Skip to main content

Life goes on...

I don't usually do politics.  Occasionally I have felt like I should take an interest, as an intelligent citizen of a democratic country, but I get rapidly disheartened by all the name-calling, and my resolve quickly dissipates.  So I try to get enough information to make a reasonably informed vote, and that's that.

But on a day like today, politics is hard to ignore.  The EU referendum campaign involved at least as much name-calling and twisting of the truth as any other, and I felt even less qualified to make this decision than usual (how am I supposed to know anything about international trade agreements?  Does anyone know anything about international trade agreements?)  Being naturally inclined towards the status quo, I started off tending towards staying in, and didn't find any arguments compelling enough for me to switch sides.

So I am still slightly disbelieving that we actually decided to take the leap.  About the only thing I can think of to say is, Hopefully it won't be as bad as all that, really.  Most of the time, most of these large systems seem to self-stabilize somehow - probably because of all the actual decent politicians working away tirelessly behind the scenes - so even a large shove may prove less rocky than we think.  Or else the whole thing may capsize.

But for now, life goes on.  It's heartening to see that the sun still shines, and the flowers grow, and the birds sing in the trees despite our petty human dramas.  Out in the back garden, I have just spotted some tiny green tomatoes on my huge leafy tomato plants, and the strawberries are starting to ripen.


The two plants that I thought were courgettes suddenly shot up and revealed themselves as sunflowers - which is fine, too, but I don't know where they came from!


We have been eating rocket morning, noon and night for a while, but it's now gone irrevocably to seed.  There should be some spring onions hiding in there, so maybe they'll now get a chance to grow - the rocket went a bit more rampant than I expected.  And finally, I tried dwarf runner beans for the first time this year.  They look very pretty right now.  Hopefully they will become very tasty too.



So if you'll excuse me, I will step out of the world of politics again and go dig in a different kind of dirt.  One that was there before we all existed, and will still be there after we've gone.  In all the shouting and upheaval, I hope you find a place of peace today.


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Bonnie Prince Charlie Walk: Lees to Derby

These final two Bonnie Prince Charlie walks were quite a contrast: the first across empty fields and along quiet roads; the second crossing from country into city as I walked into Derby. I started both walks at the Great Northern Greenway car park, just off Station Road in Mickleover.  Walk 1 In order to keep walking the Bonnie Prince Charlie way in the right direction, I first found my way back to Lees by an alternative route. The first section, along the cycle path, was well paved. After that it quickly got very muddy. At least it's a popular walk from Mickleover to Radbourne, so it was easy to find the path.  St Andrew's, Radbourne, is rather dominated by memorials. It looks as if the preacher would be hemmed in by tombs!      I liked this bench outside, with the text, "The thoughtful soul to solitude retires". Writing this, I only just realised it was a quote. Turns out it's from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam . The rest of the walk certainly provided solitude,
Post a Comment
Read more

A Place at the Table: Spiritual Formation Book 12

"God has ordained in his great wisdom and goodness that eating, and especially eating in company, should be one of the most profound and pleasurable aspects of being human." Miranda Harris had been intending to write a book for years. She'd got as far as a folder full of notes when she died suddenly in a car accident in 2019. When her daughter, Jo Swinney, found the notes, she decided to bring her mum's dream to fruition. A Place at the Table was the result. I thought this was going to be a nice friendly book about having people over for dinner. In one sense it is, but it's pretty hard-hitting as well. Miranda and her husband Peter co-founded the environmental charity A Rocha, so the book doesn't shy away from considering the environmental aspects of what we eat and how we live. They also travelled widely and encountered hunger at close quarters; the tension between seeing such poverty and believing in a generous God comes out clearly in A Place at the Table.
Post a Comment
Read more

Flexitarianism

Hey folks!  I learnt a new word today!  I can now proudly proclaim myself to be a flexitarian .  Yes, I wish that meant I'm in training to be a trapeze artist.  Or that I'm a leading world expert on the chemical properties of stretchy materials.  All it actually means is that I don't eat meat that much. Well, big deal.  That lumps me in with a majority of the world's population, many of whom have no choice about the matter.  So why the need for a fancy new word?  Because, it seems, that we in the prosperous West have come to regard having bacon for breakfast, chicken sandwiches for lunch and a steak for dinner as entirely normal.  But also because we in the prosperous West are starting to realise that might not be an entirely good idea. You know about factory farming, of course.  The images of chickens crammed into tiny cages and pigs which never see the sunlight, which we push out of our minds when we reach for our plastic-wrapped package of sausages in t
Post a Comment
Read more