Community is...

...figuring how best to communicate with others who don't do email, or don't do Facebook, or don't think the same way, or who you know will misconstrue whatever you say.

Am I mad or is it The Others?

Went across the yard to get a screwdriver or something and this guy was repeatedly raising enormous weights and throwing them down - the ground vibrating under my feet with the impact. Later same gent upside down pushing his body up and down against a wall board in a manner that would have exhausted me in seconds. This evening I pass a girl on the stairs, panting with exertion, and dressed in strange garb, carrying a digital weighing scales for some purpose beyond my ken. We (the community at large) provided a room for Their equipment, but They have long outgrown that and taken over the byre (awaiting renovation) and want more. The byre is besmirched with ropes hanging down, boards against the wall, soft mats, strange steel frameworks, and of course a plethora of weights and bars. Not to mention the treadmill in the basement of the house proper. This fad involves a significant proportion of the folk who live here. I say "fad" because it is a relatively recent phenomenon. More recent than my barefoot running for example. Although I would deem even that fairly recent. I hope for Their Sake that it is more than a fad (because fads come and go).

Do These Folk really need to do all this stuff? Girls with muscular arms. It is an obsession far beyond my barefoot running. And it occupies so much time, time when I would have thought They had other stuff to do but who am I? And costs so much in equipment: and now we are glibly talking about spending a huge sum on a purpose built gym, though we have not finally agreed on that. And why do They have to wear such strange clothing to do these stunts? And how is it that when a job that involves lifting needs done, these Folk mysteriously are not to be found? I suppose at least this gives me the opportunity to exercise my own biceps.

Am I really a Christian?

The thing is... I don't enjoy meetings. And yet meetings are an integral part of at least our genre of Christianity.

I hear comments like how wonderful the meeting was this morning, how it lifted me up, etc. But I cannot remember that I have ever enjoyed a Christian meeting and I have been to a few in my life! As a child I could boast that I attended 5 meetings on a Sunday and several more during the week. I had just assumed that one was not meant to exactly enjoy them but that, rather like cabbage or going to the dentist, they were good for you. Don't get me wrong - I do not dislike singing, but I'd like it better if it were more musical. And I am sometimes encouraged by what is taught or preached, but the term "enjoyment" is not one that comes to mind.  Not in the same arena as, for example, experiencing the film Avatar in 3D, or listening to Bruckner's 8th, or eating a bar of Irish Cadbury's Dairy Milk (if indeed they still differentiate after the Kraft takeover)

Community is...

Community is living with differences that cannot be resolved.

One group says we should grow as much of our own food as is feasible.  Another group points out that it is cheaper and easier to buy produce from Aldi.  One person wants the heating set high, others want it cooler. Those with Latin blood love tortillas and spicy food, others yearn for spuds and two veg.

The thing is - how will I react to another's foibles? So then each of us will give an account of himself to God. Therefore let us not pass judgement on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother.

Castle Drogo

Sentries

Whereas my daughter's blog declares it is to keep family & friends informed of my actions/movements on the other side of the world, my blog achieves the same end only as a sort of by-product. Which of course begs the question...

It is for this reason that I feel under no particular obligation to inform my readers how the past few weeks have been a wild succession of trips and food and late nights (this being my excuse for not posting). Due to the conjunction here of all four of my children and progeny, K visiting from Oz and J&R+ from AK. About which I may share more highlights some other time.

One of our many trips was to Castle Drogo on the northern edge of Dartmoor. It is or was a stately home built of local granite stone in a modernistic castle style and boasting a leaking roof. It is now owned by the National Trust who are graciously repairing the leaks at considerable expense aided by the entrance fees we were obliged to pay.

Temporary roof whilst leaks are being fixed

You can of course find out the details yourself - we found it amazing that anyone should have private funds to build such a structure and, having the funds, should choose to spend them in this way. The scale is colossal. A pity they didn't pay more attention to the roof design.

Consider carving this granite block - one of many!

In its day electricity was not widespread - but Castle Drogo had its own d.c. hydro generating scheme, electric lighting and even electric lifts.

The electricity distribution room

The National Trust is also restoring the hydro scheme so we had to check this out. We found an off-cut of the new cable and descended to the floor of the Teign gorge via the cable excavations.

3-phase cable - looks like low voltage

Is somewhere under my scantily clad grandson

The turbine house was obviously at the end of the cable, though the other side of the river. The next must-do was to find the weir. It turned out to be a local swimming hole and so I stripped to underwear and jumped in, my aim being to check out the new water extraction details on the other side.

The weir and fish ladder. I swam to the right.

This whole area is another of the many, many places I would love to explore more thoroughly sometime, but I am coming to think that my life may not be long enough to satisfy such desires. I would run, barefoot, the length of Teign gorge with swims whenever the mood took me.

OS map of the gorge

Why did the river decide to create this gorge rather than taking what would appear (in my next map) to be an easier and more direct route to the sea? Strange, but so far I have not found an answer - geology sites I have visited seem to take the present course for granted.

Course of the Teign river
Crown copyright and database right, CC BY-SA 3.0

Community is...

Community is...

...having three of my grandchildren living in the same house so that I can see them every day. But is also having my other four living in another community in AK...

Something called good

courtesy BBC

This guy Hartman who built and maintains a 25 acre theme park firstly for his disabled daughter, and now is free entry to any guest with a condition. He stands to loose a million dollars a year short of fundraising and partners. I don't know whether this man believes in God and you can talk about dead vs. spiritual works for all you like but I see in the actions of this man something good.

Morning with Marty

Marty in the Morning is an early morning show on Lyric-FM and I like his repartee. Yesterday morning, on the way to the airport to pick up these visitors, I was spoilt by his choice of Cat Steven's well-know rendition of Morning Has Broken

followed by Haydn's Trumpet Concerto In E Flat and then Terry Wogan's rendition of the Cornish Floral Dance, all of which brought back sweet memories.

Checking up on the Floral Dance I find the song is all the better for being based on the composer Kate Moss's actual experience.  Wikipedia has it that the music and lyric were written in 1911... The song tells the story of an incident that apparently actually happened to herself on a visit to Helston during the springtime 'Furry Dance' celebrations and the song was reportedly written directly afterwards as she was going home on the train. She introduces the original Furry Dance tune in the piano part just as the singer is describing the sound of the band.

As for the Furry Dance, Wikipedia tells us it is one of the oldest British customs still practiced today. It takes place every year in Helston, Cornwall, early in the month of May. Regrettably Terry omits some of the lyrics.

As I walked home on a Summer night

When stars in Heav'n were shining bright

Far away from the footlight's glare

Into the sweet and scented air

Of a quaint old Cornish town

Borne from afar on the gentle breeze

Joining the murmur of the summer seas

Distant tones of an old world dance

Played by the village band perchance

On the calm air came floating down

I thought I could hear the curious tone

Of the cornet, clarinet and big trombone

Fiddle, 'cello, big bass drum

Bassoon, flute and euphonium

Far away, as in a trance

I heard the sound of the Floral Dance

And soon I heard such a bustling and prancing

And then I saw the whole village was dancing

In and out of the houses they came

Old folk, young folk, all the same

In that quaint old Cornish town

Every boy took a girl 'round the waist

And hurried her off in tremendous haste

Whether they knew one another I care not

Whether they cared at all, I know not

But they kissed as they danced along.

And there was the band with that curious tone

Of the cornet, clarinet and big trombone

Fiddle, 'cello, big bass drum

Bassoon, flute and euphonium

Each one making the most of his chance

All together in the Floral Dance

I felt so lonely standing there

And I could only stand and stare

For I had no boy with me

Lonely I should have to be

In that quaint old Cornish town.

When suddenly hast'ning down the lane

A figure I knew I saw quite plain

With outstretched hands he came along

And carried me into that merry throng

And fiddle and all went dancing down.

We danced to the band with the curious tone

Of the cornet, clarinet and big trombone

Fiddle, 'cello, big bass drum

Bassoon, flute and euphonium

Each one making the most of his chance

Altogether in the Floral Dance.

Dancing here, prancing there

Jigging, jogging ev'rywhere

Up and down, and round the town

Hurrah! For the Cornish Floral Dance

Kate Emily Barkley Moss 1911

Inconsolable grief

Non-family readers of this blog may not realise that a great family reunion is taking place. C&L with three of our grandchildren and J&S both live here already. J&R with four more of our grandchildren are visiting from Alaska, and K is visiting from Oz. Not only that but we also have an (unrelated) family with four children visiting, and a single woman visiting. So we are full to the gills. And things get noisy too.

So strange to think that my wife, four children, and seven grandchildren would not be if I had not (as a butterfly) flapped my wings those 40 years ago or so. Of course, in this story of life we are never told what would have happened.

The other night I dreamed that J and his family were leaving, I know not where too but I knew I would not see them again, or at least not for a very long time. And I was overcome (in my dream) with inconsolable grief. I felt like I would go on crying for ever, or at least for a very long time. And yet, curiously, another part of me knew that I could to some extent control this grief, that I was choosing to wallow in it and, given time, I would get over it and life would proceed as normally as it ever does. And it made me wonder what grief was made of.

Vast numbers of pictures are emanating from this reunion some of which and will, I suppose, appear either in this blog or on social media at some stage but frankly it is rather busy here at the moment and I don't know how I am even finding time to write this.

The man who swims to work

I saw this in a news channel and I salute the man who swims to work - it is the same sort of lateral thinking as goes into barefoot running. Kind of flying in the face of tradition.