ON REVIEWING PAST ENTRIES

I have been reviewing some of the previous most read blog entries. There is one from four years ago on Monday, 1st March 2021, entitled Angry, Upset and Bitter. It is essentially about the scamming and dishonesty that was proliferating, during the pandemic in particular, and that has not abated since. It has become even more insidious given the scale of cyber blackmail that seems to be affecting major companies and institutions. But the tragedy of the acceptance of dishonesty within the general public and the rise of overt shoplifting is the saddest development. The election of Trump is the most tragic example of the acquiescence to criminality by a general population.

Another blog that attracted numerous readers was posted on Saturday 15th May 2021 entitled, A Question Of Judgment. It referred to the United States Supreme Court and some of its past deplorable decisions and the outrageous hypocrisy and moral bankruptcy  of Senators Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz and Mitch McConnell over the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Bench. Her role in the debacle of Roe-v-Wade will not be forgotten, particularly with her evasions on questions put to her during her confirmation hearing about that very case. These Senators are still with us and still just as reactionary, hypocritical and mendacious as ever. I include McConnell particularly because despite his sometime clashes with Trump he has done nothing to actively prevent him from running for office as he should and could have during Trump’s second impeachment.

Other popular postings include one on Monday the 28th June 2021, entitled A Rambling Reminiscence and another on Friday 25th June 2021 entitled Teachings of a Man Made Church?. The Rambling Reminiscence was just that and covered an extensive recall of events in our lives and also included a covid chart published in the Express, showing the current state of the UK deaths and hospital admissions rate at the time as well as an MSNBC account of the Orwellian dangers continuing as a result of the 6th January 2021 insurrection. 

As to Teachings of a Man Made Church?, you will note the question mark. It was inspired by a report that President Biden had been refused communion during a Church service because of his stance on abortion. It was a mater in which he had no choice as he had sworn to preserve protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, the first amendment of which states: 

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

I commented at the time:
As president Mr Biden therefore has no authority to interfere with or indeed express an opinion on religious matters, or in particular, the will of God. What Mr Biden supports is the individual citizen’s right to choose what religion, or not, they wish to follow and how they choose to lead their religious and moral lives. Religion therefore has no place in politics, nor in the secular education of the nation.  The citizen is free to choose. That is what is of paramount importance, and that is what Mr Biden is protecting and defending. How he personally feels about abortion has nothing to do with it. He is duty bound to support the 1st Amendment, no matter how difficult it may be for him personally.
The sad thing is that the clergy confuse the issue of abortion as being against the teachings of the church, and not a decision to be made by the individual concerned. Choices are individual judgements and resolutions made after considerable thought. The matter of terminating a pregnancy has never, in my view, ever been a matter for the bishops to pronounce upon as if it were the word of God. Whatever the teachings of the Church might be, it is man-made education and not the word of, or the definitive will, of God. Indeed, for a religious catholic to decide on a termination of a pregnancy, that decision having been made in consultation with God, would clearly be the will of God. Consultation with God is not consultation with a Clergyman of whatever denomination. The clergy are not God, despite their desire to give the impression that they are the voice of God. They are not. Consultation with God is with one’s conscience. It is usually an internal conversation and can have many outcomes. It is not for any individual or government to “prohibit the free exercise thereof.”
If God is love and forgiveness, then for any priest to deny communion to any catholic because of a difference of opinion, is in complete contravention of the teaching of Christ and they should be defrocked and drummed out of the church. Again, the teachings of the Church are not the word of God. They are the word of man, and that is always open to question. If the United States of America, is to call itself ‘one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all’, then it is the will of God that individuals have the right to choose. No man can, nor should, interfere in that.

I have not changed my opinion since then. It is a mater of belief and what we chose to believe. Unfortunately some people chose some rather disturbing things to believe. It is a question of fact and fiction. As to memories and going through past entries, I am reminded of the true nature of writing as expressed by Oscar Wilde:

CECILY. - I keep a diary in order to enter the wonderful secrets of my life. If I didn’t write them down, I should probably forget all about them.
MISS PRISM. - 
Memory, my dear Cecily, is the diary that we all carry about with us.
CECILY.
 - Yes, but it usually chronicles the things that have never happened, and couldn’t possibly have happened. I believe that Memory is responsible for nearly all the three-volume novels that Mudie sends us.
MISS PRISM.
- Do not speak slightingly of the three-volume novel, Cecily. I wrote one myself in earlier days.
CECILY.
 - Did you really, Miss Prism? How wonderfully clever you are! I hope it did not end happily? I don’t like novels that end happily. They depress me so much.
MISS PRISM.
 - The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what Fiction means.
 

You will note the reference to Mudie, which is now mostly lost on us. It refers to Charles Edward Mudie (18 October 1818 – 28 October 1890), English publisher and founder of Mudie's Lending Library and Mudie's Subscription Library, was the son of a second-hand bookseller and newsagent. Mudie's efficient distribution system and vast supply of texts revolutionised the circulating library movement, while his "select" library influenced Victorian middle-class values and the structure of the three-volume novel. He was also the first publisher of James Russell Lowell’s's Poems in England, and of Emerson’s Man Thinking.

The three-volume novel (sometimes three-decker or triple decker) was a standard form of publishing for British fiction during the nineteenth century. It was a significant stage in the development of the modern novel as a form of popular literature in Western Culture..