Epiblog for the Fifth Sunday of Easter

It has been a busy week in the Holme Valley.  May is bursting out all over, to be  followed, no doubt, in due course, by June. I can’t believe it’s already May, my favourite month of the year, and no sooner was I busy singing “Hal-An-Tow” to myself, and “Sumer is y-comen in”, than three days of it are already gone!

Having said that, of course, it being a bank holiday weekend, we had to have one day, yesterday, when it was cold, leaden, overcast and raining. Neither Misty nor Matilda showed any great inclination to venture into the wilderness yesterday, though Misty did relent when offered a proper “walkies” up to Blackmoorfoot. I had psyched myself up yesterday to paint some plastic tubs with gloss white, prior to planting them out, but I took one look at the weather and baked some apple and raspberry tarts instead.

Matilda has been sunning herself in the conservatory, most days, because now that there’s a settee in there, it’s a nice soft bed, in the angle of two big windows, and only two steps away from her food bowl and the door to the outside world where the birds and squirrels live. What’s not to like? Our other cat conundrum, that of the small black female cat which seemed to be living wild, seems to have solved itself, fingers crossed. The neighbours are willing to take it on, provided I can organise a neutering voucher via the Cats’ Protection League, which I have done.  So, I hope, this will be dropped off next week when they come to pick up the now-no-longer-needed trap, and “job’s a good ‘un”, as they say round here. It’s even acquired a name – Poppy.

Unfortunately, I would hazard a guess that it would be a long while, and a cold day in hell, before Matilda and Poppy share a convivial saucer of cat milk, but, you have to do what you can. It’s not often a feral cat story has such a happy outcome, and it’s what old Shakespoke, if he were here right now, would probably label “a good deed in a naughty world”.  It hasn’t been all plain sailing for Matilda this week, though – a couple of times she got caught once again in hail showers, and ended up coming in rather more quickly than she’d gone out.

For us, the week has been dominated by two crises, neither of them particularly of our own making. On Tuesday teatime, Granny popped in to pick up a letter I’d printed out for her regarding Mike’s estate, and left her car in our driveway. In the time it had taken her to come in, pick the letter off the printer, sign it, find an envelope, address it and stick a stamp on, apparently two young lads had managed to get into the car in the driveway and stolen her loose change that she keeps for supermarket trolleys (£5.00 max) and a set of our house keys, a spare set that she keeps in there for when she comes round to feed Matilda.

This we know, because our neighbour saw them, and went out and remonstrated with them, receiving a mouthful of abuse for her trouble, as they ran off in the direction of Netherton. I reported it to the police, and an avuncular young PC, who more than filled the little cottage armchair next to the fire, took down all the details. It did, however, leave us with a bit of a dilemma. I didn’t really want to have to call out a locksmith out of hours, but on the other hand, they might come back that night. We resolved it by Debbie and Misty going to bed, and me sitting up in my wheelchair by the stove in the kitchen, with the Gerber wood-axe to hand.  Any fingers coming round the door would be lopped off, I had decided, and handed over to the police in a freezer-bag as evidence.  One of my correspondents on Facebook referred to this as a mixture of muscular Christianity and Sharia Law, but I’m afraid I can only go so far with forgiveness and empathy.

The people who did this may well have had deprived childhoods and live in relative poverty but if it comes to that, I had a deprived childhood and lived in relative poverty, yet I didn’t go round thieving from cars, a) because my parents taught me right from wrong, and to respect other people’s property and b) I knew that if I had been caught, in addition to the full rigours of the law, I would probably have had some sort of punishment to come from my parents, as well.  I’m sorry to sound harsh, but barely a month ago, the vandalism to the camper van in the driveway landed us with a huge repair bill, fortunately covered – eventually – by the insurers, and now this. As far as I am concerned, it’s a declaration of war, and those who make war on the Rudds and the Fenwicks can expect to lose a few digits along the way.

Anyway, they didn’t come, and when Debbie got up at 5.30AM to start preparing for her long day of teaching, I went to bed for a couple of hours, getting up again just as she left for Dewsbury.  After fabricating a steaming mug of tea, I set about the task of getting the locks changed. This proved surprisingly easy, but then most things are if you are prepared to throw some money at them.  They say “love laughs at locksmiths”, but I think Cupid would have thought twice before smirking in the presence of the bloke who came to do ours. Short, stocky, burly and bearded, he had them out and altered in about half an hour, topsides.  He punctuated his no-nonsense working with a long monologue about people who break into other people’s houses, and surprisingly, since it must provide him with a decent livelihood, he was not in favour!  Anyway, he left, and we were once again secure.

Needless to say, there has been no sign of the little scrotes returning, but then the policeman said that they sometimes leave it a few days, because by not coming back immediately, they lull the householder into a false sense of security and therefore they don’t change the locks. Well, they’re out of luck this time.

The other major crisis of the week concerned the new printer, which we had finally splurged and bought, an Epson XP-620. I did have some doubts about this, because instead of just two ink cartridges, it has five, but hey, ho, give it a go. We bought this printer after casting around for a replacement for our old cheap but reliable HP that just used to chug along in the background. The fact that this could also scan and copy was a plus, but I have two MAJOR gripes with it. One, the tray configuration is bizarre, and flimsy as well. You have to pull the catcher tray right out to get it to print, but then, when it runs out of paper, you have to push the catcher tray back in again, in order to get at the paper tray. All of the trays feel very light and plasticky, as if they might break at any moment, and there's no solid, satisfying "clunk" when you push the paper tray home. It just feels tinny. The touch screen display panel is too small to read properly and often displays confusing and indecipherable instructions. Sometimes you have to press OK to continue, sometimes the diamond symbol, so you have to screw your eyes up and read it every time, it's not very "intuitive". We've found out how to disable the irritating “sleep” feature so at least it prints when you ask it to, now.

The other major gripe is the ink. You can get compatible ink, which is cheaper, but it WON'T WORK IF YOU MIX THEM UP (eg if you have a compatible black cartridge and Epson colour ones). Why? Well, obviously, to maximise Epson's ink profits, but they will lose out in the long run, because when this printer becomes landfill, in the fullness of time, I would rather chop my toes off with a rusty knife and serve them up on toast to Matilda and Poppy as an hors d’oeuvre, than buy another Epson printer.

Just when we thought that was all there was to complain about, we discovered another major irritation with it. As I said above, it won't let you mix compatible and Epson cartridges. When the black Epson cartridge ran out, I ordered another one, because the coloured ones were all still three quarters full and I didn't want to chuck away expensive Epson ink to put the full compatible set in, instead. There was no particular problem, because it was letting me print still using the photo ink cartridge in lieu of the black.... fast forward to 8.00AM on Thursday, when there was an important document for Debbie to print, and hey presto, that option is NO LONGER AVAILABLE! WHY? it is totally insane to offer that option for only a limited number of copies. If the damn printer will let you print with the photo cartridge as a workaround, it should continue to do so. Yet another idiotic thing about this dumb printer.

So, to sum up. If you want to spend over £100 on a tinny plasticky pernickety printer that looks as though it would break when you touch it, doesn't have any easy-to-use or intuitive features, has a fit of the vapours every time you have to change a cartridge, only offers you useful features when it feels like it, and snatches them back again with no warning; if you want a printer that will have you bickering with your spouse over breakfast about whose damn responsibility it was to order one or all of its many temperamental cartridges, go right ahead. Otherwise, no barge pole yet invented by man is long enough to not touch this stupid, stupid piece of electronic junk. If there were minus stars on Amazon, I'd award it minus 5.

Still, these are all very much first world problems, at a time when the Mediterranean is awash with the bodies of dead migrant children, I should be grateful for my relatively comfortable home and my relatively comfortable (though at times, a tad Medieval) life.  Everyone seems to have forgotten about the migrant boats again, now that the EU leaders have had their summit and decided that lessons must be learned and something must be done.  Largely, these poor unfortunates are overshadowed in our media by the posturing of idiot politicians in the run-up to Thursday’s general election.  I had an email today from the Labour Party to let me know that in the midst of the campaigning, “Ed”, had broken off to play a round of snooker with Ronnie O’Sullivan, whoever he might be. Can you imagine Clement Attlee breaking off campaigning to play a round of snooker? No. and there’s your problem, Labour.  We asked you for vision, and you gave us snooker.

I haven’t been keeping up with the UKIP gaffes, and I am now routinely turning over to The Simpsons whenever the news comes on, but I was re-reading An English Journey by J B Priestley this week, his chronicle of a tour through England in 1936, and reflecting how the more things change, the more they stay the same, especially when he says:

It is one of the innumerable disadvantages of this present age of idiotic nationalism, political and economic, this age of passports and visas and quotas… that it is no longer possible for this admirable leavening process to continue… Behind all the new movements of this age, nationalistic, fascistic, communistic, has been more than a suspicion of the mental attitude of a gang of small town louts ready to throw a brick at the nearest stranger.

Other news which was sidelined in the general election/royal baby hoohah included the story that residents and activists in Clapham, South West London faced down and halted bailiffs sent to evict Trace Newton Ingham – a disabled 56-year-old woman - from her home of 35 years. For Trace, this was a matter of life and death. Her doctors say that the stress caused by eviction attempts could kill her. She has a long list of medical problems: back pain, bilateral Achilles tendonitis, equinus deformity, hypertension, acute chemical sensitivity, hyperacusis and visual stress disorder, ataxia vertigo, sleep disorder, migraines, memory problems, ME/PVS and trimethylaminuria – a rare metabolic disorder – and anxiety, having been the victim of numerous assaults. All of this is exacerbated by the fact that she experiences strong side-effects when she takes medicines.

Trace is one of Lambeth's last remaining "shortlife" residents. In the 1970s, there were thousands of council-owned houses in London that were too sub-standard to be rented out legally. Councils came to agreements with residents, allowing them to live in “shortlife” properties for a nominal rent. Essentially, it was a way for councils to wash their hands of houses that they couldn't afford to look after.

Lambeth Council, who were behind the eviction attempt,  is the last council to deal with its shortlife housing stock. It is now doing so by kicking people out of what, over several decades, have become much-loved homes. For the council, what used to be undesirable, run-down properties are now “boutique cottages” and luxury flats in waiting for developers to snap them up, redevelop them and sell them on a crazy market for huge profit.  Perhaps we should remember this when we go to the polls.  Except Lambeth is a Labour-run council, which seems, on the face of it, to be doing the Junta’s disabled-bashing for it.

The only other thing of note in our house this week has been yet more spring cleaning, but this time I was in favour of it, as it involves clearing out the old office upstairs, something which has long needed doing, and will provide us with some room to shove around the rest of the rubbish in the house.  This involved getting rid of old credit card and bank statements, of which there were many, because we used to keep everything, back in the days before online accounting: because our shredder is no more, we were forced to tear each one of them into tiny pieces, which was oddly satisfying, if a little tedious.  Debbie said her main concern was identity theft, and I said “Who would want to steal my identity?” to which she replied, “I know. I’m not even that happy with you having it.” So that told me.

Eventually, anyhow, we seem to have somehow arrived at today, the fifth Sunday of Easter, and, having determined that today’s saints, with the possible exception of St James the Less, were a poor bunch, I turned instead to the Lectionary to see what the readings were.

The first of them is Acts 8: 26-40, which tells how Philip was told by the Holy Spirit to go into Gaza, where he finds and Ethiopian eunuch, sitting in a chariot, reading the works of the prophet Esaias, as you do. Philip goes over to him and asks him if he understands what he is reading, and the eunuch replies, presumably falsetto, “How can I, except some man should guide me?” To cut a long story short, Philip preaches to him, and then they go off in the chariot together to find some water, where Philip bapstises the eunuch, then promptly disappears, having been caught up by the spirit of the Lord, according to the text, and the eunuch goes on his way, rejoicing, not at all fazed by the afternoon’s encounter.

I’m not quite sure what the point of this reading is, except to point out that sometimes, you need theological texts explained to you, in order to get their full meaning. One of the readers of this blog, Brother Richard, does just that, in his books, which are well worth reading and always contain something to enlighten an ignoramus like me: he takes the original word, in Hebrew, Greek or Aramaic, and explores all of the subtle nuances of the words, which can sometimes lead to startling observations indicating that the original meaning of many a Biblical passage was quite different to that which we received from our Sunday School teachers.

The next reading, Psalm 22: 25-31, promises amongst other things that “they that be fat upon the earth shall eat and worship”, which sounds just fine by me, although undoubtedly it’s got some other, deeper, symbolic meaning which vanished over my head with a whoosh like a low-flying RAF Tornado.

1 John 4: 7-21 is probably worth me quoting in full, because it seems to sum up much of what I have always thought about the sacramental nature of human love:

Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.  He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.  Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us. Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God. And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. We love him, because he first loved us. If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also.

Those 320 words seem almost like a distillation of the entire New Testament, and despite the succinct summary, it can be extrapolated to a philosophy for one’s entire life.  They’ve been more or less my belief, that at the end of the day, what counts is that you leave the world having created more love than was there when you entered it. They didn’t know it, or necessarily endorse it, but this was the ethos which underscored the Hippy movement of the 1960s. Of course, to love, you have to risk, you have to surrender yourself, in the same way as Eliot writes of in The Waste Land

The awful daring of a moment’s surrender.

It also informs the philosophy of the 17^th Century Neo-Platonists: God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us. We just have to find our way back to the spark of the divine which is in everyone’s soul.  The trees at this time of year always remind me of Andrew Marvell’s exploration of Neo-Platonist ideas in The Garden, where he writes of the fusion of the spiritual and the natural:

Meanwhile the mind, from pleasure less,
Withdraws into its happiness :
The mind, that ocean where each kind
Does straight its own resemblance find ;
Yet it creates, transcending these,
Far other worlds, and other seas ;
Annihilating all that's made
To a green thought in a green shade.

The final reading, John 15: 1-8, is another famous passage which uses agricultural metaphors to drive home a point:

I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.  Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples. 

These readings though, all seem to be harking towards the idea that in order to experience the divine, to encounter the spiritual, to see whatever it is that is behind this veil we call reality, you need to be a member of a church. The eunuch didn’t appreciate what he was reading until Philip explained it. And now we’re being told that 

As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.

The thing is, though, that the times in my life when I have felt most spiritual, when life has had most meaning, have been those times when I have responded to nature and nature has resonated with me.  The problem I have with the concept of a church is that with it comes the idea of certain behaviours being expected.  One of which is forgiveness, which brings me back again to the key-thieves.  I do, I am sure, need someone to explain all this sort of stuff to me, a spiritual advisor I am lacking, but on the other hand, chasing down the variant meanings of a Hebrew noun doesn’t always seem to work for me. Sometimes, as I’ve said before, you know, you just know.

Over the weekend, my body has been reminding me that I am not getting any younger, with aches and pains where they didn’t previously exist.  Like Father Vincent MacNabb, I sometimes get the feeling that I am being “called up”.  I just have to accept, I suppose, that either I will be proved right, or wrong – either my spiritual encounters with trees, mountains and lakes will count for something in the eyes of my maker, or I’ve got it totally wrong and the fact that I didn’t go to church, didn’t believe in every word of the Bible as the literal truth of God, and didn’t subscribe to a one-size-fits-all morality will be my undoing, and I’ll spend eternity with Mephistopheles, being prodded in the bum with a trident.

In the meantime, we have a week in prospect where at least we can take Monday off, and go a bit slower than normal.  Having said that, I’m still playing catch-up with all the things I didn’t do while I was struggling with the printer and the locksmith.  The year is zipping by. But I absolutely, positively must try and find some time to stop and sniff the flowers. Savour the days, especially at this sweet time of the year. I’m hoping tomorrow will be warm and sunny, and I can get those tubs painted up and planted out. I know I should really be working, but then I think of the day when the trees and the herbs and the flowers will have to get along without me, and so I’m going to take the chance while I can.  Cherish the day, and seize the moment. For the summer blooms so bright and green and gay.