What is it about golden rooms that scream inadequacy?

A beautiful garden, a lovely blue-skied day to soak up the welcome winter sun rays. The Palazzo Parisio is a treat. The building is grand but the gardens are beautiful. I remember when visiting Versailles I was spectacularly unimpressed by the over-the-top furnishings. I mean one can have too much of gold, embossing, mirrors and intricate coving. 

It reaches joke-like proportions and you cease to be awed but feel a growing revulsion instead.  Wondering around the Palace of Versailles I did not envy royalty their silly gilded home.  Then, I entered the gardens around the palace and felt an unpleasant envy of the bloody rich.

Here in Naxhar on Malta, the  Palazzo Parisio has also pleasant rooms but a bit Louis the XVI, if you get my drift.  What is it about golden rooms that scream inadequacy? 

The Palazzo’s gardens outside are a wonderfulI place to have coffee and I sit on white garden chairs soaking up the smell of flowers and the sound of birds. 

There is only one other table occupied and I hear that peculiar braying voice of the wealthy, declaring they started their business years ago and have made so much money! They're sitting on the table next to me. How they have moved from Florianna to Naxhar to be closer to smart bars and better parking. Their gloating satisfaction sets my teeth on edge. What is it about ‘the rich’, ‘the would-be rich’ or ‘the has been rich’ that their exaltation in their material successes (real or imaginary) hits such a sour note with me? I must admit to it being nauseous to my system. A similar reaction to encountering a vomit smelling toilet onboard a rough cross-channel ferry. Don't get me wrong an aspirational attitude is admirable in so many ways, but a gloating self-satisfaction is never attractive. 

All of us vaguely know the humility that is truly appropriate when you examine yourself closely. You get a whiff of your own hypocrisy, your shells of pretence, the lies you tell yourself to cover over the cracks. In those moments of truth, we all shift in our seats in discomfort at the truth bubbling up from within. Instead of cackling over the misfortune of others like this lot. They are now discussing, their friend Lola’s disastrous boutique dress shop with inappropriate glee. They knew in advance it would end badly! Now, they speculate on another friend who has withdrawn from Facebook. “She was always a bit odd into nature and stuff! Must be something disastrous happening in her life?” 

I am asking myself, what no meaningless selfies of random spectacular venues, no gloating achievements/homes/cars etc what a loss! I sit here judging others so harshly when I am so rarely as vicious on myself. Perhaps this pernicious self-gratification habit sneaks into all our lives without us even noticing. Instead of examining our internal landscape we begin enjoying speculation on the ruins of others.  Just as I do now on my neighbours in this garden.

I will cease this attack on the rich around me and just enjoy the coffee, the sun's rays, the flowers and beckoning gardens instead. It's probably why being in nature is such therapy for the soul. You look at beauty and find nothing to criticise and just soak up its wholesomeness. Sigh with appreciation that it, like the sun beams on all with uniform abundance, impervious to all our inadequacies and shortcomings.

"Busy not thyself with this world, for with fire We test the gold, and with gold We test Our servants."

Bahá’u’lláh

Squeezing oranges - undiluted self, pips and all

I write, I pour out my angst,

My guts, my blood.

This is no way to earn a living

It is an opening of the heart

For no reason, but passion.

The need to create,

To let the energy flow.

Not because the world thinks it's worth a jot.

But because such outpouring

is beyond its creator’s control.

I do not ask myself why be creative?

I ask myself, how can I stop?

So judge not, if crap flows.

Or at times worthy insights emerge.

The need to pour

Oneself undiluted, 

good or bad

Is a call to be alive

All must answer in their own way.

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.