Hope, hope and hope

Monday 2nd November, 2020

This morning was sad for me. I went to Church for the last Eucharist of our excellent Parish Priest. He has reached 70 and taken retirement. He looked both sad and relieved. I do not think he is a well man and has had medical problems. Yet he also has a real sense of duty and love for his people. He has been an excellent sermoniser and a man with a kind, pastoral, caring and compassionate heart. He celebrated the Feast of All Souls. He spoke of the continuing bond between us and the dead, how they are also the living. He said it better than that and it made me feel at one with all being, all creation. He held out hope as a virtue of substance.

The readings included much about hope. Hope is real, hope is to be trusted.  I felt transported in to another dimension beyond the simply material in to a world of the spirit, the imagination, the reality of dimensions beyond our finite selves. I felt fortunate to feel such.

I later sent an email to an old friend saying it is the world of story, of the imagination as well as a world of the rational, we cannot exclude either.

After the service I met an old and beloved friend and had a picnic breakfast. She had exciting news for me about the possibilities of living alone. I am at heart a recluse but being such is expensive and I have little. Yet I hope....

I took a walk this afternoon via the library. I returned two books and took two out. I tried to find out the restrictions of the new tier system in Scotland and locally. It was rumoured that I was not allowed in to Dundee. It is all so confusing. Panic and fear exaggerate yet also one needs to know what exactly is allowed or not.

I read an excellent recent lecture by Lord Sumption given at Cambridge University. He mapped out the major attacks on civil liberties and freedoms of the present system of lockdown, control and such like. It was worrying especially when I read of Trump standing for such liberties as thousands die in the USA. What a dilemma it is for all. There is no magic wand. There are horrendous medical consequences and horrendous problems facing the NHS. A friend has been gazumped in the operation world and may now be too late to save her life as her cancer has so advanced. What is the case, the truth of so much one hears....I know not. I hope the best is being done.

After the library I walked. I had seen two herons earlier in the morning flying together. I have never seen it before. Nor have I seen herons land on harvested fields but they both did. Then back to my usual walk through a park...the cygnets have flown, the herons were in the trees, the duck and moorhens and coots were as ever and the trees were lighted up by the strong low sun. It was beautiful.

The sunset has also been stunning. Weirdly the theme of hope and togetherness which has been with me and my thoughts all day were especially enhanced by the setting colours of the evening.

All Souls...everyone living and dead is part of this whole mystical, magical, inspiring creation. It is indeed a story of the divine.