Tuesday, December 16, 2025

16th December 2025

 

North Stoke: Abbot Illtud

I picked up on this whilst swaning through my blogs.  I used to love the stories of the Celtic monks/saints as they performed magical acts.  They must have wandered the countryside preaching their version of Christianity.  Stopping at places and banging their 'bangu' a bell, to draw the natives in.  Sometimes they must have slept in the old cromlechs, a rock roof over their heads.

A solitary existence sometimes, taking to their boats and sailing round the coastline, so that we find evidence of them in Ireland, West Wales, Cornwall and Brittany.  They lived on the edge of society, joining the pagan world with the Catholic rule that came from Rome.

I have often wondered why so many men took to this way of life but I expect a surplus of males when not involved in territorial war had to find another way of life.  These young men took to the roads or the few monastic houses that were being set up, for a livelihood.

Now religion is once again crashing through our perception of the world.  The shooting of innocent lives at Bondi beach in Australia at the beginning of a Jewish religious festival and the consequent deaths hang heavily in the air.

Hatred rules this act, two Muslim terrorists, hate filled, took guns, and shot at will, until a brave Muslim man intervened and took down one of the terrorists.  I brood on the act whilst listening to the birds outside at 7.30 in the morning.  It is still dark but the blackbird and little blue tits? sing away as if Spring was on the way.  Joyous in their song but sadly wrong time for spring.

Trump is going on a colonists march, he has South America in his sight. FFS if there is a god please let him bring the Monty Python foot down on all these stupid machinations that are coming out of America. 

I think I shall return to reading gardening books, Christopher Lloyd or maybe Gertrude Jekyll, they lived in their serene world uninterrupted by world affairs.

Jam and Jerusalem rose


1 comment:

  1. It is as sad time for my country. The hatred of Jews is mostly from the uninformed and ignorant and some Muslims. More than one year of protest marches against Israel's dreadful actions in Gaza seems to have stirred something more than just Muslim hatred of Jews. Of course hypocrites like extreme right politician like Pauline Hanson, who would be against both Jewish and Muslim immigration, sides with Jews, at the moment. She is not a friend to Jews. I lived in an area with the highest Melbourne Jewish population for nine years and what the average Australian doesn't realise, is that most Jewish people in Australia are just like Australians of many generations. But without a beard, or a headscarf and long dress, people don't realise other people are Jewish. Sorry for using your blog for my own rant.

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