Tag: From my diary

I’m getting ready to go on a trip to Israel with a local church group, as part of my cunning plan to make more links with the local Christian community.  It seemed to me, rightly or wrongly, that 6 days in the company of people from my area, looking at things in which we are both interested, should be productive of friendships.

The tour seems to be staggeringly expensive, yet the actual quality of hotels etc is lower than I have stayed in for many years.  These pilgrimage tours are a rum lot!  But I expect I can endure for a few days, and I hope to see Galilee. 

Likewise, for unexplained reasons, we see to have an overnight flight.  Never been on one of those.

Slightly worryingly, the travel pack includes a small hymnbook.  I wonder under what circumstances that gets used!  Some Christian groups can do weird things, like running people around all day and then expecting them to attend a bible study in the evenings when everyone is tired.

Predicted temperatures are not great.  The last time I was in Jerusalem was 20 years ago (and don’t those numbers sneak up on you?!), and it was perishingly cold.  The other thing I remember from that tour is the pickpockets outside the church of the holy tomb.  Must make sure that I don’t give them any business!

The task of earning a living will return soon enough.  In the mean time, I am trying to make hay.

They are an embarassment, the dead, in our modern society.  Our masters prefer that the remains of the unimportant should vanish, it seems.  Only the rich and powerful get graves today.

When the girl we loved dies, there is a funeral still.  But the graves of yester-year are no more, at least for us.  Instead the body is burned, like so much waste, to be disposed of as expeditiously as possible.

In some cases ashes are delivered to the relatives, and their fate is unknown to anyone else.  In others the ashes are supposed to be scattered at the crematorium; although a quick calculation of the number of dead against the size of the area in question reveals that most must be simply thrown in the council landfill. 

In either case, the beloved simply vanishes.  There will, most likely, be no plaque, no grave, nothing.

What happens, then, to those to only learn of the death in after years?  They come to grieve, and find nowhere to grieve.  They cannot lay flowers on the grave, for there is not one. 

They can, it is true, leave flowers at the crematorium where the funeral took place.  Although I find notices like this: “In order to keep the wall of flowers fresh, flowers will be removed every Monday”.  But the remains are not there; and so the mourner wonders where he should grieve, where the wreath should be sent, where the card can be placed.

Little by little the traditional way of handling a death, and of mourning them, has been adapted to the production line efficiency where the departed loved ones are simply a commodity.

In Iceland they still have proper cemetaries.  Not here, it seems.

It is a cruel, cruel business, this modern way of death.

I’ve been in Iceland for the last few days.  Wonderful!

UPDATE: I didn’t say anything in advance because I didn’t think that I ought to announce in advance that I was away.   The web of today is not the friendly place of five years ago, sadly. 

Now I’m not sure that my adventures in Iceland are really relevant to this blog, but if I wake up tomorrow, I might stick up a photo or two.  It was the best holiday that I have had for years — a much needed complete break.

The Origen book is still going ahead, and with luck the text will be pretty much complete soon.  I also need to pay some attention to a proposal.  Finally a reader has sent me some rather good material with permission to put it up here.  So there will be stuff when I am fit to get to it.  I still have some things to do offline, however, so expect patchy blogging for a while yet.

I’ve been trying to do a little scanning today, but not getting very far.  I have a copy of Michael Bourdeaux’s Patriarch and Prophets : Persecution of the Russian Orthodox Church (1968) here to do.  Interesting he salutes the courage of the people of Czechoslovakia in the introduction — the “Prague Spring” had just been crushed, one imagines.

They say that today is the most depressing day of the year (how encouraging!)  Dark with heavy rain this lunch time — just turning to hail! –, and the high winds are blowing down trees.  There’s something to be said for spending winter in a warm climate every year, you know!

I’m going into hospital later on today, for a small procedure.  I’m told that it is not very risky, but it doesn’t sound much fun.  With luck I won’t know anything about it.  I’d appreciate prayer that all goes well all the same.

UPDATE (4/1/12): just to say that I am out and had the all-clear, and am waiting for the sedation to disappear.  Apparently I shouldn’t drive, use heavy machinery, or make any financial decisions.  Not sure whether blogging is allowed, tho.:)

So, farewell, 2011.  We’re all another year older, if not richer.  And welcome, 2012. 

These are the days of our life, running through the hourglass, never to be seen again.  Let us use them wisely.

Looking back, what did 2011 mean to me?  In no particular order, here are some memories.

It was the year in which the Eusebius book was completed, and put on sale, and proved to be a success.

It was the year in which I attended the Oxford Patristic Conference, and sold a few copies of the book and met a good number of nice people and attended some interesting papers.  The sunlight in Oxford remains with me now.

It was the year in which I discovered Ibn Abi Usaibia, obtained an English translation, and put it online.

It was the year in which I went down to Cornwall in the UK and had some lovely sunny days at idyllic little ports like Mevagissey.

What will 2012 bring?

I cannot say.

I have plans for a trip to Iceland.  I intend to see some friends on Friday that I have not seen in 30 years.  I hope to publish the Origen book.  But much of the year will inevitably taken up with doing the everyday things that Adam’s curse brings on us all. 

We all need to store up good things in our soul, sunshine against the cold times.  Nothing will happen unless we make it happen.  It doesn’t necessarily mean spending a lot of money.  It means taking the time to do what matters.