Five days in May

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Dear Monty,

Soup

2/5/13

Warm sunny day. Grass growing fast now.


I am amazed by my capacity to fool myself into thinking I know the truth about myself.

I find it hard to love.

Life is so short - do we pursue passion or commitment ?

Love without passion is dead as far as I can tell.

Oh God - out of this soup can you bring clarity ?


3/5/13





I am still waiting for the soup to clear.

The wind blows around the band hall

Sleep heavies my eyes

Then a voice suddenly breaks in -

Remember the orphanage in Latvia

The old people in the home

The forest and potato fields

The poverty and generosity ?

I have so much here that I no longer see what I have.

4/5/13

There are some things we have to leave behind
Like the fishing nets on the shore.

I am following

To follow can be difficult,

He leads me to places full of joy

Other times to places of sorrow and confusion.




5/5/13

Baptism

We stood around a font

The priest the water and the word

For me the word is powerful still -

'As we forgive them that trespass against us'

If we could do that - live that -

How different our lives would be

And there is my answer.

The church was of another kind - but even in its difference it was similar -  comfort found in words, ritual and communion.

It gives meaning to our otherwise meaningless lives, and there is nothing wrong with that.



The world moves according to the word

Israel bombs Syria

Men argue over planting styles

We tie ourselves in knots

While the word travels through history like Dr Who in his fictional T.A.R.D.I.S

But this is no fiction.




6/5/13

I cannot negotiate with the sun
Make it go back ten steps
Or even stop the sea




I pour rusty water from the parasol stand

It stains the concrete orange

'I should clean that up' - is my first thought

But it is the same rusty orange as the streams leaching out of the disused coal mines

So I leave it.




We are all about style

Lives conform to it

What is wrong with doing your own thing - even if it is deemed wrong or old fashioned or fusty ?

What is wrong with having a patch and potching and pottering ?

Finding a way where there is no way.

I know that once I am gone, this garden will no longer look like this.

The garden is intimately tied to the gardener.







And this one is a bit mad

Paul.

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