The opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympics was very interesting, boldly departing from the stadium-held productions of every preceding games. Using the Seine as both the means and a backdrop, and interposing various media 'events' at a variety of famous locations nearby, the ceremony succeeded in being as eccentric and eclectic as it was very very long.

The latter is my one criticism. A good editor might have snipped some of the to and froing up and down the great river, were it possible to do so on location beforehand. I enjoyed the singing and dancing at fringe locations on the Seine, the pianist playing in the rain upon one the bridges, the oddity of some of the choices, which combined high art with sheer schmaltz.

The controversy of the Last Supper piece (which is disputed, see below) which I didn't recognise at the time, may be a little overstated but is certainly understandable. Sure, it was foolish and in poor taste to parody a sacred Christian event and the addition of drag queens (why on earth do they exist?) was inflammatory. But the Lord can take care of any insults, if they were intended, and an apology has been offered. Surely there are more creative ways of celebrating works in the vast collection at the Louvre. Consider the sheer volume of painterly or sculptural themes if you will.

This was one blot on an otherwise fine opening event. I wonder how the closing will go? Meanwhile, to the Games!

ps. I am aware that the painting 'The Feast of the Gods' by Dutch painter Jan van Bijlert (completed two centuries after da Vinci's Last Supper, is a good match for the ghastly tableau alluded to above. But Bijlert spent four years in Italy and would undoubtedly have seen da Vinci's masterpiece in Milan. So there is still a likely derivative quality to it that could not have been lost of the organisers, though it does give them c    over.

It is hard to put into words what a lovely wife I have. I have never had a companion who has been so loving and attentive. I am the sort of man who was brought up to do all the domestic things - cooking, cleaning, washing and so forth, while enjoying all those traditional 'outside' chores as well. 

When Ann came along I noticed all these little things being done for me - turning down the bed, setting out the tea making stuff, creating healthy snacks, the list is extensive and very long. I have never asked nor would ever expect a partner of wife to do anything for me, except perhaps to remain loyal.

Because things get done before I get to them, I tend to focus more on the garden, making and tending the fire and so forth. Sometimes I manage to get to the washing up before it gets done. It's a bit of a race really that I often lose.

It's lucky if you find love and luckier still if it works and stays working.

Musing on my previous post, the question of suffering in life is not one that is approached lightly. There is no one source that answers the 'why' to every bodies satisfaction. Even people of faith approach the matter with a sigh, because to say 'God knows the beginning from the end' or that 'no suffering is wasted in God's plans for ultimate good' will only please so many people and might infuriate others.

If you are a materialist then you are able to present the the stark reality of your vision - that suffering is unexplainable (though it can be described), that it just 'is' as a bald fact of how the universe is ordered. There is no point in looking for meaning.

Human beings will, of course, always look for meaning, so to talk about the meaninglessness of such a significant part of existence will fall flat for many. For the stoic, or the depressive, it's manageable.

I have always felt a sense of loss. It's not because I feel I have failed at everything, which clearly is not the case. Call it a pervasive sense of sadness, a kind of emotional mist for which I cannot find a solid core, that comes and goes. It's probably why I tend more towards pessimism (with occasional loud bursts of optimism). It's why topics like suffering appeal to me.

Of course, things could always be worse. Just ask S.T. Coleridge.

'Come, come thou bleak December wind,

And blow the dry leaves from the tree!

Flash, like a Love-thought, thro' me, Death

And take a life that wearies me.'

Not one of his better days, methinks!

The late Baptist minister and preacher, Dr Charles Stanley, would often note that we should try to see all the trials that come our way as being 'sent by God.' He did not mean that God  actually sends every bad circumstance our way, but that (as Christians believe) the Lord has the capacity to allow or not allow such trials to come. In a sense, it amounts to His giving tacit authority to everything that can afflict us. Why is this a good thing?

Scripture tells us that affliction, suffering and all the variants thereof come to us to make us better people. Even non-believers know that affliction can  sharpen us, making us wiser, kinder people, more able to live our lives, increasing both our capacity and agency. In the Christian faith, to see every trial as being sent by God allows us to better respond to it, because we believe it is sent by God.

This can work on many levels, from the most mundane ( a traffic jam, stuck in a line, being verbally abused) to major events such as ill health or financial loss. If we think that the Lord is behind it, then it can only, ultimately, be for our good, no matter how dark the situation seems. Though we cannot see it, yet there is a plan and a will that guides us towards a greater, joyful outcome somewhere down the track.

This will sound crazy to people who don't believe. I understand. It is an issue of faith, no doubt. But I am reliably told that it works and I aspire to it every day, hard as it is. Proverbs 3:5 sums up the right way of thinking about stuff that perplexes or challenges us.

'Trust in the Lord will all your heart

and lean not on your own understanding;'

I like to think of my 'own understanding' as being comparable to holding up a sheet of black paper in front of my face, with a single pin hole to look through. That is my view of all the things that are much larger than myself, heedless of space/time or my own limited logic.

This has been a week, so far, of surprises. Or perhaps they are not quite surprises and might reasonably have been predicted.

Firstly, at the Nagoya Grand Sumo Tournament, the sole Yokozuna, Terunofuji, has defied the odds and leads the tourney 8-0 at the present. Now yokozuna should be winning most of these competitions, but Terunofuji has been carrying injuries and has withdrawn or sat out a number of them. He always comes onto the dohyo with heavily strapped legs. But thus far, he has been wrestling at the seeming height of his powers. We can only hope that he stays fit.

Secondly, the breaking news today shouted that Joe Biden has withdrawn from the  Presidential race. Some might have called this inevitable, given the pressure from both Party and media that he has had to weather. Had he stayed, he would likely have limped to the election and been thrashed by Trump. Now there is some chance of  building a different momentum, or stemming losses in Congress.

I wish Mr Biden well after a long life of public service. He deserves a happy retirement.

The 55th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing has just passed and many social media sites have been posting photos and celebratory material. NASA has released previously unseen photos and also 'cleaned up' quite a few old ones using AI technologies.

Surely, this landing was one of the seminal events of the 20th century. Surely it was one one of those bright spots amongst so many disasters before and after. Even if we discount the two world wars, the sixties alone were a time of change and chaos.

Apollo 11 and all the folks who made it possible deserve that rare place in human history where it can reasonably be said that human beings are a special group in the animal kingdom. Or at least, they have some claim to be special, notwithstanding all the downsides.

As a fifth grader I watched  the grainy black and white images in the classroom and wondered at the sheer marvel of it. Only a six months later I was deep in conversation with friends about how Apollo 13 might get home safely. We did rotations of the playground turning over everything we had heard for possible clues. What a time!

Space is a super-deadly place and it will try to kill you if it can. The brave men on these missions were always at the edge of disaster, one small step from oblivion. Their achievement is simply massive, no matter how you measure it.

Last night was a night of high wind. Through the panes I could see trees careering as if masts on a storm-locked ship. The moon and stars were sharpened by the sheerness of each gust, and the windows of this old house shook and rattled in the midst of the rude invisible assault.

I do like the wind but I fear for fallen trees(on houses) and what the morning may bring - power lines down and shattered branches on the road. Sometimes it feels like a foreign landscape, familiar in some ways yet changed. 

What does Mr Frost have to say about it, I wonder?

Now Close the Windows

Now close the windows and hush all the fields:
If the trees must, let them silently toss;
No bird is singing now, and if there is,
Be it my loss.

It will be long ere the marshes resume,
I will be long ere the earliest bird:
So close the windows and not hear the wind,
But see all wind-stirred.

Political violence is no new thing in the United States. There is a sad history of assassination and attempted assassination which you can easily read about for yourself. The attempt by a clearly disturbed young man to kill Trump the other day plays into the same narrative.

At heart is a foolish interpretation of liberty, which equates freedom, in this case, with gun ownership. The US is awash with legal and illegal weapons and just about anyone can buy one. Given the rising temperature of political discourse, to which Trump had made a significant contribution, acts of violence against politicians will remain a constant threat.

There are many reasons to admire the US, but on guns, I am bamboozled.

One doesn't need to be an incumbent President to be forgetful or clumsy. In the past 24 hours I have managed to puncture my skin twice with sharp needles on a bush I was pruning, knocked a splitting axe into my sore knee and just now, run bang into a low branch, whacking my head. A scab that I had been waiting to show my skin doctor was blown clean off. Perhaps I should keep out of the garden before I sever a limb or swallow a chain saw.

I think it might be weakening eyesight or impatience or incompetence or all three. The truth is that gardening, like going into space, is fraught with big and small dangers. Unlike astronauts, I do not have to contend with zero gravity, increased radiation exposure or the risk of system failures that could lead to disaster. But one can fall from a ladder, bash oneself up on branches and thorny bushes, or mishandle a power tool (the latter might be fatal) though on the whole, injuries to self will right themselves.

And as you are lying on the ground recovering from the latest fiasco, there is always the blessing of air to breath.

My wife Ann loves new things. She doesn't quite get the Australian penchant for renovation, fixing up or repairing. It might be a Thai thing too, because I have noticed a similar pattern amongst her friends and relations.

Case in point is the air-fryer, which has served us reliably for five years now. One part of a holding basket had begun to wear. She wanted a new air-fryer. I found the spare part online, ordered and fitted it.

'But the machine is getting old,' she said, wistfully anticipating just how shiny and updated a new model would look.

Another case in point. The kettle. Another stalwart that had lasted 15 years. The auto-off function was broken and the lid had become stiff, but other than that it was a fantastic kettle. This was something that I could not get spare parts for or fix myself. So sadly, I had to retire it and buy a new one, which almost certainly will not last 15 years.

She was overjoyed to see it, of course.

I feel sorry for Joe Biden. He has proved to be a competent President and is by all accounts a decent man. But age has caught up with him and even though a person of 80 or older theoretically should be able to govern well, even in a complex and difficult job such as the US Presidency, some 80 year olds have cognitive challenges that mean they are unlikely to be able to do the job. Decline happens at different rates in different people. The debate last week was a clear indicator that Biden is on the wrong side of the decline spectrum.

The stakes are very high. Most serious thinkers do not want a Trump second term. I don't necessarily buy the hype that Trump will push the US in a dictatorship, for he is not a very competent person and he has a big mouth that says things he often doesn't mean. He might well be more authoritarian in style but the US Constitution creates checks and balances on government. Trump himself is limited by the time he can serve (another 4 years) and the looming barrier of his own age.

The Democrats need to get to work quickly to find a good candidate and Mr Biden needs to do the right thing, as difficult as that is. He has a long and proud legacy which he risks sullying if he stays on and is defeated by the challenger, as all polls predict. 

This is not a question of who is the better man or the better President. Biden wins that hands down. But the clock is ticking for him, as it is for all of us.

 

Spellbound   Emily Bronte

The night is darkening round me,

The wild winds coldly blow;

But a tyrant spell has bound me

And I cannot, cannot go.

 

The giant trees are bending

Their bare boughs weighed with snow.

And the storm is fast descending,

And yet I cannot go.

 

Clouds beyond clouds above me,

Wastes beyond wastes below;

But nothing drear can move me;

I will not, cannot go.

This is quite a cold winter, or it seems so. The supplies of wood for the heater have been rapidly dwindling and I may have to buy a new load soon. At nights if it is clear I sometimes steal outside for a few minutes. The sky is absolutely crystalline, shorn of any distortion. If there are clouds, they tend be scudding through the heavens, the moon and stars appearing and disappearing as if manipulated by a conjurer.

Unlike the poet in 'Spellbound', there is no snow here, but the sensation of wanting to linger in the dark and the cold is palpable. The Brontes were such a talented lot, though Emily is best known for Wuthering Heights, though she wrote quite a lot of verse.

This poem is due for an outing on Writers, methinks.