Hamlet, Really? Yes!

“To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles…” https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/56965/speech-to-be-or-not-to-be-that-is-the-question .

Most recently I wrote a message to my beautiful daughter, she provides administrative services online and can work virtually anywhere in the world. I am not sure if I regret the message or not. How deeply does one communicate with ones children? How much of struggle and uncertainty should one share? Why share with her when she is half a world away? Well one of those answers is that she was on my mind and I decided to message here and what came out was typical of my neurally diverse mind, stream of consciousness barely filtered writing.

I can see the thought trains running, what has this got to do with Hamlet? Well recently I enrolled to complete a teacher refresher course so that I can go back into the classroom. Let me clear being a teacher is not a career for those who are of a more delicate constitution, the filth, the verbal and physical attacks and the general chaos of our education system is bruising and challenging (if you care). However, I am recovering from the head injury that has kept me from the classroom. I will be 61 years old soon and I have reached a place in my life where some crossroads are imminent. The question is if not teach then what? Write? If I write how will I earn? The second crossroad is health. My health is somewhat indifferent with ongoing health issues which are frustrating and limiting. So..

Into the study I go, it doesn’t seem to be too much of a challenge, I am no stranger to the world of academia. The second is health. We know that our health system is overrun, overworked underfunded and generally more messy than a truckload of offal overturned on a main road. We live in a time where the number one concern is paying too much tax, closely followed by the usage of Maaori in official names and communications and the moral peril of Co-governance. To think that those issues decide the outcome of an election is an obscenity and reflects on Aotearoa as being a greedy, racist country where money buys political influence. Any country whose Government attacks efforts to lower smoking rates to fund tax cuts is an odious stain on those who voted for the shower of detestable scat. FDair pay agreements gone, so the payment to women (mainly) for their work is according to Ms Willis (Minister of Finance) merely a function of the market. If companies make more money that will pay their workers more, what kind of horse shit is that!

Now don’t think that I believe Labour is without blame in this, they wasted an overwhelming electoral mandate by allowing internecine conflict to continue within the party and put its efforts into trying to convince the unconvinceable of the merits of co-governance, they should have just done it and got one with building homes, rebuilding hospitals and investing in our health care and education systems. They may still have lost the election however at least it would have been a principled loss rather than a capitulation through a lack of vision and action.

Now after all that I am tired and I feel that perhaps I haven’t said anything at all, therein lies my question. To be or not to be?

Paul

Manopausal perhaps?

Actually I think that dress makes your bum look big said no man ever…. well possibly not ever.

Living in a garage doesn’t make you a car….

Back slider, out of fellowship, un-redeemed, not in fellowship, just a few of the words that are often bandied about in the church. 

Sunday Afternoon at Kmart, Defcon 1 in Ten Seconds

I could hear the shouting, not far from me a little to my left, a domestic I thought.  No surprise really considering my location, right in the middle of Kmart’s new shop in Hamilton.  Where else would it happen?

Take a little, now and then.

It is hard to give something to me. I was reflecting the other day on one of my posts about being told I was a good man, https://kiwipaulspoetry.wordpress.com/2013/07/04/if-someone-tells-me-i-am-a-good-man-one-more-time/. I reflected on why this was potentially so challenging for me. Some of the power in that narrative lies in my struggle between my need for intimacy and where that can lead to and my relationship with the church. I certainly have relied on grace in the last few years, but when I step away from the whole notion that one class of sin is worse than another (shhh don’t tell the evangelicals that sexual sin is the same as turning a blind eye to those in need in their own congregation).
I remembered that I have struggled with being praised for as long as I can remember Odd that for a person who has sought the affirmation of others that I should reject it when it comes my way. It is a reflection on my insecurities. Did I say that aloud? Sometimes I am insecure! Ouch! Well it is true there are some situations where I am insecure, not so much these days as with a reformation of my mind and a work in progress in myy body I am coming to see that actually some of the things that I do I am good at!
So when I separate those things out I then think about what kinds of gifts I find hard to accept and why. Acts of service are very important to me but I am a reluctant recipient of such gifts to me. Especially when I feel they are unearned, even perhaps un warranted. There are two that stood out for me in recent times, one of these was a very long time ago, a friend of mine came to me and sought to wash my feet. It was a very challenging time for me to accept such an act of service. Washing someone’s feet is a profound statement. Feet are considered to be a very dirty part of the body in contact with all sorts of different things. That not withstanding, any act of cleansing someone’s body in any form is highly personal, it happens in some limited forms, (hairdressing, manicures, even dentists) but it is generally only accepted when someone is incapacitated and unable to do it for themselves. Accepting the help of someone else in cleansing yourself can be difficult as it is an admittance of inability or incapacity. For obvious reasons we often let our hair be cut by another rather than ourselves, like wise a semi surgical cleaning of our teeth. So what about a cleansing of our mind, heart and soul. Where do we turn to get that cleansed.
When we have self inflicted detritus that clogs our soul and spirit it can be somewhat easier to cleanse, the power of confession and contrition to a trusted person or if you are so inclined to a priest is restorative and powerful. Some of us are fortunate to have a relationship with God that enables us to talk directly and sort it out one to one. I will look at confession in another blog as interesting as it is it is a little meander down the wild side from where I want to go with this blog.
Where do we go when it is the actions of others that inflicts its suppurating, sourness upon us? We are exposed to all sorts of nastiness everyday in the news, it can be easy to turn off to, but when it hits us personally where can you turn. Now f someone else tells me to give it all to Jesus one more time they may find themselves face to face with their maker a little quicker than what they imagined, even if it is just a temporary loss of earthly consciousness.
Real people feel pain and hurt, sometimes it is directly and sometimes it is by association, the worst kind of pain is that of children, people who do not have the skills or the agency to deal with it. I am amidst a lot of this pain at the moment and personally it is building up. I spent a little time at the beach and that helped me process it somewhat today but I know that unfortunately it is going to be increased as I deal with some issues.
I take my own advice here and give it to myself as much as to others, should someone seek to wash your feet, (not literally necessarily ) but if they wish to perform an act of service for you be gracious enough to accept it as it is healing.
Well that meandered a little from whence I started however I am happy with where it ended, perhaps a little deeper on confession and my own inability to accept things that are good being said about me another day.
Live Love and Laugh,
Paul