All By Myself

05 Tuesday May 2020

Posted by Candia in Animals, art, Nature, Personal, Photography, Psychology, Social Comment

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Isolation, loneliness, pasture, Shetland pony, solitude

Feeling a bit ‘put out to pasture?’

Photo by Candia

Good Friday by John Donne

10 Friday Apr 2020

Posted by Candia in Arts, Education, Literature, Personal, Poetry, Psychology, Religion, Sculpture

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crucifixion, Good Friday, John Donne, Metaphysical poets, salvation, St Paul’s Cathedral, the cross

John Donne’s monument in St Paul’s Cathedral ( in his shroud)

Good Friday, 1613. Riding Westward

By John Donne

Let mans Soule be a Spheare, and then, in this,

The intelligence that moves, devotion is,

And as the other Spheares, by being growne

Subject to forraigne motion, lose their owne,

And being by others hurried every day,

Scarce in a yeare their naturall forme obey:

Pleasure or businesse, so, our Soules admit

For their first mover, and are whirld by it.

Hence is’t, that I am carryed towards the West

This day, when my Soules forme bends toward the East.

There I should see a Sunne, by rising set,

And by that setting endlesse day beget;

But that Christ on this Crosse, did rise and fall,

Sinne had eternally benighted all.

Yet dare I’almost be glad, I do not see

That spectacle of too much weight for mee.

Who sees Gods face, that is selfe life, must dye;

What a death were it then to see God dye?

It made his owne Lieutenant Nature shrinke,

It made his footstoole crack, and the Sunne winke.

Could I behold those hands which span the Poles,

And tune all spheares at once peirc’d with those holes?

Could I behold that endlesse height which is

Zenith to us, and our Antipodes,

Humbled below us? or that blood which is

The seat of all our Soules, if not of his,

Made durt of dust, or that flesh which was worne

By God, for his apparell, rag’d, and torne?

If on these things I durst not looke, durst I

Upon his miserable mother cast mine eye,

Who was Gods partner here, and furnish’d thus

Halfe of that Sacrifice, which ransom’d us?

Though these things, as I ride, be from mine eye,

They’are present yet unto my memory,

For that looks towards them; and thou look’st towards mee,

O Saviour, as thou hang’st upon the tree;

I turne my backe to thee, but to receive

Corrections, till thy mercies bid thee leave.

O thinke mee worth thine anger, punish mee,

Burne off my rusts, and my deformity,

Restore thine Image, so much, by thy grace,

That thou may’st know mee, and I’ll turne my face.

Self-Isolation

30 Monday Mar 2020

Posted by Candia in art, News, Nostalgia, Personal, Photography, Psychology, Relationships, Sport

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Duddingston Loch, Edinburgh, National Portrait Gallery, Rev Robert Walker, self-isolation, skating

golden girl a

…can still be fun.

Think of the Rev Robert Walker Skating on Duddingston Loch

(National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh).

Poem from a Time of Trial

22 Sunday Mar 2020

Posted by Candia in Humour, Literature, Personal, Philosophy, Poetry, Psychology, Religion, Satire, Social Comment

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atheist, blame game, Kipling, natural consequences, Natural Theology, plague, theology

Natural Theology

by Rudyard Kipling

Primitive I ate my fill of a whale that died  And stranded after a month at sea.  .  .  . There is a pain in my inside.  Why have the Gods afflicted me? Ow! I am purged till I am a wraith!  Wow! I am sick till I cannot see! What is the sense of Religion and Faith :  Look how the Gods have afflicted me!    Pagan  How can the skin of rat or mouse hold  Anything more than a harmless flea?.  .  . The burning plague has taken my household.  Why have my Gods afflicted me? All my kith and kin are deceased,  Though they were as good as good could be, I will out and batter the family priest,  Because my Gods have afflicted me!

Medi/Eval  My privy and well drain into each other  After the custom of Christendie.  .  .  . Fevers and fluxes are wasting my mother.  Why has the Lord afflicted me? The Saints are helpless for all I offer--  So are the clergy I used to fee. Henceforward I keep my cash in my coffer,  Because the Lord has afflicted me.    Material  I run eight hundred hens to the acre  They die by dozens mysteriously.  .  .  . I am more than doubtful concerning my Maker,  Why has the Lord afflicted me? What a return for all my endeavour--  Not to mention the L.  S.  D! I am an atheist now and for ever,  Because this God has afflicted me!

Progressive  Money spent on an Army or Fleet  Is homicidal lunacy.  .  .  . My son has been killed in the Mons retreat,  Why is the Lord afflicting me? Why are murder, pillage and arson  And rape allowed by the Deity? I will write to the Times, deriding our parson  Because my God has afflicted me.    Chorus  We had a kettle: we let it leak:  Our not repairing it made it worse. We haven't had any tea for a week.  .  .  The bottom is out of the Universe!

Conclusion  This was none of the good Lord's pleasure,  For the Spirit He breathed in Man is free; But what comes after is measure for measure,  And not a God that afflicteth thee. As was the sowing so the reaping  Is now and evermore shall be. Thou art delivered to thine own keeping.  Only Thyself hath afflicted thee!