'Super Saturday'

Sunday 5th July, 2020

So 'super Saturday' happened in England yesterday. As ever it is impossible to get a factual and reliable overall picture of how it went. The warnings of mayhem and chaos against the sober comments that the release was needed for the health of the Nation. Looking online at various news websites the division between disaster and success continued: photographs of a crowded Soho street in London with a policeman's remark 

'Drunks do not observe distancing' were counteracted by people in Gloucestershire, Manchester and elsewhere with their drinks, socially distancing and behaving with total decorum.

This morning I caught up on a saturday newspaper with which I am politically and socially usually out of sympathy. Some of the articles were irritatingly reactionary but the Editorial and two other pieces caught my attention. The Editorial was in favour of the Government's loosening of the restraints as more freedom was needed for the good of individuals and the psyche of the Country. Added to this one writer noted how so far all the mistakes had been made by Government ( and he catalogued seven) but now the onus was being put on the public. If things go wrong it will be the public's fault for not showing restraint and common sense. With a side swipe at Cummings, the PM's Father and a few others of the elite the writer was indignant that 'they' were setting up the public for the blame. Another writer wrote of her household and of the Nation as being made up of "two tribes, often living in the same household...the Gung Ho! And the No Brigade". 

I think the last is true of my household but really the common factor is that we both want to see the virus under control, the country back in good standing and heart and a new Britain with concerns for many issues such as Climate, Pollution, poverty and concern for humanity. Of course, how is this to be achieved? It is a tight rope. We must each individually work out what is the best way to live our lives. We may have to make sacrifices of our freedom or we may have to make sacrifices for freedom. ' No man is an island' as Donne noted. Every action has a consequence. However little or insignificant our lives they do form part of the whole. Undoubtedly we matter.

So today I have finished four letters, streamed Mass at which I heard an inspiring sermon on racial justice, I have baked two soda bread loaves, picked my first courgette, which was the greatest of thrills, and now I contemplate mowing the lawn and taking a stroll and also the opportunity to continue reading Padraig O Tuama's In the Shelter, a book sent by a friend yesterday. 

Others in the household are hoovering, polishing, disinfecting...as a whole we just about work together but I feel I am not playing my full part. What part are we playing in the whole issue of the pandemic, the horrors of poverty, racism and injustice and we know what we do, think and say matters.