Conventry Cathedral

There is fog for as far as the eye can see. And probably even further. I am standing on the deck of a ferry crossing the English Channel.

I have been to Coventry. If you ever go to Coventry you should visit the Cathedral. It is not hard to find, it is next to Primark. It was bombed during the Second World War and was never rebuilt. The bare walls of the roofless cathedral stand there to remind you of what once was. Like a wound that has hardened but never completely healed. I visited the Cathedral. I had been there once before. It was in the 1970s when my brother and I went on a bicycle trip to England.

 

I don't have a photo from then, because neither of us owned a camera. I do have a photo of the Cathedral though, with my mother in front of it. She went to England on trip with an Christian Women's organisation once. It was her only trip abroad ever, and she had been very impressed with all the things she saw. She was from a generation where travelling abroad was not a common thing at all. She didn't have a camera, and the photo of her in front of the Cathedral was a present from one of her friends who was also on the tour.

 

 A year later she died of cancer, much too young.

 

That photo was on my mind as I stood there in front of the Cathedral. And it was on my mind now when crossing the Channel. We have been to the same place. We have seen the same wound.

 

Optional Extras

God created the cat (or evolution did, if you prefer). A beautiful animal with a soft fur and irresistible eyes. The cat is very agile and one of its fine characteristics is its innate ability to move along almost without a sound.

Or that was how it was created (or evolved, if you like). Now we have improved on its design. We have added an optional extra. We have put bells on it, so that it will make a sound when sneaking through the grass. This makes it more difficult for the cat to catch its prey, not least the garden birds.

Mrs. Chritensi and I have an old, beautiful cat, and for Xmas it had a band to wear round the neck, and the band has a bell attached to it. At first the cat didn't like it, but now it seems to have gotten used to it.

Uncle Jack came around and heard the cat and saw it. He was amused, and I had to explain to him that the bell was there to save the birds.

- whenever has that fat and lazy cat of yours caught a bird? And do you still call it a cat, he asked. Cats move along silently, and this one surely doesn't.

I had to think. It wasn't this year that it caught a bird, and it wasn't last year. Maybe the year before that.

Admittedly, a bell for our cat maybe doesn't make much sense. But at least it shows the neighbours that we care about animals.

Cynics and Sentimentalists

I can't stand people being good to other people. I start crying. I happens all the time when I am watching television. The bad guy turns good in the end and tears come to my eyes. Somebody helps a helpless creature and here we go again. An organisation stages a charity show, and when the speeches are on I cry again. And it is not only about being good to people - the same thing happens, if someone treats an animal kindly.

I even cry sometimes when I hear the weather forecast for the weekend. I am most definitely a sentimentalist.

My Uncle Jack is different. He is a cynic. He only cries in the darkness of the cinema.

Prisoners of our Possessions

We have done well many of us. We were the generation born in the years after the World War II. Born in times in austerity, but growing up during the long and pleasant journey through the Long Peace. Probably the first generation with a whole lifetime of peace and growing welfare and prosperity.

 

Our parents didn't have much at first. They had a radio receiver, of course. Used to listening to dancing music and catch the BBC during the war. Then the other consumer goods followed over the years. The fridge, the washing machine, central heating, the television set and the motor car.

 

And for us, their children, the possibility for all of us to go to university, irrespective of our parents' income.

 

We had what we needed, but not yet what we wanted. We did better than our parents. Bigger homes, two cars, summer cottages, beautiful furniture, a plethora of electrical apparatuses for home and garden, art on the walls, cupboards filled with clothes and shoes. And for the children, PlayStation 1, 2, and 3. Mobile phones, smart phones and tablets. And, of course, a computer for every member of the family. And a complex burglar alarm system to protect it all.

 

Now our generation has grown old. The children have left home, and our homes have become much to big for us. It would be nice to move to a smaller place. Preferably in the city, where you do not need a car every day, not a big garden to keep, not a big house to clean, not two cars to maintain, not the plethora of electric gadgets and utensils, one or two of which is always malfunctioning or not functioning at all, and will have to be attended to.

 

But we won't leave or big house. What do we do with all our things? We spend too much time maintaining and keeping everything in working order. We are too old and tired to go through all the stuff. We can't bring ourselves to throw out all the beautiful and sometimes expensive stuff. We will stay. WE HAVE BECOME PRISONERS OF OUR POSSESSIONS!!!!

Will somebody please tell the Chinese!

20 - and still counting

Today we open another door in our Advent calendar. We started with the number 1 and now we are at number 20, unless we have cheated because we couldn't wait to see what 24 was keeping for us. I like the idea, counting up from 1 to 24, one day at a time, until we reach the great day.

I have two Advent calendars this year. One I bought from a charity organisation, and behind every door there are some wise words to boost our humanity. The other I got from my oldest daughter, and behind every door there is a very small piece of chocolate. Behind no. 24 there is (was) a bigger piece. I do like it. Counting up to Xmas, one day at a time. I think I still have some of the child in me.

My Uncle Jack has made his own Advent calendar. It has 56 doors. He started by opening no. 56 on the first of November. That's when it all starts he says. That's when his wife starting buying Christmas presents - and he drives her to town and wait for her while she is shopping. And it is cold and windy and either raining or snowing. And when they get back, it's all about decorating the house.

 

Under door no. 56 it said 'Only 56 days left'. Today he opened door no. 5. 'Only 5 days left', it said. 'Why 5 days?', I asked him, 'it's Christmas in 4 days'?

 

'I'm counting down', he explained. 'Counting down to the day when it's over and the world returns to normalcy after two months of insanity. Counting down to the day when people stop spending the time they do not have and the money the cannot afford to spend on silly objects for people that do not want them.

 

It may not seem much to you Pulo, two months of Christmas every year. But if you think of it. For every period of 6 years, you spend 1 year preparing for Christmas. If you live to be 90, you will have spent 10 years of your adult life in preparation of Christmas. Think about what you could have done of sensible things with that time'.

 

Well - I don't know.

Darkness Recycled

Some years ago I attended a talk by the Danish author Leif Davidsen. Before becoming an author he had worked as a journalist, and in this capacity he had spent some years as a foreign correspondent in Moscow. This was in the time of the Soviet Union and before anyone imagined that the communist regimes would collapse some day soon. He told some stories from that era. Here is one of them - as I recollect it:

During the Soviet era there was always a shortage of some goods in the shops. It was not always the same things that it would be difficult to get. Some days it could be toilet paper. Some weeks later tooth paste, shoes, coffee pots or whatever.

One time it was electric light bulbs that were impossible to come by. This had been the situation for quite some time and people were getting desperate to get hold of light bulbs.

One day Mr. Davidsen was wandering round Moscow. On his walk he passed a small square and saw people gathering around a man. The man had three cardboard-boxed filled with electric light bulbs! And he was selling them. Mr. Davidsen asked for ten light bulbs. They were quite expensive, but when there is a shortage that's normal. Nothing to do about that.

He paid, and just as he was about to leave he asked if he could be sure that the light bulbs worked.

"No Sir", the man said, "they do not work. They are old light bulbs that have been replaced".

Mr. Davidsen was perplexed. "Then, why do people want to buy them?", he wanted to know.

"Oh!", the man answered, "there's a great demand. Everybody wants to buy. You see, they take them to their work place, take out a working light bulb and put in the one they have bought from me. If they just took out a working light bulb without replacing it, the manager would discover it, and they would all be checked before being allowed to leave the work place. Now the manager just thinks, that the light bulb has stopped working."

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Isn't it amazing how people are able to outsmart the system when they need to?