Socks In Space

In an earlier post, I suggested that the interior of women’s handbags constituted a kind of weird infinite space in which anything could be inserted, but from which relatively little could be withdrawn. I don’t resile from this conclusion; however, just to show that I’m not a complete sexist, let me tell you about another odd phenomenon in the space-time continuum.

Men’s socks.

The problem with my socks is that they go missing. Moreover, it seems to me that the problem of missing socks is a peculiarly male phenomenon: other blokes I have spoken to record similar experiences. Granted, maybe there are some women out there who also experience the problem of disappearing socks, but I suspect their numbers, in comparison to the male of the species, are miniscule.

Specifically, my socks go missing in the washing machine and/or the clothes dryer. Perhaps they even go missing in transit between the two. Either way, I always end up with fewer pairs of socks than I started with, and more odd socks than was previously the case.

The way I have it figured, men’s socks must be some strange variety of highly localized, mobile black hole. However, this particular black hole doesn’t consume the material universe – it consumes itself, winking out of the space-time continuum and leaving not even the echo of its own gravity behind. It just disappears. It’s as though the sock itself percolates through the fabric of space into another dimension altogether.

I’ve searched high and low for my missing socks. Behind cupboards and dressers; under chairs and couches; into nooks and crannies. God help me, I even explored the Stygian depths of my laundry basket looking for the blasted things (and if you knew what a disgusting experience that was, you’d appreciate the depths of my frustration). But no, nothing. Zip. Nada. Not a sausage. In fact, I’d probably have a better chance of finding sausages rather than my socks in all the places I’ve looked. They’ve just gone.

It seems to me there can only be three possibilities:

1. The centrifugal force of the washing machine creates a temporary wormhole (or, in the alternative, activates the socks’ black hole potential), causing them to slip through the space time continuum and thus vanish.

2. The action of the washing machine creates an electro-magnetic field between the clothes washer and the dryer, permeating the space between the two with a quantum warp that attracts socks and causes them to disappear.

3. The tumbling motion of the dryer produces a temporal-spatial flux that so intense it disturbs the molecular structure of the socks, and they dissipate into a thin haze of elementary particles.

Now, I know you’re thinking this all sounds highly improbable, but let me ask this: if it’s so far fetched, how come it’s only socks that disappear? How come my undies are always there where I left them? Why don’t my T-shirts go flitting off into quantum space? Why are my trousers so stolidly attached to this universe? I reckon it’s got something to do with the fact that socks come in pairs – it’s a matter, anti-matter thing. And since we live in a universe of matter, not anti-matter, one of the two socks must inevitably disappear…

Either that, or Rod Serling regularly visits my laundry when I’m not looking, turns to a TV audience occupying some undetectable dimension of space-time, and says: I offer for your consideration, two socks, one of whom is about to enter the Twilight Zone…

Talk to you soon,

BB

Quote for the Day: Mix a little foolishness with your serious plans; it's lovely to be silly at the right moment. (Horace)

Birthday Bash

It's my Dearly Beloved's birthday today.

I'm not going to reveal her age, not because it's especially advanced (in any event, she's younger than me) but because like most people, she's sensitive about the fact that yet another year has gone by. Which means (according to her) that she's no longer in the first bloom of her youth.

Big deal. To me, she's beautiful.

Naturally, she's been coping with the fact of her "advanced" age by subjecting Yours Truly to a mutually exclusive cross-current of emotional demands. On the one hand, she's been a bit weepy because (again, according to her) her biological clock is now ticking just that tad louder, meaning I had better get my act into gear and start co-operating on the producing offspring front. As if it hasn't been bad enough fending off demands for grandchildren from my parents! On the other hand, she's made it clear that I'd better come up with the goods present-wise on the day in question or else! And not just presents, either, but a night out on the town as well.

In other words, she doesn't want to be reminded that it's her birthday; but at the same time, she wants to be reminded that it's her birthday.

You can see my dilemma, can't you? Especially since I've never been an "events" kind of guy. Birthdays and such (my own included) are just another day in the calendar; not, I hasten to add, because I'm living in a state of denial about my advancing decreptitude (afterall, I can't hide from the mirror in the bathroom), but because it just strikes me as entirely artificial. What makes the anniversary of one's arrival in the world any more noteworthy than any other day? I mean, it's not like you did something original being born; why make a fuss?

Now, before you accuse me of being a miserbale old git with no sense of occassion, let me remind you that our calendar isn't exactly short of phoney "occassions" that have become little more than expressions of the laissez faire lust for wealth accumulation. Take Valentine's Day. Why should I fork out fifty bucks for flowers and another hundred or so for a meal just to tell my Dearly Beloved the same thing I tell her every other day of the week: that I love her lots and lots? And how come it's always the bloke who has to pay? And how "romantic" is it really to propose marriage on Valentine's Day? Heck, it doesn't exactly take much imagination to do the obvious, so you gotta wonder about a scenario where every couple at every table in every restaurant are doing exactly the same thing. I mean, isn't part of romance meant to be its originality, its uniqueness to the couple in question? Sheesh, if my partner wanted to wine and dine me on the same day of the year as everyone else, I'd frankly suspect they were too lousy to trouble over me the rest of the time.

So, okay, maybe a birthday doesn't exactly fall into the same cheesy category as Valentine's Day. But by the same token, it's not that big a deal, either. I mean, I know Clive James began his autobiography by suggesting the two big events of 1939 were his birth and the outbreak of World War II, but I think most of us will agree that our own nativity isn't quite worth the same amount of fanfare. Besides which, the increasing materialism of modern society makes it next to impossible to provide the birthday boy or girl with a gift that one feels is adequate for the occassion (or, more correctly, their sense of the occassion). Which is why I tend to go for the gift voucher. Okay, so a gift voucher is probably about as original as a "romantic" Valentine's Day dinner, but at least it has the virtue of practicality; and if the end result is disatisfaction with the purchase arising from use of said voucher, I'll have the consolation of knowing that it was self-inflicted and not a product of my ineptitude.

Ultimately, all the fuss about birthdays and the sundry other "anniversaries" is an expression of our insecurity, usually manifested as a need to "feel special". As if the fact of being alive wasn't special enough. Sure, okay, us humans are emotional creatures, and evey now and then we like to know that others think highly of us (or, at least, are prepared to tell us they hold us in esteem). But fair crack of the whip; if you need to be told by others that you're special without already knowing it yourself, you're going to be in trouble from the outset. And not just "special" in that phoney-baloney way beloved of TV agony aunts and self-help gurus; but special as in absolutely and utterly unique. There's no-one in the entire cosmos like you - and there never will be. Ever. No matter the permutations of physics and chemistry and biology, the universe will never produce another you. Which, granted, is probably a good thing in the case of Adolf Hitler or the average professional wrestler. But as for you - well, God really did break the mold when the cosmos came up with your good self. Just as God breaks the mold when the cosmos comes up with every other self.

In other words, being born ain't that big a deal. But you are. Understand the difference, and maybe the need to "feel special" won't be such a pain in the existential backside.

Talk to you soon,

BB

Quote for the Day: Gluttony is an emotional escape, a sign that something is eating us. (Peter de Vries)

The Plates of Wrath

Human vanity takes many forms, from worrying about our waistlines to squandering our hard-earned on cosmetics whose only proven effect is to make their manufacturers rich. One of the more annoying forms of vanity, however, is encountered every day on the highways and byways of the suburban sprawl.

I’m talking about vanity number plates.

Seriously, who wants to know if you think you are SEXEE, or HOT2TROT? Do you think I really give a toss if you reckon your car is AWSUM or BEWDEFUL? And who cares if it belongs to SHAZZY or DEANO? I mean, is your life so empty and meaningless that you have to try an imprint some aspect of your identity on what is effectively just a tool for conveying you from one place to another?

Actually, tool might just be the operative word. Especially in respect of those sad types who chug along the freeways at 40 clicks an hour in a clapped out, mustard coloured 1975 Datsun with BEAST or SPEEDY emblazoned on the number plate. And don’t tell me they’re being ironic, either. Anyone who takes something that should properly be pulled along by a team of horses onto a freeway isn’t engaging in irony; they’re being deliberately and wilfully annoying. And festooning their crate with a vanity number plate only adds insult to injury.

And, of course, there’s the cruiser crowd. You see them in certain precincts around the city, driving up and down designated strips in their souped up Holdens and Fords, glistening bodywork offset by idiotic undercarriage lights, doof-doof music roaring at ear-splitting levels in between burn outs, donuts, and generally endangering the public at large. And, of course, there’s the obligatory vanity plates. Variations on EXXTYC and WYKEDD predominate, as well as sundry suggestions that the owner of the vehicle in question is either a reincarnation of John Holmes (you know what I mean) or else God’s gift to womanhood in general. The truth being, of course, that said rev-head is probably as endowed as a gnat, with the personality to boot.

But what makes this whole situation laughable (or sad) is that it’s just a money-spinning exercise. Some clever dick within the government has figured out what the fashion and cosmetics industries have always known: human vanity generates income. Big time. And so government being no less inured to the attractions of increased cash flow than anyone else, they have in their generosity allowed the more gullible and vainglorious among us to trade cash for a sense of their own individuality. Just like every other individual with a vanity plate. Hence the last laugh is on all those who wish to stand out; they end up looking exactly like everyone else.

However, if Yours Truly ran the world (and let’s face it, we’d all be a lot happier if I did) purchasing a vanity plate would also come with a compulsory extra, just to make abundantly clear the owner of said plate’s unique uniqueness (as distinct from the unique uniqueness of every other vanity plate owner). Anyone who bought a vanity plate could have whatever message they wanted; but they would also receive a mandatory tattoo whose content would be unvarying.

Just a single word. On their forehead. In nice, big, red capital letters.

MORON.

Talk to you soon,

BB

Quote for the Day: Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them, the rest of us could not succeed. (Mark Twain)

The Necessary Tension

In an earlier post, I described how the Apostle Thomas - Thomas the Doubter - is one of my heroes because his relationship with the divine was the most human, and therefore the most honest. Arising from this comes an inevitable question: what position, if any, do I have on the question of doubt and its place in faith?

To an extent, we live in a state of perpetual uncertainty. The future is always unknown, and we have no means of predicting whether our hopes will be achieved or our fears realised. Likewise, awareness of our mortality always means the question of what happens beyond death lurks near at hand. Life at times seems arbitrary and capricious, the captive of random chance and an unforeseeable circumstance.

But there are times when this daily existential uncertainty sharpens into something stronger, when it causes us to question the point of existence or the basis of faith. These occasions may be precipitated by personal tragedy, or simply by witnessing the terrible sadness of existence as it plays out in daily life. Either way, they often shake the foundations of our being, and with that being, our faith.

The frequent response has been that we must cling to faith, to regard it as the rock upon which we scramble out of the sea of our troubles, or the shield from which we find shelter against the vicissitudes of fortune. Indeed, faith is often seen as that which carries us through our trials and torments, and that we inevitably and ultimately triumph over adversity by and because of the quality of our faith.

In other words, faith is a quality, a virtue; whereas doubt is a weakness, a flaw that corrodes faith and undermines our capacity to deal with life’s uncertainties. In this context, faith and doubt are mutually exclusive, they exist in a state of continuous repulsion, much like magnets which are similarly polarised.

But I have a different view, a view that utilises the Eastern Orthodox notion of the Holy Spirit existing in perichorsis, or a “dance around”. In the same way that, in the Orthodox Church, the Persons of the Trinity are in a mutual and continuous relation, so I also believe that faith and doubt exist in a similar “dance“.

To explain, I believe that faith and doubt exist in a necessary tension, a balanced and ongoing relation in which each complements the other, while also cancelling one another’s negative effects. Thus, they are not similarly polarised magnets that repel one another, they are like a binary star system, distinct and yet bound by their mutual gravity. Faith and doubt hold one another at arm’s distance, yet are enclosed in a perpetual embrace. Without one, the other is diminished; without the other, the one is insufficient.

In other words, without faith, doubt degenerates into cynicism and despair; and without doubt, faith warps into fundamentalism and bigotry. Doubt grounds faith, and faith transcends doubt.

However, the mutuality of this relationship points to its true worth: that in doubt, the expression of our human brokenness and inadequacy before and without God, lies the seed for developing a mature faith. By mature faith, I mean that faith which not only lives with doubt and uncertainty, tolerating them as necessary aspects of being; rather, faith which embraces doubt, which understands that doubt is not a weakness, but rather a potential for enlightenment.

Beyond this, however, the mutuality of this necessary tension also points to something beyond the simple relationship between faith and doubt. In the overlapping yet distinct relation between the two, a third space is created; a space which represents the active operation of both. A space in which faith and doubt have ceased to be separate features and have merged to form a new wholeness. A space in which humanity lives, a space that is the essence of a living faith.

And I call this space: hope.

Talk to you soon,

BB

Quote for the Day: Not being able to control events I control myself; if they will not adapt to me, then I will adapt to them. (Michel de Montaigne)

Growing Old Disgracefully

I recently saw a cosmetics ad on TV that started off by saying something like: Worried about the signs of aging around your eyes? Sure, surgery may be one option, or you could try… There followed a spiel in which the qualities of the product in question to reduce the “signs of aging” were exulted. To which my immediate reaction was: Or, as a third option, you could develop some depth to your personality and not give a toss about such banal irrelevancies…

I mean, consider the “signs of aging”. Let’s be honest: when cosmetics ads talk about the “signs of aging”, they mean wrinkles. And wrinkles are supposed to be bad, because they’re a sign that you’re looking old. In other words, being old is bad - so the least you can do is not look old. And this is where all the creams and lotions and unguents come into the picture. All you have to do to stop looking old is layer your face in so much cosmetic you’re likely to be mistaken for a mobile sponge cake. Then you’ll be acceptable in polite society.

But I beg to differ. To begin, wrinkles don’t necessarily mean you’re getting old, only that you’ve lived. Sure, life can knock you out of shape every now and then, and maybe this does sometimes translate into a few extra frown lines. But doesn’t that same wear and tear also indicate a person rich in life-experience? Doesn’t it also indicate a person to whom others can relate, if only because of the fact of shared experience? You know what I think when I see allegedly “flawless” beauty? I think here’s a person who’s either been spoiled rotten their whole lives, or who doesn’t actually want to engage with life. And, yes, I appreciate that there are some people who are just naturally beautiful and don’t seem to “age” at all; but for the rest of us mere mortals, I think wrinkles are actually a pretty good indicator about the kind of life a person’s lead.

Secondly, I happen to think laughter lines around the eyes are an incredibly attractive feature. A woman with beautiful eyes will always get my attention, but if those eyes also show signs that the person possessing them has warmth and depth and a sense of humour, then beauty ceases being an impersonal fact and becomes human. Laughter lines are, for me, one means by which cold beauty ceases being remote, and becomes a pointer to the kind of personal characteristics I think make an individual worth getting to know.

Thirdly, what actually causes wrinkles – is it getting old, or is it all the stupid things we do to ourselves in the meantime? Granted, aging does make the skin harden, and that will normally produce wrinkles. But by what factor is this natural process exacerbated by all the unnatural things we do to ourselves? Take, for example, the Anglo obsession with getting a tan. We spend hours in the sun; we spray ourselves from head to foot with fake tan lotions; and we visit solariums and pay a fortune to be irradiated in coffin-shaped booths. Does anyone stop to think what this is doing to our skin, aside from turning us into the human equivalent of roast potatoes? I’m telling you now, our own vanity gives us more wrinkles than getting old ever will.

Finally, why on earth would you want surgery to remove wrinkles? You’d have to be either so utterly vain and self-absorbed as to be incapable of meaningful relationships with others, or so insecure that no amount of corrective procedure is going to make you feel good about yourself. You’re like the dude with the brand new car, obsessed with discovering the least scratch or imperfection. Even when nothing’s wrong, you’re likely to think there’s a nip to be made there, or a tuck to be performed here. And that way lies madness.

The bottom line is that we don’t like getting old, so we try and kid ourselves by various means that we’re really still young. But here’s a news flash, folks: we do get old, and there’s not a damned thing we can do about it. Nor is it a bad thing, either. Sure, no-one – Yours Truly included - wants age to be accompanied by either physical or mental infirmity; but do we have to subject ourselves to the unnecessary torture of living in a state of cosmetically induced denial? And, no, I’m not exactly thrilled about the fact that my hair is falling out, my eyesight dimming, and my waistline expanding – but it doesn’t matter how many face lifts, mud-packs, or Botox injections we undergo, the fact is we age.

All of us. And, one day, we die. Frankly, I want my corpse to look at least vaguely human, and not like some bizarre wax mummy.

So we’d all be better off just accepting the fact that we age, and learn not just to live with it, but appreciate it for what it is: part of our humanity. In the meantime, the billions we spend enriching cosmetics firms might be more usefully directed elsewhere: securing world peace, for example, or ending global poverty. Afterall, there’s plenty of people out there who’d just love to live long enough to have all the visible signs of aging.

Talk to you soon,

BB

Quote for the Day: No wise man ever wished to be younger. (Jonathan Swift)

Blog For A Slow Day II

You guessed it! It’s another dreary day here at Comfortable Couch Central, so since I can’t be bothered blogging something creative, here comes another Top Ten list or two!

Top Ten Non-Fiction Books

1. History of the Byzantine Empire (3 vols) by John Julius Nowich
2. A History of Venice by John Julius Norwich
3. The Normans in Sicily by John Julius Norwich
4. The travel books of Bill Bryson
5. The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History by Michael H Hart
6. Criminal Shadows and Mapping Murder by Dr David Canter
7. Written in Blood and A Criminal History of Mankind by Colin Wilson
8. Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer
9. The Anatomy of Motive by John Douglas and Mark Olshaker
10. Cosmos by Carl Sagan

Top Ten Philosophical Works

1. Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
2. Moral Letters by Seneca
3. The Consolation of Philosophy by Ancius Boethius
4. The Book of Mencius by Mencius
5. Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu
6. Analects by Confucius
7. The letters and teachings of Epicurus
8. Essays by Michel de Montaigne
9. Discourses by Epictetus
10. The Consolations of Philosophy by Alain de Botton

Well, that little lot should give you something to think about, so I’ll leave you to your ruminations and get back to my existential ennui.

Talk to you soon,

BB.

Quote for the Day: Every person likes to think they're unique, until someone tells them they're different. (P K Shaw)

Return of the Bogun

I’m an outer suburbs kind of guy.

To be sure, the inner city has much to recommend it: great cafes and restaurants, brilliant coffee palaces, and interesting little taverns and gin joints. But in one vital area, it is critically deficient: junk food.

Nor am I talking about the big chain operations. Rather, I am referring to those poky little shopfront places with names like Greasy Chips Galore, or Joe's Deep Fried Chicken. Suburban, mum-and-dad joints that are open late at night on a Sunday, and who make no pretension to class or style.

No kidding, my mouth is watering even as I type. I can just taste the succulent chicken flesh, moist and melting in the mouth, the savoury barbeque seasoning on the crispy golden-brown skin a tangy, flavoursome paradise. And the chips! I’m not talking about a miserable scattering of stringy, wilted stalks here, folks, but a veritable forest of crunchy, deep-fried potato delights.

And let’s face it, there’s a certain amount of tedium associated with fine dining. To begin with, there’s the dressing up. I don’t care what anyone says, squeezing yourself into a suit and tie just so you can appear sophisticated is not my idea of a good night out. Maybe there are people who enjoy looking like asphyxiated penguins or mobile lemon meringues, but I’m sure they’re safely locked away where they can’t do any harm to themselves or society. By contrast, at the local junk food emporium, they don’t give a toss what you look like – so long as you’re actually dressed. The point is not to be seen and admired, it’s to enjoy the food.

Which brings me to my next point: what could be crueler than to be in some la-de-da restaurant, watching with gleeful anticipation as the waiter staggers toward you bearing a plate the size of Tasmania, only to discover the serving has the dimensions of a malnourished pea! With what despair do you remember the exciting description of said morsel in the menu, trying to reconcile the apparent abundance with the impoverished reality. And that’s the main course! Never mind false advertising, I reckon these sadistic sods ought to have the book thrown at them. Something weighty, for mind - like the collected works of Karl Marx. At least I know my local chicken bar will make up in portion size whatever it may lack in nutritional value – a fair and reasonable compromise, in my view!

Finally, there’s the service. Don’t you just hate it when you get some snooty waiter who spends the whole meal reminding you that you’re in their restaurant, and they’re consequently doing you a great favour merely acknowledging your presence, never mind actually serving you? Don’t get me wrong: I hate the uppity types who pay out on the waiting staff just because they are the waiting staff. But nothing annoys the bejeezers out of me more than when you get some snide git who’s bitter because he’ll never make maitre d’, and who has decided to vent his frustrations on the clientele. Sure, maybe at the local cholesterol 'n' chips joint you don’t exactly get service with a smile and a song, but, hell, I ain’t there for the conversation, either. I’ll take indifference over a lousy attitude, any day.

No, you can call me a gastronomic philistine if you like; to me, this food heaven. Cuisine nouvelle and all the rest of that pretentious guff can go on being elegant and refined; I’d much prefer to enjoy my food.

Besides, as my inner Homer would say: mmmmmm, chicken…

Talk to you soon,

BB.

Quote for the Day: Restaurants are just brothels for the mouth. (Frederic Raphael)

Saving Grace

In an earlier post, I sketched what I meant when I stated that I am a Christian. As part of that discussion, I acknowledged that I would need to articulate my view about other faiths, but deferred doing so to another time. That time has now arrived.

Until recently, my view could essentially be summed up in the saying, All roads lead to Rome. That is, I believed all faiths were variations of the human experience of God, and as such, were ultimately different paths to the same outcome. In holding this view, I wanted to reject the notion that any one faith held an absolute monopoly on truth, or a complete understanding of God. I still abhor absolutism, and I still reject any suggestion that any one person or faith has the inside running on God. But my view about other faiths has changed. Or, more correctly, it has become more nuanced.

This change is largely due to having read, as part of my theological studies, a book entitled Salvations: Truth and Difference in Religions (Orbit Books, Maryknoll, New York, 1995) by the American theologian S. Mark Heim. Heim’s thesis is very simple: it is not a question of which faith saves? but what is salvation? Heim argues that different faiths cannot be qualitatively compared because the outcome toward which each faith is oriented is both different and unique. Moreover, what these differences, and the uniqueness underlying them, points to is the fact that there is more than one realisable religious aim, each of which represents a salvation available to the adherents of that faith. This may not be “salvation” as it is understood by Christians, but it is nonetheless real and providential.

Further, Heim argues that this “multiplicity of religious ends” is in fact reflective of the loving plenitude of God. The salvations available through other faiths represent the workings of God’s love across time and human society; God has extended to humanity the freedom to respond in a number of different ways to the invitation to realise the fullness of God‘s love. The religious end of each faith represents a unique and providential way in which humans can respond to that invitation.

In short, what Heim is arguing is not that all roads lead to Rome, but that all roads lead to different Romes. Each “Rome” represents the “salvation” available to the adherents of that faith; they are all unique and different, but they are also reflective of God’s love for humanity, and representative of the many ways in which humans can participate in the fullness of God’s love.

I think this is a powerful and deeply insightful analysis, not least because it enables Christians to perceive that Christianity, as a faith, is not “in competition” with other faiths; it is not a question of “survival of the strongest” or a “race” to make converts. Rather, Christians can assert the truth and uniqueness of Christian belief and practice, while at the same time neither arrogantly dismissing, nor superficially endorsing, the claims of other faiths. The context for understanding other faiths - and our own - becomes not conflictual or competitive, but relational.

Not that I agree with Heim on every point. Heim asserts that the “salvations” available in other faiths represent “lesser goods” because they are not full communion with God as this is understood by Christians; that while they represent the “dearest desire” of the adherents of that faith, the salvation available in Christianity is nonetheless the “most ultimate” of all the religious ends. In making this claim, I believe Heim has stumbled into a logical contradiction: if the different religious ends are each unique and incapable of qualitative comparison, then there are simply no grounds for asserting either that the “salvations” available through other faiths are “lesser goods”, or that the salvation of Christianity is the “most ultimate” of the realisable religious ends. Moreover, in this respect, I also think Heim strays perilously close to the kind of religious imperialism which his hypothesis of multiple religious ends is actually trying to avoid.

Ultimately, however, and influenced by my reading of Heim, I believe that all faiths offer their adherents the opportunity for salvation - not by providing different paths to the same door, but by providing a multiplicity of salvations that are unique to each faith, and which are not amenable to qualitative comparison. The salvation offered by each faith reflects the working of God’s love throughout history and across human society, as well as the freedom which God has given humanity to respond in different ways to the invitation to communion with God. I do not believe that the salvation offered by a particular faith can be said to be either a “lesser good” or the “most ultimate”; indeed, it is not a question of ascribing value to each religious end, or asserting that different faiths are of equal, lesser, or superior merit. Rather, it is simply a matter of recognising the unique and providential difference of each faith.

I appreciate that some may find this position confronting, disturbing, possibly even offensive. But I also believe that it is a position which, on the one hand, does not dilute my convictions as a Christian, while on the other, acknowledges and honours the presence and working of God in other faiths by recognising the valid religious end - the different and unique salvation - available to the adherents of other faiths.

Talk to you soon,

BB

Quote for the Day: There was a time when I used to reject those who were not of my faith; now my heart has grown capable of taking on all forms...Whichever the route love's caravan shall take, that path shall be the path of my faith. (Muhammad Ibn' Arabi)

Fashion Disasters

One recent morning, as I stood on the station platform waiting for my train, a young man walked past me, wearing a dark suit jacket and trousers, black t-shirt, faux Stetson shoes, and a shiny top hat.

I immediately thought: moron.

Perhaps it was uncharitable of me to do so. Afterall, my own dress sense has never exactly been award-winning. Indeed, a fair judge would deduce that I was the last person to be smirking at someone else’s attire. But at least I try to make an attempt - however token - to appear inconspicuous, if not exactly normal. This young man’s getup, by contrast, simply invited scorn.

He didn’t look like he was going to a fancy dress party, despite his appearance (anyway, it was 7:30am). You can always tell when someone has taken the trouble to kit themselves up for an occasion: they have an air of self-consciousness, as though desiring attention and yet dreading the prospect. This guy was just standing on the platform, waiting like the rest of us for the train to arrive.

Which could only have meant one thing: the clothes were a fashion statement. Which could only have meant one other thing: they were a retro fashion statement.

I could feel an existential sigh wafting through my soul as I considered the possibility. Our society labours under the deadening effect of many scourges. Of these, fashion would have to be one of the most pernicious. And of this particular form of self-inflicted brain damage, retro fashion counts as the most idiotic.

What is it, I wondered, that made people want to wear platform boots and flared trousers again? Hadn’t it been bad enough the first time around? Had young people not seen footage of the 70’s and realised how stupid people looked? What made them think they’d scrub up any better just because it was the 21st century?

The young man on the station platform was a case in point. He’d obviously been convinced by his peers that gadding about in a suit and spats and a top hat would be good for his image. Which either meant his friends were severely mentally defective, or they were taking the piss. Not that he seemed aware of the absurdity of his appearance. On the contrary, he calmly paced about in a small circle, serene in the thought that he cut a dashing, sophisticated figure.

Instead, he looked like a complete git.

Ah, well, I suppose we’ve all looked like complete gits from time to time, either as a consequence of an absurd attempt to court popularity, or in a desperate effort to avoid it. All except me, that is. In my case, avoiding popularity is a natural talent, affording me the freedom to dress how I like. For comfort; or, as my Dearly Beloved is wont to point out, like a slob. Still, it at least has this consolation: if I look like a git, at least I’m a comfortable git.

Unlike some other people I could name, clunking about in their platform soles and top hats.

Talk to you soon,

BB

Quote for the Day: Fashion is merely a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months. (Oscar Wilde)

The Physics of Faith

A frequently expressed view is that science and religion have little to do with one another; that they speak different languages, for different purposes. Science is concerned with cold, hard facts, with what can be proven; religion, on the other hand, is concerned with faith, with what one believes despite (or in spite) of what can be effectively demonstrated.

To an extent this is true; but only, in my view, because science is the exploration of the physical universe, whereas faith is concerned, not with how we got here, but why we are here, and what that says about the relationship between the human and the divine. And yet I also feel that there is a profound overlap between science and religion, that the language of the former can in fact be deployed as a powerful analogy for an understanding of the latter.

It seems to me that much of the difficulty which Christians have in explaining events such as the resurrection of Christ resides in the fact that we live in a scientifically literate society. While relatively few people are cognizant of the specifics of disciplines such as physics, there is nonetheless a broad understanding of the scientific explanation of the physical universe. This frequently makes particular aspects of faith seem unbelievable to those who have even a rudimentary understanding of how the laws of nature operate. Indeed, for many Christians with a knowledge of science, it makes their own faith highly problematic - as Charles Darwin, among others, experienced.

I think this difficulty is no bad thing. Not, I hasten to add, because it provides the forum through which faith can “triumph” over science, but because it highlights that Christians cannot simply ignore the discoveries of science and what these have to say about the operation of the cosmos. Neither can we reasonably ask people to pretend that the scientific explanation of the universe either isn’t valid or doesn’t apply under certain circumstances. However, what Christians can do is utilise the language of science to speak of aspects of faith in terms that are relevant and accessible in a scientifically literate society.

As a theology student, this possibility was demonstrated to me powerfully last semester. My lecturer was talking about the resurrection of Christ, and provided the class with a copy of a sermon on the same subject which he had recently preached. I was deeply impressed by how my lecturer spoke in his sermon of the resurrection as a different kind of physicality which was nonetheless apprehensible in our universe, but which did not overturn the laws of nature as they are understood by humanity. It immediately occurred to me that this image of a different kind of physicality resonated strongly with one of the most exciting areas of scientific exploration: string theory physics.

I won’t go into the intricacies of string theory physics here; but one of the most evocative suggestions arising from string theory is that there are multiple dimensions to reality, only some of which are perceived by humans. The other dimensions all interact with the universe we perceive (even where the effects of that interaction are not perceptible) and may also possess their own laws of physics. In other words, all these other dimensions may contain the possibility of different forms of physicality than those known in “our” universe.

It occurred to me that even a rudimentary understanding of physics could thus also provide a way into the mystery of the resurrection. Being aware that there are other dimensions of reality of which we are not aware, but which nonetheless interact with “our” universe, immediately enables one to - analogously - envisage the resurrection as an event in which a different dimension of reality - the reality of God - broke into, and interacted with, the universe we know without overturning the laws of physicality as they apply to us.

Which is not to say that I think the resurrection was an example of the operation of string theory physics, or that string theory - or any system of human understanding - could ever “explain” God. Indeed, string theory is not accepted by the majority of physicists as a valid explanation of the cosmos because many of its more provocative suppositions are - and will probably remain - untestable. However, what string theory does do is arm Christians with a powerful tool of analogy with which to provide others a way into mysteries such as the resurrection of Christ. For God is, ultimately, a mystery, ineffable and inexplicable; however, what is required is not understanding but a means of engagement, a means through which broken humanity can participate in a conversation and relationship with God. A process by which the mystery remains, but becomes accessible.

Personally, I think Christians could do a lot worse - and, perhaps, not much better - than to use the wonders of the physical universe revealed in the language of science to open to others the joyous mystery of God.

Talk to you soon,

BB

Quote for the Day: Mystics are people who hope that science will one day overtake them. (Booth Tarkington)

Mum, Death, and the Mystery of God

Isn’t it always the way that the films which are the least heralded are so often the best? My review earlier this week of the wonderful current release, Kenny, brought to mind a similar experience some months ago. The film in question was Keeping Mum.

My Dearly Beloved and I had wandered down to the local multiplex, not really expecting to find anything worth watching, but sufficiently curious to make the effort. Amid the usual mountain of blockbuster crap, we saw the ad for Keeping Mum. Neither of us had heard of it, but since it featured Rowan Atkinson, we took a punt and decided to give it a go.

Keeping Mum starts with a short prologue that tells the story of a young woman who murders her husband and his mistress and packs their bodies into trunks. Flash forward forty years, and we’re in a rustic country village. The vicar (Atkinson) has been asked to deliver the key-note address at a conference, and spends the film obsessed with delivering the perfect speech. So involved is he in his own dilemma that he fails to notice his family is in trouble: his wife (Kristin Scott Thomas) is falling under the spell of a sleazy American golf professional (played with great aplomb by Patrick Swayze), while his son is being bullied at school and his daughter generally running wild.

Into this situation arrives the new housekeeper (Dame Maggie Smith). She quickly sums up the situation and takes matters into her own hands. The school-yard bullies are routed, the wild child learns the joys of domesticity. But it is the marriage she especially sets about repairing, introducing vicar Atkinson to the erotic frission of the Song of Songs as a means of both re-igniting his sexual interest in wife Thomas (who, I have to say, does a Jamie Lee Curtis and shows how naturally beautiful older women can be), and as a way of combating the wiles of would-be marriage-wrecker Swayze.

The tension builds nicely through a series of revelations. The housekeeper is none other than the young woman from the prologue. Moreover, she’s also vicar's wife's mother, having been forced to give her daughter up for adoption when jailed for her crimes all those years ago. And to top it all off, she’s still killing: first an annoying neighbourhood dog, then the owner of said dog, and eventually - well, I won’t spoil it by telling you who else falls prey to her homocidal tendencies.

The highlight is Atkinson’s performance at the conference. He begins with the bumbling, comedic vicar we’ve come to know from films like Four Weddings and a Funeral. But he then moves into a powerful and moving speech on the mystery of God as expounded in the Book of Isaiah. My ways are not your ways. “In other words,” Atkinson tells us, “God is saying: I’m mysterious - live with it.”

The final twist at the end may disturb some, but I highly recommend you grab this film on DVD and set aside an afternoon, a packet of chocolate bikkies, and some plunger coffee for the kind of wonderful character-driven comedy-drama the English make so well.

Talk to you soon,

BB

Quote for the Day: Men don't like me for my mind; they like me for what I don't mind. (Mae West)

Hitler's Hairy

My Dearly Beloved has of late suggested that she cut my hair.

Her motives for doing so are entirely honourable, deriving as they do from the sweetness of her heart. She is concerned about my impoverished financial condition, and does not see why I should fork over ten bucks so some bloke can run his clippers through what’s left of my hair. The fact that my hairdresser, George, has been applying his No.2 blade to my cranium for well over a decade is irrelevant. My Dearly Beloved wishes to spare me the unnecessary expense.

To date, I have resisted all of her well-intended suggestions on this point. Not from ingratitude, you understand; but because of a secret pain, a suffering so acute that it spurs me to reject her kindly offer of a free, home-style hairdo.

When I was a child, my mother used to cut my hair. I can still clearly recall the scene in the kitchen: the home hairdressing kit, the scissors, the hair clippers with their odd, cod-liver oil smell. And it was on one such occasion that I was scarred for life.

My mother’s haircuts were always workmanlike if unspectacular; enough, at any rate, to meet the needs of a ten-year-old boy. I had no complaints. I was never particularly demanding in this department; perhaps I sensed even then that I was never destined to have enough hair to ever make a fashion statement. Perhaps I was just dull.

In any event, on the occasion in question, I sat in the chair in the kitchen, and Mum went to work. And, boy, did she do a number on Yours Truly.

When I looked at the results in the bathroom mirror, I nearly screamed. Fainted. Both. My fringe, which had once been the usual unruly childhood tangle, now sloped across my forehead at a steeper gradient than a ski-ramp! Just like Adolf Hitler’s! Being a history buff, I had plenty of books on World War Two – and the photos confirmed the comparison. My mother had turned me into the author of Mein Kampf.

I realized immediately what had happened. Mum had accidentally taken too much off one side of my hairline, and had tried to make amends by turning the scalloped monstrosity into something resembling a fringe. I appreciated her attempt to rescue my dignity; but in the schoolyard, there’s just nowhere to hide. The “cool” kids made fun of me. The bullies made fun of me (while they beat me up). The teachers made fun of me (while they gave me detention). My friends made fun of me (and they wonder why I don’t talk to them anymore). For weeks and weeks, my life was a waking hell as children and adults alike invented ever more smart-arsed ways to make cutting references to my mangled mane.

It took me years to get over it. I always hated school photo day after this event. The only consolation from my subsequent hair loss is that I now have less about which to be self-conscious.

So, my Dearly Beloved will just have to accept that I cannot go near a set of hair clippers held by anyone except the trusty George. I know it pains her to think that I am spending my limited financial resources for no good cause; but I can assure her, the pain of doing otherwise is much greater!

Talk to you soon,

BB

Quote for the Day: Time heals what reason cannot. (Seneca)

Reality Check

I have something controversial to say. Reality TV sucks.

I don’t just mean that it’s crass, puerile, artificial, prurient, self-indulgent, manipulative, shallow, melodramatic, and utterly moronic. I mean it really, really sucks. There’s nothing - absolutely nothing - that can be said in its defence. No amount of apologetics can paper over the gaping chasms in its credibility.

For example, reality TV is often defended on the grounds that it’s "entertaining" - an entertainment that allegedly arises from its format. This format usually consists of people being dumped in circumstances way outside their usual experience: on a desert island, in a sealed environment, among a family of strangers. Every tantrum, every faux pax, every tear or argument or conflict, every shameful act or betrayal, every moment of weakness as the participants struggle to come to terms with their situation, is recorded in agonisingly exquisite detail. These same snapshots of angst are then utilised in the program’s advertising, the juicy bait that hooks us into watching the show.

And it this trauma ­- yes, that’s what it is, folks: trauma - that we’re meant to find “entertaining”. In other words, the “entertainment” value of reality TV actually consists of an appeal to sadism - it‘s the “entertainment“ of the wild beast shows and gladiatorial contests of the Coliseum. Our part is to languidly sit back and watch while other people degrade and humiliate themselves for our titillation, or so we can have something to gossip about in the tearoom at work the next day.

The other defence frequently relied on by the devotees of reality TV is that it has some “scientific” or “social” value: it tells us something about human behaviour and psychology.

This argument is perhaps even more spurious than the “entertainment” defence. There is absolutely no value in reality TV. It is not produced under the same stringent ethical conditions that would characterise genuine scientific experiments designed to test some aspect of human behaviour. Indeed, scenarios in reality TV are deliberately designed to bring out the worst in the participants; their purpose is not to test, but to produce reactions. Likewise, the situations in which the participants find themselves bear no relation to “real” life; the most farcical aspect of reality TV is that it is entirely artificial. In essence, reality TV has all the scientific and social credibility of torturing someone to determine whether they’re a witch.

Once these arguments are stripped away, a final attempt to justify reality TV usually takes the form of pointing out the ratings which it enjoys, as well as the fact that the participants volunteer to appear on the shows. In other words, the alleged "value" of reality TV lies in its popularity, and the fact that any humiliation suffered by the participants is self-inflicted.

But those who mount this argument just don’t get it: that reality TV is both popular and a voluntary exercise is the saddest fact of all. And it is the fact by which reality TV is most damned. Because, in the end, it means we are all accessories to the abuses perpetrated by this genre. The producers and networks who conceive and promote reality TV; the audience who allows them to profit from their activities; and the attention-hungry wanna-be celebrities who willingly permit their humanity to be debased for the sake of their fifty seconds of fame. We are all of us guilty.

So what's the solution? I honestly don't know. Perhaps it's just a case of hoping this is a fad which, like all fads, will eventually pass away once we've found something else with which to distract ourselves. In the meantime, a little self-awareness probably wouldn't go astray. Or is that the very point I'm missing - that we don't want to know ourselves because doing so is too frightening a prospect, requiring as it will that we confront ourselves with the artificial emptiness of our being? Which in turn will require us to do something about our existential malaise, instead of constantly resorting to the tranquiliser of the soul that reality TV - and all fads - ultimately represents?

Ironically, perhaps reality TV does have some value, then; if only negatively, and if only to open our eyes to how low we've sunk. But this is a realisation that itself has worth, for it is not until we understand we are ill that we can hope to be cured.

Talk to you soon,

BB

Quote for the Day: Fashion is nothing but an induced epidemic. (George Bernard Shaw)

Photosensitive

I hate being photographed. By some weird alchemy, the person staring back at me from the picture is never the same person whose reflection I see in the bathroom mirror each morning. And, believe me, I’ve got more than my fair share of photo ID about my person, so I know whereof I speak. On any given day, you'll find me in possession of a driver’s license, a student card, a permit to enter premises pursuant to the Occupational Health & Safety Act 2005 (Vic)...

It’s enough to make the self-conscious positively paranoid!

A sensation reinforced recently when I needed to renew my passport. I decided there was no way I was going to have my pics taken at the Post Office or the chemist: too many people standing around who might point and laugh and say Get a load of that stupid git! So my only option was to use one of those five minute photo booths. Fate, however ( and who says the cosmos doesn‘t have a sense of humour?), decreed that Australia‘s entire compliment of such booths were to be located precisely where they‘d most effectively activate my chicken reflex: at train stations and shopping malls.

Not, I think you’ll agree, what you’d call conducive to privacy.

But cruel fate was to be mixed with crueller self-delusion; for a brief and splendid moment, I thought I had the problem licked. Since, at the time, I was attending an evening lecture and tutorial, I reasoned that by the time I rode the tram down to Melbourne Central station to catch a train home, the place would be practically deserted. So one night after uni, I picked the loneliest looking booth in the remotest corner of the station, fed my ten bucks into the machine, and smiled for the camera.

It was an unnerving experience, sitting in what felt like a very public commode with a rictus grin spread across my dial, mentally urging the damned thing to hurry up and get on with it. Especially in these security-conscious times. At any moment, I thought, the curtain shutting off the outside world would be thrust aside by some gimboid, walkie-talkie toting security dude determined to discover whether or not I was hatching a dastardly plot to strike back at oppressive capitalism by blowing up the Western Hemisphere's supply of photo booths. A great picture for my passport, I imagined: Yours Truly, my face the colour of an outraged tomato, as I'm having the crap strangled out of me by a buzzcut hair-doed Wyatt Earp attired in an appropriately outlandish cowboy uniform.

Finally, however, four blinding flashes and a fidgety wait later, the new pics dropped with a tiny clunk into the receptacle outside the booth.

They weren’t great, I have to admit. In fact, I’m pretty sure there are better mug shots out there. Was my face really that fat? Did I truly have so little hair? And what was that odd indentation in my forehead, so suspiciously like a thumb mark? More importantly, why didn’t these many blemishes manifest themselves during my reflective inspections each morning...?

Thrusting aside such unworthy thoughts, I took my photos along to the Post Office, filled out the forms, handed over my dough, and waited. But the way the woman behind the counter clucked disapprovingly and shook her head immediately sent shivers of fear rippling down my custard-like spine.

“I’m afraid this photo’s not acceptable. Your hair’s sticking up, out of the frame. We’ll need to take some more photos of you now. That'll be an additional fifty dollars, please.”

I could sense it as I stood there, propped in front of the camera while all the people waiting to buy stamps or post a letter looked on. They were thinking to themselves.

Get a load of that stupid git...

Talk to you soon,

BB

Quote for the Day: Man fools himself: he prays for long life, and fears old age. (Chinese proverb)

Oh My God, They've Filmed Kenny (You Beauties!)

It's very rare that you see a film that you know absolutely nothing about and walk away at the end of the evening thankful that you have. Kenny is one such gem.

A "mockumentary" in the tradition of Spinal Tap and Best In Show (and with more than a nod toward The Office), Kenny tells the story of, well, Kenny. He's a Melbourne man of very humble station. Kenny's into waste management; human waste management. It's his job to supply, maintain, and retrieve porta-loos for events as diverse as private functions right through to major sporting and community occassions. But Kenny's not just a delivery man; he's a plumber. Which means that he's more often than not (literally) up to his elbows in it - human it, if you know what I mean.

We follow Kenny from his pre-dawn starts to his late at night "delivery" to the Werribee sewerage farm. In between, he has to cope with snobbish, ungrateful members of the public, his harridan of an ex-wife, his fractious co-workers, and his impossibly irascible father. Kenny deals with the lot with a blend of unselfconscious humility, quiet dignity, and an idiosyncratic, self-effacing sense of humour characterised by a vocabulary of "kennyisms" that will have you clutching your sides with laughter. Throughout, we are outraged on Kenny's behalf by the attitude of others (which, of course, reflects our own attitude toward the cleaners, janitors, waste disposal, and maintenance people of the real world); we wonder at his patience; we relate to his frustrations; and we share his desperate anxiety when his son goes missing at the Melbourne Cup.

But we also sense Kenny's life is a sad existence, marked by an inner loneliness despite his cheerful exterior. And thus we are overjoyed when, on a company-sponsored trip to the US for a "crap convention", Kenny meets a Qantas air-hostess and they get on like a house on fire. Yet we also cringe at his apparent naivety and total ignorance of the protocols of dating; he seems completely unaware of the fact that the lady likes him - a lot. Will this encounter represent a new chance at happiness for Kenny? Will his hopeless inability to "read" social situations get in the way? Or is Kenny cleverer and more attuned to the subtleties of human relationships than we at first suspect?

The best thing about Kenny is that, unlike The Castle, this film doesn't patronise or make fun of its subject. The humour is always affectionate, never mocking or superior or condescending. Kenny is a "rough diamond" in the beloved archetype of Australian folklore; but he is a three-dimensional being, not a cardboard cut-out, or some middle class supposition of what working class life involves. We're on Kenny's side not because he's a hero or an anti-hero, but because he's human. There's a glory and dignity of the everyday in Kenny that powerfully and insightfully challenges the achievement-and-fame orientation of our celebrity-obsessed society.

Kenny is by far and away one of the best films of the year - a real diamond in the mountain of Hollywood blockbuster dross. It's hilarious, sad, moving, poignant, uplifting, and revealing - a "feel good" movie in the truest, deepest sense of the word. Shane Jacobson is perfect as Kenny, and the supporting cast are spot-on. If you only see one film this year, make sure it's Kenny - this piece of celluloid magic deserves to become a resounding box-office success.

Talk to you soon,

BB

Quote for the Day: There is no greater sin than having many desires. (Lao Tzu)

Without a Prayer

Since most blogs are at least partly confessional, I’ll tell you right now that I find prayer very difficult. Since I've stated in an earlier post that I’m a “practicing” Christian, this revelation may come as something of a surprise to those of you who’ve been following this blog for any length of time.

The truth is, however, that I never prayed as a child. Or, more correctly, the type of prayers to which I was exposed consisted only of the rote variety one spoke (or, rather, mumbled) at Mass, and which were compulsorily prescribed during particular church seasons. But I didn’t pray as such; just muttered words I didn’t understand or care much about.

Oddly enough, it was after I’d become alienated from the church that I prayed - I mean, properly prayed - for the first time in my life. And these were the circumstances: the company by whom I was employed was attempting to force through a shoddy workplace agreement. I and a half-dozen fellow unionists were opposed by an alliance of management hostility and the apathy of our colleagues. On the morning of the staff ballot to determine whether the agreement would be accepted, these words came to me:

I do not know You; I do not know if You exist; or, if you do exist, whether You listen to anyone’s prayers. But if You do exist, and if You do listen to prayers, know that for myself I ask nothing; only that if there is to be any outcome from this ballot, let it be remembered there were at least a few who were prepared to stand against the many, so that the strong could not victimise the helpless with impunity.

I didn’t pray for victory because I knew we couldn’t win. I just wanted there to be something to emerge from what I was sure would be the wreckage of a bad result; and I wanted that something to be bigger than just the cause I had fought for, result in more than just a workplace battle won or lost.

That one moment of despair was one of the few occasions during that period in which I prayed. But the strange thing is, once I started to attend services once again, I still found it difficult to pray. At first, I thought it was simple self-consciousness; but I soon realised the cause of my malaise went much deeper. Eventually, I understood that my problem extended back to what I had been taught about prayer: that prayer was about asking God for stuff. We prayed to be good; we prayed for strength; we prayed for things to happen; we prayed for things to not happen. We wanted God to grant us this or that. In short, prayer was just a wish-list, and God little more than a proxy for Father Christmas.

Of course, this realisation left me with the problem of working out what prayer was about. And while I haven't reached any hard-and-fast conclusions, perhaps some inkling of understanding is starting to emerge. What I now think is that prayer isn't about asking God for things or outcomes; I think prayer is a form of offering, a way we give ourselves - our fears, our weaknesses, our strengths, our hopes, our secrets - to God. Prayer is part of the way we seek to converse with God, not so that we may get a return on our investment, but so that we may know that we have ground other than the inadequacy of our own selves on which to stand.

So - do I pray now? Yes, despite the ongoing difficulty,and at the oddest moments. Like when I’m walking down the street. Or in the shower. Nor are my prayers "structured" in any sense; somehow, the words just come. Except I don't ask God to grant me what I want; I pray to be.

For example, this is the prayer I say every time I head off to the Industrial Relations Commission to argue a case:

Lord of All Things: I pray that may I serve justice and defend the truth.

Of course, that leaves open the possibility that I might lose; but serving justice and defending truth may sometimes mean that losing is precisely how this is achieved.

Talk to you soon,

BB

Quote for the Day: To live is to change; to be perfect is to change often. (Cardinal Newman)

I Have Sensational(ised) News

I recently saw a newspaper headline declaring: GUN VIOLENCE A GLOBAL EPIDEMIC.

Why is everything an epidemic? I wondered. Not that I don’t take violence - least of all, gun violence - seriously, but surely this propensity to paint every issue in melodramatic terms is counter-productive? Not that I expect the ratings addicted media will concern itself overly much about this, but is anyone paying attention to the effect of this tendency toward sensationalism?

Everything is an “epidemic”: guns, obesity, drugs, porn. You name it, society is apparently up to its communal gills in one pandemic or another. And that’s not including the real diseases.

To be sure, these are all substantial issues, and deserve our attention. However, doesn’t describing them in such drastic terms only serve to desensitise the public to both their gravity and urgency? The more a matter is described as an “epidemic”, the more susceptible it is to the law of diminishing returns: while it may shock initially, we eventually get used to it, and the message loses its power.

It is this diminishing return of shock value that likewise explains the manic feeding frenzy the media throws itself into whenever anything attention grabbing - from natural disasters to wars - occurs. This use - and abuse - of language destroys our understanding of the gravity of an issue, and the lessons we need to draw from it: what it says about our humanity, and the dignity of the human person.

Likewise with the “celebrity rags”. Everything is a “shock” or a “secret” or a “shame”. Sometimes, it’s all three: a shocking secret shame. Honestly, you’d think the subjects of these agony pieces lived their whole lives with their heads stuck up their patoots. I mean, what else could explain every little drama in their life being a “shock”?

I’m sorry if I sound cynical, but the fact that Celebrity X had a boob job that that went wrong is not a “tragedy”. A “tragedy” is when 100,000 people die from preventable causes. The situation in the Middle East is a “tragedy”. Third World poverty - hell, poverty anywhere - is a “tragedy”. Celebrity Y’s predilection for transsexual prostitutes isn’t a “tragedy”, a “shock”, or a “shame” - it’s actually just none of anyone else’s business.

Here’s hoping we learn to see the wood for the trees, and start noticing the humanity beneath the headlines.

Talk to you soon,

BB

Blog For A Slow Day

*Sigh*

I suppose this happens to just about every blogger: a slow day where they can think of nothing to say, or there’s nothing much happening that inspires them to commentary or observation. On such days, that hardy perennial of conversation is produced: the Top Ten.

Food, movies, books, colours, people from history, you name it, we can Top Ten it. So, this being the kind of dreary day where I can’t be bothered sharing my thoughts with myself, let alone the world, I’ll give you my own Top Ten.

Top Ten Films

1. Bladerunner
2. Boys Don’t Cry
3. Bullworth
4. American Beauty
5. Rear Window
6. Ryan’s Daughter
7. Starman
8. Lawrence of Arabia
9. Shadowlands
10. The Lord of the Rings

Top Ten Novels

1. The Earthsea novels by Ursula le Guin
2. The Roman Britain novels by Rosemary Sutcliff
3. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
4. The Claudius novels by Robert Graves
5. All Quiet on the Western Front and Heaven Has No Favourites by Erich Maria Remarque
6. The Dr Tony Hill novels of Val McDermid
7. Fatherland and Archangel by Robert Harris
8. The Rebus novels by Ian Rankin
9. The Inspector Challis novels by Gary Disher
10. The Murray Whelan novels by Shane Maloney

Well, that’s your lot for today. There’ll probably be other slow days, so expect more Top Tens at some stage in the future.

Talk to you soon,

BB.

Quote for the Day: "Learning" is what remains after what one has been taught has been forgotten. (B F Skinner)

Movie Shorts

I am very fond of The Lord of the Rings film trilogy. The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe is somewhat flawed, but still worthwhile. The Harry Potter films I can't stand; and don't even get me started on The da Vinci Code...

However, since it now appears that Hollywood has lost any capacity for originality and is strip-mining literature, not just for movie adaptions but endless sequels, here, for your amusement, are the titles I'd love to see Hollywood dare to turn into movies:

1. The Dorkhead's Code

In this riveting thriller, our hero, a lovelorn professor of Obscurely Idiotic Disciplines That Don't Actually Exist In Reality, is suddenly thrust into the heart of a globe-spanning conspiracy when he stumbles across a horrifying secret: Porpoise Day, a sinister organisation of immensely wealthy greenies, plans to destroy the world petroleum industry by activating a solar array they have secretly assembled in earth-orbit. Aided by the mysterious beauty, Ofcourseimsexy Imfrench, our hero is pursued by mad assassins, turncoat friends, and seriously inept police, as he races against time to destroy the evil dream of endless, cheap energy. Will our hero be able to keep his mind (and hands) off the Gallic Goddess long enough to figure out the bafflingly simple code left by Porpoise Day's latest victim? Will the appallingly bad dialogue and clunky plot twists foil his increasingly frantic attempts to escape from ever more unbelievable close shaves? And who is the Clouseauesque butler-cum-chauffeur who inserts himself into the plot about three-quarters of the way into the story?

2. The Whore of the Bling

An epic saga sweeping across a land of soaring mountains, deep forests, and wide plains (Noo Zulund), it tells the story of Biffo, a humble Widgit, who unwittingly possesses an amulet of immense power: the One Bling, a tinfoil wrapped bangle worth about NZ50c (that is, more than Noo Zulund's entire GDP). Aided by his fellow Widgits - Smallpox, Manicdepressive, and Pillpopper - Biffo sets out on a long quest: to destroy the One Bling once and for all by casting it into the Cracks of Bottom in far-off Makeup, the Land of Extremely Ugly Latex Folk. Along the way, the Widgits encounter the evil servants of Soupkitchen, the Camp (and surprisingly ineffective) Whore of the Bling; the ethereal Lord Enema and Lady Gladhandler, rulers of the Very Camp (and equally ineffective) Elves; and the mysterious stranger Arsingabout and his elfin lover, Analretentive. Will Biffo survive these dangers (and various homoerotic encounters with Smallpox) to destroy the One Bling? Will Manicdepressive and Pillpopper come down from the drug induced high (courtesy of some elvin "bikkies") that had them talking to trees? And why didn't Biffo just throw the One Bling into the recycling bin with the rest of the trash for collection on Tuesday?

3. The Dame, the Prat, and the Scarecrow

This enchanting tale tells the story of four gormless kiddies who are magically transported to a wondrous land of make-believe when they stumble across their grandfather's secret store of fine single-malt scotch. But things go terribly wrong when one of the children, Prat, meets the Dame (otherwise known as Anemia), a cruel sorcoress who has enslaved the land of Narcolepsy by covering it in her excess dandruff. Feeling the "munchies" from his alcohol-induced stupor, Prat sells out to the Dame in return for some Turkish Delight - for Anemia has heard a prophesy that her rule shall end when four spoiled brats with impossibly plumb accents appear to lead the resistence. Betrayed by the Prat, things look grim for the kiddies when, out of nowhere, the Scarecrow appears: the mystical figure Ah-So, who frees them from the clutches of Anemia and teaches the Prat to be slightly less annoying (hence earning him a new name: Git). With the help of Ah-So, the kiddies fight back, leading to a catclysmic showdown with the evil Anemia. Will they win this final confrontation - or will the slight technicality of never having previously worn armour or handled weapons (aside from the fact that they are children) tell against them? Will anyone believe Ah-So's contention that it was perfectly believable for him to return from the dead on account of the fact that he's not really real? And what will happen to the kiddies when granddad finds them lying unconcious among his empty bottles of single malt?

4. Harry Pothead and the Cookie of Hash

Harry Pothead has an unhappy life: not only is he a do-gooding tell-tale who's despised by staff and students alike at the co-ed boarding school he attends, his every attempt to score a date ends with a knee in the cods. All this changes when Harry mistakenly catches a train that takes him to Hogwash, a school for wizards. There he meets the grave Dumbascrud, his new teacher, and two other exiles from the world of disaffected youth: the spotty-faced Ron Scotnomates and the uppity Hermione Chastitybelt. Dumbascrud reveals a terrible secret: the evil Lord Vilebreath has captured the mystical Cookie of Hash, famed for its powers over human emotions. Unless Vilebreath can be stopped, Dumbascrud fears he'll corner the market for mind-altering after-dinner mints. Acting under Dumbascrud's tutelage, Harry, Ron, and Hermoine challenge Vilebreath to a game of Squeamish, a magical duel in which vast quantities of narcotic substances are consumed, and the first person who screams "Ahhhh! Spiders! Get them off me! Get them off me!" loses. At stake: the Cookie of Hash and the comemrcial rights to the recreational drug market of Western Europe. Will Harry triumph - or will he be foiled by his obsession with inventing a protective codpiece that also makes him look well-hung? Will Ron and Hermione discover true love - and will Harry be allowed to watch? Will Alan Rickman avoid being typecast yet again as a scheming, black-clad villian?

I await the phone calls from Hollywood producers (and the royalty cheques) in due course.

Talk to you soon,

BB

Quote for the Day: Ah, sweet pity - where would my love life be without it? (Homer Simpson)

We Can Be Heroes

We all have heroes. Heroes are important. They serve as guides, as mentors, as a source of inspiration and consolation.

Here are a few of my heroes. Marcus Aurelius, the Stoic philosopher and Roman Emperor, author of the powerful and profound Meditations. Paul Robeson, the scholar, linguist, athlete, lawyer, singer, actor, and human rights activist. Anne Sexton, the brilliant but tormented poet and playwright from whose suffering arose a rich harvest of literature.

All these people have one thing in common. They were gifted but flawed, and struggled their whole lives to overcome that quality in themselves which undermined their humanity. In a sense, they are the human condition writ large.

Which is why the Apostle Thomas is one of my greatest heroes. “Thomas the Doubter” as he is commonly known, is almost always understood as a cautionary tale against inadequate faith: “Happy those who have not seen and yet believe”.

Yet I take a very different view. The locked upstairs room with its bolted doors and shuttered windows is a powerful metaphor representing the prison of fear and despair into which all the Disciples had plunged after the Crucifixion. Nor did the Disciples initially believe Mary Magdalene when she informed them that Christ had risen; it took an appearance from Jesus himself to convince them. In other words, they were all doubters, every one of them.

So what was different about Thomas? Quite simply, he had the courage of his doubts, and the strength of character to acknowledge and articulate his uncertainties. And in doing so, he offered his fear and uncertainty to Christ, and opened himself – made himself utterly and trustingly vulnerable - to God. Nor do I think Christ’s response can be taken as a rebuke: it might have been a correction, certainly, but is it not also possible that it may have been a somewhat wistful observation about human nature? Afterall, why should the Son of Man be lacking a sense of humour, however ironic?

In other words, Thomas is my hero because his relationship to God was the most human and therefore the most honest. And that’s what I call a strong faith: the honesty to doubt, and the courage to trust. And the willingness to offer it all to God.

Talk to you soon,

BB

Quote for the Day: Such as are your habitual thoughts, so also will be the character of your soul; for the soul is dyed in the mind. (Marcus Aurelius)

GRRRRRRRRRR!

NOT HAPPY!

For various work-related reasons (hey, you try to put together a 30-odd page submission to the Industrial Relations Commission in less than a day and with only two fingers to do the typing!) I've not been able to view my favourite cartoon site Non Sequitur.

This, 'toon, by Wiley, is the funniest, savviest, most observant cartoon since Larson. I just love it!

Sooooooo....finally having a brief space to check it out this morning before the daily madness begins, I discover to my horror that the link that enables you to see previous days' cartoons is not working!! And it's not just one of those "switch off the PC then switch it on again" jobs either!! All I get is today's cartoon, over and over - a fiendishly frustrating continuous loop stuck in the fabric of cartoon space-time causality!

As Australian Crawl say in that song of theirs: Not a very happy way to start the day.

D'oh!

Talk to you soon (maybe - once I'm in a better mood),

BB

Handbags and Hyperspace

According to string theory physicists, the tiny slice of reality which humans perceive could in fact be made up of as many as 12 different spatial dimensions, each with their own laws of physicality, and each of which interact with the universe we know in strange and mysterious ways.

Well, I’ve got news for the string theorists: they missed an additional dimension.

Women’s handbags.

No kidding, woman’s handbags are either a different dimension of reality, or they’re an example of extremely localised, highly mobile black holes. Or both.

Have you noticed how capacious a woman’s handbag is? The sheer volume of stuff women can cram into their handbags is truly astonishing. Mind you, when it actually comes to recovering anything from said handbag, that’s a completely different proposition. Stand in a shopping queue while the woman in front of you rummages for her purse, then her credit card, then her frequent shopper/bonus points/fly-buy card, and you’ll know what I mean. The universe might very well be in that handbag - and it takes all eternity to find anything in it, too.

The way I have it figured, the inner space of a woman’s handbag is essentially infinite. It can expand indefinitely to accommodate whatever gets shoved into the bag. The only problem is, once any matter passes into a woman‘s handbag, it is instantly whisked away to an alternative dimension, rendering it impervious to the demands of utility or the fact that the bloke in the queue behind her is busting for a pee and needs to get home in a real hurry.

I know this sounds unlikely - but let’s face it, until ol’ Albert Einstein stumbled across relativity, you would also have thought the concept of time dilation extremely improbable. And if what quantum mechanics tells us is true, there are sub-atomic particles out there which don’t have any mass and which can be in two places at once. Even weirder than this is that fact that there are still people who insist that the world is flat, the universe was created in seven days, and that reality TV isn’t just an excuse to perve on other people and think ourselves smugly superior.

Compared to any of the above, what I’m proposing sounds positively straightforward.

So if you’re the kind of sad unfortunate who wishes they could get away from it all and sail off into the alternative reality sunset for thrilling adventures and encounters with strange life forms, forget the Star Trek conventions. Escape is close at hand. In fact, it’s as close as the nearest woman’s handbag. Just calmly approach the next woman you see and ask if you can stick your head into her handbag.

Go on, give it a try. It could be fun to see what happens. I mean - what could possibly go wrong?

Talk to you soon,

BB

I, Christian

I am a Christian.

Did you hear that? It was the sound of eyes being rolled, noiseless sighs, and people thinking: oh great, here we go...

Not that I can blame them. A few years ago, I would have done the same. Who am I kidding; I still do the same today. And, as with those who do likewise, all too often with good reason. Because saying I am a Christian usually evokes images of Bible-thumping, damnation-portending fundamentalists, or humourless, unsmiling Puritans. Or both. Frequently, it is a reaction that is justified. I just want to assure you that I’m neither.

How I became a Christian - or, more acurately, returned to Christianity - is a long story. Too long for this space. What is important for the purposes of this blog is to sketch out what I mean when I say: I am a Christian.

I believe in God. And not just any old God, but the One God: mysterious, ineffable, eternally extant, who is present in the natural laws underpinning the cosmos, who is creator not created. God who is love, who brought all creation into being through the processes science is only now learning to identify and investigate; God whose creation was and is an act of love, who wills that all creation exist in communion with God’s self. God who is not being, but who is.

I believe that Jesus Christ was God’s authoritative act of self-revelation, that in the person of Christ, God made manifest that hope which says that humanity’s ultimate fate is not death but eternal communion with God.

I believe the Holy Spirit is the mechanism through which God continues to work across history and human society; the enduring and ongoing effect of the hope revealed in the person of Christ.

In other words, I believe in the Triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

What do I believe about the Bible? Do I believe that it is the literal Word of God? No, I don’t. What I believe about the Bible is that it is a powerful, evocative, always challenging, and sometimes disturbing, collection of human responses to the possibility of God. I believe it is the history of individual and societal responses to the intricacies and difficulties of faith, and of how people in their broken, incomplete, human way tried to make sense of the experience of revelation.

And I also believe this about the Bible: that those who put the Bible before God, who treat it as though it were the literal Word of God instead of an account of the human experience of revelation, are committing idolatry. Why? Because they give a human construction - the Bible - equal or greater status than God.

Does this make me a "liberal" Christian? A heretic? A quasi-Christian? A non-Christian who only appropriates the language of Christianity?

I don’t think any of these labels applies. I only see myself as a Christian, someone who has their own struggle to understand, their own path to tread. Someone who lives in a world of fellow travellers. To be sure, my expression of faith will be inadequate, incomplete; my articulation necessarily flawed. I don’t see this as a commentary on the quality of my faith; only that I am human, with human limitations.

What do I think about other faith traditions? Well, that’s a blog for another day. For the moment, it’s enough to tell you what I mean when I say: I am a Christian.

Talk to you soon,

BB

The Sound of Stupid

I have a confession to make: I hate Christian rock.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I appreciate that music, like art and literature, is a highly subjective experience, and we all have our individual cups of tea. Some like Cubism, others prefer the Old Masters. Some people read German Romantics, others adore science fiction. You get the picture.

When it comes to “worship music”, I guess I’m something more of a traditionalist. Gregorian chant is great. Rachmaninov’s All Night Vespers is sublimely beautiful. Barber’s Agnus Dei moves me to the depths of my being. And Howard Goodall’s setting of Psalm 23 (used, incidentally, as the theme music for the wonderful British comedy series, The Vicar of Dibley) is too lovely for words.

Yet, before you begin thinking I’m some dreary stuffed shirt with no sensibility for the modern, let me state quite categorically that I am very fond of Mr Mister’s song Kyrie (yeah, okay, that was back in the 80’s, I’m just making the point that I don’t have some “in principle” objection to combining rock music with religion). It’s just that my qualm is that while Christian rock might be “worship music”, there’s not much of it that’s actually sacred.

Now, I know that the appeal of much Christian rock is that it is “fun”, and introduces people to the “joy” of faith. Yet, I can never shake the suspicion that this apparent “joy” is not so much elevation as “ecstasy” – that is, a superficial, temporary mood alteration that has little to do with the experience of faith and everything to do with tinkering with our emotions.

The proof of the pudding for me is to be found in the lyrics. Have you ever noticed how lame the words to most Christian rock songs are? Sure, the music might be toe-tappingly good (hey, I’m not saying it’s all bad) but the words sound as though they were composed by some gawky adolescent writing an anonymous love letter to some girl he secretly admires. I mean, please! Where's the mystery? Where's the sense of the inscrutible, the divine, that which is greater than the sum of who we are, and to which we aspire?

Take, by contrast, any of the pieces I cited above: not only are they profoundly moving, they instill a real sense of joy – solemnity and elevation all at once, and in depth, too. Not that I’m a fan of many of the hoary old hymns that one is often obliged to sing at church. It’s just that I think there is a real difference between “worship music” and “sacred music”. And it’s a qualitative, not merely functional, difference.

So call me old fashioned if you will, I can take it. Sergei and I are off to have a conversation with the divine.

Talk to you soon,

BB

I Dream of....Cheesecake?

I’ve had a strange recurring dream lately.

Now don't panic. You won't need rubber gloves or a wetsuit to read this blog. I said my dreams were strange, not weird.

I dreamed I was somehow transported, respectively, two thousand, ninety thousand, and nine hundred thousand years into the future. Why, I’m not quite sure, but it had something to do with astronomy and the future of humanity. Something about needing to know what happened to or with the stars - why they were fading away or disappearing from the sky. Beats me what that was supposed to mean. I just knew that I had to jump into the morphean tardis and ride off into the temporal sunset.

I can’t remember what happened when I went two thousand years in the future. When I was sent ninety thousand years in the future, I met a woman called Stevie. (Hey - I said strange, not weird! Behave yourselves!) She met me in some kind of transport hub: there were lots of people around and I had an impression of trains (will they still have trains ninety thousand years from now?).

For some reason, it was her birthday and there was cake; I spilled a portion of the cake but ate the rest even while I spoke to her. There was something about her that spoke of the evolutionary path humanity had taken; she was female, and I got the impression there were only other females about. (No, this is not same subconcious porno fantasy - as if I'd be telling you about those). But she was sad and disturbed for some reason; a woman approached her and either propositioned her (see the porno disclaimer above) or tried to get Stevie to go with her; she refused, and the woman snarled something incoherent at her.

Next thing I know, I'm on a train (how did I get there? what happened to Stevie?), which somehow morphed into a motorbike type vehicle (except it was silent and had no combustion engine) which I was riding at night on a highway into a lit-up metropolis. I somehow knew I was now nine hundred thousand years in the future, and what’s more, my brother was with me (no offence, bro, but I'd have preferred Stevie). We were accosted by a “policeman” on a motorbike and escorted into the city; we appeared before some sort of council or totalitarian authority who ruled the city and (I sensed) the vast bulk of the human population.

Suddenly, I was standing on some porch or balcony with a woman (no name, and definitely not Stevie) looking over a vast void lit up with clusters of stars in the shape of spiral galaxies. She told me something that made me fearful and seemed to indicate humanity was doomed despite its longevity; but she also seemed to indicate there was a way out, something to do with space and time and astronomy....

And that's where the dream ended. Naturally. Before I could work out what the heck it was all about. I thought that sort of thing was only supposed to happen in dreams about falling off tall buildings.

So the mystery remains. And it's not as if I even watch Dr Who. Why would I have a dream like this? And no, this is not an invitation to tell me about your bizarre nocturnal visitations. I disturb myself enough as it is, I don't need others adding to the confusion.

Talk to you soon,

BB

Einstein's Dice

Albert Einstein once famously said: “God doesn’t play dice with the universe”.

He made this comment as a consequence of being confronted by the implications of his own work (and that of other physicists such as Neils Bohr and Werner Heisenberg); work that eventually resulted in the creation of the discipline of quantum physics. Contrary to the charming picture painted by Newtonian mechanics, quantum physics says the cosmos isn’t a stately dance of heavenly bodies working in smooth, clocklike precision. Instead, it's a random, contrary, baffling confusion of mysterious processes and startling possibilities whose depths and complexities we have scarcely imagined, never mind explored.

This proposition was deeply disturbing to Einstein, because he was a man of deep faith who viewed creation as the product of God's "rational" being, which necessarily obeyed the “logical” (ie: structured) ordering of God’s mind. That it might be something somewhat more apparently paradoxical was, for Einstein (and others) very confronting.

Hence, the quote at the head of this post. As far as Einstein was concerned, the universe wasn’t like a game of dice, depending on random chance and the interplay of variables. Just as it took Darwin more than two decades to publish The Origin of Species because the implications of his work offended his understanding of God’s role in the cosmos (and of the cosmos itself), so Einstein rejected the powerful and puzzling implications of his explorations in physics.

But here’s what Bohr said in response: “Einstein, stop telling God what to do with His dice”.

This riposte is frequently overlooked by those to whom the “ordered universe” concept provides comfort and reassurance. Because what was implied in Bohr’s response was that God doesn’t actually intervene in the cosmos as though it were God’s personal plaything. God’s intervention in the universe already exists in the form of the laws of nature and the internal structure of the cosmos. Thus, what humans perceive as randomness, complexity, and confusion are actually reflections of the higher workings of God’s mind – workings which need not be expressed as order and logical function, but which may manifest themselves in systems and processes that seem (to us) frighteningly arbitrary. In essence, what Bohr was saying was that we cannot possibly hope to fully understand or perceive the "hand of God" in cosmic operations, and that our attempts to do so will be necessarily flawed and limited.

And it is from this proposition that we recoil, because it challenges our simplistic understanding of being - and God. But that’s precisely what the “ordered universe” and “rational creation” views amount to: an attempt to reduce God to the level of human understanding. The universe is powerful, subtle, complex, and simultaneously majestic in its beauty and terrifying in its unfathomable depths. Just like God. Not because the cosmos is God; rather, the fact of the cosmos points to God, and to the difference between the divine and the human.

And it’s a difference that, frankly, fills me with inexpressible joy.

Talk to you soon,

BB

The Likes of Us

Have you, like, noticed how, like, young people, like (and by young people I mean, like, anyone under 35) use the word “like” a lot. In fact, if it, like, weren’t for the, like, word “like”, most young people would have a, like, severely limited vocabulary.

Oh, I know what you’ll, like, say: that every generation has its own, like, mode of expression replete with its own, like, idiosyncrasies. But I, like, think this is, like, something else altogether.

One of the, like, downsides of, like, using public transport (not that I’m actually, like, anti public transport; in fact, I’m, like, very fond of it. I just won’t, like, pretend that it, like, doesn’t have a downside or two) is that I, like, spend a good deal of my, like, time standing on station platforms and at, like, bus stations. And at these, like, locations, I, like, am often in the, like, position of being the, like, reluctant witness to conversations between, like, groups of young people.

And it, like, seems the word “like” features so heavily in their, like, conversations, as to practically, like, be the only thing they, like, say. I mean “like” can actually, like, mean “to speak”. As in: “So I’m, like, what are you looking at?” It also, like, seems that “like” can mean “to think”. To wit: “So I’m, like, what are you looking at?” Further, it, like, appears that “like” can also, like, mean “to be”, “to do”, “to perceive”, and a whole host of, like, useful activities.

So, like, maybe I’m, like, being too, like, hard on the young folks. Afterall, if they can, like, reduce the, like, subtlety and complexity of the, like, English language to a single, like, word, who am I, like, to pass comment? Maybe I, like, should just, like, chill out, like, and take the midnight train to, like, incomprehensibility.

So, like, what are you looking at?

Talk to you soon,

BB

Quote for the day: The good life calls for simplicity and moderation, not sackcloth and ashes. (Seneca)

Lucky Man

When I was in secondary school, a couple of guys I knew had a band, and since they knew of my interest in writing, they asked me to come up with some lyrics for them. One of my efforts (which, reading again all these years later, still surprises me with its relative maturity) was a little thing called Lucky Man. It contained a bridge which ran as follows:

I know her name
She knows my game;
I hold her hand,
She holds my fate.
This is the best of both worlds
Lying here with me now.

Ah, yes, young love – a glorious thing, don’t you agree?

But in considering the situation now, it occurs to me how very close to the mark I may have, however unwittingly, come. Because, later this year, I’m getting married (hold the congratulations, just send money).

Now this is significant because, until I met my Dearly Beloved, Yours Truly was definitely not the “marrying type”. Sure, I’ve been in long-term relationships, but I never conceived of any of them leading to marriage. Not because I didn’t love the other person involved, or didn’t want the relationship to survive (my view is that breaking up is far too painful to ever want that), just that I could never see myself as married.

Because, you know, the divorce rate and romanticism aside, marriage has a sound of permanency, doesn’t it? It’s like saying, “okay bub, time to put your money where your mouth is”. And you really have to think about the prospect of doing so, don’t you? Cause this aint just some crappy fingers-crossed promise no-one expects you to keep: it’s the real deal.

Well, I can only say that my Dearly Beloved is the “real deal”. On my engagement ring is engraved the message: Well to him who knows whom he can trust. Which pretty much says it all.

I think on my marriage ring I’ll have engraved: love conquers all.

Talk to you soon,

BB