Hopeless Causes

So St Jude has made the headlines, riding the coat-tails of Sunday's storm. Now everyone knows that my Birthday Saint has hopeless causes in his care. I am tickled pink by this.

I respect the views of my fellow-Catholics on the efficacy of appealing  to saints for their intercession, though it's not a practice I adhere to, BUT I have a remarkable tale to tell. 

Two years ago, Sunderland Football Club had an abysmal run of eighteen losses on the trot. It was almost unbelievable ... After the sixth successive defeat, I stopped offering sympathy, and holding out hope for victory 'next time'. After the seventeenth defeat I mentioned that it might be time to call upon St Jude... .

Sunderland won the following match, then sufficient in number to avoid relegation from the Premier Division, which ought to be counted a miracle. I was just as amazed as the Football Fan in the household, which shouldn't surprise you. Oddly enough, a brief mention to the hallowed gentleman this weekend  seems to have pulled off a last minute goal against arch-rivals Newcastle United.  This was definitely a mixed blessing, as I support Newcastle, when I remember to do so: though not seriously since the charming Rud Gullit was given the push, many moons ago. 

Prayer seems so arbitrary to me. The queen appears to be long reigning over us, which might prove something, but death, disease and misfortune seem to be impervious to entreaty. Yet, I persist, because it helps. Which is to say, it helps ME. At least, in the face of the inevitable and sad, I feel as if I've done something.

Perhaps St Jude feels the same way.

Half-full

I am thinking about cups. As an avid reader of Regency Romantic Fiction (in my TEENS) I learned that to be 'in his cups' meant the would-be ravisher was drunk. Cups is a suit in the Tarot deck, which is an ancient and rather guilty memory, because to have dabbled in Tarot Reading  is a stoneable offence in the Old Testament. which I was once commanded to swallow whole, but now do not. On the grounds that if I couldn't do terrible things to people, God, who is Love, wasn't about to do them either. I brush my Tarot dabbling aside along with the Regency Romantic Fiction, as something left behind in my teens, and about as meaningful. 

There's that lovely phrase from the 23rd Psalm, 'My cup runneth over.' My youngest self, that spent hours working with words, interpreting them as pictures, imagined  something like a flood in a chalice, and wonder what it was running over.... The literalism of young children is delightful, but something to be occasionally wary of... 

I should be working, but I am patently not. The house must be fit for habitation by Thursday at 7pm when Ray and I arrive home with Ursula, our house guest for six weeks. Ursula is a friend of my friend Ruth, with whom I spent a lovely vacation in Zurich and Locarno the year before last. The Icelandic Poppy seeds I bought in the Botanical Gardens in the middle of Lake Locarno bloomed magnificently this summer. I may have a photo to post, because I'm sure, if you're still reading this, you'd like to see it. (Aside)

Cups. I was actually thinking about the half-full cliche that defines an optimist. What was I going to say?

Oh yes! Half-full and still filling.

:)

The Beforelife

Two weeks ago I met with like-minded people to explore death. It's a queer thing, death. We don't much want to talk about it, which is hardly surprising, because contemplation of our demise isn't terribly cheerful. It's not the topic, when otherwise lost for words, that one would usually raise, when one has 'football', or 'Coronation Street' to fall back on.

One of the would-be participants in the Death Weekend obliged by dying the week before the meet. This is not so dramatically spooky, as she was over eighty (an achievement that is an ambition of mine) but her appointment with her maker did mean the Death Group could attend her funeral. A worthy and wonderful woman emerged from the Event. We Deathers later eulogised over what a marvellous woman she was;how special; though we never met her, we knew we would  have been friends... . 

"That's precisely BECAUSE,"  I remarked, sagely, "You never knew her. Nobody discusses the tough stuff at funerals." A trend I fully intend to have perpetuated when  I pass on. 

I died once. I was much too young to remember where my consciousness went in the process, but I returned as I am today, totally unphased by the prospect of extinction. Wherever I went, I was pleased to be there. Pretty pleased to come back too, accepting with a child's surrender to what is, that whatever will be will be. 

The point of this weekend hosted by Grim Reaper Elves, was to get death out of our systems. To tell death stories, thus removing the trauma from them. To look forward to what remains of life, and to drink tea and eat cake. I intended to plan my funeral too, but never got round to it. I will, I will, - stop nagging! 

Last Wednesday, I visited my friend Margareta. We talk about death a lot, because she's very, very ill, and we know her time is short. She's worried about leaving her only son behind, but otherwise rather looking forward to the Afterlife. Neither of us speculates much about what it entails. We are Catholics. We are trained to live with mystery. 

Bearing in mind that she's so sick, I really shouldn't have quarrelled with her about Hell. "You don't want to believe in it, because it's too hard," says Margareta. "Not at all, " I retort, "I don't want to believe in it because it's an obscenity!" 

An obscenity. For there to be a hell, there must be no love. And God is Love, or a waste of space. 

"If people I love have to go to hell. then I choose to go with them. In protest. Suck THAT up God!" 

Oh dear! That's torn it. 

Meandering on to a conclusion:

Speculation about what happens when we die is intellectually stimulating, if rather pointless. We are practically pure energy, as is all matter, and energy can neither be created or destroyed, so survival is guaranteed in some form by a Universal Constant... . There's food for thought... 

The Afterlife can, and will, wait. It's the Beforelife that concerns me now. Whatever comes next for me won't be a physical entity like this one, no matter what. So I am going to make the most of what I experience now. Even the sad and bad bits. Everything is amazing.

I would like to leave you with something uplifting after this rather gloomy piece of introspection, so I'm going to end  with Garrison Keillor's postscript to his 'Writer's Almanac' Podcast:

"Be well, do good work, and keep in touch."

Love,

Mary

More! (There's More?)

Not to be flippant, but I thought Aspasia was memory lapse. Not at all. She was a Philosopher. She lived about 400 BC. 

It's not what she thought about that caught my attention, but what she did. ' A courtesan and a brothel-keeper.' Her marble bust is in. The Vatican Collection. Lots of food for thought here. I may take up Philosophy after all.