term "pawn" resonates strongly for me. Those who carry out the acts of violence are no more than pawns primed to attack and trained to kill. Neither Osama Bin Laden, George Bush nor Tony Blair will ever confront one another with weapons...they place their pawns...to carry out the jobs they want done. They live while others die. Pawns are expendable, citizens and civilians are expendable.

I am so tired of the way people kill and maim each other. Disgusted that life has no value on both sides of this divide, that innocent people pay a price they shouldn't have to pay, but always do. I am sick to the heart that the innocent pay the price for the pride of politicians.

The tsunami of December 2004 taught me something - defending oneself against the vagaries of life is hard and painful enough, without the evil that humans seem to desire to inflict on one another.

ungiving?

2005-07-31T19:16:00.000-07:00

I think about this often: How can I make a difference to life around me, to my community and my world? To make the fact that I existed count. Or am I too busy living hedonistically, centring my life around what it gives me and not what I give to life.

I think maybe the consumerist culture has taught us to look at things in terms of what it gives us and what we can get out of it.

I suppose that's true for material possessions, for relationships, and even, believe it or not, for one's faith. Relationsips are mostly about getting; how much good will this be for me, how much can I get from it. Sadly few people truly give and give deeply, becuase they are too busy trying to take. I thought of Khalil Gibran's poem on Giving, from The Prophet. It is revolutionary. It is about giving out of pain, out of little, out of the sheer joy of giving.

And I notice a disturbing trend in the way the Christian faith is preached! It's all about what we can get from God, and what God can give us. So we go to church to get something and feel good. Our faith is generally about getting something from God and other people - be it churches, books or even sermons! So little of it is about how much we give God...and His world. Where are all the sermons about "dying to oneself", about being "a grain of wheat that falls to the ground", about taking up a cross?

We are lap dogs. Pampered and spoilt. Wanting more. Demanding more. Taking more. And yes - giving less. Divinity was poured out for the world and all we do is just sit there and lap it all up with smug satisfaction. The world and God owes us happiness and good times...big time.

Divinity doesn't go beyond our outstretched tongues.

I find the words of David profound! When he is offered free items for a sacrifice his response to the offer is "I will not give to the Lord that which costs me nothing".

What is wrong with us that we have turned so selfish? No wonder the world is full of pain! It's made of a generation of takers and there are so few who truly give.

selfish mathematics

2005-07-26T16:59:00.000-07:00

I have listened to the glib pronouncements of people interviewed for an "opinion" on the recent hot topic "murderous security", and I have thought an unvoiced question: "would you have spoken so carelessly and selflessly of the "greater good", if the sacrifice made was your beloved"?

Frankly its easy to talk. We all talk. Like hell. And loftily, knowledgably, grimly, arrogantly.

I wonder how we would feel about the "one" being sacrificed for the many, for the "greater good" was our "one". My husband, my wife, my son or daughter. My sister or brother, my father or mother. My friend. Would it then be as simple to state loftily that "sacrifices of one" must be made for the safety of many.

I somehow have a distaste for that kind of mathematics. It's the mathematics that decrees some lives less important than others. It decrees that one life is less important than many. It disturbs me that we live now in an era where the value placed on life is determined by the maxim "the greater good for the greater number".

This is Orwellian economy - of the valuelessness of a single individual, and the necessity for the state or political group to determine which one that individual will be.
Are we not becoming the "dictatorships" we despise, where a "suspect" in the street is gunned down for the "greater good of the greater number"? Is that not the foundation of a dictatorship - that a leader or leaders decide who is worth sacrificing for the sake of the rest and whose freedom should be restricted for the sake of the rest?

I don't know...I am troubled and I am just wondering!

novelty the spice of life?

2005-07-17T18:24:00.000-07:00

one might think that in everything novelty is everything.

check this list.

1. this blog will wear off. check it out in 6mths for regularity.

2. appearance. check out hairstyles for style and colours, the ranges of make-up, the variety of perfumes.

3. clothes. check out the charity shops and discover how novelty wears off the clothes people wear.

4 food. check out sainsburys for the ranges of cheeses, icecreams, sauces, soaps, shampoos.

5. toys. check out the boredom threshold of children with a new toy. and the novelty threshold of adults buying the latest gadgetry for the kitchen, the loo, the bedroom, the desk, the tv, the radio, the computer.

6. sex. check out the porn sites, radio programmes and sex shops. a little more titillation. a new partner, another couple, an extra man, an extra woman, with three or four, with gadgets

7. love. check out the broken relatiohships. more excitement. more fun. thrill of new face, new voice, new interests, new body.

8. houses. check out the redecoration madness, the throw away madness, the get-a-new-look madness. get a new house madness, a new garden in a day. homes and gardens used to grow old with its people, lived in and loved. now they are just passed through on the way to a novelty house.

how do you get out of the novelty machine the world has become. sure its no harm trying out clothes, cheeses and toys. but what if the novelty mind-set spills over into everything else. what if we see everything else as "old hat".

how do you then begin to find loveliness in the worn out family home, the familiar beloved faces, the known lover, the old nuances? and in your sparkling and exciting novelty world from where do you glean comfort, tenderness, warmth, laughter for they come not from novelty but from the dear, known, sometimes worn out and strangely beautiful familiarity.

novelty might be a very small something. but it is far from everything.

listen to the heartbeats

2005-07-17T05:17:00.000-07:00

life? it happens to you on the way to the big things you think are "life".

life is "body time", the now. not "mechanical time" of clock time. we just need clock time becuase we are afraid of body time. clock time reassures.

life is moments. the now. at 07.21am when you open your eyes and look into the eyes of someone you love. the 11.46am moment when a talking animal says something profoundly silly and true. or the 15.38pm moment when you suddenly laugh while sipping tea. life is 21.04pm when a haunting piece of music goes like an arrow into you. its the 01.57am moment when in the stillness of the night you stop and a thought goes so deep, its poignancy pierces.

we wait for life. prepare for it. manic redecorators of houses we spend time redesigning it. we plan. the next day, next week, next month, next year, ten years. we imagine it will come. later. not today.

but

life

just

heartbeat.

it can

stop.

at any moment.

the next minute. the next hour. the next day.

there is no later. just the now. as alan lightman said "instead they listened to their heartbeats".

i like that.

i want to live listening to heartbeats. mine and others.

Dido reflects on cats and people

2005-04-24T11:21:00.000-07:00

People are strange - give me a darn good feline anyday (preferably Ringo).

Take people. To begin with they don't have much fur. Never trust a creature without fur I say. No fur? Grrrrrrrrrr. How can you trust smooth furless skin? People talk of smooth talkers, but we felines talk of smooth skinners. Hmmm I just realised that living with the firegeni is teaching me compromise; I am learning to tolerate furlessness - it's a price I have to pay for this relationship.

Listen to this! Humans actually SHAVE off any fur they have, even a suspicion of it. Or they peel it off. Erm...judging by the wails produced in some quarters while the process of "defurestation" occurs, take it from me, it's very painful. The yowls and screams would make any cat - even a big brave one like me - flee with terror. I have decided that any creature that shaves off their God-given fur needs to be institutionalised and taught the benefits of fur. All except the few whose furlessness I am learning to accept. (The demands that love makes on one are exhausting.)

Humans are even funnier. They not only shave off what they are supposed to have, they use what they do not have. Have you ever seen a human with claws and fangs for instance? (barring vampires I mean and they aren't strictly "human" - no really they aren't). Well believe me humans use them very efficiently, even there are none visible, and the damage they do is unbelievable.

Many humans also use nonretractable metaphoric "nails" to inflict lasting psychological damage. This is, strangely, on the humans closest to them. An indifferent scratch here and a deliberate rip there in the fabric of human vulnerability, and within a year you have a shredded human. A careless cruel word here and a bit of sarcasm and snideness there, and one is well on the way to pulverised human psyche.

Frankly the damage humans do to one another would make a decent cat blush. We cats don't spend time being catty (and while we are about it - bitches aren't really bitchy). Humans eat each other up - literally, and smack their lips after it too.

Ask me why I prefer a leopard or tiger anyday? Go on ask me.

It's becuase we sagged pe pellet standard felines do a darn good job of many things. We cuddle like experts, we are deeply philosophical (as you would have noticed), we are very good at washing people (sluuurrrrrp, slllll sllllll slllurp) and cheering them up.

And we are pretty good at loving the fur - oops I mean skin (sigh) off the humans we own.

"trust me" Kaa (Jungle Book)

2005-04-15T14:34:00.000-07:00

Image of a politician? Think Jungle Book. Think Kaa. Wide mesmerising eyes, hypnotic sway, hissing promises and constant sibilant echo "truuuust me". So who are we supposed to trust? Bush backed Blair contingent with pointy shiny shoes? Or the other trumpeted election calls? Do they actually care about the country and the world, and are their motives genuine and unselfish?

Frankly I don't trust politicians. (that's probably obvious!). In today's context a "politician" is synonymous with "smooth walker sweet talker". Election politics has changed over the years into a media constructed debacle where one sees politicians and their polished manifestos generally through the filter of the media. Election campaigns are as carefully planned and sophisticated as blockbuster movies in terms of effect and success. This no doubt means we see the politicians "made up" in more ways than one. What we get are smoothened, refined, planned delivery, with many takes, cuts and edits. We rarely get politicians "live".

So what do we do with the edited politics of today? Our suave smiling polite politicians? Genuine politics can only come out of an altruistic desire to serve people but one wonders if there is such a thing as altruism in the heart of a politician. An ancient example still shines vividly. Standing at the height of his success and popularity in public, John the Baptist says with humility (of Christ) "He must increase and I must decrease". Perhaps the analogy might appear odd. But here is humility and altruism that modern politicians know nothing about; a leadership without self seeking moitves and sans any desire for glory and recognition, without any desire except to serve people and God. I hope there comes a day when we might see raised up, a man, of principles and humility, with a heart for people and the world.

But on a final note...Machiavelli's The Prince presents such a difficult dilemma. An altruistic honest politician, according to him, is nothing but a suicidal bid for extinction

to trust or not to trust.

2005-04-14T16:24:00.000-07:00

Having spent an evening with two endearing kids, playing games, cuddling them and being cuddled (as well as being leapt on and smothered) I couldn't help but think about the nature of "trust".

Kids trust, and trust completely. They snuggle up to you with open arms and hearts, no holds barred, no fear, no distrust. It is a sad fact that one learns the art of distrust through the years in order to survive, for without distrust we would be destroyed. People encourage you to trust, but lets face it, we live in a world where trusting as a child does, with complete faith, is often nothing short of a recipe for disaster.

Ever so rarely we drop our guard, let our vulnerabilities be seen and let ourselves be known. But that is rare. So rare. If one possesses one friend with whom one can do that, I think it is one of the greatest privileges and gifts of life. Nothing, just nothing, compares to that gift. We might have all we want, but if we do not possess at least one person with whom our guard is completely down, where our hearts are open without fear or distrust, we do not have what we most truly need - the freedom to be what we most truly are.

Sadly most times we are compelled to fold our arms, shut our hearts, bar the doors, smell our fear and nurse our distrust and run for cover, terrified that our openness will destroy us, make us vulnerable and hurt. Most of us have been there, done that and that's it. No more. Bye bye trust.

Dido says that if one's instincts are in good working order, you can scent danger long before it hits you and run. But if you smell "safety" you can smoothen your fur and with a contented stretch, purr long and loud. She at the moment is feeling somewhat injured at the indignity of having been bitten by a child! "I bite" she told me with immense dignity. "I do not get bitten"! "The worst indignity," she said, sniffin with irritation "is being sucked on like a soother. Huh you talking of trust? I don't trust no kid within a mile of pe pellet leopard."

Four legged philosophy...

2005-04-14T00:20:00.000-07:00

I was wondering whether I should start off with a good old rant on something (as promised by subtitle "random fired rantings"). There is much that can be the target of a good healthy rant: the state of the world, injustice, poverty, environmental issues, the pervasive influence of consumer mentality and individualisitic capitalist ambition, the Merkin empire and its commitment to daisycutter philosophy, gherkin behaviour of people, the looming elections, the place of wimmin in the church, dear Tony Blair courting votes and disaster in shiny pointy black shoes and standard political smile, and my own immense stupidity in refusing the perceptive advice of friends (and having to meekly swallow humble pie dished out with "I told you so's" ad nauseum in my tired ears). I could go on and on but you get the general drift of possible rants.

I was, however, pondering on something philosophical today. Is it possible to converse with non-human entities? Hold it! I never said nuffin about occult, spirits or stuff like that. I am not one to converse with floating insubstantial jelly like entities, and have a deep dislike of disembodied voices and transparent wispy beings. I refer here to four legged entities of the feline ilk ("the big cat variety not the icky miaowing ones" hissed Dido just now). The kind that carry their superior constitution of "polyester fibre" and "inner sagged pe pellets" with dignity, and have pride in their high conformity with toy safety standards.

Let me explain. Visiting us - Dido (the leopard) and me - is a very astute tiger named Ringo. In the past week some extremely illuminating texts, literally philosophical gems, were exchanged between Ringo and Dido. Although I was merely human, I could fully appreciate the content of these texts. Moreover I have personally had some sound insightful comments from both felines over the past week. (Ringo in a fit of passionate loyalty did resort to certain tactics and I had a very touching text from him stating, "leave such morsels to mine angry tiger teeth").

If God decreed that He should speak out of the mouth of a dumb ass to a dumb man, why should not pearls of wisdom be offered from the lips of erstwhile philosophical felines? If four legged philosophy was permitted by the Ancient of Days in the ancient days, why pray not now? We listen to garbled trash that passes for "the philosophy of life, the universe and everything" that oozes at us from the mouths of the most ridiculous sources.

So my question is this "In a world of oozing floating twisted philosophy, does four legged sagged pe pellet philosophy count?"