Thursday 22 December 2016

The Boss consults Q his spiritual director once more

The Boss consults Q his spiritual director once more

- Hi Boss.
- Hi Q.
They both settle down into Q’s comfortable chairs, not quite facing one another. There is a tense silence as Q waits.
- I’m finding Christmas very difficult.
- Hmm, Q nods.
- Yes, it is the lack of compassion, the lack of common sense, the lack of wit and wisdom, the whole mess of things…
Q waits.
- How can you take it? .... How can you be silent?
Q smiles enigmatically.
- Don’t smile at me!
Q laughs.
- That’s not helpful!
- I know but you either curse the darkness or light a candle.
- Is that so (sarcastically) … Is that enough?
- No, but it is important to act in as many ways as possible and lighting a candle and saying a prayer is a start and may lead one to more considered, possibly more successful actions.
- Hmm, said the Boss, but I want a better world and I want it now!
- Me too!
- Oh ….
- Why ever not? …The question is how?
The Boss nods - I know my actions are not enough but sometimes I get so frustrated!
- Me too!
- Oh.
- Yes.
- What does God want?
- Do you really want my answer to that?
- Please!
- Love.
- Love?
- Love of self, love of others, love of the planet.
- How?
- Try it out with the next person you meet, but gently!

Gibbs is too mch for me - poem

Gibbs is too much for me

I’m walking down the street
In my long black coat
And I become Neil Tennant

But I’m not singing West End Girls
Like in the video
Instead Can’t Take My Eyes Off You

And I never become Gibbs from NCIS
Even though this who I am
For my daughter, in this coat

Gibbs is too much for me
I wouldn’t mind becoming Gibbs
But I am not there … yet.

Sunday 11 December 2016

Musing

For the last 20 or so years until recently I was working full-time some of it evenings and weekends (and never quite got the time back) pre-occupied with my work and the parts of it that I really enjoyed - all those academic papers and books wot I wrote that a few hundred people read.

Actually the best bit was my students and being able to work with them for several years on projects that mattered to them and to me. God I was and am thankful for that opportunity!

Now I have time to stop and stare and I notice so much. I was walking back from the Coop today thinking about my choir outflit and whether black cords would work (heaven forbid!) and for a few minutes picked up on the attire of the people passing me by, really individual, different 'tribes'! It can of had a language, an expression.

Some times, some days I notice the strain in people's faces, very poignant when it is a young mum. I can become aware of those who need a good shoulder to cry on. My life changed when I suddenly could see beneath people's masks back in 1973 - but that is another story!