Beards

For two days now I have painted and the first coat is now on the stairway from the ground to first floor and the landing.

The good thing about painting is that it leaves you much time to think, and the bad thing about painting is that it leaves you much time to think and then I get distracted.

I was thinking about a couple of poems by RS Thomas that Austen had sent me. Then I remembered that I have a book that has a section of his poems. I had to stop painting and go and seek it out. A short blurb about his life painted a picture of a reclusive Welsh clergyman, spitting tacks about the English, the only acceptable ones the intellectuals.

Interesting. I am English with Welsh blood, and some of his more metaphysical poems are very powerful. So in the end, I have to suspend judgement, accept him as he is. A man with no beard.

I feel equally conflicted by the insanity that has spewed forth from the Lambeth Conference. In particular I can't cope with this,
"Rowan Williams said practices in certain US and Canadian dioceses were threatening the unity of the Anglican communion." What irony. The Anglican church, the Conservative Party at Prayer are the progressives in North America, well that's to be proud of, but the rest of them, the actual Church of England, good, bloody grief, have they lost sight of the little Jewish fella or what?
Dr. Williams you will remember has a beard that makes him look like Satan.

Solzhenistyn has died. Who knew he was still alive? I had a phase of reading all his work too. And great and deep it was. An uncompromising writer with an uncompromising beard. A man who left his mark, in a good way.

Today, my thought for the day for me is 'as we forgive those who trespass against us.'
That brings me back to RS Thomas really. The forgiving others who have severely done us wrong is waaay more difficult than asking for forgiveness. Thomas shows us a God eternally listening to our prayers and petitions.
Made God in our own image? Well, I'm finding it difficult to forgive, but I'm struggling to get there.
On the other hand, my God, like me, has no beard, maybe a few post menopausal whiskers.