Blog 5 Sunday Reclaimed

Sunday Reclaimed

Today I drove the short distance to a beautiful English countryside pub, popular but in no way succumbing to the need to appeal to the demands of the 21st century. I had a simple but wonderful meal, freshly cooked with pride and no pretention

I wandered around the graveyard of the church opposite the pub feeling the history and the lives that had shaped this wonderful village

I walked through the marvelous arboretum adjacent to the grounds of the pub. Stunning and peaceful, the most profitable £2-50 entrance fee I have paid for a very long time. The care, pride and attention paid to creating something so beautiful that it instantly calmed my chattering mind

We are designed to be close to nature, to connect with it to be connected to it. It feeds us in ways we can’t explain; I imagine Evolutionary Psychologists could explain it.

It wasn’t silent but it was quiet, as if the noise I could hear was in rhythm with my own body and mind, these are the noises we are supposed to hear.

I sat on the wooden bench at the viewpoint and didn’t so much look at the view but absorbed it, time passes. It did.

Thirty minutes later I walked back towards the entrance. I met a family, with a wonderful dog. He looked at me, as if to say “when are you humans going to understand what you really need” He then ran on chasing the stick his master had thrown for him. Following behind him, a beautiful little girl running to her mother with a handful of bluebells and tomato sauce all around her mouth from her lunch. She knew what the dog meant in a way that adults don’t.

The weather was wonderful the best Sunday of the year so far. Where were all the other people? Twenty miles south of the great metropolis, and yet I only met three families.

Not disappointed for myself but disappointed and concerned for Us. Is it really the case that our collective wit and imagination cannot see beyond visiting the Trafford Centre, Meadowall or one of the tens of American style shopping malls on our Sundays? To buy stuff we are told we need, following the slavish doctrine of the consumer religion; only by shopping for stuff will you be truly fulfilled, when did we swallow this nonsense?

Perhaps when we banished an equally dangerous doctrine of traditional religious observance. Only to find that we have replaced one religion with another; a vacuous pursuit of perfection, never to be attained, the new opium of the people. More dangerous, addictive and pervasive than drugs our policy makers are so keen to outlaw without allowing the scientists to even conclude their initial studies.

Give the people what the want- “tough on crime tough on the causes of crime, freedom to shop whenever they want-a free open entrepreneurial society”

Irrefutable? Of course, but it asks the wrong question it mis-directs us. We look forward while a gigantic fraud is perpetrated behind our back.

Where is our aspiration? Our desire to better ourselves. To understand ourselves, to apply ourselves to the very real problems our society faces.

Who is sponsoring the debate on these crucial areas, who is inspiring our children to think, challenge and provoke?

"We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about." – Einstein

Where do we hear this truth? Amongst the din of X Factor, TV adverts, lose weight in 21 days plans, and endless mind numbing reality television-No. We don’t hear it anywhere.

This debate is labeled highbrow elitist, the preserve of Radio 4 and obscure website and blogs. But is it?

There is surely a yearning in us all to understand more, to have a deeper sense of fulfillment achievement and peace. How long will it take for us to realize that in the same way a sugary satiated diet of fast food will not nourish our bodies? Nor will a diet of the Trafford Centre followed by “I’m a celebrity………” satisfy our soul.

Sunday 18 April