Well, that was fun! A full day for a retired person with nothing much to do ... an early start approaching the shortest day or longest night, depending how you story it, some hours to pass productively before Dawn, itself some Time before Sunrise, itself a misnomer given that strictly speaking the Sun does not rise or fall in relation to the Earth, though that's all pedantry, some say ... this pedantic old blogger demands accuracy however, since language creates our World and if we wish to understand it we'd better be clear about the language we employ ... Sophists use language to deceive us artfully, others fall into the many traps mindlessly set by it ...
The latest semantic game plays out through a recent form of an ancient art - Power and how to use it ... known as Neuro-Linguistic-Programming, NLP for short ... a neutral device essentially, waiting for humans to apply it for good or ill or neither ... in brief, Common Purpose, a fine sounding title for a malign organisation, set up years ago to persuade the human race to behave sensibly, rationally, in order to halt the trends of climate change, gross inequality, greed, conspicuous consumption and more ...all bringing the planet to crisis point ... plausible? Yes, maybe so ... but a cult was smelt by many with a nose and instinct for such things and publicly exposed ... but the cult continued and recruited adherents in influential positions in national and local authorities, health services and so on ... voluntarily submitting to brainwashing ...
And there we are today, cast into despair through fear induced by senseless rules imposed ostensibly because of a pandemic called to deal with a particular flu, no more lethal than the annual one, with mass deception of a frightened people projecting all their fears of death, loss of money, loss of loved ones, a people softened up by excess stuff including money ...
Which brings us to the Elders ... shamefully neglected since Martial Law commenced in March, locked up with no choice about how they spend their golden years or weeks or days, as expressed to me by more than one nonogenarian locally ... actually their wisdom has been undervalued for much longer, given the lives they led, the lessons they learned, the values they shared when times were much much harder ... and not just the snow, barely seen in recent times ... still their grand and great-grand-children learn, by visits if they're lucky, by phone if not, and not at all if the elders have none with whom to share the lessons ... and vice versa, since the young bring wisdom of their own to bear, especially pure compassion which exists in their hearts before cynicism sets in ...
Riding over the fells, reminiscing on places not seen for ages, fond memories about tougher, kinder times, the touchy subject of the Prince Bishops of Durham, based in Bishop Auckland, not especially worshipped by some elders, what with the excess wealth of the established Church extracted from the miners and farmers in the good old days ... never mind, Bishop Paul, the current Bishop, turned out to preach a very positive and mercifully brief message of Peace and Love to all in the name of Jesus Christ, reminding his flock of the similarities between the experience of Mary and Joseph, tormented by Herod, and current times ... well said, and radical in a way, the message received and understood by many gathered round the Tree, the Fear lifting palpably, social distancing, bubbles, clusters, rules of six, tiers of three and all those strange ideas notwithstanding.
One of the unusual features of these crisis times is the demise of the Established Church, replaced anyway round here by more austere Chapels inspired by Wesley who taught that alcohol and gambling were best avoided and the Love of Christ more important than the Love of money ... the surplus value sucked out of the ground and the sweat of the miners, farmers and so on ... though the C of E and Once True Faith, plus other assorted versions of the Truth are to be found around, though many actual religious buildings are finding other uses, since the younger generations seem to have lost faith in the old stories. .. still, as the Bible, New Testament I think, taught : Where two or more gather together in My name, there am I in the midst of you ... a question explored in some depth along the Way in solitude ... basically: Why two humans, not just one?
That's all philosophy, already shared in Wear & Dao for loyal reader(s) with long memories, and best left for now while we enjoy the story and especially the essential message of Christmas time!
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