April 16 2007

Love - DonInLondon ‘A Day In the Life’

What is this thing called love? There are many humorous looks at love, we are strange animals in the world of nature. And Nature and Providence of course has gifted us so, with a repertoire of emotions so complicated we get lost in the living of life. And of course our thinking gets complicated so we are never sure whether we may trust our feelings as we get experience along the way.

In truth we learn early all about our emotions and the patterning we encounter can help of hinder everything we become in later life. What we encounter we either connect with well or try avoid as we live and experience love in particular.

And of course the worst of love can be what we have been taught to anticipate and then we make it happen. We are good at replicating what we have been taught, so the old bible quote, and a reminder that for me God is really "good conscience" and the stories are illustrative of the madness we humans contend with daily:

"You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me,"

Although the context is connected to God, the actual fact is true, the sins of the fathers and mothers does actually affect the generations who follow as we learn and replicate. I guess the good news is with gradual and determined attitudes and behaviour we can meet these challenges and behave as we go through our lives living to our own good conscience.

Yet it seems to me that no matter how much I behave and develop my outlook towards life and loving, the sins of other peoples mothers and fathers are caught in the behaviour and attitudes of everyone I meet, as friends as lovers as acquaintance and actually I am certainly not everyone’s favourite son!

So living and learning love is a precarious business at the best of times.

Of Love

Without doubt my Mother and Father loved me, yet they had a harsh world to grow up in and the love they got was sparse and sometimes very hard to understand even a generation distant. And of course parents don’t have a guide book to parenting, just what they learn along the way. My father was an alcoholic and he is not to blame for my fall into the same trap is my belief, but certainly he did influence me to my drinking behaviour of seeking oblivion as often as not.

And in terms of me and my loving. Well there is no doubt I have loved deeply and completely along the way in my life. And had every good reason to love as best I could. I doubt though I was much good or a prospect for long term commitments as I had no guide or understanding of that in my life. So we learn, and we learn good and harder ways to live.

Fear of Life

It was mentioned tonight and often I use this phrase, fear of life. The fear of life is hard to cope with on a daily basis when all the denials and filters start to melt down. The actual fear is of reality and trusting others and their words. I have been hopeless as doing this over the years and anticipated the end rather than the fullness of time allowing love to grow.

So we often find the start of love almost is ended before it begins. As we don’t understand or care to delve too deep and find that loneliness inside where loved is desired and sought, for others and for ourselves.

The harsh gap we never really got a hold of or understood. Well it has made me feel the desolation and emptiness many times over the years. I am very careful these days about loving and love and so cautious I wonder at myself often.

And the same is true for many, so much in need of loving, to love and be loved, to cherish and not to be superficial or indifferent.

My father in his last days offered these words to help me. As he was nearing his end, he said how much he cherished every moment with my mother, and also led a life superficially and indifferently so often along the way..

Those words, cherish, superficial and indifference have echoed down the years since for me. To cherish and not be superficial or indifferent. Yet my behaviour learned led me there often as many affairs of the heart were left in ruins by my singularity and shallowness. Is this true? Yes I fear it was, although deep and profound feelings were inside me, they lingered insecurely alongside fear and ego, a brave heart with nothing to protect.

So as faith and courage seem to grow in me and the confidence just to be alive is growing, I do not wish a return to indifference or to self indulgent whim. The ego so utilised in previous encounters leaves me wretched when I realise the truth of life learned along the way and me enacting most of what I absorbed.

Forgiveness does come as we turn and face ourselves square on, and recognise the harm done to us and to ourselves, our inner psyche so alert to new living, can find forgiveness, not only for ourselves, forgiveness too for everyone and every situation.

We need forgive and as we shrive all who felt the turn of fate that led them to a path of indifferent living, then we find our truth. Forgiveness is a very human capacity, not in the realm of divine encounters, but right here and now if we believe so.

Good conscience is our guide if we dare to make so bold a step and give ourselves to living and cherishing the most precious possession we have, love of life and humanity as Nature and Providence have enabled. Only we humans are often so dumb to feelings, we are lost to time and happenstance.

We are lucky indeed as we find truth and spiritual living are coextensive connected parts and love binds true to our ever present, present moment of now where life happens and we experience as we may and history indeed may not be our teacher… Live life in the moment so often said, so often misunderstood as the burdens of history dictate our shallow grasp. Nature and Providence lets truth unfold as we lay cold, long gone merely a distant memory of another generation on the journey of life.

More DonInLondon "A Day In The Life"

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BBC OnLine News April 16 2007

Browne to face MPs over Iran crew April 16 2007

Defence Secretary Des Browne is to face MPs over the decision to allow the UK navy personnel held captive by Iran to sell their stories to newspapers.

The Conservatives have said that unless a valid reason is given, they will call for his resignation, while the Lib Dems say Mr Browne needs "clever answers".

The defence secretary, due to make a Commons statement at 1530 BST, has taken responsibility for the decision.

Home Secretary John Reid called him "courageous" for accepting the blame.

'Full account'

The Royal Navy crew were on patrol boats in the Gulf on 23 March when they were detained by Iran's Revolutionary Guard.

The Iranians accused them of straying into its waters, but the British say they were in Iraqi territory.

BBC OnLine Full Story

Guardian Unlimited OnLine April 16 2007

Bribery and drugs exposed at private jail April 16 2007

Undercover reporter offered £1,500 by inmates

Eric Allison and Duncan Campbell

An investigation by an undercover reporter working as a prison officer has exposed conditions in a private jail where inmates have easy access to drugs and mobile phones and subject overstretched staff to intimidation if they are too diligent in their work.

The investigation into Rye Hill prison, Warwickshire, has unearthed a catalogue of failings at the jail which has already been strongly criticised over the murder of one inmate and the "avoidable" suicides of vulnerable inmates.

During the five-month investigation by Guardian Films and BBC's Panorama, the reporter, a former soldier, worked as a custody officer on some of the most volatile wings in the prison run by Global Solutions Ltd (GSL). He was asked by inmates to bring drugs into the category B high-security prison and assured that his "fee" of £1,500 would be paid into his bank account via Western Union, a practice an inmate claimed had been used before.

Read The Guardian OnLine

Times OnLine April 16 2007

MI5 adopts paedophile-tracking tactics for Muslim extremists April 16 2007

Michael Evans, Defence Editor

MI5 is adopting tactics used by the police to keep tabs on paedophiles and other sex offenders to monitor the activities of known or suspected Islamic extremists, The Times has learnt.

The threat from radicalised young Muslims is growing at such a rate that MI5 has realised that it needs the help of police officers on the streets to help it keep a check on extremists in their areas.

The police keep track of known paedophiles by collating sightings of them and noting whom they meet and which areas they frequent — a tactic that MI5 sees as ideal for keeping track of the movements of Islamic extremists.

Thousands of police officers on the beat in areas with large Pakistani communities — such as Birmingham, Leeds and London — will be expected to keep a lookout for young Muslims known to have become radicals

Read The Times OnLine

Independent OnLine 'Indy' News April 16 2007

Abortion crisis as doctors refuse to perform surgery April 16 2007

By Jeremy Laurance, Health Editor

Britain is facing an abortion crisis because an unprecedented number of doctors are refusing to be involved in carrying out the procedure. The exodus of doctors prepared to perform the task is a nationwide phenomenon that threatens to plunge the abortion service into chaos, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) has warned.

More than 190,000 abortions are carried out each year in England and Wales and the NHS is already struggling to cope. Four out of five abortions are paid for by the NHS but almost half of those are carried out in the private sector, paid for by the NHS.

The reluctance of NHS staff, both doctors and nurses, to be involved has led to a doubling of abortions paid for by the NHS, which are carried out in the private or charitable sector, from 20 per cent of the total in 1997 to almost 40 per cent.

Distaste at performing terminations combined with ethical and religious convictions has led to a big increase in "conscientious objectors" who request exemption from the task, the RCOG says. A key factor is what specialists call "the dinner party test". Gynaecologists who specialise in fertility treatment creating babies for childless couples are almost universally revered - but no one boasts of being an abortionist.

As a result, after decades of campaigning, anti-abortion organisations may be on the point of achieving their objective by default. Repeated efforts to tighten the law have failed and public opinion remains firmly in support, but the growing number of doctors refusing to do the work means there may soon not be enough prepared to carry out terminations to meet demand.

Ann Furedi, chief executive of BPAS, the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, which carries out a quarter of all abortions performed in England, said: "There is a real crisis looming. Unless we can address the problem and motivate doctors to train in abortion, we may well face a situation in five years' time in which women's access to abortion is severely restricted. It is our biggest headache."

Many doctors felt that, with contraception freely available on the NHS there was "no excuse" for women who got pregnant accidentally. Ms Furedi said: "They say, 'why should we use our skills to clear up the mess?' It is a very naïve view - unplanned pregnancy occurs for all sorts of reasons."

Read The Independent OnLine

BBC OnLine History April 16 2007

April 16 1964: 'Great Train Robbers' get 300 years

Some of the longest sentences in British criminal history have been imposed on men involved in the so-called "Great Train Robbery".

Sentences totalling 307 years were passed on 12 men who stole £2.6m in used bank notes after holding up the night mail train travelling from Glasgow to London last August.

The judge at Buckinghamshire Assizes in Aylesbury, Mr Justice Edmund Davies, said it would be "positively evil" if he showed leniency.

The robbery was the biggest-ever carried out in Britain.

The scale and style of the theft led to comparisons with rail robberies of the Wild West and the hunt for the perpetrators captured the public imagination.

But the judge said the robbers' crime had in no way been "romantic" and was obviously motivated by greed.

BBC OnLine Full Story

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Steve Bell & Martin Rowson Cartoons Guardian Unlimited


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