Be the change you wish to see in the world.

It was great soaking up my Mum’s company in Northern Ireland this past summer.  She is ever good-natured and easy going.  How different the rest of the world would be if there were more like her.  Mind you, thank goodness there is only one of me.  I am difficult company.  Argumentative, challenging, confrontational and moody.  Enough said! 

In Northern Ireland they have moved the post offices.  I have become accustomed to stopping elderly shoppers and asking them if they know where the PO has moved.  Invariably, they lead me to where the post office used to be and then stand blinking in confusion as to what has happened.  I know the feeling.  In towns all over the post offices have been transported from where they have been for decades.  In this unpredictable world, not even this has remained unaltered.  Suddenly, I feel like the elderly, confused by the speed of change I see around me.  When a local person leads me to a non-existent post office, I feel an irrational urge to commiserate and give them a hug in sympathy at all this shuffling.  It must be due to closures happening all over the place.  

Another shocking change is the silence of electric cars or hybrids.  Here in Malta I was walking down Stella Maris St in Sliema when I was nearly run over by one.  Their silence means there is no warning, you don't hear them at all.  These machines may reduce the demand on our fossil fuels but they are killing a disproportionate number of us.  Suddenly, we are realizing just how much we use our ears to protect us from road accidents.  Do a search on this topic and simply everyone is protesting at the deaths resulting.

http://www.slate.com/articles/business/gearbox/2012/05/hybrid_and_electric_cars_too_quiet_why_they_re_dangerous_to_pedestrians_.html

“And that, it turns out, is a problem. Thanks to the Pedestrian Safety Act of 2010, by this summer the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration is required to initiate a rulemaking process for minimal vehicle noise—not how quiet, but how loud a car must be.  Hybrids and electric cars are too quiet for the blind or even the fully sighted to hear them coming. 

hybrids and electric vehicles are 37 percent more likely to hit walkers and 66 percent more likely to collide with cyclists than traditional gas-powered cars.”

Others are making the same point,

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/news/9688619/Plan-to-tackle-silent-killer-electric-cars.html

These cars are just too silent!  So proposed legislation is trying to make them noisier. Change is hard to cope with and the elderly find it hardest of all.  Shuting post offices may seem a small step but these local centres served a multitude of needs in small communities.  Isolation kills and shared spaces are becoming harder to find.  Don't get me wrong change can be good but change for change's sake is questionable.

I used to bemoan the changes in the education system.  The endless re-writes of course materials, the constant proposal of new teaching methods and strategies. Within a few years a newer model would be in vogue.  No one seemed to realise that just as plants grow organically so should education systems.  Instead changes are instigated that mean a whole generation of kids emerged less numerate and literate.  Decades later educational systems reap the costs of wholesale changes that actually did harm not good.  The sad truth is when you have a mediocre teacher, after ten years they actually learn to present their stuff better.  They learn techniques that help them improve and the classes benefit as a result.  Today's system requires yearly complete re-structuring both of material and methodology. That mediocre teacher never finds their feet.  They continually chase their tail and are made to feel that what they did before was wrong, inadequate and old fashioned.  Their despair and disintegration haunts school corridors and staff rooms up and down the country. The brilliant teachers suffer even more because instead of doing what they were born to do well, they are shackled and blinkered to perform like show ponies.  A show that will be re choreographed each year with relentless persistence by the powers that be. Even when successful they are a mere shadow of what was really possible.  

So electric cars, closing post offices and our education system: what am I actually saying here?  Well, a little bit of reflection on things usually allows you to see if progress has been achieved or not.  That daily, weekly, monthly or yearly pulse taking lets you feedback whether adjustments are in the right direction or not.  You can then make appropriate small alterations to improve.  Best practice is achieved when that process in built into our systems and ourselves.  Bringing ourselves to account each day would mean we could have a shot at making tomorrow a better one. Meeting as communities and consulting on the problems facing our neighbourhoods would help take the pulse of the wider group.  Making small goals and achieving them would empower local communities to make bigger improvements and to learn from them.  Mistakes will happen but a feeling of ownership helps ease the pain. After all, we all make mistakes each day but usually they do teach us something. In that light even an apparent disaster can reap good results.  Without those shared spaces change is seen as something imposed by others.  Something over which we have no control or say.  Our resentment and helplessness grows.  There is no learning, only an growing awareness of the chaos and disingration that underpins nearly every institution around us.

My father in his eighties had some sound advice.  He used to walk five miles every morning.  If he bought new shoes, he suffered.  If he changed the walking route too drastically he would wreck his knees and be off his feet for weeks.  If he changed his diet substantially his digestion would be affected.  If doctor's changed his medication (probably finding cheaper suppliers) he could feel the difference on his walk.  His advice was  - when you are past a certain age you are like a well oiled machine running in set grooves.  Don't make mad changes.  Don't leave that machine in the garage unused, don't fool about with the fuel for fun and don't tackle unknown mountainous routes.  Everything needs to be in equilibrium and finding that perfect balance means small adjustments to keeping things running smoothly.  Then you are able to notice when life is getting better or you are heading off a cliff!  

So may the changes in your life today be small measured and positive.  May you have time to reflect on their results.  And hopefully all of our tomorrows will be better.

My Letter of Attack, Dear Des....

A Letter to Des

You live in Northern Ireland and work the land. Generations of mine have worked this land and while shaping their landscape also carved from their time here characters as generous and as unique as the fields they are surrounded by.  

However, you are an interloper.  One of those parasites who move into a community and by terrorising your neighbours seize property and substance.  Owning nothing you hoodwink the widowed or elderly to give over their land management forms claiming you will do all the work for them.  Substituting your own signature you then proceed to claim this money for a full five years.  When owners of the land protest that you are taking their right, intimidation becomes the order of the day.  Forcing yourself into my relative’s home and holding one against the wall by the throat!  When an elderly neighbour is seen peering across the road into your garden you assault him and accuse him of looking at your wife.  Little realizing with his poor eyesight he can barely see his own fence and his habit of staring is born of this defect.  

From owning no land, you merely rented from others, you successfully took their forms and claimed subsidies in their place.  Years later, while no longer on the land and having illegally removed fences and gates from the property, you continue to claim money on this property you do not own.  This abuse of the single farm payment goes unchecked as years later you can still claim this amount despite not owning the land or even renting it anymore. Planning permits are ignored as you construct on property that is not yours, barns and houses.  Complaints by neighbours to authorities fall on deaf ears.  Bullies thrive in today’s world where confusion and legislation fight in incompetent courts.  Time delays in obtaining justice means such characters have their way and painful resignation is the order of the day.  

When the persistent few actually win against you, your approach is always the same. You pay the first instalment of the money owned and then stop all subsequent payments.  Knowing full well for the innocent, court orders, enforcement, unpleasantness is draining and demeaning.  Even appearing in court to explain how they have been abused, is a humiliation of the soul.  “Look how old, confused, helpless I am, such a rogue can seize my land, wrestle control of my property and here I appear month after month pleading for protection” they seem to convey.  And hence the rogue thrives on his tyranny of others.

You and I met many years ago.  I was visiting an aunt whose fields you rented.  You had allowed the cattle in the fields to gain access to her garden and the bullock happily played across the lawn.  I phoned to tell you that your bullock was loose and could easily get on to the main busy road causing serious injury.  Your resentment was obvious but you acquiesced and moved the animal back to your  fields.  Later, after I’d gone you complained to my aunt about my manner.   I know why you didn’t like me.  We looked at each other and I saw a petty tyrant intimidating all around him.  You didn’t know me, didn’t know who I knew, could not work out how I fitted in to the neighbourhood.  As it happens I know no one of importance, have zero knowledge of farming practices or the area.  But, I did sense something as you raised your stick and beat the bullock on its side to chase it out of the garden.    I recognised a bully and applied the same logic I have long used with them.  Never appease a bully, it only empowers them.  Accommodating them in any way will only add to suffering of the next victim of their tyranny.  

Years ago public opinion in a rural setting would bring its own consequences.  If you abused the elderly farmer, a widow etc the community would quickly let the person know their actions were not to be tolerated.  In such tight knit farming communities your actions would have consequences that quickly let you know lines had been crossed.  Now, such is the rural isolation and pressures facing farmers despair, suicide, economic ruin, family divisions, addiction all have broken down the once united communities.  The reason rural communities were so united was out of necessity.  You helped a neighbour build a shed, cut his field, herd a stock etc because you would one day need their help.  Your destiny was linked to theirs.  But more, generations before you had followed the same path.  It felt the right thing to do.  A moral principle was ingrained like table manners and instilled in future generations.  

When staying in my grandfather’s farm for a week, while he was unwell, I was shocked by how many characters came through the door expecting tea and chat.  The door was expected to be open under all conditions and a warm greeting extended whether I knew them or not.  You learned that this was deemed acceptable behaviour and to do any less was bad manners.  My grandfather helped build his neighbour’s houses and was paid in potatoes not cash and sometimes not paid at all.  That too, was okay because most people survived on the generousity of others and you knew that it would be repaid in friendship and respect if not in money.    We all have memories of those open doors and open hearts.  We were shaped at those hearths and kitchens that smelled of soda bread and roasts in the oven.  When something has been lost we have to look back at an older culture to summon a better way.  Each culture had a bedrock of social interaction that gently corrected and directed behaviour.  Today’s splendid isolation does not serve.  We are essentially communities of people in cities and countries who need each other more than we can possible imagine.  Working together on common goals in service will help remind us of the necessity of community cohesion and what wonders it instills in us and our children and grandchildren.  To proceed in the opposite direction will create unhealthy individuals, divided families, miserable communities and serve selfish materialistic agendas.

Rogue and genius - Caravaggio

Caravaggio was a rogue. At least, that is the mild term to describe this irritating and flawed artist. Putting a list of his activities on paper would make you think we were describing a street thug and not one of the most remarkable painters of the 16th century. Here’s a typical account of him,

“Much of what we know about Caravaggio's life comes to us through police records and legal depositions. During his time in Rome, he insulted his fellow painters, quarrelled, fought, broke the law, defied the police and was subsequently imprisoned. He was sued for libel, arrested for carrying a weapon without a license, prosecuted for tossing a plate of artichokes in a waiter's face. He was accused of throwing stones at the police, attacking the house of two women, harassing a former landlady and wounding a prison guard.”

He got involved in street fights regularly and used the street characters such as prostitutes and beggars in his paintings regularly.  He even killed a man (over a wager on a tennis match!) and had to flee for his life. He grew up in a rough area and was shaped by the social life around him.  There is hardly any written work by him in existence.  He usually never even signed his work.  He earned money on the street selling paintings at one stage.

His work has grown in popularity especially in the last century. That is no mean feat, because he was hated by so many respected voices for 300 years after his death. In fact, he and his work were completely forgotten and overlooked for centuries. It highlights how even in the 16th century bad publicity can smother the best of artists.

Poussin, a leading painter of the classical French Baroque style, upon viewing Caravaggio's Death of the Virgin, cried: "I won't look at it, it's disgusting. That man was born to destroy the art of painting. Such a vulgar painting can only be the work of a vulgar man. The ugliness of his paintings will lead him to hell.”

Another Italian Baroque painter, Giovanni Baglioni was Caravaggio's direct competitor and arch-enemy. Although he himself was influenced by Caravaggio's style, Baglione virulently attacked Caravaggio's personal life as well as his artworks continually.  Following Caravaggio's death, Baglione maliciously authored a biography that criticised the artist's works and described Caravaggio as "a degenerate failure".

Even in the 19th Century, Caravaggio was getting attacked by the art critics.  John Ruskin, an opposer of the Baroque style described Caravaggio's paintings as filled with "horror and ugliness and filthiness of sin. " 

He became an artist forgotten and his works were even attributed to others.  It was not until fairly recently that there has been a resurgence of interest in this unlikely artist and his incredible work.  There are now a growing number of people who go on Caravaggio’s trails to visit each of his paintings wherever they exist in the world.  There is something incredibly powerful about his pieces and it is hard not to be touched by their potency.

He certainly didn't make life easy for himself and his actions undoubtedly lead to disgrace, exile and eventual death. I first discovered his work in St John's Co-Cathedral in Malta. 

In the opulent cathedral with its huge gold ornaments, aged gravestones underfoot and beautiful intricate tapestries, Caravaggio's painting of the beheading of Saint John the Baptist shines like the work of a real genius. Listening to the audio presentation of Caravaggio, as I walked around, they explained he was thrown out of the order of the Knights for his indiscretions. Perversely, his powerful painting easily outshines and outclasses everything else in the cathedral. 

This is no angelic representation of Saint John the Baptist's beheading. The violence is evident in the burly man forcing his blade across the Saints neck. The blood flows from the growing wound and boldly Caravaggio signs this painting in the blood running from the gaping wound. Of course he knew that John the Baptist had a real resonance for the Knights of Malta. They prayed before the precious gold plated relic, forearm of Saint John the Baptist, before heading off to sea during the crusades. The symbolism is especially potent because it was the right forearm which was used to anoint Christ. Caravaggio transformed what was a traditional interpretation,  a formal religious painting with the careful halo around the Saint’s head and angels ascending on all sides into a brutal realistic killing. You would believe that Caravaggio’s villain is indeed a murderous killer.  The act of this death is neither celestial or full of grace but ugly and horrific as indeed it would have been.  No wonder his work shocked and appalled those used to more restrained and artificial devices.

In his portrayal of the conversion of Saul on the road to Damascus Caravaggio also took a completely different tack from the common approach.  Remember that Saul had been a persecutor of the early Christians. He had hated Christians. He had made it his goal to capture, then bring Christians to public trial and execution. Saul was present when the first Christian martyr (named Stephen) was killed by an angry mob.

"... they all rushed at him (Stephen), dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul. . . . And Saul was there, giving approval to his death" (Acts 7.57 to 8:1).

After Stephen was martyred, Saul went door to door in Jerusalem finding people who believed that Jesus is the Messiah.

"Saul began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off men and women and put them in prison" (Acts 8:3).

After putting these people in prison, Saul learned about their Christian friends in Damascus by somehow getting letters from the prisoners.

"I persecuted the followers of this Way to their death, arresting both men and women and throwing them into prison, as also the high priest and all the Council can testify. I even obtained letters from them to their brothers in Damascus, and went there to bring these people as prisoners to Jerusalem to be punished" (Acts 22:4-5).

So Saul’s conversion on the road to Damascus into Paul was a stunning transformation.  Caravaggio caught it perfectly in his painting,

“He has re imagined Saul's transformation into Paul as a night scene in which the saint writhes on the ground, his arms thrown open, blinded by a moment of illumination witnessed only by a muscular, exhausted-looking horse and a melancholy groom.”   

Who else but Caravaggio would picture such a scene as an inner struggle, eye’s closed with the light indicating where all the action takes place.  How Saul must have suffered when he realised exactly the extent of his previous deeds.  What a rendering of that instant of bringing oneself to account and immediate transformation.

In David’s beheading of Goliath, it is Caravaggio’s features that are on the face of the decapitated victim.  

Caravaggio's behaviour throughout his life became even more erratic and impulsive.  A reason for this decline could have been found recently. In 2010, a team of scientists who studied Caravaggio's remains discovered that his bones contained high levels of lead—levels high enough, they suspect, to have driven the painter mad. Lead poisoning is also suspected of having killed Francisco Goya and Vincent van Gogh.  Who knows?  But his pieces of art startle now even as they did in the 16th Century.  Check out the one nearest to you and experience this gifted artist at first hand.