Restoring The Grace In Cheapness

I was not quite 'born second hand'
but as a child and an adult
most of what I have owned
has been well pre-owned and pre-used,
and much bedded-in before my life with it.

By the time I get a thing it could be
anything from second-hand to tenth-hand.
I am likely to be the last get the use out of it.

All of what I have had required input
from human hand and and eye for it to be
still fit for my use of it. I wish I could thank
those that made what I find still fit for use
for their hand in keeping my life more solvent
and me looking half like those around me.

The Best Good Works

are often done in secret,
or when we are covered by a shame
that others invoke over us, unawares
whereof we can neither speak nor write
but sometimes pray with strange groans
because our thinking is so blocked.

If we can do good when more controlled
than we know about, or are comfy with,
then after that is when hindsight reveals
the good faith, built on an unknown grace,
that carries us through those bad times.

The Joy Of Existentialist Gardening

Where nature remains alive whilst man remains fearful of being spiritually dead.

Hopeful Travels

A sense of courage is always retrospective.
You only know that you had enough of it
after you have been through the experience,
and later you find a calmer place,
whether that is of learning-or simply recovery.

Very few of us will get as far
through the many life experiences
as intact we would each of us like.

The Price Of Vice

Since personal vice is unavoidable
my prescription for a better life
is to choose vices that remain fun,
particularly where the activity is unclean.

If dirt is inevitable in life
we have to find the vitality
in 'being dirty'.

More than that make sure the vice
of your choice won't make you secretive
or put you in a debt which accumulates.
This will divide you in your relationships.

Your vice will take up more time than you,
and those you share it with, thought it would.
As anyone on a computer knows, attention spans
and time will always stretch and decieve us
-particularly when finding absorption through fun.

Where you can, be aware of your own absurdity
when engaged in this activity-it will help you
choose better when to give your vice a rest.
It has to renew itself for when you enjoy it next.

And fnally where you have responcibilities
for, or over, dependents please be sure
that price of your vice does not put them in debt,
as-unaware of your secrecy towards yourself-
they try to be open, seeking their own vices and desires.

Today, 76 Years Ago....

the Nazis started their invasion of Poland.
We don't have to visit the death camps
to learn what it was like for those populations.
With their eeire silences and neatly kept grass
the death camps can only yield so much to us.

The way I learnt about it was to read what it was like
in the first person, from a diary written by a Polish Rabbi.
From the 1st of September 1939, when that dreary man,
Chamberlain, declared war on Germany in funerial tones
to August 1942 Rabbi Chaim Aaron Kaplan wrote daily
and hid his writings away. He is believed to have persished
in a death camp in spring 1943, after burying his diaries.

The book is an astonishing work, written in the present tense
and covering as many days as possible, it is more accurate
and more expansive about the everyday privations
of the rights of the citizens of Poland being salami-sliced
out existence, along with the citizens themselves,
through progressively abusive new laws and customs
than you will ever want to read about. Find it here.

I read it on holiday, and I read every word.
I knew before I took it away with me that I was odd,
I had yet to realise how strange I could be.
An accurate first person account of those times
should be a tough read, and will make many shrink
from understanding because of the refusal to gloss over
how dismal life could be. But still we should mark,
read, and inwardly digest this material, to understand
how we are blessed, and keep the right side of fear.

I told my local Jehovah's Witnesses about the book
when they joined me, walking alone last Sunday.
They agreed with me-dilute second hand digests
of other people's suffering are insufficient reminders
if we want to map their inner journeys properly.

Inconceivable

Hindsight is a great thing.
It continues to teach me the paradox
of being open in the present day
about pasts where the people
who said they knew and cared for me
were so secretive that they denying everything
-particularly that which was in front of them.

All of which at the time
made me more secretive towards myself
than I could ever have concieved of being.