So Tired

I am so very tired.  Not so much physically, although a bit of sciatica sees to that, but so disillusioned with my life at the moment.  It seems so pointless.  The idealism of helping people and making the world a better place is just an illusion.  You will never do anything for others that they don't want to do for themselves, and if you fail to do your bit for these kinds of people, they will simply find someone else who will.  For the rest - you are there for them to lean on - for ever, it seems.

I am looking for a new way to view things.  It seems that one has to do something because one loves doing it, and not for any particular result or reward.  In that case, I should spend more time on handwork of various kinds.  No one will be able to use it - everyone has enough, and it is not the sort of stuff charity could use, and I am not good enough for it to be sellable.  So happiness would then be filling my house with a lot of creative work that will just sit there after it's done?  I don't think so.

Perhaps one should do it because it needs to be done, but not look at any form of feedback.  This working entirely by faith IS an approach, but it takes a lot of discipline to work hard for no visible result. 

Who knows what the answer is?  Maybe I can take a sabbatical to work it all out.  Sounds good!

Barbie and Ken and life

I am involved in helping a young couple and their wedding. They are truly delightful, and are both beautiful young people. Everything has gone well thus far, and it looks as if they are set for a long and happy life together. Here's hoping that is what happens.

But I wonder sometimes if they are not too beautiful? It is like working with Barbie and Ken - both glamourous, both earning good incomes, both with many good friends - just so perfect. Not that I would deny them their happiness - there are enough unhappy people in the world for this occasion to be a welcome relief. No, what worries me is their depth. Will they be able to handle the ups and downs of life, when there isn't a set of parents saying "yes dear, of course you can have it"? He has shown evidence of impatience with anything that does not go his way, and it doesn't occur to her that anything should be too much trouble for other people to provide for her. Perhaps it is just the way they do a wedding. I hope so. Barbies with scruffy hair and Kens in the rubbish bin with dirty faces and arms twisted off isn't what they were manufactured to be. Please God, these two will be as beautiful and as in love at 50 years as they are now, and that life may give them depth through disappointment and joy without breaking them through tragedy or too much success.

Biography of Thomas More

I am reading a book about Sir Thomas More, the lawyer and friend of Henry VIII who did not support the king's divorce from Katherine of Aragon and his marriage to Anne Boleyn and his making himself the head of the English Church. The life of Thomas More was made known by the play/film "A Man for All Seasons" and he became a saint in the catholic church.

This book ("A Daughter's Love" by John Guy) is different in that it is approached as a piece of historical research. It goes into everything - even minute descriptions of what their furnished houses looked like and the design of their gardens - and you get such a good idea of how they lived, that you begin to know them as persons. It's a sad story - a man who never says anything controversial at all and maintains his loyalty to the king throughout, but will not give way on issues contrary to his religious conscience and has to pay the ultimate price for it. It is also a violent story. We have become so into "human rights" in one form or another, in democratic countries at least, that we have lost sight of how brutal threatened political power can become. (or perhaps we don't take our news bulletins seriously enough!).

The main thrust of the book is the relationship between the daughter, Margaret and her father, Thomas More, and how this friendship and support affected him and contributed in no small way to his greatness. She was highly educated - by her father - but in an age where women had no status she could do things and go places and be significant in her father's life because no one took her seriously. I haven't finished the book, but thus far she seems to be quite a remarkable woman.

I am looking forward to the rest of it.

I am lookinf forward to finishing it

Good and Bad

I have had a very mixed week. Part of my job involves helping the poor, and there is more to it than you would think. Firstly, who are the poor? There are the totally down and out who exist from day to day on handouts and who after about two years on the streets will probably die from exposure or, more likely, liver failure from the muck they have taking to dull the pain - methylated spirits, glue etc. Most of them are scraping a living by hawking, part time work, casual labout and the rest. They get by, but need help in the bad patches with food, transport and sometimes, rent. The best way to help them is to provide the food when needed, but also to look at what skills they have and try to improve what they are doing to make it more viable. We have to do this, because in this country the social services are not adequate for all the needs and with 3 million plus refugees from over the border, the situation is untenable. Informal business is the only way for millions of people.

This week I had two of my proteges come to me. They are two itinerant hawkers and were making enough to pay the rent and transport, but what was left over was not enough to be able to buy enough stock to really get things going. We gave them a once-off job to raise capital and then they attended some classes where they learnt to plan their selling route in such a way that they minimised their transport costs and enlarged their market. They came especially to see me to say thank you, and that they have doubled their intake over the last three weeks. Isn't that nice!

We have also had a very difficult one who is bright enough to do very well, but whose personality is such that he gets in everyone's hair. He seems to have got on his feet, but is always being thrown out of wherever he lives because he is so disruptive. He has taken to living on the street because that is easier. It's a matter of time before he is robbed, then who knows what we will do. he begged us for help, but honestly, there is nothing more than we can do. No one will take him any more. The hard part in knowing when to stop. Compassion amongst our volunteer staff is high, and they are not so much willing to go the extra mile, but want to do the travelling for them, and to tell them "hands off, he must go it alone" is very difficult for them.

Very mixed - but very interesting. It beats office work.

Getting Started

Starting a new blog is like making a statement - "I am going to do things differently", or "I am looking for a new angle to life" or something like that. I don't yet know what this new venture is going to do - whether it will be nothing more than an online diary type rant, whether it will be a deep spiritual/intellectual voyage of discovery, or whether it will be a sort of personal Readers' Digest. Probably it will be a bit of each.

I am at the point where I am balancing a family, a job, an elderly parent, and the beginnings of creaking joints and greying hair and all the other things that remind you that middle age is not for ever. However, I also have the satisfaction of living at a time where the insecurities of youth are past. I know I will never be a Nobel prizewinner, and that's OK. It's great to have finding someone to marry, kids through school, substantial loans and the upward career path behind us, and the temporary contentment of a life that has had its significant ups and downs, but we have pulled through. It is also nice to have a job which, though extremely demanding at times, is a useful one, and one which uses the abilities and education I have been given. All in all, I am just ordinary. And that's just fine.