Recently my friend and I were discussing old times, we were remembering when we first got married we didn’t have a washing machine, all the washing was done by hand, including, when the babies arrived, all the nappies. Eventually, we progressed to a twin tub washer, and when the washing was finished we used the water left to scrub the steps. Nothing was wasted, and yet we sometimes get the blame for the demise of common sense, alongside the shouts for recycling, when the utilities are not made to last, and devoid of parts at the most after three years.
We have developed large polluting mountains of all kinds of machinery containing dangerous polluting substances with huge half-lives. It’s as though collectively society speaks with forked tongues. At the ending of the year, and the beginning of the new one we are prone to remembering many things with nostalgia, and perhaps without total accuracy, and there is ever the hope that things will be better, and that we will do better in the new year. How often have we determined to keep to our resolutions, for better and healthier living only to fall down at the first few hurdles.
Society has engaged over the decades of my life, in ever-increasing waste, and the need to be always ‘up to date’ even when not quite sure what that means, just watch a housing reno programme and almost inevitably the perfectly good kitchen and bathroom will be slung out and replaced with ‘the new style, the excuse being it won’t sell, but one wonders about the many ways the kitchens and bathrooms could be upcycled and still be fine?
Sometimes I think it is ‘a look culture’, you know, it’s the look of the thing? it needs to be sleek and modern, and yes we all like clean lines, and in modern times, with its particular demands we like what we call low maintenance, but the low maintenance appears to begin and end with our own corner, and collectively the ‘throw away’ culture we have created has created a huge maintenance problem, increasing pollution and blotting our potentially beautiful landscapes.
In fairly recent times I have noticed that there are more and more complaints from people living near so-called ‘recycling centres or. more likely the dumps, where they are tortured by the stink of the decaying waste. However, it is the voice of the view, against the apathy of the many and it seems difficult to resolve these destructive environmental, and health issues.
Next, what comes to my mind is our desire to have a sleek body, and as someone who has many health issues, I couldn,t agree more with the idea that regarding our health, mental, physical, psychological, and spiritual we need an awareness of ourselves in how we live, move, and have our being. There is something wrong with how we approach this though, and the problems are so subtle that they are often not seen, but let’s name them as being touched only at the surface. It’s back to the look of the thing, and therefore can become depersonalized, might I even suggest not human. Such a view objectivities people, and is currently having detrimental effects on the most vulnerable and includes our young people.
In a Christmas blog I asked, where is the joy? Joy contentment and peace need to come from within, and in this new year we need to review our resolves to live more healthy lives, in the face of the pandemic, and at a deeper level culturally. We need to challenge the ingrained ‘norms and mores’ of our institutional, personal, and spiritual ways of living.
In the story ‘the emperor has no clothes’ the vain emperor listened to his staff telling him how lovely and well he looked, but his vanity was really stupidity, and devoid of all common sense, and it, wait for it, was the child who called out, ”the emperor has no clothes one who saw the reality of the situation.
Throughout this pandemic, all of us have been living with increased vulnerability, and awareness of our mortality and this means we become, at times, more childlike, that inner child is available to us, and creates an opportunity to see and tell the unvarnished truth. So as we make our debut into new resolutions let’s not silence our inner child let’s listen to its wisdom! In listening to our own vulnerability we can be aware of what really matters, and particularly we can be aware of the children who are so affected by this virus and are frightened and scared.
IF YOU PRAY PRAY FOR OUR CHILDREN THEY NEED US!
aoibheann thoughtful reflections 