Green Issues

For some reason travelling to the great Easter 2009 HCPT pilgrimage
the lyrics of the old Barry McGuire song kept coming to mind:

The eastern world it tis explodin',
violence flarin', bullets loadin',
you're old enough to kill but not for votin',
you don't believe in war, what's that gun you're totin',
and even the Jordan river has bodies floatin',
but you tell me over and over and over again my friend,
ah, you don't believe we're on the eve of destruction.

Don't you understand, what I'm trying to say?
Can't you see the fear that I'm feeling today?
If the button is pushed, there's no running away,
There'll be noone to save with the world in a grave,
take a look around you, boy, it's bound to scare you, boy,
but you tell me over and over and over again my friend,
ah, you don't believe we're on the eve of destruction.

Yeah, my blood's so mad, feels like coagulatin',
I'm sittin' here, just contemplatin',
I can't twist the truth, it knows no regulation,
handful of Senators don't pass legislation,
and marches alone can't bring integration,
when human respect is disintegratin',
this whole crazy world is just too frustratin',
and you tell me over and over and over again my friend,
ah, you don't believe we're on the eve of destruction.

Think of all the hate there is in Red China!
Tehn take a look around to Selma, Alabama!
Ah, you may leave here, for four days in space,
but when your eturn, it's the same old place,
the poundin' of the drums, th pride and disgrace,
you can bury your dead, but don't leave a trace,
hate your next-door-neighbour, but don't forget to say grace,
and you tell me over and over and over and over again my friend,
ah, you don't believe we're on the eve of destruction."

The other pilgrim of Barry Maguire generation in the Group also
found the lyrics/tune sufficiently catchy and strangely
relevant to remark on them.

Perhaps as a consequence I am now dispensing with owning a car personally
and instead joining a car club. Streetcar is Wimbledon based
and has many cars in the vicinity. I'll post some more thoughts
in a few weeks time as to whether the experience is positive.

HCPT Group 35 - Lourdes 2009

A vintage year. Only three disabled children in the group but they
gave as much love and infectious happiness as if there were two or three times that number. There were also many able bodied child/helpers this year so
the Group was as tired and happy at the end as always.

Highlights included the group's first evening gathering in the prairie across from the grotto around a single candle and managing to sing from memory and song sheets in the dark.

Mass on the beach at St Jean de Luz then a picnic
in the sunshine with the rolling Atlantic breakers as a dramatic backdrop
were followed by the Group gathering for hot chocolates and coffee
under the awning of an elegant cafe in the Town's main square. The weather
then altered abruptly with snow, hail, thunder and lightning replacing the hot sunshine.
Bags and coats had to be lifted onto the tables from the stone floors
for fear of being flooded by the torrential downpours.

At 23:55 hours almost alone at the Grotto one night; a huge monstrance on the altar shrouded in swathes of incense gave a deep atmosphere in all senses of the word for private prayer and thoughts.

Table tennis at Hosanna House and the London Beaumont Region Sports day
on the prairie with the latter including 3 wheeled races were the sporting high lights.

Even the officials and others at Gatwick airport seemed to catch the sense of
community and happiness from ours and the other returning HCPT pilgrim Groups.

Amen for another great year.

Holy Week 2009 - Earthquake at L'Aquila

Holy Week was hugely marked by the tragic natural disasters of the earthquakes in and around the Italian City of L'Aquila the first of which occurred on Monday.

The Jesuit giving the homily at Wimbledon's Sacred Heart Church on Maunday Thursday night, mentioned a jounalist's photograph depicting the shattered doorway of the much damaged Cathedral in L'Aquila. In the background was a frescoe or painting (also damaged) of Jesus Christ on the Cross and in the foreground was a man cradling his apparently dead young son in his arms.

The Jesuit drew the analogy between our own burdens in the foreground with those of God's overwhelming love and generosity which pervade these but which continue in the background whatever the burdens or grief in our lives. As the Jesuit was speaking an old man in the front of the Sacred Heart congregation collapsed and had to be helped which provided a graphic illustration of the analogy in question.

Leaving Home and The Boat That Rocked

The leaving home by two of the maytrees' children in their twenties,
last month and next week respectively, made for a little reflection
on life when I was in my own mid twenties.
One left to rent with friends, a huge house
between Vauxhall and Stockwell which may well have been a former
Russian 'safe house'. The other has just purchased at a discounted key worker price
a newly built flat by the park in Wandsworth with great views of London
probably including her brother's safe house and the Thames.

Their moves both compare well with my first move from home by
renting part of a semi in West Norwood.

The mood of reflection about earlier times in life was accentuated
yesterday by seeing the film "The Boat that Rocked." The theme (there was no
plot to speak of) was of the UK in the 1960s when only 45 minutes
worth of rock music a day was permitted to be broadcast by BBC radio.
This silliness left the way wide open for some rock entrepreneurs
to set up their own rock and pop music station on a ship
anchored in the North Sea just outside British territorial waters.

Radio Caroline as the first such pirate ship was called was an instant success.
Its signature tune was the old pop hit "Caroline" (The Fortunes I think)
and its brodacasts livened up the British 60s' generation's
listening and eventually livened up the BBC's own output, rendering
the eventual closure of the pop pirate ships (several more
joined Radio Caroline) less of a loss.

The film The Boat That Rocked was worth going to for the music
and for the snapshots of life it depicted at that time. Possibly its
main appeal will be to the 60s' generation as its wallow in nostalga
is fun even if a little too long.