Courtesy is such an old-fashioned word but a wonderful art indeed

 

She had a warm smile of greeting and she spoke kindly showing careful loving attention towards all guests. Her open heart welcomed you to her simple tidy home with generosity. Talking with her reminded me of conversations long ago, in black-and-white movies, where it seemed each word and gesture was carefully weighed and considered.  But it is the feeling her courtesy generated that I remember most.  She was doing not just everything to avoid offending you but also providing a safe space for you to be. Where you knew no harm but only help and love would come your way. Her determination to be courteous provided a safety net for every hurt soul that came her way.

"Do not be content with showing friendship in words alone, let your heart burn with loving-kindness for all who may cross your path."

Bahá'í Writing

There are people and things we take for granted until they are taken from us

There was a time when they were just so many weddings. It felt like the whole world had conspired to get married simultaneously. Especially to a 23-year-old me who had never even had a boyfriend! My fridge door was covered in invites and large periods of time was spent buying wedding presents and working out what to wear.  There were so many that they seem to blur into each other.

Then they stopped.  Suddenly it was baby showers that popped up interspersed with children’s birthday parties. Children’s presents, balloons and games dominated everything.

Unexpectedly the weddings stopped and as children grew into teenagers, who sneered at the very thought of a birthday party organised by parents, those parties frizzled out too.

There followed a long period of expectancy with no weddings and no birthday parties. In the gap that followed, we examined all the 20 and 30-year-olds around us wondering if marriage was even on their radar at all.

The sense of expectancy was broken by a funeral of a loved grandparent, then an aunt and uncle. Suddenly it seemed that the wonderful forest in whose shelter you have long stood is being felled. These major oak trees that have remained consistent for eight decades begin to topple. The void they leave is huge. There are people and things we take for granted until they are taken from us. Then the space they leave seems unsustainable, unbearable.  With each new loss, the landscape seems to change and not for the better.

I mourn my uncle with his smiling good humour teaching me about beekeeping. My aunt whose laughter was only exceeded by her golfing expertise. The list goes on I cannot name them all, there are simply too many.

Yesterday another dear friend passed away. I remember her living room, chairs all drawn close, warm and cosy, full of love and anecdotes. Rocking with laughter we shared tales of woe and triumph.  These immense oak trees are falling around us.  I mourn their loss, their integrity, their faithfulness and their love. I want to speak of these great souls and all those who are heartbroken at their loss. But what do words matter?

At one recent funeral my cousin was asked that traditional question, “what charity should contributions be sent?” He explained the family had decided that in lieu of giving money each person was asked to do a good deed in memory of their mother instead. What a lovely way to be remembered. As I see the voids left behind my thoughts turned to searching for actions in their name that will contribute to the betterment of others.  In among the fallen oaks seeds of goodness need to be planted. It seems a befitting fruit of lives well lived.

Your Loss is Remembered...in our hearts

My heart goes out to you on the loss of your son. Ever since I received the news the shock has left me devastated. He was such a special soul and one of the nicest young men it was my pleasure to know. His kindness and good humour was tangible. I must say of all my son’s friends he was my favourite. 

I'm sure I am telling you nothing you do not already know. The last few nights have left my heart aching that we have to go on without this sweet young man in our midst. Last night I could not sleep and could only think of him and remember his smile and ready laughter. Then, in the early hours of the morning, I registered that this tragic sense of loss must be nothing to that experienced by you and the family.

There are no words! 

May I just offer you my deepest sympathy for your loss and my sincere congratulations that you brought up such an exceptionally unique character. I am so grateful to have known him and know the bewildered sense of loss must be shared by many. Such sweet souls are rare and touch so many hearts.

love

Nose picking, B.O. and lessons to be learned

Dennis was dead by his own hand and even as I digested the news, the thought bubbled unwanted into my mind that I had never liked him. We met in primary school in the playground and his favourite trick was to run as hard as he could into unexpected victims. Pushing or pulling he seemed not to mind if you cut a knee as you fell over, or bashed the back of your head on the curb. His main satisfaction was in felling others. It was something he just could not stop despite repeated beatings from our headmaster. He was refused to be weaned from his favourite pastime.

In my first day at school, Dennis wet himself. The Headmaster’s wife, Mrs Harris, raged and locked Dennis in the cupboard off her class where the sewing baskets were kept. There Dennis howled for the full two hours until break time while Mrs Harris lectured us all on bladder control. I'm not sure what the rest of the class learnt or Dennis but those two hours taught me that people with grey hair in buns wearing respectable expensive clothes could be vicious beasts deep in their hearts. Every cry of Dennis that soared over her demands, that we sit straight, remain silent and colour in our drawings, left me with a lifeline horror of colouring in. I knew with every crayon stroke that all of our souls were being coloured by the cruelty of that situation in ways that would linger for decades.

Perhaps the soft play dough of young children hearts makes every such event traumatic? Not that Dennis endeared himself to anyone. His spontaneous acts of violence continued unabated in the playground and even grew with each passing year. I complained to my father about his behaviour and he pointed out that Dennis was from a dysfunctional home. I had no idea what that meant but learned that Dennis was being brought up by his grandmother, an eccentric woman whose hair was as wild as her language. 

My father claimed our dog Monty could identify people with unusual tendencies. In their presence Monty would change from a placid ever good-natured Labrador into a barking aggressive hound. He wouldn't bite but barked as if a bear had entered the garden. Dennis's grandmother got by far the worst reaction from Monty and so I reckon dysfunctional was something dogs sensed that we humans had to guess at. It didn't make me dislike Dennis any less.

The headmaster Mr Harris would regularly throw Dennis over his shoulder and carry him out of the class after slapping him hard across the face and knocking him out of the school seat. Beating Dennis seem to be the main educational response to any misdemeanours.

He seemed to search for ways of annoying others. Not just by pushing but by laughing at other’s discomfort. A Kindergarten child was crying in the playground for her mother. She was tiny and vulnerable in this new world absent of parents. I overheard Dennis telling her she’d never see her mother again! That was what school meant. She was so distraught at this news she cried hysterically until she wet herself. At which point, Denis ran to tell Mrs Harris of the incident. Horrified we watched as this tiny girl was frogmarched into Mrs Harris’s dreaded cupboard as punishment. Her cries were far more tragic than Dennis’s as fear rather than humiliation fuelled their volume. I remember I broke four crayons that day pushing the nibs deep into my paper, digging into the white sheets in huge red stripes until they snapped. Why on earth do people think childhood was the happiest days of their lives? Was their childhood so good or what followed so awful in comparison?

In my last few years of primary school Mr and Mrs Harris retired and there were speeches of gratitude to these two monsters. Even the local MP came to sing their praises, mentioning their love of children and dedication to others. When Mr Harris died I remember the same MP weeping real tears copiously while reading a piece from the Bible during the service. I sat in church watching the whole pantomime, thinking what must God think of all this? None of it made any sense to me.  Not the cruelty, nor the adoration of abusers nor the incessant nose picking of Dennis who sat beside me during the service, stinking of BO. The horror of it all was mixed with the smell of pee, the memory of warm crayons between my fingers and bitter injustice burning in my belly.

Towards the end of primary school the girls all grew into giants while the boys remained the same height. At least, that's how it seemed to me. With only brothers at home I knew how to fight and dealt out  instant justice to those I felt due. Any time Dennis played his cruel games with kindergarten kids I’d hammer him. When he pushed others over I punched him hard. It never stopped him behaving badly but it made me feel good. As if at last I could play a role in fixing things. He became my pet project for world betterment. I couldn't control Mr and Mrs Harris but I would try with Dennis.  To his credit he never held any grudges against me. I think he was beaten so badly by adults all round him he viewed our exchanges as just rough child's play. At times, on some strange level, we were close. I watched out for him in the playground and rather than resenting my interference he felt a bond that I was ashamed was one-sided.   

In the secondary school, he attended, my mother taught him Maths.  She used to bring a complete clean uniform, shirt, tie, blazer trousers, socks and pants to school for him each day.  Whenever, he had an accident she would bring him the clean set, from her room, to change into.  Two years into secondary school the wetting stopped but she continued to supply him with new clean clothes when his own were unclean. 

We went our separate ways then, Dennis and I. His grandmother was still a visitor to our home occasionally and treated with good humour. On a family outing, with her in the car, I can remember my father parking outside a huge palace of a house with elegant rhododendrons on either side of the drive. He managed to convince her that his relatives lived inside this massive mansion. She was impressed beyond words and later when he told her he’d only been joking she roared with laughter that was too loud and too long.

Years later, Dennis joined the police. My mother was stopped by the police one night in the Glenshane pass. The officer that peered through the window was Dennis. She said he looked smart and proud in his neat new uniform. He had thanked her that night for her maths lessons in secondary school and told her she'd been his favourite teacher. Dennis we learned even had a girlfriend. Then, out of the blue she dumped him for someone else. 

On a rainy night in his new car, high in the mountains, near our village, he put his police revolver to his head and blasted his life away.  When I heard the news I felt a physical ache within. His ex-girlfriend went on to marry three other men in the years ahead, breaking more hearts no doubt in the process. I wished he had been able to know she wasn't worth it. Not worth one second of the life that should've been his. Too many young men seem to take their own lives in despair and betrayal. Alone in the dark their anger turns inwards with no other bond to hold them in this world.

Dennis had really tried. He'd come through so much in his short life. None of us had ever really understood him. I still hear his cry from the cupboard and can only pledge to be more kind to the souls around me. Some journeys are so tough you can't imagine or know how bereft of love and kindness such lives can be.  If we did, I hope we’d all be different to each other.

A North Coast Walk on the Wildside

My father used to sit in his  favoured seat in the living room at the window overlooking the busy seaside resort. Coffee shops, ice cream parlours and tourists melted in an economically productive slurry a floor below. After his early morning 5 mile walk he enjoyed the quiet rest his corner seat offered. In fact he liked it so much he eventually wore out the carpet in front of his chair. But it was the treehouse quality he appreciated most. Being on the first floor the living room  is perched at the perfect position to allow you to people-watch or if you raise your head you see the sweep of the coast towards the Giants Causeway beyond. 

The beach stretches for miles in pristine condition with sand, sea and sky creating new masterpieces each hour. Even in the winter storms he would return triumphant that the wind had buffeted his 15 stone but not managed to blow him off his feet. How many others struggled along the church rails opposite hauling themselves along handover fist in the 70 mph gales. He loved these battles with the elements even in his 80s and his all weather kit and strong walking boots usually won the day. I find I share the same Northern Irish habits. You can be suddenly caught out by the weather on the distant headland. The clouds close in and the ferocious rain stings your face and your anorak flaps in foetal distress against your chest. At times to put one leg in front of the other seems a physical battle. Then from inside suddenly springs an ancient ancestor who seems to shout in delight “Bring on your worst! I can bear this and more!” 

You screw your courage and strength within and delight in this unexpected challenge. Lifting your face to the rain you feel eyelids sting with the downpour and your feet beat a heady tune in time with your heart. This is an ancient landscape not cultivated like smooth English downs nor pretty like chocolate box Swiss villages. It is rugged and edgy with bog pits that can kill and treacherous sheer cliff path's that erode continually. The waves can become angry mountains at the flick of grimace  both terrifying and awe inspiring. They, like the wind, beat upon this headland with relentless timeless fury. As I round the most exposed part of the coast I want to scream at my victory despite my numb fingers. At that moment it is as if I feel my father's feet beneath my own, his heart beating with mine in celebration of another triumphant victory on the north coast. Perhaps it was ever so. When times are easy we forget even ourselves. But when tests or hardship bombard us we are forced to remember the fundamentals. Who we are, those we love and who loves us.

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.

She was omnivorous and ate everything but people

There is a monument in Valletta in one of the beautiful parts I found recently.  In fact, there are many lovely monuments around this historic city.  For example overlooking the main harbour there is a huge prone figure lying flat on his back as if on a bed beside a huge bell.  The Siege Bell War Memorial commemorates the victory of the Allied forces during the Second Siege of Malta from 1940-1943 and remembers the many who paid with their lives in defense of the island. 

The proud tiny island was almost constantly bombarded during this period.   At a time when the war could have gone either way and entire countries in Europe were over run in days/weeks this tiny island and its defenders, planted deep in the Mediterranean, on the critical shipping routes of this region, stood firm for three years in their walled city and would not submit. In 1942 Malta was awarded the George Cross. In bestowing the award King George VI said '...to honour her brave people, I award the George Cross to the Island Fortress of Malta to bear witness to a heroism and devotion that will long be famous in history'.

It perhaps helped that the Maltese had a heritage of withstanding such attacks dating back to the great siege of 1565 when just 600 knights, a few thousand mercenaries and a few thousand Maltese irregulars – in all between 6,000 and 9,000 managed to hold the city against 40,000 fighting men of the Ottoman empire.  

However, it is not the courage of the Maltese but their kindness that I wish to celebrate here.  Nearby there is a monument to a foreigner to this island.  

It is dedicated to Clement Martin Edwards who died on the 17^th March 1818 and reads

“Few could vie with him in usefulness of talent

And fewer still possessed a heart more benevolent

Or deposition more social. 

He died in the prime of life

But lived long enough to know

how fully he had secured

the respect and esteem of all good men.”

 What a lovely way to be remembered.  I have a horrid feeling mine will read something akin to

"She was omnivorous and ate everything but people

With a temper foul to bear and look that would curdle butter

Her purpose in life appeared to be consuming as much chocolate as possible

but take heart dear passerby, as you read this gravestone

because however bad you are, you are better by far than her!"

Here is a panoramic view of the harbour of Valleta, if you fancy a quick look.

http://www.vrmalta.com/malta-virtual-tour/Valletta-Grand-Harbour-from-the-Great-Siege-Bell.html

Pari

I remember your luminous smile.  Eyes bright and twinkling laughter lighting your face.  The kindness of your heart enveloping those around you.  So many acts of kindness that it seemed to be an addiction not a habit for you.  You came to my home on our grotty estate and painted our entire living room a happy sunshine colour.  Then brought a table, round and low and very fancy for cups and cakes.  Too expensive for our estate but so beautiful.  You came to my door loaded with vitamins and supplements, sensing my pain when no one else did.  When my studies were finished you had a surprise celebratory party for me.  I remember travelling in Poland with you and singing a morning prayer sitting on a rock beside you.   In the silence that followed, you turned and told me that it was the most tuneless thing you’d heard ever heard!  We laughed so hard I think I remember us  falling off the rock.  Your Lemon cake from the Aga that had melted syrup on top.  So many other acts of kindness too many to put on paper.  Table loaded with lovely food and the best coffee and tea on tap.  The hostess whose heart was as big as your home.

Somehow I couldn’t face the Dreen without you for so long.  Then your grandchildren visited and in those two I saw your smile in smaller features and felt the loss strangely eased.  You are still here in so many ways.  There, in those happy grins and here in our hearts always.