I am pretty odd to start with

I have been alone far too long and am beginning to become even more odd than normal.  This will be of some concern to those who know me, as I am pretty odd to start with.  Yesterday I jumped on any bus and travelled as far as it went.  Got off at a village and walked and walked until I grew tired and found a bus stop.  The time schedule showed that the bus would come in 45 minutes.  It is a given fact that I am unable to wait at bustops.  I’m not sure what it is that gets to me about waiting below those signs.  It occurs to me that these 45 minutes will never be returned to me but are totally wasted.  Suddenly, life seems short enough without the loss of these 45 minutes.  As usual, I cannot wait and proceed to walk to Rabat, a good 3.5 kms away instead.  

Today I jumped another bus this time to a place called the Golden Bay on Malta.  It has a secluded sandy beach on the far side of the island.  After ages the bus drops me off and instead of enjoying the beach I go to the Radisson Hotel and eat at the Mokka a ridiculously expensive restaurant on a balcony overlooking the bay.  It had been rated quite high on trip advisor.  I had the cheapest thing on the menu Ceasar Salad and water.  It came after a huge delay and it is the first time I had this salad without chicken and without crotons.  As you might suspect without these it becomes lettuce and cheese.  In fact it resembled a child’s idea of making a cheese sandwich with lettuce instead of bread.  It is far too posh a place to complain and even when they charge 5.50 euros for a bottle of water I have to act as if that is fine instead of tearing my hair out and screaming – “what a rip off!”  

On the way back by bus I kept falling asleep.  For some reason, when asleep, my leg would slip forward and kick a very dignified Maltese white haired gentleman.  I would wake up and apologise and then fall asleep again and do the same thing.  He was very gracious and when I said how sorry I was he just smiled and waved his hand dismissively.  I proceeded to kick him five times on that journey but his good nature never wavered.  Got home and went straight to bed and sleep an hour – talk about exhausted.  

Yesterday I noticed I had begun to talk to myself.  Not long speeches but short invigorating comments – like “you can do this”, or “never mind, another day!”  But today, I noticed my talking to myself has become much more convoluted.  Long segments of a good talking to, the kind of thing you would say to a demented aunt who has pushed you beyond your limits.  This I have to admit is not a good sign.  Rather worrisome, I think.  Even worse, there is no one to notice.  Three weeks of being alone has done something to my brain and not a good thing.  Thank goodness incoming troops are arriving on Tuesday.  I do hope I have not reached an even worse state by then, my visitors may not even get a word in.  I could be giving parliamentary-like addresses for hours by that stage!

For the disembowelled among us

There is no room for judgemental speeches when someone commits suicide.  The loss is too great to address and it has been accurately referred to as “the scar that will not heal”.  Every person’s death diminishes us and we need to use each as a spur to all of us to do more to help not as a conversation piece.

Ten million people attempt suicide each year and one million succeed. A disproportionate number are young people.  These figures do not even come close to exposing the agony and pain that hides behind those statistics.

The loss of a young life just beginning screams its wrongness.  Too often the necessary investigations inflict more anguish on already lacerated hearts.  Those who end their own lives do so not because they choose to die but usually because living is no longer a viable option.  We cannot imagine what is going on in the mind of a tormented soul but their anguish should call out to all of us.

We need to ensure support, professional, competent and timely is available for those who are at the very end of their tether.  This lifeline should be strengthened if it is the final barrier between a person and that deadly last step.  It cannot be amateur, incompetent or ill informed.  It needs to be constantly evaluated and improved.  While suicide preventative resources are limited and often under developed there are well-established suicide prevention programmes worldwide that have shown themselves effective in reducing the number of suicides.  Prevention is always a challenge but by using resources available and learning from good practice we can get better.  

While attending a suicide prevention programme in Londonderry, N. Ireland some years ago I was impressed that the speakers spoke with passion and insight.  They seemed to know what they were talking about and conveyed compassion and guidance that made practical sense.  It was only during the coffee break I learned that all of the trainers had lost family members through suicide.  Their experiences gave their words a depth of understanding and poignancy that touched all exposed to it.  They clearly got over the principle that that “suicide is everyone’s business”.  Channels need to be opened to those in despair and each of us can play a role.

Too many live among us, mortally injured, but having to hide their weeping wounds.  In addition to their growing pain they muster up the charade that all is well.  The reasons are manifold but one is the knowledge that fellow humans thrive on gossip, backbiting and the tragedy of others.  Going over the bones of carcasses, pulling apart the sinews to see wounds more clearly.  Delighting to satisfy their morbid curiosity and share with others new titbits found.  Our newspapers and neighbourhoods are full of such judgemental spouting.  No wonder then, the disembowelled among us seek no help but hug their intestines to their chest and hope no one senses their despair and agony.

"regard backbiting as grievous error, and keep ..aloof from its dominion, inasmuch as backbiting quencheth the light of the heart, and extinguisheth the life of the soul."

(Baha'i Writings)

Ewald - Knight of Justice of the Order of St John

Generally, I am not keen on political types.  Having long been of the persuasion that by the time an individual has been elected they invariably have unencumbered themselves of basic human morals.  Ewald Von Kleist-Schmenzin was a lawyer and a conservative politician in what was then Germany but which is now part of Poland.  He was from a distinguished family (2 Field Marshalls etc) and was virulently anti-Nazi even before Hitler came to power in 1933.  He stubbornly refused to fly the Nazi flag from his castle (Schloss Schmenzin) and the only insignia he embraced was the white Maltese cross of the Order of St John.  He was made a Knight of Justice of this order in 1935. 

Schloss Schenzin

After Hitler came to power a refusal to offer the German greeting (Heil Hitler) could cost you your life.  Even an ambiguous remark like “The war was not going well” could be interpreted as opposition behaviour and lead to dire consequences.  Not contributing to a Nazi fund drive was another easy way to be identified as disloyal to the Führer.  So when in 1933 a Nazi Party District leader visited Ewald he must have been rather flummoxed  by Ewald’s emphatic responses, that

1. he was indeed an enemy of the Nazi Party
2. he would never say Heil Hitler
3. he would always refuse to fly the Nazi flag over his castle, Schloss Schmenzin
4. and finally that he would give nothing to the Nazi party not even ten pennies!

Tack was not his strong point.  He held to his loathing and hatred of the Nazi party for ten years during which fear made good men compromise their principles.  In 1944 his son was asked to take part in a suicide attempt on Hitler’s life.  Hesitating on the implications of this mission the son turned to his father almost hoping that his father would object.  Ewald responded with a short silence and then said this memorable line to his son,

Ewald's son

“A man who doesn’t take such a chance will never again be happy in life.”

His son actually twice agreed to carry explosives to detonate near Hitler but both plots failed.  When a briefcase exploded near Hitler in another attempt the consequences were severe and the very next day Ewald was arrested.  He was tried in the Peoples Court by Roland Freisler.

Ronald Freisler

Freisler chaired the First Senate of the People's Court, and acted as judge, jury and prosecution in these show trials.  90% of all these proceedings ended with sentences of death or life imprisonment, the sentences frequently having been determined before the trial.  Freisler introduced the concept of 'precocious juvenile criminal' in the "Juvenile Felons Decree". This decree "provided the legal basis for imposing the death penalty and penitentiary terms on juveniles for the first time in German legal history.

 Over a period of a few short years Fresier’s court resulted in 5000 executions including 72 juveniles (one 16 year old boy was executed for handing out anti-fascist texts).  In the court facing Freisler’s questions Ewald was as blunt and belligerent as usual and was in no way intimidated by the proceedings.  He announced

“Yes, I have pursued high treason since 30 Jan 1933 always and with every means.  I made no secret of my struggle against Hitler and National Socialism.  I regard this struggle as a commandment from God.  God alone will be my judge.”

It was a very timely comment.  An American bomb flattened the courthouse, halting proceedings and killing Freisler. 

Despite this seemingly divine intervention Ewald was nevertheless guillotined at Plötzensee Prison in Berlin on 9 April 1945 (69 years ago exactly to this day) — one month before the end of the war.  Ewald did not go quietly into that dark night and his words written shortly before his execution echo yet.

Schloss Schenzin

“We believe that faith in God and obedience to His Word must permeate our public life…..Who is the greater, who has achieved more for humanity, Caesar, or a simple, conscientious genuine working man, whose whole life has been an example of faith? I think it is the working man.”

PS In March 2013 Ewald's son died at the age of 90 having amazingly survived the war.

Owl Puke

Well it has been a week of discoveries!

For example today I was rounding up my two-week science teaching of middle school lab work with a video of the barn owl.  We have been covering body systems and had started with the skeleton.  Much making of full sized black cardboard skeletons with labelled bones tied together with wool or paperclips.  In fact my entire science lab resembles a bizarre Hallowen celebration with many of the black shapes running on the walls, spread-eagled on corridors or waving frantically from a board in the classroom.  We then moved on to dissecting an owl pellet.  It was tricky justifying the expense of purchase of owl vomit in these economically challenging times, but I got it.  As owls cannot digest the bones, feathers and fur of their prey they vomit it up in these pellets so I reckoned that would be a creative way to allow them to pull all the bones out and reconstruct the victims of the owl.  Various parts of rodents, voles, birds, shrews etc were all carefully extracted from these solid lumps and then separated out into piles of each respective animal.  The lab echoed to excited cries of  “I’ve got a skull here!”, or “This is a pelvis of a rat” and they grew expert at identifying shrew skulls because the tips of their teeth are red.  Tweezers and heads bent over dead piles of bones has been our points of interest for some time and now all bones have been stuck on black card board and identified.  The corridors have been full of conversations like, “what did you find in your owl puke?”  After all these experiences I decided to close the topic with a series of videos showing owls vomiting up their owl pellets, in flight catching prey and finally one of an owl swallowing a huge rat.  So it was with complete despair, while watching them, I heard a group of students crying out, “that is so gross, what is that lump coming out of its mouth?” or comments to that effect.  At which point, several of the brighter students turned and exasperatedly pointed out that we had been dissecting owl pellets all week and of course that was what these were.  Several students looked green around the gills that they had been rummaging around in these horrid looking turds and were outraged.  At this point all my satisfaction about my lesson plans and lab work drained away.  I should have remembered when you take kids into labs a part of their brains switches off and goes into a sort of “Bunsen burner, test-tube, chemical, mesmerised state” that closes down all rational thought.  If I entered the lab and began a strange witch doctor ritual with feathers and skinned rabbits around my head it would make no difference.  You can tell, when they approach you in the lab and ask, “can we blow something up next week?”  Everything but explosions to sixth grade is a complete waste of a lab session.  Here is the owl video, be patient – it is taken by amateurs discussing their camera storage capacity.

But for me the most beautiful part is watching these birds in flight – this is 6 minutes long so don’t feel you have to watch it but there is something angelic about their flight in slow motion that grabs me.  Okay the last part is fairly gross!

It is all a learning experience.  From the sublime to the ridiculous, this life.  One minute you think you are running exciting educational science experiments the next you realize it really is just all vomit.  There is a metaphor about life in that last line.  Education is just about regurgitating stuff and life usually involves vomit for some reason!