Friday 31 August 2012

An Attempt at a Personal Blogpost

Maybe it's just stats envy.  I've noticed how many other blog-writers don't concentrate on the important details of their exploding liturgy. They rarely even mention the way their services fall into chaos after badger invasions, or their problems when their entire fellowships fall into ditches.

No, instead they seem to focus on personal exploration, understanding how they relate to themselves and other people. It seems an odd way to behave to me, but clearly there's visits in it. So here goes. Ahem.

If you're like me, you often find the buzz of the modern world occasionally does your head in. Constantly being surrounded with half-wits means I lack true intellectual challenge. And let's face it, I'm not getting any younger. All I have to show for slightly less than half a century on the face of this planet is my parents' house, Young Keith, and a lucrative franchise fleecing the gullible spiritually unfulfilled. So it's not like I'm so comfortable in my own skin that I can disregard these more visible signs of my life-long failure.

It's at times like this that I find inner strength. Deep within, there is a secret, gentle place - a kind of safe room, if you will. It's a place I can withdraw to. Not for long periods of time, of course - after all, we must live in the real world.

In my safe place, I like to visualise all those people and situations that cause me stress. I can see them now - lined up with their smug expressions. And then there's the gormless ones that can't understand anything. I imagine Burton, trying to explain to me why I really ought to pay the right amount of tax, or the Beaker Quire trying to learn a fourth chord.

Of course, such a safe place needs some music. I normally like to imagine a Death Metal band in the corner of the room, just next to the wood-burning stove which I like to imagine using for burning books by Stanley Hauerwas.

And then, I imagine all of my problems away.

When I say imagine them away, of course, what I really mean is - I imagine chasing them away. Running screaming around my safe place with the old Slazenger V400, smacking Burton round the ankles... after five or six hours of such visualisation I find I can face the real world again.

Do you know, I feel better already, just thinking about it. I'm glad I've offered you this glimpse into my inner life. We should do this more often.

6 comments :

  1. Nos that wasn't too difficult, was it, Eileen? Welcome to the world of personal blogging....:-)

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    Replies
    1. Can't remember why I did it now. Oh - yeah, the stats!

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  2. The trouble with baring your soul to the world, is that you are also sharing with those very people who you despise and denigrate daily.

    It's a weakness, it makes you vulnerable and allows them to test that weakness in new ways, unimagined up to now. You're going to need protection.

    I know that St Paul said that we should put on the spiritual armour of Jesus Christ, but I envisage you, as a fairly agnostic type, putting on the Armour of King Arthur of Round Table fame.

    So, clanking around, with a sword, mace and the odd flail, I'd think that you were pretty well protected against the evil machinations of your minions.

    However, there will be one or two disadvantages to this. Firstly, you will over heat in the summer, slow cooking in the mildest of temperatures. In winter the steel plate will stick or freeze to your skins and be stiff and virtually disable your free movement. Worse of all, will be carrying out personal ablutions, particularly the WC.... I don't really want to delve to deeply into that aspect.

    The real disadvantage will be sleeping - all of that clanking will wake you every five minutes. And your ladylike snores will resound inside the helmet like bells in a bell tower, deafening you and waking you every five minutes.

    No, I think that option while strategic, will be untenable for more than five minutes. So, reliance on army surplus body armour and your trusty cricket bat and steel toe capped boots might have to be the solution.

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  3. .......and an AK47 under the bed for emergencies. Well it works for me.

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  4. I find death metalists - or thrash metalists - in my special place to be hazardous. Crockery gets vibrated off the dresser and the long hair can prove a fire risk around naked flames. Special places always have naked flames for some reason.

    Have you considered visualising Acker Bilk instead?

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