Cloistered Nuns

Went with some friends on an outing including a tour of an extensive underground shelter here in Malta.  It also included a visit to the Benedictine Sisters of Birgu at the The Monastery of St. Scholastica,  the first Holy Infirmary of the Knights in Malta.  

There was a service there and behind the altar there were two windows with gratings on them.  I realised that behind these gratings sat the cloistered nuns.  

It seemed medieval to see these women secreted away.   And indeed the monastery has been in existence for five hundred and fifty years.  In fact this was the hospital in Malta for the Knights even before Valletta was built.  A real sense of history and I was able to enter and have coffee and cake with the nuns.  Some have been there 60 years and the day begins early with 4.30 am prayers and ends equally early at 9pm.  There is a whole lot of praying in between.  There is a shortage of women entering the order, it has been twenty years since the last novice entered.  So they have recently created a website to entice new entrants.  There is a peculiar grating through which the cloistered nuns are allowed once a month to have visits from family members.  

Ancient wooden swivel windows allow things to be given in and conversations to take place.  I couldn’t find an actual ancient version like those used but here is a modern equivalent.  

A sense of history surrounds the place and a quietness.  The nuns seemed nice and kind.  So fascinating to meet people who have such a different life to the norm.  But am struck by the truth of the words.

“People must live for one another, and not live in seclusion as do the monks and nuns. People should not live solitary lives. Light is of no value in an empty room.”

           (Compilations, Baha'i Writings, p. 440)

The Secret of Heart Surrender

Don’t let the storms that come, cloud your face so easily.  Many pass by, coming close, but missing us.  We cannot be worn down by these, as we need to conserve our energies for those blighters that hit us right between the eyes, force 9.  These monsters take us off our feet and the fallout/recovery in our lives can be months if not years.  None of us, thank God, know our future.  The fact that it is hidden is a real blessing.  I personally feel had I known what lay ahead even in 6^th grade it would have been a killer blow.  It’s not that my life has been a horror story (though at times!) its just, I am sure I am not the only one thinking, I barely got through that.  Imagine trying to cope with it knowing it all lay ahead in all its gruesome details.  Even a moderately unhappy school year would be unbearable.  But you need no lecture on dealing with tough days.  These past few years have been filled with all sorts of pain, akin to medieval torture but without the release of a swift execution.  I would not have had you go through any of this.  There are no lessons learned that can compensate me for seeing you suffer.  Reduced to being a spectator, as a loved one suffers, is horrid.  The powerlessness heightens anguish.  For some reason this line from Tolkien’s, The Lord of the Rings soothes slightly and helps provide the longer view.

“It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule.” 

I am curious to know if everyone over fifty has come to the same conclusions as I have.  I share mine with you in case they are of use.

1.      People will disappoint and surprise you.  Despite how carefully you arrange your defences, they will get through and hit you hardest.  Economically it can sting, physically it can leave scars but it is emotionally that you carry the real lasting wounds.

2.    The very moments of life you feel your happiest, your proudest, your greatest sense of achievement are invariably the days of distance from God.  Perversely, it is in our darkest hours that we painfully turn and open our hearts to the light.  Watch out for those veils between your own heart and the life giving sun.

3.    You will do small deeds that will influence other’s lives in positive ways that you will never know.  These little gems make your very existence worthwhile.  Don’t bother to try and figure them out, record or publicise them.  Their beauty lies in the unconscious good that has spilled over into the lives of others.  You may not even be aware of them but you should certainly prime the pump that fuels their emergence.  Doing good should be our automatic mode while doing harm should be like screeching gears into reverse putting your teeth on edge.

4.    You are destined for great things – all of us are.  The only way we fail to achieve them is because lethargy, missed opportunities, distractedness or addiction has stolen our true destiny.

5.    Love is not a limited commodity that you parcel out like a plate of sandwiches.  It is fed from an unseen aqueduct and in order to tap into it we need only use what we’ve been given.  Keep it fresh and free flowing.  Meanness of heart causes stagnation and smells up not just your life but also those around you.

6.    Don’t be afraid of mistakes.  Fear instead the inaction that robs you of growth.

7.    Being bombarded with entertainment, materialism or addictions is a constant peril.  Flee it as you would the Embola virus.  It kills possibilities so quickly and infects all within its radius so completely you don’t even realise it has you.

8.    Get busy with people, projects, crafts, art, service and allow creativity to keep you afloat in this mire of a world.

9.    People will come and go in your life.  Some that you don’t even deserve to be in their shadow.  Be infinitely grateful for the glow they bring, the happiness they create and the fragrance that remains even after they have gone.

Sending this, for what its worth, with much love

As you get older things grow on you

As you get older things grow on you.  I don’t mean as you age, you grow fond of things.  I mean they actually take root and grow on you.  For example, hair will suddenly sprout with unexpectedly luxuriousness from your nose and other areas where it never usually appears.  It is not an endemic phenomena as normal head hair becomes fragile, thin and sparse.  It is as if a gardener formally ordered and careful with his borders has suddenly decided to fertilise everywhere but the flower gardens.  He seems to have developed a sense of humour about where he finds to place seeds.  “This will be good for a laugh!” seems to be his overall horticultural intent. 

If it were only hair, things would not be so bad.  But other skin growths seem to have caught the gardener’s sense of humour.  They appear willy-nilly on a shoulder, forearm, under an eye or the back of a hand etc.  You examine them with poor eyesight wondering what is the punch line here?  Late at night if unable to sleep, they become harbingers of death and your thoughts run amok fear filled.  Perhaps these two jokers will combine against you – the hair and the growths?  So you wage a war against the hair so that you will be able to see the other enemy.  Clear away the undergrowth so that these lumps cannot sneak up under cover so to speak.  It’s quite exhausting and becomes a war of attrition with daily battles fought to stay on top of things.  At times, eyesight failing, you want to throw in the towel it is easy to succumb to the inevitable.  This taking care of oneself requires such continual effort.

My grandfather said it was vital during the war.  Coming back from the Somme and other horrors he rarely spoke of what went on in those fields of horror.  We knew he had been mentioned in dispatches, that he had been wounded in the arm but these did not come from him.  They were either said of him or done to him.  The only thing I remember him telling me about the war was the importance of looking after your feet in the trenches.  He told of trenches filled with muddy dirty water.  Of boots and socks soaked through.  The rats were as big as cats.  He said they had to be meticulous with cleaning your feet, washing and drying them as you would a new born babe.  Being careful of creases, drying them thoroughly.  Then using only clean dry socks cover them and lace on your boots.  Any small sore spotted required immediate action.  In those damp conditions ‘foot rot’ could easily set in.  The first sign would be a numbness followed by redness and blueness.  Gangrene would follow and amputation the only solution. 

As my grandfather told of his feet care in the trenches he said how his life depended on good foot care.  This extended to his boots which were polished and heated with candles to dry and let the shoe polish penetrate properly.  Then elbow grease did the rest.  I remember how his arm flew as he beat upon the shoe to demonstrate the technique.  “You have to see your face in it”, he explained.  Of course those boots would be sodden and caked in mud again soon enough but it seemed this ritual of feet cleaning and caring for this boots were his defense against the war and the elements.  His army tunic hung in the garage for years, stiff and bloodstained with the hole in the arm where he had been wounded.

Today, I tried to find out exactly what he was mentioned in dispatches for. I know it was on the 16 March 1919 from Sir Douglas Haig.  Loads of websites offered me information, if I paid, but I refused to pay.  I eventually found Douglas Haig’s entire collection of dispatches in book form and begin to download the huge file.  I am hoping to solve this mystery that occurred almost one hundred years ago, once and for all.    I am downloading the file as I write this. 

Reading of the battle of the Somme on 1^st of July 1916 there were 60,000 casualties on the first day.  The battle raged until 18 Nov 1916 and at its end neither side had advanced any further from where they had started on day 1.  But, in that short period 1.5 million were lying in the mud dead, wounded or missing.  Perversely, I learn, that the British soldiers were ordered to go over the top and walk (not run) to the German lines, so convinced were the generals that their earlier bombardment had taken out German artillery.  They were wrong and so 60,000 men simply walked into live rounds of ammunition and got mown down.  Anyone who refused to clamber out of the trenches was usually shot by their own officers for cowardice.  In this mindless battlefield the suffering cannot be imagined nor described.  The fear and horror hard to grasp.  My grandfather never spoke of it, perhaps because there were no words.  But focused instead on the one thing, care of his feet, that sustained him through it.  After the war he returned to his quiet village corner shop.  He was  a different man.  Whatever had happened on those dreadful dying grounds had made him lose all fear.  Nothing life sent changed that.  Two customers entered his shop with guns threatening to shoot each other.  He vaulted over the counter and threw both of them out off his shop, after cuffing them both, without a seconds thought.  He had crossed a line that most of us will not cross until our deathbeds.  It’s been said by Shakespeare that

"Cowards die many times before their deaths,
The valiant never taste of death but once." 

I am curious to know what happened that had caused the mention in dispatches from the front line on the 16 March 1919.  I search the file and there is no mention of my grandfather’s name.  I check the London Gazzette that records most of the names of those mentioned but not all.  Again no success, I read that regiment diaries often contain such details and check out his regiment’s account.  How thrilling to find Benjamin Stringer mentioned in an account in Spanbroekmolen on the 4 June 1917 were he is mentioned heading of with others to attack a trench of Germans.  They killed twenty and took prisoner a German officer and 31 prisoners.  My grandfather is wounded in the fight and I realise this is the bullet hole in the arm of his jacket.  It is as if the past is here again and my grandfather is polishing his shoes to a military shine and explaining the importance of caring for feet.  Today has been epic and moving in a strange way.  As if things have come full circle and I was meant to find this today.  Life threw horrors and difficulties his way but his answer was to focus on what he could do on a daily basis to strengthen himself.  So, perhaps all of us need to find those small precious rituals that will sustain us when we face the impossible.  May you find yours!

Hugging our treasure troves of identity

Returned triumphant today Identity Card in hand!  Spent the morning in a long line of Nigerian, Somalia, Eritrea and Syrians and waited for an hour to collect it.  Began by feeling very sorry for my fellow queue members.  It seems work permits/ID officers, the world over; seek to instill Job-like patience in their clients.  I remember in Greece having a practical suitcase of documents, wedding certificate, utility bills, passport, qualifications - translated in Greek and stamped by relevant authorities (25 pounds per document), my birth certificate, work contract, bank statement, drivers licence, rental agreement only to be asked for my grandmother’s birth certificate!  No wonder all around me people clasp to their chests their own paperwork.  Armed with documents signed and stamped, those without such armour gradually feel a growing fear as they approach the official window. Some lose heart and scurry away from the field of battle and with each one that flees the rest of us hug our precious paperwork a little tighter. How precious they have become, shielding us from the public humiliation of failure and defeat.

One Somali woman cloaked in a long chador dropped her papers by accident.  Her head covering had caught on the corner of a sheet causing an avalanche of documents in all directions.   Everyone is shocked by her carelessness and she throws herself on her knees on top of the paperwork obviously expecting others to seize this treasure trove of identity.  Frantically, she retrieves them eyes scanning in case she has missed a vital one.  The rest of us hug our armour a little closer to our hearts in case we too falter on the eve of battle.

By now I am not so sympathetic to my fellow ID hunters.  An hour has passed and the three men in front look and sound like a Nigerian drug cartel.  The large lady pushing me from behind, with a colourful head scarf, has not only a horrendous hacking cough (with my luck it is probably Ebola) and her face is covered in weeping sores especially around her mouth and nose.  Now, I am suddenly of the opinion there should be two queues one for EU citizens and the other for non-EU characters.  I have noted the lack of UK queuing etiquette in front.  One fidgeting man with a woollen hat filled with hair braids thinks he is entitled to allow all family members, friends and passing acquaintances to jump in beside him in the queue.  I am impressed at how quickly one’s sympathy can turn to resentment in the mist of inconvenience and discomfort.

Much of Southern Europe has experienced this sea change.  As the economic situation deteriorates people have turned on immigrants/refugees with depressing consistency.  It appears inbred in our species that when things become difficult we need to blame someone.  Usually, we round on our governments who in turn will find a convenient scapegoat to deflect that anger on.  The invading foreigners are a good bet.  Easily identified and fairly defenseless they make handy targets for our discontentment.

The Mediterranean islands are becoming the front-line of the exodus of despair from Africa and the Middle East.  Many don’t make it to these shores and meet a watery death instead.  We never hear their last gasp for air as the sea consumes them.  But the rotting corpses create their own gas and this final fermentation of the life force raises them from the depths.  Their rotting bodies expose the vile/violent regimes that they have fled from and the corrupt/distracted governments to whom they flee for safety. 

In a bit of a sushi pickle

Was a little cruel.  Yesterday evening Daniel and I went for a walk along the sea front towards St Jullian’s Bay from Sliema.  Feeling a bit peckish we decided to get a take out from a Japanese sushi restaurant.  I knew I had 13 euros but the cheapest selection on offer was 17 euros.  So I told Daniel to go ahead and order while I walked to the nearest cash dispenser along the road to get some more money.  It was his anxious, “Don’t be too long” as I left that gave me the idea.  The walk to get the money took longer than I expected and when I returned to the restaurant Daniel looked relieved to see me come through the door.  But, his face fell when I told him,

“The hole in the wall machine took my card!”

Daniel was panicked, “What! I don’t have my wallet with me”

I complained bitterly about losing my card and Daniel pointed out,

“They have already started preparing the food, what shall we do?”

I told him,

“Look we’ll explain the situation and they’ll understand, I can come back tomorrow and pay them then.”

Daniel looked at me as if I was crazy, “They won’t let us take the food without paying!”

There was a whole table of men dressed in posh suits eating at a long table next to us so we had to whisper to keep our situation to ourselves.

We argued to and fro and he was getting annoyed with the whole mortification of the situation.  I suggested we offer to wash dishes to pay for the meal.  He said angrily that would not work.  I came up with a whole string of equally useless suggestions (including running for the door) and he held his head in his hands in despair telling me to be quiet so he could think.

When, I eventually told him that I had actually got the money from the cash dispenser the look he gave me was priceless.  Don’t even ask why I do such things.  I have completely no idea!  I laughed all the way home delighted with the entertainment and the sushi.

Supernovas and Us

A supernova exploded this week!

supernova

http://www.physicscentral.com/explore/poster-stardust.cfm

A supernova, a single star, explodes quickly

With the brilliance of a whole galaxy

For only a few days/weeks it illuminates

The black space around

Blasting out elements and gas

In the grandest of all firework displays

It can radiate as much energy in a flash

As our Sun would give in its entire life span

Only at the supernova’s temperatures of incubation

heavy elements such as carbon, oxygen or silicon are born

Since our bodies have within us these heavy elements

Each of us contain the remnants of these supernovas

Not a tiny fragment of stardust hidden

In some incidental crevice of fat or muscle

No, 93% of our body is stardust

Perhaps within us is burned the memory

Of that bright beginning

That’s why we spend our lives

Searching for the light within and without

O SON OF BEING!

Thou art My lamp and My light is in thee. Get thou from it thy radiance and seek none other than Me. For I have created thee rich and have bountifully shed My favour upon thee.

            (Baha'u'llah, The Arabic Hidden Words)

We are not rich by what we possess

Went for a long walk along Manoel Island in Malta and inspected the massive super yachts moored there.  As you walk along the peer the absolute luxury of these boats fuels a rage deep within.  It has to do with that excess display of wealth that is just plain annoying and obscene.  I know you are probably asking why I do this to myself or you?    But there is a masochistic compulsion to view how the other half lives in all of us.  So join me on the peer.

One of the largest is the Indian Empress, owned by Vijay Mallya it is massive and he earned his money in creating Kingfisher airlines.  

The sun deck is particularly expansive.

Walking on a little we come to the boat My Amore which you can buy for a mere million I think. 

It has a lovely broad body but the ugliest cut off nose.  When you look side on you would see what I mean.  But who cares about noses when you can have this sort of space in your life?

Moving on quickly I come to the Zarina.  It makes its neighbour seem shoddy/cheap coming in at around 7 million.  It is a different world out here on the peer.  After all even wealth is relative.

It is spacious inside too.  But the deck has that extra luxury factor that just is unfair.  It reminds you that  these people have time to eat on their deck and sit in their Jacuzzi - dam them! 

Inside the opulence continues.

I could go on and on but I have had enough of this torture.  It is comforting to think that I could not afford to fill the fuel tanks of these monsters never mind mooring fees/crew salaries.  I walk away comforted that all these monsters bleed their owners of cash and not me.  After all, in the words of  Immanuel Kant

“We are not rich by what we possess but by what

we can do without.” 

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