Wet rain

We watched the news on television today for much longer than necessary because they were carrying live footage on the flooding in the Lake District.  It’s where we lived for five years and we watched reports coming from areas that we know well.  We recognized some of the houses that flooded and fields where the river running through Kendal had burst its banks.

We listened to the newscasters trying to find words to describe what was happening, as they kept reaching for superlatives – phrases like “fourteen inches of rain over night,” “more rain in a single day than as fallen in any 24-hour period since records began in 1790,” “rain in Biblical proportions, ” and “the amount of rain one expects to fall all winter came in 24 hours.”

But my favourite was the announcer who reached the pinnacle:  this was “the wettest rain ever recorded.”

Partly sorry

I wrote a post on the same subject some time ago, and  have been watching with interest a dialogue taking place on another blog about “avoiding the g-word.”

The discussion involves several issues, but one is whether communication is best served by not using the word “God” when one is not talking about anything resembling the traditional concept of god as a higher spiritual being who created the universe and continues to hover above it with various prescriptions about how we should behave.

I don’t see this as a black-and-white one-answer-fits-all question.  It depends on who you are talking to, what you are talking about, and why.  Not only are individuals different but the same individuals are different at different times.

I have reached the point where using the word God produces an almost schizophrenic experience.  The concept has meant for so long for so many something so different from what I now mean that the term is confusing, if not actually wrong.  But this has not always been so, and for many years I was “bi-lingual” when talking to someone whose concept of God was different from mine.

In remembering how differently we think, I remembered today some of the various modes of thought we engaged in as children in our family.  When my mother said that my Dad was late coming home because he was “tied up on the road,” I thought that he regularly endured the ordeal of being tied up with rope by bad people.

One of my sisters adjusted the Hail Mary to read not “Hail Mary full of grace,” but “Hail Mary full of grapes.”

But my favourite was produced by one of my brothers who improved immeasurably on the Act of Contrition.  The authentic version begins “Oh my God I am heartily sorry…”   My brother proclaimed with intense sincerity and no doubt greater accuracy “Oh my God I am partly sorry.”

 

 

Blogging where angels fear to tread

The United Nations today suggested that one of the keys to limiting global warming is to limit the speed of population growth.  They estimate that the world’s population will grow between 35 – 50% in the next 40 years.  That another 3-6 billion people.

Rather than adopting a Chinese-type coercion to limit the number of children, the UN suggests empowering women through education and access to effective birth control.  It is true that when women have the opportunity, they invariably choose to have fewer children on average.  But whether the UN’s suggestion is an effective way of reducing carbon emissions is already a source of heated debate – with an emphasis on heated in many cases.

The Roman Catholic Church believes that all voluntary abortions are murder.  This belief is based on the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century who wrote that since it is impossible to know when a soul actually entered a body, it was advisable to assume that it was at the time of conception.  Whether or not one is a Catholic and whether or not one accepts the doctrine of the soul or of this definition of life, the Catholic Church feels so strongly about this position that they believe it should be enforced under threat of punishment universally.

Okay, I beg to differ.

First of all, I don’t think this theological position should be imposed on everyone in a country in which the separation of church and state and freedom of religion is a foundation stone of our constitution.

Nor am I myself one of those people who accept the Church’s position.  Losing a child is a unique experience, and is not the same for everyone.  I know because I’ve been through it.  For me it was not voluntary, but there are circumstances in which I support a woman’s right — perhaps in some circumstances even duty – to terminate a pregnancy.

Of course, I am appalled by the Chinese policy which enforces abortions after the first child.  But I’m just as appalled by those on the other side who are determined to refuse an abortion to women for any reason.

Okay, I’ll stop.  Maybe I’m not as right as I feel.  In a situation involving population control, religion, global warming, and health,  it’s easy to get something terribly wrong.

In any case, I’m not sure I have anything wise to say about this critically important question.

Afghanistan: When there’s no right answer

Gordon Brown, Britain’s prime minister, in a speech last night said that Britain is drawing up plans for beginning to withdraw from Afghanistan by 2010.  Since the former prime minister Tony Blair followed George Bush (“like a poodle” according to some journalists over here) into Iraq and Afghanistan, I’m wondering what this stance by Gordon Brown actually means.  There seem to be three possibilities:

• Obama has signalled that the US is going to begin to withdraw troops in the near term.  The UK is going along.
• The Afghan war is becoming increasingly unpopular here in Britain, and Brown is facing an election within the next six months.  He and his party are unpopular, and this may be one of his many attempts to meet populist demands.  Whoever is elected, in any case, is the one who will have to either implement or change Afghan war.  It is unlikely to be Brown.
• Brown and his advisers really do believe the war is unwinnable are willing to cut their losses, no matter what America does.

I suspect the second is the reason, but hope it is the first.  But the real anguish is to look at the options that Obama has in relation to Afghanistan.  Every single one of them is fraught with terrible risks and potentially catastrophic consequences:

• We can continue on the course we have been on for eight years.  This is leading to increasing military deaths, Afghans themselves are not rallying to the side of the West, costs are escalating, and the influence of the Taliban in the villages has not been checked but is actually growing.  And the presence of foreign troops and killing of civilians is increasing anti-American feeling.
• We can follow General McChrystal’s  advice and send in 40-60,000 more troops.  This means more casualties and higher costs which are already billions of dollars a year, and still may accomplish little in the long-term.  The current Afghan government is corrupt and unlikely to be able to stop a resurgence of the Taliban when troops do withdraw.  Or we may be there for decades.  It is even possible that additional foreign troops will make the situation even worse than it is now.
• We could reduce troop numbers and concentrate on the towns and cities in the centre and north of the country.  Unfortunately, this means the Taliban would expand their influence in rural areas, warlords and drug barons will continue in control.  It’s a reduced version of continuing the war as we are.
• Finally, we can withdraw altogether.  The Afghan government is likely to fail, leading to civil war and a Taliban takeover.  This could also destabilize Pakistan.  If the Taliban or Al Qaeda take over Pakistan, they will gain control of its nuclear arsenal.  We might negotiate an agreement with Pakistan to secure their nuclear arsenal in the event they are threatened by the Taliban or Al Qaeda but of course, this may be merely an ineffective fig leaf.

The mistake, I fear, was ever to send troops into Afghanistan.  But the past cannot be undone.  Now Obama is faced with deciding how to try to go forward from where we are.

Scottish reverie

If you’ve ever been to Scotland and heard the bagpipes calling over the rolling hills, or racing the heart at a memorial ceremony at Edinburgh Castle, or simply raising the spirits around the tables in a pub, you may already know what I am talking about.  It’s about Scottish intuition.

This story is about a Scottish woman who with her husband had been good neighbours of my husband’s parents for decades.  After the death of her own husband and of Peter’s mother, Jane had become an important support to Peter’s father, Ernest.  Peter and I had been living in Spain, at least 24 hours drive and a ferry crossing at the English Channel away.  We tried to get Ernest to come live with us, but his promises always reverted to his inevitable refrain “I’m stopping here.”

We visited him in northern England for months at a time, occasionally as a planned journey, but most often it was a mad dash after late-night calls from Ernest telling us we’d better get there in a hurry or we’d find him “in his coffin.”  By the time this had happened for the third time, we no longer took his announcements of imminent doom too seriously.

But we did finally close up our house in Spain and moved into the back bedroom of his house in England so we could look after him.

One evening we returned home from the supermarket to find Ernest lying in bed with Jane and another neighbour in tears at his bedside.  As we came into the bedroom we heard him saying “The time comes to all of us.  It came to Churchill.”  (Long pause.)  ”It came to Roosevelt”  (Long pause).  ”It came to King George.”  (Ahem)  ”And now it is coming to me.”

Peter and I burst out laughing, and suggested that he sit up to have supper.  Jane was appalled and furious.  ”How can you?!” she said aghast.  ”He will be gone by tomorrow morning and you’re laughing.”

He won’t be gone by the morning, we assured her.  ”I’m Scottish,” Jane returned, “and I know about these things.  I’m sure he has less than 24 hours to live.”

I don’t have a lot of it myself, but I’m a great believer in intuition.  And the Scots do tell some extraordinary stories which I tend to think often have a grain of truth.

But like every other kind of human knowledge, it’s not infallible.  No matter how certain it feels.

Ernest died six months later.

An improfound thought

” ‘You can fool some of the people all of the time.’

That’s the group we’re aiming at.”

Quote attributed – probably wrongly – to G. W. Bush

I’d like to say that you can tell I’m thinking about something seriously serious when I start telling jokes.  Especially since this is the second in a row.

Unfortunately, my self-delusion doesn’t go quite that far.

I just like laughing.

 

Another point of view altogether-

The story below is copied from the blog of the Lost Bagpiper.

As a bagpiper, I was asked by a funeral director to play at a graveside service for a homeless man who had no family or friends. The funeral was to be held at a cemetery in the remote countryside and this man would be the first to be laid to rest there.

As I was not familiar with the backwoods area, I became lost and being a typical man, did not stop for directions. I finally arrived an hour late. As I drove up, I saw the backhoe and the crew who were eating lunch but the hearse was nowhere in sight.

I apologized to the workers for my tardiness and stepped to the side of the open grave where I saw the vault lid already in place.

I assured the workers I would not hold them up for long but this was the proper thing to do. The workers gathered around, still eating their lunch. I played out my heart and soul.

As I played the workers began to weep. I played and I played like I’d never played before, from Going Home and The Lord is My Shepherd to Flowers of the Forest . I closed the lengthy session with Amazing Grace and walked to my car.

As I was opening the door and taking off my coat, I overheard one of the workers saying to another, Sweet Jeezuz, Mary ‘n Joseph, I have never seen nothin’ like that before and I’ve been putting in septic tanks for twenty years…

Usually I manage to write my own posts, but I have been laughing all day since a friend forwarded this to me.   I suspect it’s so funny because it’s somehow the kind of thing I could do.

If I could play the bagpipes, of course.

How much money does a person need to be happy?

My stepmother once said to me in that wonderfully wry way of hers:  ”money won’t make you happy;  but it sure helps to solve a lot of problems.”   I wonder.  If money can help solve your problems, can’t it make you happier?

Some time ago, I stumbled on research finding that once people have enough money to pay for the essentials of life – sufficient food, shelter, clothing, appropriate education and entertainment (like television, books, computer access), additional money on top of that can make us happier.

But what surprised me is that, unless there is some unusual medical or other similar need, relatively small amounts of money make us happier, while after that, mega amounts of money may change our lives, but will not necessarily result in greater contentment, fulfillment, or happiness.  The additional amounts of money where it stops increasing reported happiness seem to top out at about $50,000 in today’s money.

I’ve often puzzled about the differences in the amount of money individuals seem to need to feel happy.  Among my friends and acquaintances, and even among my own sibs, there are very substantial differences in the amount of money we seem to need to spend in order to feel happy.

In my experience, children who worried about there being enough money to pay for food and other basic needs worry about money more as adults. But the differences do not seem to boil down to child-hood based anxieties and experiences of poverty, though that often has a role.   Nor do the differences seem to be reflected in the enjoyment involved in spending money when it is available, or in religious beliefs, or in generosity.  Rich and poor seem to have equal distributions of the those who share and those who rarely donate anything to anybody.

Why are some people big spenders?  number 10’s on a scale of 1-10?  why do they find it impossible to go on vacation and return without “things”?  why do they find trips to the shops regular psychological necessities?  why do they find even looking at price tags too limiting?

And what is it about other people who are quite happy with used furniture, clothes from second-hand shops, who do not feel deprived if they can’t afford the newest or best or the most?

I don’t have a theory about this myself.  But I’m awfully glad my husband and I share a similar acquisitive level.  On that scale of 1-10, I think I’m probably about 4.

Maybe I lack courage to be a 10.  Even if I had another couple of zeroes on my monthly income.

At this point, I think I’m unlikely ever to find out.

A racy question

I have – most uncharacteristically – been watching every episode of the tv series “In Treatment.”  Among other things, the (very good-looking) therapist finds himself in love with one of his patients who reciprocates his feelings, and at the same time, furious beyond words to discover that his wife has just had an affair.  He says he is acquainted with couples who have overcome the difficulty brought about by a partner’s affair, but he himself cannot imagine where the capacity might come from in himself.

I find it an interesting dilemma – although personally academic at this stage in my life.  I was twice madly attracted to someone  else after I was married.  I did not act on it, primarily because I knew it would break my husband’s heart.  But I also reached the conclusion that a monogamous marriage was qualitatively different from one in which there were other sexual partners involved.  And that there was a price to be paid to make a partnership that was mutually fulfilling, and not merely one that met all the paper demands of a marriage that appears to work but doesn’t.

But there were several occasions when I felt I could not be the kind of wife my husband wanted.  And then I would gladly have supported his having an affair with someone who could.  I knew he never would, but I felt it would not have destroyed our relationship.  I’m not so sure now I was right about that, since in the event, it was a possibility that was never tested.

But I am among those who can understand marriages that survive “infidelity.”

I wonder what it is that makes the difference?

High self-esteem

We are all worms.  But I do believe I am a glow-worm.

Winston Churchill