Glossolalia at the Greengrocers'

A long time ago, when I worked in financial services, I was invited to the monthly meeting of a Christian (they said) brokerage.

They had guitars.

The meeting opened, properly enough, with prayers, and the chairman then asked if anyone would like to prophesy.

The young man next to me stood, closed his eyes, and in a dreamy voice said, "El Shadai, Shadai...aż ażaażażaż....." (ż like the 's' in measure) and continued in this vein for about a minute, passing his hands in front of him like Tommy Cooper when performing a conjuring trick.

He then said, in English, that someone at the meeting was cheating his wife and must stop now.

He started the gobbledook again, but was interrupted by the chairman, who said the meeting must continue. So much for the Holy Spirit.

Interestingly, the investment plan they were meeting to discuss paid 90% commsiion to the salesman in the first year, leaving only 10% to be invested for the client.

Very Christian.

I have since often wondered how glossolalia would work in the retail trade.

Scene: A greengrocer's on Saturday morning.

Me: Two pounds of apples, please, but are they English?
Assistant: Ash bash! Wurgle slorm. Pluffa pluffah ploo."
Me: I beg you pardon?
Second Assistant: Do you want me to interpret her prophecy?
Me: Yes please.
Second Assistant: She says that if you do not avail yourself of the choice fruits, your habitation shall be an dunghill in a place of desolation. Your name shall be as an abomination to the people of this city, and you shall -
Me: Aghhhhhhhhhhhhh! (Boards in panic a passing bus, and exit).

If the Archangel Raphael (Milton's affable Archangel) came to me in person to persuade me of the holiness and worth of this gibberish, I would plead invincible ignorance and beg for mercy.

THE FRUITS OF VATICAN II: There were no fruits from doctrine, or from obedience blind.

 More doggerel from Smirk






Into the fields to harvest
The fruits of Vatican II!
We are the Easter People
And we the Church renew.
"What are these fruits," you ponder,
That you so keenly reap?"
We've Joy and Love and Wonder -
Let Faith and Reason sleep!

There were no fruits from doctrine
Or from obedience blind,
But we are now so fruity,
It sometimes blows our mind.
We speak in tongues and prophesy
"Yah! Bliffer Blaffer Bloo!"
The Spirit so baptises us,
That all we say is true.

We don't need popes and bishops
We've each got Direct Lines
To our heavenly Big Daddy,
So we are all divines.
When Roma loquitur, we know
Causa is not at end
We may accept Rome's opinion
If it suits the latest trend.

The Fathers of the Council
Said, "From the experts, seek
The wisdom of the worldly
The freedom of the freak!"
We've done it: See how worldly
And freaky are we all!
At every Mass there's schmalz and slop -
Don't we just have a ball!


Oh let the Rhinish water
Into the Tiber flow,
And Luther's vermicular food
On us his strength bestow.
Huss, Henry 8, Barth, Nietzche, Pan
Mohammed, Buddha, Kung
They offer us their treasures -
Let us their glories tongue.

That lovely lady Brosselmans
Said Mass is like Diwali
Or Eid ul Fatr festival -
That's really up our alley.
Now ours is really a shebang
With loud and joyful praise.
Who needs old-fashioned reverence
When we our voices raise

In gibberish and rigmarole,
"Oh wazza wazza whizz!"
And pogo up and down the aisle
While the celebrant does his biz?
Oh sweet to the Ears of Abba dear
Is our loud hullabaloo,
A glorious Harvest Home for us,
We fruits of Vatican II!

(Tune: We Plough the Fields and Scatter")

Twistory or a Plea for Clarification

Almost all recent references to the 1939-1945 War seem to refer to it as against the Nazis, or Nazi Germany or, less commonly, against the axis powers.

Considering the low percentage of Germans who were members of the Nazi party (I have read between 3% to 5%, but am very open to correction), it is remarkable that the war lasted as long as it did.

Perhaps it is now a 'racist' 'hate crime' to say that we were fighting Germany.

Or am I missing something?

Odi ergo sum

It seems it is time for me to "come out", not as a non-heterosexual, but as a horrible old man, a totally unreconstructed bigot, and, moreover,  proud of it. I rage far beyond the constraints of charity.

Thanks to the ever-vigilant Mundabor - http://mundabor.wordpress.com/2011/05/28/lesbian-scorned-tries-to-kill-baby-in-the-wom/ for this repellent story, printed in the pink paper -  p://news.pinkpaper.com/NewsStory.aspx?id=5421 The pink paper is worth reading, but not buying, once, just to get the idea of its agenda.

I have long cherished the idea, which someone attributed to St Augustine,  that the Blessed in Heaven will be allowed to witness the eternal sufferings of the damned, so that they may rejoice in the Perfect Justice of the Almighty. An unworthy and preumptuous hope which I should try, of course, to repudiate.

Those who would sully or debauch the young, whether bishops, other clergy, religious, teachers, parents,  legislators, or officials who help them in the evil they do, aborters, compulsive serial sex-educators, the list is very long: "Better a millstone were hanged about their necks" as Jesus said.

I knew a few of these people when I worked for homeless charities. One worker at a hostel for young men sticks in my mind. On Monday morning he came into the office, bubbling with excitement. He had the night before (Sunday!) been to a performance at a pub well-known to homosexuals. There he had watched a floorshow, in which, he claimed, a man was '******'    ** ** *** *****simultaneously by two other men. He relayed all this with great glee to staff and clients alike.

This, apparently, is what the British government, supported by at least one Archbishop as it seems, requiress our children and grandchildren to learn about in school. The same appears to be true in the rest of Western Europe.

Hungary, with its new very Christian Constitution, and Poland, are under attack for preserving Christian Civilisation, the rights of the family and the lives of the unborn. Their attackers, of course are the "Human Rights" racket in the Hague, the ever-interfering UN, and Amnesty International, which will never get a penny from me.

And now I must bite my tongue.

An Oasis of Cool

For those for whom the recurrent, rebarbative, rancid raging of the deranged author of this blog is de trop, may I recommend an oasis, of calm, of 'cool', indeed:  'The Hermeneutic of Cool'?

http://bishopsmirk.blogspot.com/2011/05/reinstate-gorgonzola-now.html

I'm not sure whether Smirk understands what "hermeneutic" means, but what the...?

YUP, WE BUGGED HELL! NOT NICE, NOT NICE AT ALL!

The lords of Pandemonium, when at dinner
Have choice of every kind of deadly sinner.
Who knows what most delights their debased palate,
The bloody tyrant, or perverted prelate?

Said Satan seated at the nightly feast,
"I'll have the Bishop, Beelzy, you the Priest."
Beelzebub replied with face downcast,
"You get the heretic, I the pederast."

From Belial, "Think how Bodily Ressurection
"Will so enhance our great House of Correction.
The shrieking soul, with cringing flesh complete,
Basted, crisped, quivering on a piping plate."

I AM A THINKING CATHOLIC

I am a Thinking Catholic, above the vulgar strife
Of those pontificating ranters, Smeaton's SPUC, and LIFE,
Who drone about abortion, and sex-ed, as they keep
The Narrow Way of bigotry, and bore us all to sleep.

For mine is not the Narrow Way, of carping bile and scorn
-I am an Easter Person, and know that we were born
For Joy, Compassion, Peace, and Love, Inclusiveness and Truth
(Nuanced, of course, not rigorously red in nail and tooth).


Oh how I loathe the "traddies"! They're such dingy little dorks,
Their manners less than pleasing - can they handle knives and forks?
Suburban, lower middle-class, grey, narrow-minded squirts!
Were I less sensitive, urbane, I'd kick them where it hurts.

But I hurt with all those women whom the Catholic Church denies
The role of Priesthood: mournful, shrill, I hear their plangent cries
For recognition, Ministry, the rights they rightly crave,
While round them the embattled hordes of Tridentiners rave.

So please do not embarrass me with talk of foetal pain,
There are politer issues: Intolerance the main.
Clericalism, Latinism, homophobes,  small of mind
Who make the Church seem common, They're really not our kind!

I am a Modern Catholic. Papal Infallibility,
A human construct, fallible, or so it seems to me,
Conceived by paranoia, while Rome was under threat
Enacted by a Pope it would be nicer to forget.

I am a Catholic Christian, elegant, suave and grand.
My name has some authority, my voice is warm and bland,
And when I speak on BBC, or blog, or give support
To Thinking Bishops, remember! Respect me as you ought.

I am no ignorant Papist Mick, but went to Public School,
Belong to an Exclusive Club, enjoy un jeu de boules,
Have a second home in Tuscany, not far from You Know Who,
And unlike the Catholic Taliban, I know a Thing Or Two.

Three Little Vampires or The Dangers of Excessive Enthusiasm

(Translated from the Polish)


Three little vampires, just old enough to leave their mother, fly away to the forest and roost in the top of a tall tree with a good view of the surrounding countryside. After a day or two, they are getting hungry, and decide that the the eldest should be first to go in search of blood.

He flies off, and returns three hours later, his face smeared with blood and a big smile.

"So how did you get on?" ask the other two.

"You see that town in the east?"

"Yes."

"There's not a soul left alive there."

The second eldest flies off to try his luck, and returns two hours later, grinning, with blood all over his face.

"How did it go?" ask the other two.

"You see that town to the west?"

"Yes."

"There's not a soul left alive there."

The youngest, greatly excited, and very hungry, flies off, and returns ten minutes later, blood all over his face and chest.

"And?" they ask.

"You see that tree to the south?"

"Yes."

"Well I didn't"

Why the aversion to SPUC?

There seems to be an aversion amongst some Catholics to SPUC and John Smeaton.

Does anyone have any idea why?

Yes, I'm still alive,

but very busy.

Jerome K. Jerome on the Germans

In Three Men on the Bummel , Jerome lauds the German people for their obedience and desire to conform with the law.  He describes them as morally probably the best people in the world. He than adds a remarkably prescient comment:

        "Hitherto, the German has had the blessed fortune to be exceptionally well governed; if this continue, it will go well with him. When his troubles will begin will be when by any chance something goes wrong with the governing machine."


—Chapter XIV

Henry Cooper - R.I.P.

In 1972, when I was teaching in the London Borough of Brent, our school, a "sink school" (though I was very happy there) in Harlesden, invited Henry Cooper to open its fundraising Spring Fair.

He came, opened it, and stayed for the whole event, spending his own money, talking to the kids, and signing autographs.

Quiet, modest, a Papal Knight, and ever the gentleman.

The International Corporation - A Scourge

This is nothing, a mere parody of W. S. Landor's execrable, smug:

I strove with none, for none was worth my strife.
Nature I loved, and next to Nature, Art.
I warmed both hands before the fire of Life.
It sinks - and I am ready to depart.

I have no particular company or person in mind.

I strove with none, but stabbed them in the back.
Power I loved, and next to power, cash.
With you - when your economy's on track,
It falters, and I'm gone - quick as a flash!

A Rabbi's Perspective on Osama's Death

This is very temperate and wise, after reading the gloating comments from some fellow-Catholics about bin Laden in Hell.
http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/1507393/jewish/Is-It-Okay-to-Celebrate-Bin-Ladens-Death.htm

I hope, as St Thomas More said, that we shall all meet merrily in Heaven.

Stick that in your politically-correct,environmentally-friendly, non-alcoholic bedtime beverage and smoke it, pacifists.

Lent is well over, and with it my abstinence from uncharity, ad hominem attacks, and general nastiness. So here goes:

That Wedding.

Of no interest to me, as in the absence of a Catholic monarch, I am a republican.

Had the current queen refused to sign the 1967 abortion act or abdicated, I would probably have been out there with a flag of some kind.

Osama Bin Laden

I am glad, if he is guilty as reputed, that he is dead and no longer a threat. However I hope he is not in Hell, and shall continue to pray for his soul, being of the seemingly unfashionable opinion that, if he acted in accordance with his conscience, and really believed he was fighting "the Great Satan" in the name of God, the Almighty will understand better that we do.

I have no such hopes for Hitler, Stalin, Beria, Abortion supporters, child-molesters, etc. etc.

Perhaps in my general old-fashioned nastiness, I understand a little of the Muslim attitude to the West. For example, I support the death penalty, and would be happy to see it applied to murderers, abortionists, rapists, and terrorists.

Had I been alive, competent, and in a position so to do, I would have had no compunction in using nuclear weapons against the Ottoman empire at any time during its existence in Europe, the Prussia/Germany of Bismarck, of the Kaiser, or of Hitler, or indeed the Soviet Union when it was not in possession of a nuclear armoury.

Stick that in your environmentally-friendly, non-alcoholic bedtime beverage and smoke it, pacifists.

Two More Stories, From The Jewish Side This Time

Two more stories, from the Jewish Side. Please read to the end.

http://www.chabadmineola.com/templates/articlecco_cdo/aid/1506646/jewish/The-Whip-The-Siddur-A-Holocaust-Survivor-Sobering-Thought.htm

http://www.jewishideasdaily.com/content/module/2011/5/2/main-feature/1/calibrating-darkness/e

One Jewish Child Remembered

Another story. Please read it to the end.
http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/579688/jewish/One-Child-Remembered.htm

Forgive and forget?

I may forgive what was done to me. How can I forgive what was done to another?

Another 2 Stories Told Only That They May Not Be Lost

Let Nothing Be Lost

The Grandmother of one of my best Liceum students told me this:

She was 12 when the Germans invaded Poland. She, her brother, and her parents were to be sent to Sachenhausen concentation camp. On arrival at the local assembly point, the mother pointed out that the children, when arrested, had left their shoes at home. The German in charge (whatever he was, he was clearly not very clever) allowed the children to walk home to fetch the shoes. They walked away instead to the forest.

The parents died in Sachsenhausen.

Like Jósef, and so many children, she and her brother took to the forest near Lidzbark, dug a shelter, and lived in it intermittently for 4 years while begging food and shelter at isolated houses. The dug-out still exists: my student has seen it.

Another lady I know in her eighties, who was a 14 year-old nurse during the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, witnessed the murder of her brother, shot through the head by a passing German soldier, who just felt like it.

I suppose he had had a bad day.

A Story Told Only That It May Not Be Lost

Having been a financial services salesman (heh!), but an honest one, one of my few and minute skills is getting people to talk about themselves. It has helped me a lot, both as a homelessness worker and as a teacher.

A lot of my Polish friends are younger than me, and a lot are older, and so perhaps to me more interesting. An 80 year-old friend named Jósef, a Catholic, told me this:

When the Germans invaded Poland in 1939, Jósef was aged 12 and his brother 14 months. The father had an old army carbine, which he buried in the garden for possible future use against the Germans. A neighbour, uncharacteristically for a Pole (see Norman Davis, passim), saw him bury it, and reported the fact to the Germans, and mother and father were taken to Oświęcim and gassed. (Yes, I know the Germans and the world call it something else, but I will use only its Polish name.)

Jósef, carrying his little brother fled to the forest and nearly starved, creeping at night from house to house for food and shelter. Somehow they survived until 1944, and the Soviet 'liberation'. They are still both alive, well, and happy.

Under the post-war communist stalinist puppet government, as a soldier he could not declare his Catholicism, or marry in Church, so a civil ceremony had to do until times got easier. He and his wife, an ex-policewoman, are still married and as soppily in love as any two newlyweds.

God be praised!

A FOOL

There was a man - let's call him Bill
Whose big fault: over-fond
Of trying to look over the farthest hill
And glimpse what lay beyond.

Thinking the New would keep him young,
The Normal his chiefest foe,
He became a connoisseur of what
Nobody needs to know.

He had a wife, sweet children, friends
Who thought him good, contented,
But ever this ears rang with far-away songs
And laughter, until half-demented

He packed his rucksack in the night
And left his sleeping house.
"Like Tennyson's Ulysses," he thought.
His wife called him a louse.

He could have read, searched the internet,
To satisfy his rage
And curiosity, but always fled
The oblivion of old age.

Yet what we flee finds us at last
Time cannot be defrauded.
With money we can be misers, but
Hours cannot be so hoarded.

His boundless mind invincible,
He thought, would see him through.
Death found him foolish, loveless, lost,
But what a lot he knew!

Now in the coldest waste in Hell
Where none love, know, or remember
He gnaws the bone of of one worthless fact,
A dry, grey, burned-out ember.