Readers of Eyewear may cock an eyebrow at the title of this post - I am a struggling Catholic, after all. However, today seems a bleak day in human history - by no means the worst, but one of those that marks the ways in which human suffering is accidentally and intentionally visited upon people, often innocent. Exhibit A - the peaceful, decent and civilised city of Christchurch in New Zealand is shattered by an earthquake. Exhibit B - the brutality in Libya. Exhibit C - Iranian warships steaming into the Mediterranean for the first time in over 30 years. Surely, war of some kind is at hand, in the Middle East - chaos looms. Meanwhile, God, in his infinite wisdom, is apparently impassive as the horrors of history unfold. It is up to each of us (with our souls) to try to fathom the impossible, the infinite. Some days I am just, barely, able to glimpse the love of God working in the world. It is, still, visible, in the kindness and compassion and creativity of so many humans; but too often rubbed out by nature's wild cruelty, and humanity's own madness.
A poem for my mother, July 15 When she was dying And I was in a different country I dreamt I was there with her Flying over the ocean very quickly, And arriving in the room like a dream And I was a dream, but the meaning was more Than a dream has – it was a moving over time And land, over water, to get love across Fast enough, to be there, before she died, To lean over the small, huddled figure, In the dark, and without bothering her Even with apologies, and be a kiss in the air, A dream of a kiss, or even less, the thought of one, And when I woke, none of this had happened, She was still far distant, and we had not spoken.

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