I am constantly surprised by the unexpected journeys travelled during one day. This Monday morning it was a pleasant walking journey for over an hour first to look the redevelopment of South Marine Park where over a million pounds is being spent before August. The only indication of men working was a group of three or four painstakingly cleaning the narrow railings which surround the four sided park but everywhere there was evidence of the work to come . Fresh earth at a height of six to nine inches had been distributed evenly to form continuous new planting banks close the railings on all sides. The lake had been divided into two areas with one partially drained. At first I believed that this had led to a reduction in the number of swans which had numbered around 70-80 as the majority were congregated around someone feeding them so it was easier than usual to make a count of only fifty but then others were found in unexpected places nearby which suggested the overall number remained the same. The train had been in operation the previous afternoon but the station is one of two buildings possibly undergoing major change, the second is the building providing snacks, drinks and ice creams eaten at a small number of tables in the open air. Several other areas of the of the higher levels were fenced off with a pile of large rocks in one placer and a mound of earth in another. The most intriguing question is what is to happen to the four female statues intended for the front of the Town Hall but placed in the park when they were considered unsuitable. They had disappeared and everywhere there was fencing. .
There is an end of terrace property facing the River entrance which was previously similar in size to my home and which has been gutted retaining only some walls and which now has a new roof and extension and a signboard announcing the provision of three seaward facing flats and two maisonettes, five dwellings in total which I expect will sell for around £1000000 each. Elsewhere on the walk there was a similar extensive renovation underway, and this interested so that as I walked back down into the town centre I looked at the range of properties available noting that for £245000 you can buy an eight bedroom guest house facing the park and with presumably seaside views above the trees.
I then passed first test of the day by deciding not to buy a cut loaf of bread which would be used for cheese on toast snacks or mornings toast. For lunch on return one roll with a salad and in the evening the rest of the chicken from yesterday, some gravy and one portion of mixed vegetables, banana for lunch, grapes in the evening, no alcohol or fizzy drink but and some tea, no coffee, A small helping, porridge for breakfast and some cereal at bedtime.
I achieved the 7000th volume of main work during the day 168000 cards with the aim of reaching 200000 before the end of the year, a journey which is taking longer and longer as the number of diversions increased
The first diversion occurred in the early afternoon, a British wartime morale boosting propaganda film made in 1941 Freedom Radio which used the possibility of an influential doctor of the Third Reich risking and gives his life to make radio broadcasts to his fellow countrymen and women, denouncing the Nazi regime and the involvement of Germany in war, after witnessing the brutal murder of a clergyman for expressing devotion and commitment to his faith and supporting other clergy who had been removed by force from their positions and disappeared. The couple perish but the film ends with a second transmitter promising to continue the broadcasts. All the characters spoke with the BBC English accents of the day which gives the film its surreal quality, and the story was intercut with live footage of rallies which combined reminded that while the majority can quickly be swung behind accepting whatever changes in behaviour and attitude a government chooses, there are those, albeit a minority who are always prepared to challenge, bear witness to the truth and if necessary perish in their protest.
I had no previous knowledge that Gospa was a word for the Madonna, or knowledge of the apparitions believed to have taken place on a daily basis for decades at the town of Medjugorje Bosnia, Herzegovina from 1981 during the Communist regime domination, and during which 601 Catholic priests were murdered and others tortured and imprisoned. It is fact in that year six young people ranging from ten to sixteen claimed that the Madonna had appeared to them and gave them messages of peace, love and prayer. Four of the six have continued to experience visitations, originally on a hill near the town and then within the church. The formal hierarchical structure of the Catholic church has never recognised the authenticity of the original or subsequent events, and my understanding is that priests have been told not to organise or participate in formal pilgrimages though some 20 million individuals are said to have visited, and there are internet references to individuals beings recommended to visit by priests. It is understood that this is because commissions appointed by the church have not been satisfied that a supernatural event has occurred yet the available information suggests that Catholics and those with physical and mental problems have visited in numbers similar to Lourdes in France and Fatima in Portugal. There was a problem at first because the arrival of so many outsiders in an established communist country, restraining, as in Iraq, murderous ethnic divisions, was a problem for the Catholic Church as it was for the Communists. For both authorities to accept defiance on any scale was to risk the breakdown of all authority as we have all now witnessed in Yugoslavia and then in Iraq. The cure appears worse than the disease.
The Catholic Church has faced a problem accepting new miracles in terms of physical manifestations because of new knowledge of the age of the earth, the known extent and age of universe and the capacity of the mind to create physical events of extraordinary complexity and at this moment I can connect to radio and television from around this planet, or to live cameras, or communicate to anyone for less than £1 a day. By any standards this is miraculous and supernatural. It is also miraculous and supernatural that an idea, a belief, can unite people of different languages, races, ages, and lifestyles to the extent it cures and changes individuals for the rest of their self aware physical experience. If this is not a miraculous, if this is not supernatural, then sadly you do not yet understand the nature of human kind. I tread one report where the previous Pope, from Poland, is that said to have given his blessing to the priest who protected the then young people from the communist authorities who wanted him to declare them mentally disturbed so they could be taken into official care and helped. A similar approach was adopted towards a young woman in Freedom Radio who dared to complain about being raped by an officer who had come to arrest her grandmother after she had been reported for listening to music of a foreign radio station by the landlady she had offended by refusing to buy her off with additional rations. This was an all too common occurrence in Fascist, Communist, Africa, Asian and South American Dictatorship where the lower functionaries improve their personal positions and those of their families by becoming exempt from the general law and where their services, and their protection has to be bought. In fact this exists in some form in every society, but the scale varies as do mechanisms to uncover, eliminate and change.
There has also been controversy on the part played by the senior priest of the parish, a Franciscan, Fr Jozo Zovko, who was tortured and brought before a show trial, sentenced to death and then commuted to a year and a half in prison, for refusing to effectively condemn the young people and bring the public and media interest to an end. He became the Guardian of a Franciscan monastery while his defence counsel, the Chief Justice.
I have no idea if Martin Sheen who plays the priest, and Michael York, the defence Counsel, or those making the film had direct contact with Fr Zovko and if he authorised the version of events and the nature of he man revealed in the film. No punches are pulled. In the film the priest is having difficulties with his faith and the ability to attract and maintain parishioners, so he is renewed when his church fills and over flows and hundreds, thousands and tens of thousands make their way to the hill and then to the church to be with the young people as they see and hear messages. When the authorities try to prevent access to the church he and his fellow priests, monks and nuns defy and in the elation of the situation he renders a sermon of defiance against the Communist order. He is not only accused by the Communist authorities but by the Church authorities of being carried away and being more interested in his own position than with the long term welfare of the young people, his parishioners and the role and position of his church. The portrait is of a weak, worldly man, full of self doubts and uncertainties who finds that he the faith and the courage to meet and survive the severest of challenges.
It was of interest to me that I saw both films on the day the Archbishop of Canterbury faced his peers after daring to suggest that the civil law of the nation should take account of the beliefs of all the religions of its people as well as of those with no particular or any religious beliefs. My understanding is that he wanted to communicate that by understand an accommodating our different beliefs and styles we were more likely to achieve integration and harmony and thus prevent one group attempting to dominate all the others, Just a minute was not this the core message of Christ, Moses, Mohamed, and of the Protestants who left Europe to create the USA? Oh what shocking and dangerous thinking. The behaviour of some of his peers underlines that within religions there are fascists of the right and left, bigots and hypocrites as there are in any other collection of human beings. We should pity them.
There is an end of terrace property facing the River entrance which was previously similar in size to my home and which has been gutted retaining only some walls and which now has a new roof and extension and a signboard announcing the provision of three seaward facing flats and two maisonettes, five dwellings in total which I expect will sell for around £1000000 each. Elsewhere on the walk there was a similar extensive renovation underway, and this interested so that as I walked back down into the town centre I looked at the range of properties available noting that for £245000 you can buy an eight bedroom guest house facing the park and with presumably seaside views above the trees.
I then passed first test of the day by deciding not to buy a cut loaf of bread which would be used for cheese on toast snacks or mornings toast. For lunch on return one roll with a salad and in the evening the rest of the chicken from yesterday, some gravy and one portion of mixed vegetables, banana for lunch, grapes in the evening, no alcohol or fizzy drink but and some tea, no coffee, A small helping, porridge for breakfast and some cereal at bedtime.
I achieved the 7000th volume of main work during the day 168000 cards with the aim of reaching 200000 before the end of the year, a journey which is taking longer and longer as the number of diversions increased
The first diversion occurred in the early afternoon, a British wartime morale boosting propaganda film made in 1941 Freedom Radio which used the possibility of an influential doctor of the Third Reich risking and gives his life to make radio broadcasts to his fellow countrymen and women, denouncing the Nazi regime and the involvement of Germany in war, after witnessing the brutal murder of a clergyman for expressing devotion and commitment to his faith and supporting other clergy who had been removed by force from their positions and disappeared. The couple perish but the film ends with a second transmitter promising to continue the broadcasts. All the characters spoke with the BBC English accents of the day which gives the film its surreal quality, and the story was intercut with live footage of rallies which combined reminded that while the majority can quickly be swung behind accepting whatever changes in behaviour and attitude a government chooses, there are those, albeit a minority who are always prepared to challenge, bear witness to the truth and if necessary perish in their protest.
I had no previous knowledge that Gospa was a word for the Madonna, or knowledge of the apparitions believed to have taken place on a daily basis for decades at the town of Medjugorje Bosnia, Herzegovina from 1981 during the Communist regime domination, and during which 601 Catholic priests were murdered and others tortured and imprisoned. It is fact in that year six young people ranging from ten to sixteen claimed that the Madonna had appeared to them and gave them messages of peace, love and prayer. Four of the six have continued to experience visitations, originally on a hill near the town and then within the church. The formal hierarchical structure of the Catholic church has never recognised the authenticity of the original or subsequent events, and my understanding is that priests have been told not to organise or participate in formal pilgrimages though some 20 million individuals are said to have visited, and there are internet references to individuals beings recommended to visit by priests. It is understood that this is because commissions appointed by the church have not been satisfied that a supernatural event has occurred yet the available information suggests that Catholics and those with physical and mental problems have visited in numbers similar to Lourdes in France and Fatima in Portugal. There was a problem at first because the arrival of so many outsiders in an established communist country, restraining, as in Iraq, murderous ethnic divisions, was a problem for the Catholic Church as it was for the Communists. For both authorities to accept defiance on any scale was to risk the breakdown of all authority as we have all now witnessed in Yugoslavia and then in Iraq. The cure appears worse than the disease.
The Catholic Church has faced a problem accepting new miracles in terms of physical manifestations because of new knowledge of the age of the earth, the known extent and age of universe and the capacity of the mind to create physical events of extraordinary complexity and at this moment I can connect to radio and television from around this planet, or to live cameras, or communicate to anyone for less than £1 a day. By any standards this is miraculous and supernatural. It is also miraculous and supernatural that an idea, a belief, can unite people of different languages, races, ages, and lifestyles to the extent it cures and changes individuals for the rest of their self aware physical experience. If this is not a miraculous, if this is not supernatural, then sadly you do not yet understand the nature of human kind. I tread one report where the previous Pope, from Poland, is that said to have given his blessing to the priest who protected the then young people from the communist authorities who wanted him to declare them mentally disturbed so they could be taken into official care and helped. A similar approach was adopted towards a young woman in Freedom Radio who dared to complain about being raped by an officer who had come to arrest her grandmother after she had been reported for listening to music of a foreign radio station by the landlady she had offended by refusing to buy her off with additional rations. This was an all too common occurrence in Fascist, Communist, Africa, Asian and South American Dictatorship where the lower functionaries improve their personal positions and those of their families by becoming exempt from the general law and where their services, and their protection has to be bought. In fact this exists in some form in every society, but the scale varies as do mechanisms to uncover, eliminate and change.
There has also been controversy on the part played by the senior priest of the parish, a Franciscan, Fr Jozo Zovko, who was tortured and brought before a show trial, sentenced to death and then commuted to a year and a half in prison, for refusing to effectively condemn the young people and bring the public and media interest to an end. He became the Guardian of a Franciscan monastery while his defence counsel, the Chief Justice.
I have no idea if Martin Sheen who plays the priest, and Michael York, the defence Counsel, or those making the film had direct contact with Fr Zovko and if he authorised the version of events and the nature of he man revealed in the film. No punches are pulled. In the film the priest is having difficulties with his faith and the ability to attract and maintain parishioners, so he is renewed when his church fills and over flows and hundreds, thousands and tens of thousands make their way to the hill and then to the church to be with the young people as they see and hear messages. When the authorities try to prevent access to the church he and his fellow priests, monks and nuns defy and in the elation of the situation he renders a sermon of defiance against the Communist order. He is not only accused by the Communist authorities but by the Church authorities of being carried away and being more interested in his own position than with the long term welfare of the young people, his parishioners and the role and position of his church. The portrait is of a weak, worldly man, full of self doubts and uncertainties who finds that he the faith and the courage to meet and survive the severest of challenges.
It was of interest to me that I saw both films on the day the Archbishop of Canterbury faced his peers after daring to suggest that the civil law of the nation should take account of the beliefs of all the religions of its people as well as of those with no particular or any religious beliefs. My understanding is that he wanted to communicate that by understand an accommodating our different beliefs and styles we were more likely to achieve integration and harmony and thus prevent one group attempting to dominate all the others, Just a minute was not this the core message of Christ, Moses, Mohamed, and of the Protestants who left Europe to create the USA? Oh what shocking and dangerous thinking. The behaviour of some of his peers underlines that within religions there are fascists of the right and left, bigots and hypocrites as there are in any other collection of human beings. We should pity them.
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