All happiness or unhappiness solely depends upon the quality of the object to which we are attached

I envy the young their sociability. Here in the shopping mall, they roam in herds chattering, pushing and laughing. At ease with their peers around them. Adults tend to be loan wolves or couples. Like the pair sitting beside me at the table with their Marks & Spencer's cups of coffee in front of them. 

Although sitting opposite he has his chair carefully positioned away from his wife. Occasionally, he points out someone passing and with a snigger nods at his wife. She is ripping a napkin into tiny minuscule pieces of confetti. Not in a random angry way but with slow methodical tidy strips equally broad and then dissecting these into smaller and smaller pieces. Folding carefully then tearing in half then folding again until her side of the table is covered in this patient display of inner turmoil while the husband carefully ignores her paperwork. 

He points out an obese woman waddling past and speaks a quick photo of her with his iPhone before nodding to his wife “Got her”, “I’ll add that to the collection”! She dips her head in acknowledgement of his smartness and then rips with violence the tender tissue between her fingers. She looks placid and contained. All her agitation focused in one monumental craft pursuit. He swings his coffee down and stares around. There is less to see. The shopping centre has emptied. His wife has completed her task. The array of equally sized tiny squares cover her side of the table. She takes them and one by one pushes them through the slit in her empty plastic coffee cup lid. Sometimes she needs to use the stick stirrer to push reluctant one through, but her fingers are fine and nimble. This is obviously a much practised art. It's harder for him to ignore her actions. There is less to take his attention. 

He glances down at her pile of little papers and says, “For shit’s sake, Beth”! In those muttered few words there is so much hatred and loathing. She sits back in her chair as if struck and drops the tiny squares, hands by her side she sits awkwardly before the table scanning all the confetti. Unable to put away her work. Yet captive before it, arms yearning to place them all into the calling slot. She fidgets restless and discontent, fingers scratching at her nail beds on opposite hands pulling, pushing digging. He spots the frantic activity and raises an inquisitive eyebrow mouth turned down in tight disapproval. She grips the arm rest of the plastic chair and with obvious effort is still at last. The concentration required has created a tense expectancy that radiates from her. I cannot take the atmosphere and beat a hasty retreat. Spinoza knew a thing or two when he said...

“All happiness or unhappiness solely depends upon the quality of the object to which we are attached by love. “                                                  

Baruch Spinoza

Aged 13 and Writing to the Archbishop for answers

me around 13 looking annoyed in pigtails

When I was young, around 13, I wrote a letter to the Archbishop of the Church of Ireland. It was a heartfelt piece about how angry I felt about the people of violence in our community who regularly bombed and shot others. My question was how as Christians could we turn the other cheek to such individuals? How could we love those who hate us and do us harm? Living in an area of Northern Ireland prone to bombs and violence I really wanted answers. One of my playmates on our street later would be sent to prison for planting a bomb that killed others. She was released after many years for health reasons. Seeing the devastation killing created it seemed forgiveness was an inadequate response for the community. Wolves when allowed free reign will kill the whole flock. Acquiescing and forgiveness in those circumstances will not avail. Surely communities have a right to defend themselves from such abuse. But where do Christians  stand given scriptural demands of a higher moral standard?

I was surprised to receive a reply from the archbishop. It was unexpected and appreciated. He wrote of our duty of forgiveness not just in words but in hearts also. He recognised how hard this task was and how many in Northern Ireland struggled with the enormity of this call. It seems strange then that decades later the man of violence on both sides are not just released from prison but invited to play their role in government. In fact those not involved in violence in the past are seen as rather ‘weak watery’ types who have little role to play in this new peace. Centre stage are the redeemed bad guys whose pronouncements on political and social affairs receives much prominence. What is this strange new vista where not only are we to forgive those of violence but handover to them the reins of power. Not just devout Christians but atheists, agnostics and those of all Faiths are expected to turn the other cheek and pretend all the bloodletting never happened. 

The same scenario was repeated in Rwanda where almost 3/4 of a million were slaughtered in a matter of months. The new peace requires victims to swallow an unpalatable reality. Violence achieves results. Those who are terrorists today will be tomorrow’s government. Until someone more violent trumps the existing cards and takes his place at the peace table. So we perpetuate a system of injustice devoid of reward and punishment. Almost the opposite where violence is a new currency of political debate and is rewarded with depressing regularity. The only beneficiaries apart from those of violent tendencies are huge armament industries whose bank balances bulge with blood money. 

It almost feels as if countries are being used as military advertisements of just what weapons of war can achieve. Instead of staid military hardware conventions the new sales arena for this industry is unfolding on our screens in the nightly news. Look! Look! How powerful our strikes are, how many we can kill or maim, how quickly can we lay waste a whole urban city. As millions flee the violence should we demand they turn the other cheek? Actually we ask much much more. We demand they turn around and head back to the hell they have fled. We are annoyed they fling themselves and their offspring at our European borders and drown in our seas. That's the perverse thing about injustice. We no longer see the reality that exists but some coloured perspective of our own construction. Everyone is the hero of their own movie. We look on all events as to what effect it has on me and mine. It is a tendency that is rampant in people, in industry, in nations and even in how hard facts are portrayed. To defend our dignity our nation’s flags are hauled around our naked flanks. Bare of principle or integrity but proudly indignant of the precious soil beneath our feet. 

One human life is worth more than any of this. When you take another life you have lost the game. Everything shifts and you have to see things in a light that justifies your actions. To do otherwise would be unbearable. That shift is subtle but cataclysmic in consequences. You must go forward claiming justification for your actions or spend a lifetime regretting those actions and attempting to find some redemption. Perpetrators choose the easy path and we have chosen to look the other way. It is easier for us to think that when men of violence achieve their objectives we will have peace. But even in our worst dreams we cannot think our way into their heads. 

Violence warps the fabric of our very humanity it makes us walk among others like humans but devoid of humanity. We no longer seek forgiveness. We are full of self justified anger. We have no mercy and are hungry for more blood. We have developed a taste for such things. I would it were not so. If I was writing to my 13 year old self I would hesitate to put pen to paper. I would not unfold the terrible path that lay ahead. It would not be fair. The young need hope to weather such storms. It would be unfair to take that away. Perhaps, with hope in their hearts,  they will find a more just path than we have.

How to get rid of wrinkles - this works!

I have wrinkles.  Not those tiny fine things only visible under a 10x magnifying glass with the aid of a 1KW dentist lamp, but the real McCoy.  Two things conspired to bring this unwelcome reality home yesterday.

A little bit of historical and somewhat hysterical perspective is needed in order to understand this all.  So bear with me.  When I first attended an optician in N Ireland in my forties he did all the usual tests.  One included looking at a display that looked remarkably like graph paper.  To me it looked crooked in places as if bent by undulating hills.  This observation concerned the optician, I could tell.  He peered into the back of my eye with his little torch and told me to look up and sideways.  There was something wrong he told me.  Several tests later he showed me a picture of the back of my eye and there was an ominous black spot in the middle of each.  He made an appointment for me to see a consultant at the local hospital as I had it seemed macular degeneracy.  It was scary to be told this, as I already knew how quickly this disease could take away your eyesight.  I left the opticians needing not one set of glasses but two.  One for reading and one for far away and in my head the worrying thought that my eyesight could get a great deal worse than it already was.  Fortunately, the specialist, after much examination, said I had something else.  I have something that looks scarily like macular degeneracy but for some reason does not progress as fast.  That black circle in each eye has remained roughly the same over the past fifteen years.  Each year at the routine eye test every optician, it is never the same one, looks worried and informs me the bad news that I have macular degeneracy and I comfort each of them immediately with

“It’s okay, it just looks like that but it isn’t!”

After several years the opticians took on a new assistant.  He was French and young with eight leather bangles on his arm.  I was used to the young female assistants who when you put on a set of frames and asked their opinion would chew on their finger nails and shrug their disinterest.  This young Frenchman was completely different.  I chose one set of round frames and turned to him and he inspected me and then said in a lovely French accent,

“This makes your face look ‘grosser’,fatter!”

I hastily took the offensive frames off and hesitantly picked up another set completely different in design, very modern. Again, he paused and really looked at me.  It was quite disconcerting.  He said,

“These make your face look long like ‘cheval’, you know like a horse.”

This time I practically threw the frames back on the shelf.  I felt very nervous about making my next choice.  Goodness knows what he might say.  I don’t have a lot of confidence about my looks at the best of time, so this whole business was really crushing.  I reluctantly, picked one at random, I remember it was a bright violet.  What on earth was I thinking?  The truth was, I was panicking.

He held his chin with his hand and then spoke,

“This one makes you look clever…but ugly.”

By now I was incapable of choosing another pair of glasses.  I could not stand one more insult or there would be tears.  Instead, I asked plaintively,

“What frames would you suggest?”

He immediately slid over to a completely different display cabinet and selected two frames and held them out to me saying,

“Either of these would be fine, they suit your face and complexion.”

I nervously, put on one and looked at him nervously awaiting judgement.  He looked at me for a long moment, head held on one side judiciously and them said angrily,

“No, no, no try the other!”

I despairingly obeyed and again he peered at me and I awaited his judgment call with breath abated.  Perhaps these made my face ‘cochon’pig-like?  I was preparing myself for the next cutting remark, when he pronounced,

“These are perfect, they suit your face and skin tone.  The shape is really good on you.”

You cannot begin to know the relief I felt as I left the shop.  Strangely, every year from then on I would ask for the French guy when choosing glasses.  Despite all the hurtful comments I trusted his unflinching honest taste.

Yesterday, while walking down town in Sliema a young sales assistant accosted me on the pavement outside a beautician’s shop.  She asked me my name and then, like the Frenchman, peered aggressively into my face.  She announced,

“I have some cream that will get rid of those wrinkles around your eyes”,

she sounded sure of herself.  It was tempting to respond with,

“Look when you are three times your age, this will be your lot too.” 

But instead just told her I was fine with my wrinkles and walked on.  Later, a young student of mine, who is studying the book Purple Hibiscus pointed at a word in the text,‘wrinkled’ and asked what it meant.  I wrinkled my jacket up and pointed to the creases hoping that would suffice.  It didn't and so I pointed to the area around my eyes and said, “like this!”  She understood immediately and as we proceeded with the lesson my heart sank like a deflated balloon.  Later that evening I put on my reading glasses and looked at my face.

“What the hell had happened!”  Was this me?  Lines had appeared not just around my eyes in great abundance but also around my mouth as if I was permanently whistling.  The whole quality of the skin complexion had changed.  No longer smooth but with indents and river tracks burrowing into flesh.  When on earth had this happened and why had no one told me before?  I spent an unhappy evening googling for answers.  Apparently to not have lines around your mouth, avoid sucking on straws.  Darn useless bit of knowledge for me now!  To avoid creases around the eyes, stop smiling so much.  To never have creases on your upper chest area, a lady in her fifties on youtube informed me that she had never slept on her side her whole life.  Blistering barnacles I had been totally unaware of all these sneaky tricks.  There, I had spent years sucking down drinks, smiling daily like a lunatic and always slept on my side.  I inspected the damage carefully in the mirror and then came to a momentous decision to restore my looks to smooth perfection.  Slowly, I removed my glasses and as if a miracle the wrinkles became invisible.  I smiled amazed at the instant transformation.  Sometimes the solution to life is knowing more but seeing less.

Am I too fat looking in these trousers?

Love the way small children play even at airports.  Sitting under dirty joined plastic chairs they chatter happily.  Delighted to be ordering each other around.  Captivated by this small-unexpected cave in the departure lounge.  They each have their own pink wheel-on cases covered in princesses and every now and then they get out from under the plastic seats and march up and down cases towed behind them as if a vital call has come.  

Their excitement is evident.  The call to board will come soon and they look eagerly around at others, “Is it time yet? Has the adventure begun?”  The rest of us aged ones yawn our boredom.  Or fret that our cases will not fit in Easy Jets little cage checking thing.  Clasping our precious passports and boarding cards firmly to our chests, we worry far too much to enjoy any of this.  Perhaps Easy Jet will fine us for too large a bag?  "They took my deoderant at security!"complained a sweaty man to my right, wiping his dripping forehead with a large grey hankechief.

His mate wonders if he’ll be able to finish his coffee before they start boarding?  Another woman asks her mate, am I too fat looking in these trousers?  

An elderly woman asks her pale faced and sickly husband if he thinks she will be chilly without a coat?  So many serious issues to keep on top of, and that is only the ones we’ve managed to remember.  Goodness knows what we’ve forgotten to pack, lock, defrost, or turn off!

The announcement to board is made and the two small girls have joined their parents in the long queue to the boarding gate.  They chatter in glee at things we no longer even see.  When you're young, laughter is ever present.  Like a happy background music.  A good game can dispel sombre thoughts in seconds.  A princess-pull on case is the perfect antidepressant for them.  They make funny faces at each other as they wheel the squeaky cases and roar with laughter.  For the rest of us, I wonder when did life become a thing of endurance instead of enjoyment?  At what age did it become too serious, this living business?