Counting blessings and citing the curse

My mid-morning alighting from the duvet realm was today a most refreshing experience. On entering the living room, I was immediately bathed in the most refreshing breeze, as my beloved had opened the window wide as if in celebration of my emergence into the world of the day people. A breezily breathable day, that’s not far short of the ecstatic for me; it certainly washes away the residual cobwebs of melancholia from yesterday’s setback. Today, I feel able to share the joy of Dame Julian’s shewing that, “all shall be well, all manner of things shall be well”! In terms of the love of family and friends, the wealth of nature in my own back garden, my sense of self-worth (although sometimes troubled by problems of health) I am blessed indeed!


There is much in the world that is indeed very unwell, man’s inhumanity to man and, that generally cynical viewpoint that charity begins at home, outrageous prejudice shown by people of religiosity … blah, blah, blah … I could go on … and on but …….


A sermon illustration I heard as a child still haunts me, it’s the one about the boy having to put together a jigsaw map of the world. His father was so surprised that he completed the puzzle so quickly, was he perhaps a genius, that even in childhood he was capable of reconstructing a map of the world? The child’s solution was, of course, much simpler; on the back of the puzzle someone had drawn a picture of a man, and the child had already observed what a man looked like; by getting the man right he’d managed to get the world right.

The problem is that politicians, financiers and religious bigots seem determined not to give man a chance to get right; we seem to be taught from an early age that self-interest is the only possible course of action and, one man’s self-interest quite frequently implies the blighting of numerous other lives.

But, I believe that “all shall be well”, so count me in on the side of the oppressed that I may work towards that goal.