Sunday, 20 July 2014

A Sunday Musing

The last year has been one long series of ups and downs.  Domestically speaking probably one of the most distressing I have experienced.  Death and dying has been a major part of the year both domestically and the wide world.  Thankfully my offspring and their springlets are doing nicely so there is very little to be, dare I say, 'worried about'.  

Extended relationships do not fare so well and it is a long on going process of insecurity for the future which leaves me in a state of melancholy rather than despair or misery.  On the contrary.  Taking each day as it comes, and dealing with all manner of problems and close connection with the possible onset of dementia with a dear one keeps one active, positive, and indeed very determined.  So have I turned a corner and found God?.  No he has always been there.  I believe that contemplating personal issues and their potential are a positive way forward.  

I recall in my younger days of experiencing a 'failure'.  It was a bad day, especially as I felt beaten in to a place I had never been and didn't want to go again.  And, so it was.  From that day to this very moment as I contemplate once more looking at 'failure' I have not reached the depths of where I was all those years ago ever.  

There is so much 'failure' surrounding the world and community at large that any little problems I may be experiencing are insignificant. My grandfather, shot in WW1 left a wife and two small children who were brought up by their widowed mother to be pillars of the community despite the 'failure' of Politicians to organise a better society.  No easy handouts for any of them. No acts of violence, no jealousy, no malingering, but grinding on with each day ready for the next which was passed to me  thankfully. 

So, contemplating 'failure' on a large scale I reflect on the 'failure' of successive governments of all political persuasions to generate a Peace.  We frequently hear   of the expression of 'peace time' being that part of my life from 1945 onwards. Or Chamberlain waving his historical piece of paper pronouncing 'peace in our time'. What utter rubbish.  All we seem to have done is to create huge debts in preparing for war every day. I am not a Pacifist, and clearly understand the necessity of being prepared, and to appreciate the need of defence of my country as a prime function of Government, and without any hesitation appreciating the bravery of everyone of our volunteers who are there for us.  However 'failure' in the search of Peace is leaving us in a very precarious situation.  The Middle East; Asia; Pacific Rim; South America; Europe; Africa and America. 

With every new day we are witnessing and experiencing 'failure'.  NATO, and UN are great talking shops and great examples of 'failure'. The last week alone has seen massacre in many parts of the world.  Politicians jetting here there and everywhere to talking shops, threatening sanctions for this and that dodging the issues in case they might upset someone along the way.  Terrible scenes of carnage in the Middle East have met with dismay whilst innocents have died, and all the while diplomacy is buried in 'failure''  The most dreadful event has to be the destruction of the Malaysian Airlines airliner. The 'failure' to grasp the enormity of what has happened by those responsible and an admission of guilt of the obvious surely demonstrates the decline of human standards to a new depth.  Unimaginable. The ducking and diving goes on and I guess we all feel deeply for those defenceless souls who paid a very heavy price for 'failure'.  

I listened intently to a passage of scripture this morning.  I will leave the reader to find it - ROMANS 12 v9-end.

To close on a lighter note my cabbages have suffered 'failure' - consumed by the cabbage root fly.    Oh well -