King's speeches

"Faith is taking the first step even when you can't see the whole staircase."

(Martin Luther King Jr.)

How many things that made you cry when you were just sixteen, with joy, anger or sadness or from sheer movement of the spirit, would make you weep like a child again today? 
Due to snow, sickness and work, I'm quite behind with my posts. I sincerely and particularly wanted to write something for "Martin Luther King Day", traditionally observed as a holiday across the United States on the third Monday in January since 1986. On 15th January this year, Dr Martin Luther King Jr would have been eighty four years old; instead, on 4th April, the world will remember that it is forty five years since his assassination. This year, MLK Day fell on 21st January, coinciding with the inaugural celebration of U.S. President Barack Obama's second term of office.
I dithered about posting this on Monday: I appreciate that some of my friends from the United States are not supportive of Obama's economic policies; and many Catholics are affronted by his views on homosexual partnerships and women's rights to choose abortion. Personally, I found it both pertinent and poignant that the first ever black president of the United States was being sworn in for an historic second term, with bibles belonging to Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King. I was further moved that Obama deferred to King in his inaugural speech, that all men must be a source of hope to the poor, the sick, the marginalised, the victims of prejudice:
"Not out of mere charity, but because peace in our time requires the constant advance of those principles that our common creed describes; tolerance and opportunity, human dignity and justice. We the people declare today that the most evident of truth that all of us are created equal -- is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls and Selma and Stonewall; just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along this great mall, to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone; to hear a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth."
When I was fifteen, a few months before my father died, I was sporting two long plaits, an array of anti-racism and anti-this-and-that badges and a permanent petulant frown. My Mum asked Dad to talk some sense into me. She was worried that I was drawing attention to myself by going on rallies and antagonising local fascist groups (I'm sure the National Front in south London found my ribboned plaits particularly irritating). She wanted me to steer clear of anything political, be a bit more "girly" and throw myself more wholeheartedly into the school dances that the nuns organised for their young ladies with the boys from the local Catholic boys' academy. My Dad was a very wise man: instead of talking to me about anything calling itself "politics", he spoke to me about natural equality, justice and goodness. He told me that the late Senator Bobby Kennedy and Dr King were two men with very different backgrounds and voices who shared the same spirit and vision. This became an essence of equality for me.
Baptist minister King became one of the world's most powerful natural orators. My Dad had the transcripts of two of King's most quoted and iconic speeches; "I Have a Dream", from 1963, and the sadly prophetic "Mountain-top" speech, given the day before his death in 1968. He told me to read them and try to understand that real justice had more to do with gentleness and faith than with aggressive sloganeering and political clout. They made me cry. They didn't stop me attending angst-ridden rallies, shouting at the fascist groups in Lewisham High Street (before running away) or being needlessly uppity with the local police, who were only ever caught in the middle. But they touched me in a far deeper and more lasting way than any teenage-targeted rhetoric or subsequent trendy bandwagon cause.
After hearing Obama's own emotive yet punchy inaugural speech on Monday, I decided to listen to King's speeches again, now with the (sometimes dubious) benefit of You Tube. After all these years, the same words made me cry again. Some might say I haven't grown up much: I would say my finest dreams, like those of my father, haven't aged.

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that." 

"I have decided to stick to love...Hate is too great a burden to bear." 

"Let no man pull you so low as to hate him."

"Never, never be afraid to do what's right, especially if the well-being of a person or animal is at stake. Society's punishments are small compared to the wounds we inflict on our soul when we look the other way.” 

“Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane." 

"I agree with Dante, that the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in a period of moral crisis, maintain their neutrality."

"In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."

"Only in the darkness can you see the stars." 

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." 

"It is cheerful to God when you rejoice or laugh from the bottom of your heart."

"A man who won't die for something is not fit

to live." 

"I have a dream that one day little black boys and girls will be holding hands with little white boys and girls... 

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character... I have a dream today."

(Martin Luther King Jr.)

" I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free / One"  The LighthouseFamily

Birds and beads, trees and tries

"Try to be better than yourself."

(William Faulkner)

Photo: Gigi, album

Whenever I take down Christmas decorations, it usually makes me feel a little deflated, as though I'm packing away cheeriness. My decorations are largely lights and garlands, and beads, berries and birds on my pot plants. I don't care for tinsel, and my own Christmas tree is a living, growing, potted one that I've nurtured and nagged for more than ten years. Everywhere that I've moved, Noel the Tree has moved too. He started his life with me in South London; a tiny, ornamental but non-specified fir from Sainsbury's. He was stuck in a red plastic flowerpot, with fake snow on his branches. Just the right size for Mum's mantelpiece, he was supposed to be thrown away by Twelfth Night, but I have a problem throwing away anything that's still even vaguely green and vibrant. When I realised he was actually rooted and growing, I decided to encourage him to be a tree. 

Re-potted several times since then and now more than six feet tall, he guards my back door. He has his own set of solar star-lights which he wears all year round, but he also has his own silver star and poinsettia garlands for Christmas. He did look rather camp at Christmas; he seems to be flourishing in Brighton's misty dampness. He's withstood being diagnosed as disposably ornamental, some mis-management from my Mum, and being hacked about by my brother-in-law who thought he was an unpruned and misguided shrub in Mum's front garden. During moves from London and then across Brighton, he's been locked in storage, knocked down basement steps and ridiculed and disrespected by various removal men. I'm an admirer of trees generally for their strength and dependable longevity; I'm extremely fond of Noel the Tree.

It didn't really take long to dismantle festivities in my little house this year. Traditionally, I try to give the last piece of the last mince pie to the birds in the back garden - feathered ones, not some bedraggled hen-party who've stumbled off the main road straight into my rose bushes, confused by Noel's twinkling. The other day, I watched for at least ten minutes while a very small robin tried valiantly to fly off with the largest piece of pastry. Luckily, Ginger the tom from next door was purring obliviously at the bottom of my stairs. 

I've never really seen a robin in a tizzy before. Every time he started to fly away with the pastry, he would drop some and start flapping and spluttering. What appeared to be a fat thrush popped down to muscle in; the robin saw him off in no uncertain terms. Eventually, he got a larger piece up to the safety of my garden table, where he pecked and gulped it down, all the while keeping a bright eye on the rest of his hoard. He then hopped down and secured another large-ish morsel, then another. Eventually, he finished all of it on his own and did a little twitchy victory-dance around the garden table; I felt like applauding him.

Photo: Gigi, album

I've already told friends that I haven't really made resolutions this year. However, after writing about Brighton's phoenix-like spirit and reflecting on my own hardy Christmas tree,  grown-up from a supermarket novelty, I've encountered probably the toughest little robin this side of Hastings. On New Year's Day, I watched the skaters on the ice-rink in front of the Pavilion. As soon as the ice was cleared between sessions, a motley crew swished and staggered out. There was a lot of wobbling and clomping, quite a bit of teetering and rail-clinging; surprisingly little falling. From six to sixty year olds, there was a palpable sense of "trying". There are some rather pompous looking plastic "practice penguins" with grip handles for the very young or very wary, but they were largely left redundant. There was a lot of smiling: it made me feel that it really is exhilarating to have a go and then just great when success surprises you. 

One little girl of about seven stumbled out on her own and skidded straight into the barrier while her dad struggled to attach his skates. She looked terrified, with her feet splaying in opposite directions, but she'd circumnavigated the rink by the time her father had reached the ice, clinging to the rail the whole time. As she crashed against the barrier near me, I gave her an encouraging grin. She managed a wry little smile back as she lurched past the practice penguins disdainfully.

My schoolfriend Bernie used to send out letters and cards of encouragement including the motto:"Dream, Believe, Try, Achieve". Having lived her own advice, she's achieved many things since leaving the convent, including writing several books about whatever has fired her enthusiasm, and founding the influential "Women's Environmental Network". The Green MP for Brighton, Caroline Lucas, is one of their "matrons": the WEN doesn't have "patrons". I've actively appreciated the first half of Bernie's motto: I do believe in the power of dreams and goals, and I do have faith which enables me to be strong for people and things I care about. I even have a niggling awareness of my capabilities. But I then stop short of actually trying sometimes. 
As the frost set in towards the end of 2012, I wrote it off as one of several years with more moans than merriment, more losses than treasures. Last night, after spotting that one ceramic berry I hadn't taken off the ficus plant, I realised it's simply been a trying year; and therefore literally one full of opportunities for trying. Groucho Marx famously said that he wanted to live for ever and would die trying to; Judy Garland once declared that she definitely did believe in the power of a rainbow and had spent her whole life "trying to get over it". Somewhere between these two sentiments, there is a little patch of wintry ground where hopes, like little robins, shy away from calling themselves resolutions, just in case some quirky blonde is watching from the window. 
My godfather, "uncle Bob", was a bit of a trier  although he was often written off by folk as a dreamer. He was a former docker and merchant seaman from a working class family in a run-down part of Southwark, south London. He hadn't had the best education in the world, certainly with no time or funds for formal musical or literary instruction. Yet at his packed funeral in Rotherhithe some years ago, doubting friends were amazed to hear that he really had become a river pilot on his beloved Thames and indeed a Master Mariner; he actually had joined the Black Watch guards and learnt to play bagpipes; he did eventually have one or two of his many country compositions recorded in Nashville. 
A fellow lover of Robbie Burns, uncle Bob would recite huge chunks of his poetry; "Auld Lang Sine" was his favourite. He also particularly liked T.H. Palmer's "Try, Try", but I only realised why it was special to him after he died:

"'Tis a lesson you should heed, 

If at first you don't succeed, 

Try, try again. 

Then your courage should appear, 

For if you will persevere, 

You will conquer, never fear; 

Try, try again." 

When he suffered a heart attack at the age of seventy, it seemed inconceivable that he might not pull through: he was a battler, after all. My mother and I were stunned when his body seemed to give out on his spirit and he died of organ failure. My godfather's seemingly mundane and humble life had actually been an unpublicised Curriculum Vitae of persistence and quiet triumph.

I've always appreciated that a score in rugby is fittingly called a try, rather than a goal. Anyone who's ever played will testify to the deliberate and concentrated effort behind every try. Sorry to sound disparaging to any footie fan, but I've never heard of an accidental score in rugby ; it's not really possible to score an "own-try". So, my one resolution is actually just to try, about whatever and whenever I feel passionate to do so, but hopefully not just for the new year. Because hope is for life, not just for Christmas.

*For my friend Mel Bauwens, another tough little robin who achieved so much last year; and for Bobby Allen, RIP*

"You can't always get what you want,

But if you try sometimes

You might just find

You get what you need."

(The Rolling Stones)

"Courage doesn't always roar.Sometimes it's the quiet voice at the end of the day, saying 'I will try again tomorrow'."

(Mary Anne Radmacher)

"Try"  Pink

"Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away." 

(Maya Angelou) 

"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle."

(Albert Einstein) 

An enterprise of stillness

"Prayer and love are learned in the hour when prayer becomes impossible and the heart has turned to stone."

(Thomas Merton)

Photo: Gigi, album

Some places really do seemed steeped in spirituality. Winchester Cathedral is a wonderfully historic place, in the heart of the city that was once England's capital. The cathedral stands on a site that has housed places of worship or religious learning for more than 1300 years, with a treasure trove of artefacts spanning eleven centuries. The cathedral's library contains the 12th century Winchester Bible and mythology and mysticism rub shoulders along the choir stalls, carved with flora, owls and monkeys, knights and dragons and Green Men.

In the crypt of Winchester Cathedral usually knee high in water, there resides a best loved piece of sculpture. "Sound II", by Catholic sculptor Antony Gormley, is a solitary figure standing in the middle of the crypt, apparently contemplating the water held in his cupped hands. I love Antony Gormley's figures, which include "The Angel of the North" at Gateshead and "Another Place" along the Merseyside shore, not only for their thought provoking situations but because of their typical mix of stoicism and soulfulness.Whenever I've managed to get to Winchester to see this statue, I seem to have come away with Paul Simon's words from "I Am A Rock" weaving through my head:     

"I have my books and my poetry to protect me: I am shielded in my armour;
Hiding in my room, safe within my womb; I touch no one and no one touches me."
The figure seems to be entombed, but does it signify a self-imposed isolation? 

Life-sized and fashioned from lead, the statue was created specifically with the regular flooding of the crypt in mind; during the rainier months, the water below the main body of the cathedral is usually two or three feet deep. Beautifully apt when you consider that the legendary archbishop and patron saint of Winchester, St Swithin of the forty day deluges, is encased and venerated in the church "upstairs". I'm fascinated that the water-bound figure is made from lead: elementary lead is very water-resilient and doesn't dissolve or react under normal conditions. However,  when lead does react within water, the water becomes toxic to the human body. I've often wondered if the figure is descending into the water or emerging from it. Now, I don't feel the necessity to define it either way: I feel the figure is an enterprise of stillness. It could be a figure of recollection, reason, or hope; it could be all three as the embodiment of Faith.
In a perfect blending of faith, art and technology, "Sound II" has been designed so that as the collected rainwater level rises to knee level, it pushes up and along an internal tube into the figure's chest and then pours out into the cupped hands. How many statements does this silent witness make? We should treasure our emotions but not choke on them. We should reflect on our sadness or failure without wallowing in it. The human body is nearly three quarters water. Water is critical to human proliferation and forms an essential part of our metabolism. We know that our world is up to seventy percent covered by water. In it's purity water should be odourless, tasteless, colourless; transparent as truth itself. Yet water is far from simply an innocuous and translucent life-support system. Living by the sea, I'm still amazed that the calming undulation of the water can swell and crash so suddenly. The most placid lake can take life in an instant. The power of water sustains and threatens, just like man; rather like religion.
When I've visited Winchester Cathedral before, I've found the crypt figure to be quite melancholic; this week, on what Simon and Garfunkel really would call "a winter's day, in a deep and dark December", I found it reassuring. It made me smile. I wanted my sister and brother-in-law to appreciate the beauty of "Sound II": my brother-in-law is an avowed atheist, yet he seemed moved by both the setting and the sculpture. He agreed that the figure could be praying or meditating, or simply reflecting. He could even be cleansing himself in oblivious solitude; I was once told by a monk that the figure could be John the Baptist, quietly ever-ready and waiting beneath the ritual, ceremony and visual celebration of the Church.
After some wrangling, I found that my brother-in-law could accept that, whatever his view of organised religions created and interpreted by men, faith itself is a naturally occurring force. I miss two friends in particular from my time working in social services in London; Dale, who would also call himself an atheist or even an anti-theist, and devoutly Muslim Rakib, who is raising his two babies according to his parents' very orthodox faith. I miss the heated discussions across the desks between those two, sometimes culminating in one or all of us laughing at something so profoundly insulting that it could only be hysterically puerile between friends. The fact that we could then get back on the council's phones or have a tea-break together is for me a singular demonstration of faith; whether it be Dale's faith in rationality and the human condition, Rakib's faith in the righteousness of his forefathers or my own all-singing, all-hugging and often wittering take on Christianity. It was (and is) friendship founded in the colour and humour of differences, rather than the starkness of division.
Both my friend Dale and my brother-in-law would stress that devotion to any religion is a sign of weakness, a need to affiliate and be absorbed into something "big" for definition and protection. My own Irish Catholic background has shown me that the clannish tradition in most organised religions can easily lend itself to bigotry and sectarianism. The current violence in Belfast seems to centre on the hoisting and defiling of flags, team colours almost, rather than any theological argument or historical injustice. But I still feel that faith can be hugely resilient and empowering. It's hard to cut kindness or courage into little pieces, even with the sharpest sword. A word of mercy resonates longer and louder than the most potent explosion. You can't burn anyone's faith away at any stake: the ashes of whatever you sought to destroy are carried like hope on the breeze, to be scattered further than you could ever foresee.
I've always felt that the Simon and Garfunkel song was a study in melancholic irony: no-one is an island, made of rock. You can dig your own well by hand to irrigate your particular patch of desert, but someone else will already have invented the bucket. And you will dig in faith that the water is there.

* A Happy and Blessed Holiday-time to Dale and Rakib and those they love*

“Be still, and know that I am God;

I will be exalted among the nations, 

I will be exalted in the earth." 

(Psalm 46:10)

" I Am A Rock"  Simon and Garfunkel

"No Man Is An Island"
(John Donne)
No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less,
As well as if a promontory were;
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

"What I wear is pants. What I do is live. How I pray is breathe."
(Thomas Merton)

The Colour Red

"Be the change you wish to see in the world."

(Mahatma Gandhi)

Today, I pinned on a small red ribbon with frayed ages and a rusty little safety pin with a great deal of reflection and also some pride, even though I would be spending most of the day at home. I have done this on the same date with the same red ribbon for many years now. 1st December each year has been World AIDS Day since 1988. HIV / AIDS (Human Immunodeficiency Virus infection / Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome) was first clinically observed some years before, in 1981. In 1990, the New York based "Visual AIDS Artists Caucus" created a visual symbol to demonstrate compassion for people living with AIDS and those caring for them. Inspired by the yellow ribbons honouring American soldiers serving in the Gulf war, they chose the colour red for its:"connection to blood and the idea of passion -- not only anger, but love." It may sound trite, even odd if I say that I have a tender spot for AIDS: becoming involved with people affected by, living and dying with AIDS changed my little world and made me a stronger and, I believe, nicer person.
The Terrence Higgins Trust is a UK-based charity that was formed in London in 1982, named after one of the first named people to die from AIDS disease in the UK. It was formed by his partner and friends in an attempt to both personalise and publicise the disease. Many years ago, I was a voluntary carer and fundraiser with THT after my best friend at that time, a gentle and funny gay male nurse named John, took his own life to escape the stigma of what was then a deadly diagnosis. He was 21; he had apparently contracted the virus from his first and only boyfriend.
As a carer, I helped in a donated "safe house" in South London, where shelter, support and eventually palliative care was offered to up to four people at a time living with AIDS; where family was unaware, absent or unsympathetic. Treatment was less effective then and awareness about the condition and it's transmission was tainted by scandal and bigotry. My day-job colleagues didn't want to know exactly what I did in "that house" and my mother and sister couldn't understand why I did it. We fed and bathed, medicated and cleaned, emptied bed-pans. We were there. I drooped after a couple of years and following the deaths of all those I had been helping to look after; many house volunteers had been there longer and were still there when I left. It was at times heart-wrenching and scary; to this day, it remains the best, finest thing I've ever done.
In most parts of the developed world, HIV / AIDS is no longer the graphically painful but rapid death sentence it once was. Yet AIDS  is still a global pandemic: by 2010, around 35 million people had contracted the disease worldwide. Since it's recognition in 1981, more than 32 million men, women and children across the globe have died from what was initially dubbed "a gay plague" by the media. It's estimated that 3.4 million of those currently infected are under fifteen years of age. South Africa presently has the largest population of people living with HIV / AIDS, nearly six million. In sub-Saharan Africa, life expectancy in the worst affected countries has fallen drastically: from 65 to 35 years in Botswana. South East Asia is the second most affected region, estimating at least 4 million cases. Infections in the Middle East and North Africa have risen by more than a third over the past decade, with a notable rise in new infections also recorded in eastern Europe. In the USA and also across the UK, it's believed that a quarter of all those infected are unaware of their status. AIDS is the sixth leading cause of death among men and women aged 25 - 44 in the States. It may take you 10 minutes to read this blog entry; every 10 minutes, someone in the States is infected by the HIV virus.
Many campaign groups say the original stigma associated with HIV / AIDS remains as big a problem as the disease itself. In China, there are reports of  some hospitals turning away people with HIV infections and refusing surgery for patients who test positive for the virus. In vulnerable communities such as Ethiopia and Zambia, reported abuse of people living with HIV / AIDS remains high. Nearly half of all countries do not have laws in place that protect people living with the virus from discrimination. The AIDS Healthcare Foundation in Nigeria admits that anti-AIDS bigotry is still rife in a country where the disease is a taboo, commonly seen as a death sentence as "punishment". It is a fact that there is still no cure for AIDS: it is always fatal without treatment.
In the States, most patients who survive many years after diagnosis do so because of the availability of a combination of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART). The antiretrovirals suppress the replication of the virus in the body, allowing the helper blood cells precious time to rebuild the immune system. As a suppressant rather than a cure, HAART has been very effective for the past decade. However, the virus can become resistant to any one combination of HAART medications at any time, although genetic tests are largely available to determine whether an HIV strain is resistant to a particular drug. New medicines are still being developed to treat HAART resistant HIV. And treatment with HAART as a collection of different medications has it's own collection of complications and side effects: diarrhea, nausea, sickness and general weakness. When used over an extended period of time, these medications also increase the risk of heart attack. Of course, people responding to antiretroviral treatment can still pass on the virus through sex or shared needles; to date, there is still no vaccine against HIV. Ultimately, prevention truly is the only cure at this time.
In 2011, the United Nations signed the Political Declaration on HIV/AIDS, as a strategy to achieve universal access to HIV prevention, treatment, and care by 2015. The document marks an historic milestone on the road-map to the beginning of the end of AIDS. We need to reach 15 million people living with HIV with antiretroviral treatment by 2015: this has to be achievable; HAART therapy has already saved an estimated 14 million life years in low and middle income countries. However, around 7 million people known to be eligible for this treatment are still unable to access it. Recognised foreign aid has traditionally been the major source of funding to fight the epidemic worldwide, but for the first time in history, the UN has reported significant domestic investments by lower income countries to address their own HIV / AIDS situations. Each World Aids Day should be a time of remembrance but also of celebration of any progress and acceleration of response in recent years. We have to believe that ending this epidemic is as feasible as it is certainly affordable. 

Progressive medications can help the human body to heal and maybe even protect itself from this virus, but we also need to eliminate the enduring stigma and discrimination against people living with and affected by the disease. Fear and ignorance continue to undermine efforts to provide services to prevent, diagnose, and treat HIV/AIDS. Current restrictions on the entry, stay, and residence of people living with HIV in many countries lack scientific basis and are often relics of the media-fueled terror dating from early in the epidemic. This is a virus, a disease; as essentially associated with blood as anemia, sickle cell and leukemia, as identifiable with "behaviours" as diabetes, lung cancer and heart disease. It's been repeated endlessly over the past decades that the virus itself is a stranger to discrimination or preference. Personally, I can vividly recall pushing a beautiful but visibly fragile young man in a wheelchair to local shops only to find that ordinary people with their children in tow and shopping in hand felt moved to spit at both of us and wish him a speedier death. I pray this no longer happens on the streets of south London; I extend my prayers to the other corners of our world where such distortion of the human spirit is a daily occurrence.

*For John C, Campbell, Carl, Eddie, Hayden, James and Paolo and the others I  was privileged to have known for that short while*

"AIDS occupies such a large part in our awareness because of what it has been taken to represent. It seems the very model of all the catastrophes privileged populations feel await them."

(Susan Sontag)

"The global HIV/AIDS epidemic is an unprecedented crisis that requires an unprecedented response. In particular it requires solidarity -- between the healthy and the sick, between rich and poor, and above all, between richer and poorer nations. We have 30 million orphans already. How many more do we have to get, to wake up?"

(Kofi Annan)

www.worldaidsday.org

www.tht.org.uk 

www.avert.org/children.htm 

www.one.org 

susshivchap@gmail.com

"One"  U2

"We're one, but we're not the same;
We get to carry each other
Carry each other"
(Paul Hewson / Bono)

The Mother of all Headaches

"Give me wings to get to the point"

(St Teresa of Avila)

Today is the feast day of St Teresa of Avila, the Spanish-born mystic, reformer of the Carmelite Order and Doctor of the Catholic Church (see earlier post: "The Friendship of God", April 2012). 

Although she produced some of the most remarkable mystical writings, she retained a down to earth manner of communion with both her peers and God. She told her Sisters: "If you do something wrong, don't punish yourself - change!" A lady after my own heart, her reply to criticism that she preferred to eat well was that there is a time for partridge and a time for penance. Although obviously I would prefer a bean burger and a bar of chocolate. One of her most quoted offerings, "Nada te Turbe (Let Nothing Disturb You)", is still popular in Spain and beyond, as a meditative chant, a ballad or even as a Flamenco guitar solo.
The patron saint of those in need of grace as well as those ridiculed for their piety, she is also patron of headache and migraine sufferers! My migraine today is probably due as much to my own intolerance of my neighbours' high-spirits yesterday as it is to any particular clamour they were making. St Teresa's "Prayer for Virtue" is as stoical as it is inspiring: where is it written that saints can't have a sense of humour? I would have thought it was a pre-requisite.

(This little post is especially for Catriona McGlynn and her lovely mum; but also for all those with headaches today...)

St Teresa's "Prayer for Virtue"

"Lord,

Thou knowest better than I myself

that I am growing older and will someday be old. 

Keep me from the fatal habit of thinking 

I must say something on every subject and on every occasion. 

Release me from craving to 

straighten out everybody’s affairs. 

Make me thoughtful but not moody; 

helpful but not bossy.

With my vast store of wisdom, 

it seems a pity not to use it all; 

but Thou knowest, Lord, 

that I want a few friends at the end. 

Keep my mind free from the recital of endless details:

give me wings to get to the point. 

Seal my lips on my aches and pains; 

they are increasing, and love of rehearsing them 

is becoming sweeter as the years go by.

I dare not ask for improved memory, 

but for a growing humility and a lessening cock-sureness 

when my memory seems to clash with the memories of others. 

Teach me the glorious lesson that occasionally I may be mistaken. 

Keep me reasonably sweet, for a sour old person 

is one of the crowning works of the devil. 

Give me the ability to see good things in unexpected places 

and talents in unexpected people; 

and give, O Lord, the grace to tell them so.

Amen."

"Nada te Turbe"  as sung for meditation on retreat at Taize, France (2009)

"Yours are the eyes through which

Christ looks compassion into the world.

Yours are the feet

with which Christ walks to do good."

(St Teresa of Avila)