williamonthehill

One of those days

Today has been one of those days. This morning I broke my glasses; the bridge snapped. My spare pair are for driving. They are actually sunglasses and they are for distance work. My regular prescription are Varifocal. These glasses I have on now are a real pain for reading. I am squinting as I write this. Then I had to keep my appointment to give my blood for Diabetes testing. I got to the GP surgery and realised i didn't have the sample form with me! Grrrr! The receptionist sorted me out by taking a copy off the computer.

After the Phlebotomist had taken my blood (and pointed out that I had put my Tee shirt on back to front and inside out) it was off to the Opticians in Peckham. Bad news. Soldering is not likely to work. So its a new frame (£78) and they won't be ready until Friday (and thats a maybe).

People who don't wear glasses really don't know how handicapping it is to be in my position. My eyesight is really quite bad and so I am now not able to read, not really able to read stuff on the computer. I have job application forms on the hard drive but I can't complete them because (and especially in one case) the Font point is too small. I just can't work with it with these glasses.

The Divine Office

"O, Lord, Open Our Lips - and we shall praise your Name"

In an address aimed at Priests the Holy Father said during his Vespers prayer address in Paris on Saturday:

 Even now the word of God is given to us as the soul of our apostolate, the soul of our priestly life. Each morning the word awakens us. Each morning the Lord himself "opens our ear" (cf. Is 50:5) through the psalms in the Office of Readings and Morning Prayer. Throughout the day, the word of God becomes the substance of the prayer of the whole Church, as she bears witness in this way to her fidelity to Christ. In the celebrated phrase of Saint Jerome, to be taken up in the XII Assembly of the Synod of Bishops next month: "Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ" (Prol. in Is.). Dear brother priests, do not be afraid to spend much time reading and meditating on the Scriptures and praying the Divine Office! Almost without your knowing it, God’s word, read and pondered in the Church, acts upon you and transforms you. As the manifestation of divine Wisdom, if that word becomes your life "companion", it will be your "good counsellor" and an "encouragement in cares and grief" (Wis 8:9).

Deacons have to make a solemn promise to pray the Divine Office everyday. The praying of the "Hours" is the main purpose - "Opus Dei" the work of God - of the religious communities and congregations. Lay persons are not expected to pray the Divine Office although the Second Vatican Council strongly encouraged us to. I have been praying with the Office for about two or may be three years now. It was hard to begin with although I was fortunate in that our parish offered morning prayer 'of the Church' before Mass during the week. So I had a pattern and example of how it was done. Otherwise I am self taught. Before I took up using the Breviary my prayer life, such as it was, was (as we say in these parts) "all over the shop". Having no constant habit or set prayers it was hard to get going and hard to stay going once I had began. The Office changed all that.

On a good day I manage the Office of Readings, Morning prayer (Lauds), Evening prayer (Vespers) and night prayer. At work I substitute the Rosary/Angelus prayer during my lunchtime for the three minor hours. I have found the Office to be a stable foundation, a disciplined structure, upon which I hang my prayer life. I find the regular pattern of Readings, Morning and Evening prayer, plus Compline a real strength and encouragement for living the Christian life. The Psalms, the Antiphons, the scripture readings are choc full of words and expressions which I find myself reflecting and pondering on throughout the day. These ponderings in turn give expression to little "arrow" prayers which I fire up to Our Lord throughout the day.

Well, it has worked for me although I recognise that the Office is not for everyone. However, I would urge you to give it a try. Perhaps you might be able to borrow a spare Breviary from your Priest or Deacon. Or purchase the Daily Prayer volume which excises the Office of Readings and the minor hours but contains Lauds, Vespers and Compline. The complete Divine Office is a three volume set which costs about £150 so only buy it if you feel absolutely committed to this wonderful way or Royal Road into a prayer life.

Thought for Today

"The idols of today are unmistakable - self-esteem without effort, fame without achievement, sex without consequences, wealth without responsibility, pleasure without struggle and experience without commitment."

 

Chief Rabbi, Dr. Jonathan Sacks January 2004

Where was I when...

Today is the 7th anniversary of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre. It is one of those events which will be forever defined in terms of "Where were you when the first plane flew into the tower..."

I remember the day well. In fact I was probably in a most appropriate place to witness such a heinious crime although I did not witness the actual incident "in real time". On that day I was working in Cane Hill Medium Secure Psychiatric unit. For those who don't know what one of those is, it is a secure hospital for (usually) the most dangerous of mentally disordered offenders and "one step down" (so to speak) from the secure hospitals system of which Broadmoor is probably the best known. Cane Hill no longer exists and was closed earlier this year.

I remember going onto the patients area about 10.30 am  and walking into the common room to see every single patient totally absorbed by something on the telly. The patients were totally absorbed, totally silent and absolutely concentrated on what was on the screen. I had never seen these men in this mood before. When I also saw what was being broadcast I was stunned and, frankly incredulous. The TV Channel seemed to be repeating over and over again those dreadful scenes of people falling through the air to their deaths, having jumped out of top floor offices. But almost immediately I began to question myself: should men like this be watching scenes like that? Here was material enough to generate delusions for a lifetime. I remember saying this to the Consultant in charge who merely shrugged his shoulders as if to say "what can I do".

The entire day felt, somehow 'hushed' and very sombre. The patients stayed 'glued' to the TV the whole day; nothing got done by the staff except injections and feeding tasks. We were in a cocoon. Of course, because of the nature of the unit we were never innundated with members of the public or even many other visitors.We were behind a bloody great brick wall, half a mile up a wooded and steep road on a site which was anyway a good walk away from the nearest town (Coulsdon). But on this particular day we really felt isolated and totally alone in an emotional sense.

This sense of unreality continued on my way home. Changing trains at East Croydon the notices said that all trains were delayed "owing to the security measures implemented as a result of this morning's incident in New York". I never have understood why this should have been. How does a terror incident in New York effect the trains of the south London suburbs? One of those things still to be explained, connected, understood clearly. Eventually I got home and I was so relieved that I did not   have a TV that night because I knew the only images being broadcast that evening would be those terrible images taken on the streets of New York; those bodies falling through the sky, the great orange-black fireball as the first plane struck...

V/. Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord.
R/. And let perpetual light shine upon them.

V/. May they rest in peace.

R/. Amen.

V/. May their souls and the souls of all the faithful departed,
through the mercy of God, rest in peace.

R/. Amen.

Update

The carefully planted "bomb" exploded and has had the desired effect...

At 7 PM my agency (REED) phoned me. It was the branch manager actually. He proceeded to give me a lecture on loyalty but I cut him off very short and told him, I was loyal to whoever gets me a job first so he better start working with some energy.  Funny, after a minutes silence he told me that I would have an interview for me by Friday morning. That's what I want to hear.

Job Search

Today has been a very busy one. I have spent the day looking at job adverts and filling in online application forms. Now I have a headache from staring at the screen all day so I am going to make this short.

I hate being in this position. Looking for work is never easy and when I get turned down or not short-listed I tend to get depressed and paranoid and think I am just not good enough.As I am not on benefits I get very anxious/desperate. I don't have any large savings in the bank. My rent is £500 a month (went out last Friday) and I have to cover that. My money will last me three weeks if I live very (very) frugally.

A lot of vacancies in today's Guardian so it did keep me busy. I don't tend to like online application forms. My experience of them is usually spending hours filling them in, only to 'lose them' in the cyber world somewhere never seen again. I also had three calls from one of my employment agencies. And one from my current agency. I threw a little bomb in there ("Oh yes, that must be the same post as so and so have just offered me as well...") so maybe they will stop treating me with familiarity and actually get up off their arses and find me a job now they know that they have competition. They (Reed) haven't done so well so far. Not one call to me. I had to phone them yesterday just to remind them I was still here and still looking...

In contrast I only signed on with this other agency last Friday and they have already put me up for 7 jobs (and... no empty promises either). We will see.

I decided today that I would broaden out and start emphasising my training/mentoring/coaching skills. I don't want to only be up for social work jobs. I have a struggle with the agencies who, somehow refuse to acknowledge those parts of my CV and only put me up for bog standard "foot soldier" social worker case managment jobs. I am really ticked off with that stuff. Seen it. Done it. Got the scars on my back. What do I have to prove? So I put my CV up on someone's website selling my other skills and I already got a telephone call. I haven't clinched the job yet; we are going to have another "conversation" next Monday.

So far, a profitable day and one full of hope.

God is Tested

From BBC News Website. About a certain very hyped "event"

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Education Science/Nature Technology Entertainment Also in the news ----------------- Video and Audio ----------------- Have Your Say Magazine In Pictures Country Profiles

Hunt for 'God particle' to begin By Pallab Ghosh BBC News science correspondent A 27km chain of magnets is part of the experiment Nestling in the foothills of the Alps is Europe's largest laboratory, the European Centre for Nuclear Research or Cern. With its vast labyrinth of tunnels and equipment stretching for miles, the complex has the feel of a cathedral to science. And now the scientists here have embarked on their biggest experiment ever, the hunt for a particle which gave the universe its form. Its scientific name is the Higgs Boson, but because it is so fundamental in shaping the universe, others have called it the God particle. It is a particle that is supposed to endow other fundamental particles with mass. Without it there would be no gravity, no universe as we know it - no "let there be light" moment. No-one has seen it, but physicists have invoked it because it is the simplest explanation for how the universe evolved. ________________________________________________________________________ "Cathedral", "God Particle", "Invoked", "The simplest explanation for how the Universe evolved..." Interesting use of words and metaphors here. There was more of this sort of thing on BBC Radio 4 "Today" programme with Andrew Marr talking in hushed and reverential tones about "Cathedrals of Science" . The way that the BBC News service has handled this particular news item (and I think that it is newsworthy) demonstrates how in our modern society science is now worshipped as the new religion.Science is the new faith and scientists are the new arch priests before whom we are all meant to bow down and become reverential. If you deconstruct this news story with those ideas in mind then what you have here is a concerted attempt to finally "prove" that God does not exist. The Large Hadron Particle Collider  is the ultimate scientific "test" that will prove this hypothesis. It is where material science has been going since The Enlightenment and now, today in Cern, it has arrived. "Oh, foolish man"  Who created the "God Particle"?

Courgette Frittata

Here, as promised, another recipe which is simple and quick to make... A Frittata is a spanish style omelette

Courgette & Pecorino Romano Frittata

Ingredients

1 tablespoon Olive Oil

1 small courgette, halved lengthwise and cut crosswise into thick slices

Salt and black pepper

1 spring onion, sliced thin

3 tablespoons finely grated Parmesan cheese

2 large eggs, lightly beaten

Method

1: Heat oil in a small frying pan over medium heat. Add the courgettes. Season with salt and pepper, to taste. Cook, stirring occasionally, until just tender, about 4 minutes.

2: Whisk spring onion and the cheese into the eggs. Pour over the cooked courgettes in the pan and stir gently to combine.

3: Cook over medium to low heat until the eggs are almost set.

4: Place pan under a preheated grill and grill until top is golden, about 1 or 2 minutes.

Two Servings

Sunday Fruitcake

No, not a recipe this time although I am aware that a new recipe is overdue. Next weekend perhaps... No, this particular fruitcake was Peter Tatchell being interviewed on BBC Radio Four programme, Sunday. Peter Tatchell  was on the programme in support of the vicious slur on the character of Cardinal Henry Newman, namely that he was a Homosexual with a special (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) "relationship" with his friend Father St.John whose grave the soon-to-be Saint shares.

I distinctly heard Mr. Tatchell make the silly claim that the Catholic Church was guilty of breaching the Cardinal's human rights in disinterring him since it was the good Cardinals last wish to be buried in the same grave as his friend and this right should be protected.

Think about that... breaching John Henry Newman's "human rights". The man has been dead near 120 years. How can he have any legal "rights"? He is beyond the judgement of any mere human judge.

Peter, bless him... he just doesn't get it does he.

Ugly Violence

A few minutes ago I witnessed the ugly face of our society today. Hearing screaming and shouting of the most foul language I went to the window. Down below were two black youths gesticulating and making obscene gestures and threats towards a third partry whom I could not see.

A car sped down the road towards the two youth and they ran away down the road. Then they ran back - I heard threats. "Come on, we want to gut you, come on pussy" This was aimed at a white man who had got out of the car and was shouting something back to the two youths, something about damage to his car. The youth claimed to have knives although I did not see any. One of them had picked up a bottle from somewhere and he broke the bottle against a wall and shook it at the man - "Gonna cut your +++++++++++ head off"

Even as I reached for the phone to call the Police the two youth then ran away leaving the motorist to look over his car, take a photo of the damage, then slowly drive away.