People are people
I don’t read that much poetry but every now and again, I’ll come across one that really resonates. 2020’s discovery was This is the time by John O’Donohue - I mentioned it in my last blog - whereas thirty or so years ago it was the turn of RS Thomas’s Affinity. Apart from the wonderful language and metaphors (“Ransack your brainbox, pull out the drawers That rot in your heart's dust”), it spoke directly to a simple but profound belief I inherited from my mum…
‘People are people.’
This was no vacuous ‘Brexit means Brexit’ remark. This was mum teaching me that, at the end of the day, we’re all the same. Rich, poor; young, old; black, white; male, female - nothing inherently makes one ‘better’ than the other. No, we are all - in RS Thomas’s words - guided by “the same small star”.
Consider this man in the field beneath,
Gaitered with mud, lost in his own breath,
Without joy, without sorrow,
Without children, without wife,
Stumbling insensively from furrow to furrow,
A vague somnambulist; but hold your tears,
For his name also is written in the Book of Life.
Ransack your brainbox, pull out the drawers
That rot in your heart's dust, and what have you to give
To enrich his spirit or the way he lives?
From the standpoint of education or caste or creed
Is there anything to show that your essential need
Is less than his, who has the world for church,
And stands bare-headed in the woods’ wide porch
Morning and evening to hear God's choir
Scatter their praises? Don't be taken in
By stinking garments or an aimless grin;
He also is human, and the same small star,
That lights you homeward, has inflamed his mind
With the old hunger, born of his kind.
The pictures I’ve posted today were taken in a variety of places over the last few years. Clicking on each one will take you into a Lightbox view and will also reveal where the picture was taken.
I’ve been struggling to find my photography ‘mojo’ for quite sometime so I decided to take things slowly. The first step was to look through my hard drive and pick out a few of the thousands of pictures that are sitting there. The second was to have a go at refreshing the design of my blog. This is its first outing and so I’d be enormously grateful for any thoughts on how it could be improved further. Many thanks indeed.
