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June 8 - June 14, 2023
effrontery.
refectory.
nonagenarian
pittance.
poteen,
truant,
Toffee-nose.
piquancy
touting
Circumstances bring people together, and take them apart. One cannot keep up with everyone in a lifetime. In any event, was there any true friendship between myself and Mary? Probably not. It was mainly a friendship of dependence on her part, with pity and (I’m almost ashamed to confess it) curiosity, on my part. I was intrigued to find out more about the hidden world of prostitution. That is no basis for a meeting of minds, and true affection, so I let the contact drop.
ponderous
effrontery,
badinage
contrived
guile
middens,
disapprobation.
“expectorant”.
derision.
skivvy
churlish
suppurating
the sounds of screaming children and doors banging. Then she heard no more. She was told much later by a friendly woman who worked in the kitchens that there was
opprobrium
In the Russian Orthodox Church there is the concept of the Holy Fool. It means someone who is a fool to the ways of the world, but wise to the ways of God.
“You are all so young,” she mused reflectively. “Youth is the first fair flower of spring.”
“Therefore…‘Sing, my darlings, sing, Before your petals fade, To feed the flowers of another spring.’”
body. I remembered the words of Mother Julian of Norwich: “All shall be well, and all will be well and all manner of things shall be well.”
Now and then in life, love catches you unawares, illuminating the dark corners of your mind, and filling them with radiance. Once in a while you are faced with a beauty and a joy that takes your soul, all unprepared, by assault.
“Take it. I have no secrets, my dear. I am but a spark in the divine fire.”
One of the sweetest things in life to see Is a calm, settled fly, Cleansing its fastidious face On my chosen reading place; He twines his legs around his arse And takes his time, As Beauty with her glass.
“Of course not,” she snapped sharply. “How can you love ignorant, brutish people whom you don’t even know? Can anyone love filth and squalor? Or lice and rats? Who can love aching weariness, and carry on working, in spite of it? One cannot love these things. One can only love God, and through His grace come to love His people.”
“Questions, questions – you wear me out with your questions, child. Find out for yourself – we all have to in the end. No one can give you faith. It is a gift from God alone. Seek and ye shall find. Read the Gospels. There is no other way. Do not pester me with your everlasting questions. Go with God, child; just go with God.”
“Go with God”,
It was a revelation – acceptance. It filled me with joy. Accept life, the world, Spirit, God, call it what you will, and all else will follow. I had been groping for years to understand, or at least to come to terms with the meaning of life. These three small words, “Go with God”, were for me the beginning of faith.
