"Constitutional : noun a walk taken regularly to maintain good health." (OED)My morning constitutional consists of walking to work. At the moment I feel that it is additionally maintaining my good health because the blueberries are ripe and just begging to be eaten.
Suffer the little blueberries to come unto me.
But the idea of a constitutional is that it's sole purpose is health, and there's an implication of desperation too. The bracing walk along the seafront, the only exercise of the gouty and portly.
Pooh Bear might take one, possibly even with Piglet in tow.
Thus the constitutional is an institution and a damn fine one.
T'other day, or, well, more - evening, no alcohol was involved you understand. Well, erm, not too much. Not excessive quantities. Anyway, a friend said, in relation to her single state, that one thing that worried her, was the idea she might die without someone knowing everything about her. She had had several meaningful relationships, even marriage once, but the depth of these had not been such that it was possible to say anyone had known the real her.
It gave me much thought. That side of a relationship had never occurred to me. I don't think I'd thought that that was important anyway, and maybe because, just like the Protestant Work Ethic or the Catholic Guilt (re-marketed from Jewish Guilt and then re-re-marketed as Protestant Guilt) it is part and parcel of belief in a God that She knows everything about everyone.
And we change as we grow older. So the person you might know at 18 may not be the person you know at 48.
WE are not immutable.
But it made me think and it carries on making me think.
A constitutional however, is no guard against the idiocy of people. A small religious community in BC, because of their cretinous refusal to have their children immunised against mumps, has caused an outbreak throughout the Lower Mainland. They believe they know God's mind and theirs doesn't want them to show they don't trust (probably him) by vaccinating their children.
My God isn't that small-minded.
6 comments:
Your post was interesting to me today - a friend who has known Ross longer than I told us a story at dinner that I'd never heard before. At the time I thought it strange that after 13 years I hadn't heard the story. But I think no one really gets to know everything about you - not even you.
I'm interested to know why that sect is close-minded yet people who choose to immunize aren't. I'm still on the fence with the whole issue and I will admit that my daughter is only partially immunized. Despite not believing in God, I do wonder if childhood diseases are her way of making us stronger against later diseases.
I don't think they're closed-minded for not having the immunisation, I think they're closed-minded because of their reason for that choice.
As you know, I attend church, and although my views are probably fairly....odd, I would never give God's will as my sole reason for any of the choices I make. I believe that would be to act in what Existentialists would call 'mauvaise foi' - bad faith. I don't think we know the mind of God.
Sorry Gail, you're right, the way I phrased it in the original post doesn't make that explicit.
OI!!!
WTF goes on with the lay out?
You can't just do that to me, it proper fucks with my Asperger's head.
Grr... *Wanders off mumbling looking for the Pineau*
You never cease to astound me m'dear. I've seen the amount of chemicals you can put into your body without any noticeable effect on your head, but I get a new template and you're disorientated. Hmmm....
I knew I could ask you that without this becoming some emotional argument (which almost always happen with this subject). Thanks for clearing that up.
Post a Comment