Author: Mother

I anticipate, with pleasure, the receipt of “round robin” letters at Christmas.  Reading reviews of how friends and families have found the year can be enlightening, entertaining and enjoyable.  It can also be something of an endurance test.

There is an unwritten code of conduct to which all letter writers should adhere.  It distinguishes those who give life, from those who drain it; it separates individuals who brighten one’s day and bring hope, from those who inflict their self-obsessed negativity and insidious poison on any and all.  It is simply how the task should be done.

So, dear reader, for the benefit of those of us who never, ever again wish to be inundated with a stream of consciousness from the tiresome (God loves you; He’ll listen), here is “Mother’s Code of Conduct for Christmas Letter Writing”.  Disobey it at your peril.

* Do write cheerfully and positively.

* Do bear in mind that the minutiae of your life, whilst absorbing to you, should only be included in letters if it is entertaining.

* Do appreciate that boasting by e-mail, or snail mail, is as deeply unattractive as when it is done in person.

* Do remember your audience; you are writing for them and not for yourself.  So, guillotine the self indulgence.

* Do include updates and expect recipients to remember them.  So, do more than change the date in the following year’s epistle!

* Do remind yourself that the previous point also applies to photographs; images of you circa 1973 are not going to fool any one.

* Do be courteous and generous; airing your dirty laundry, irrational prejudices and/or smutty “humour” in public is not big and it isn’t clever.

* Do proof-read your missive prior to sending it; the odd mistake is acceptable, whilst a litany of them displays an unattractive air of carelessness and/or complacency.

* Do live well during the year, so that you have new, exciting and interesting snippets to share.

* Do pen your contribution in a manner which would please your mother or a virtuous maiden aunt.

* Do write; remember, “sharing is caring”.

* Do bless your friends and family with love, sincerity, honesty, wisdom and peace.

Happy Christmas Letter Writing!

En-route to work yesterday, I sat by a table and wrote a letter – long overdue – to a friend.  Engaged as I was, I suddenly became aware of a gentleman standing by the seat next to me.  Whilst I (and my fellow train passengers) watched, said gentleman picked up the seat and inspected beneath it before replacing it, all without uttering a single word!

When he sat down and removed his newspaper from his bag, I remarked upon the unusual nature of his actions.  He calmly replied, “Well, it gets the morning off to an interesting start,” before serenely opening his paper and reading it.

One simply couldn’t make it up!

What the world needs now is not love, sweet love; well, certainly not what is regarded as love in common parlance.  (But, that is a whole other blog.)  What the world needs now is humility, honest and sincere humility – by the bunker load.

The lack of humility, which manifests itself as arrogance, rudeness, naked ambition, soaring egotism, discrimination, prejudice, cruelty, colossal selfishness (and I could go on!) blinds and binds individuals, communities and societies.

Interestingly, the lack of humility always finds a common expression amongst it proponents.  The common expression is the attack (multi-dimensional) of anyone who has faith.  Even individuals who profess a faith themselves can and do lack humility to such an extent that they attempt to justify the arrogant bullying of “others into the right way of thinking”; those “others” who were happily engaged in their own business!

What has happened to an individual’s right to be and believe? If a person’s faith/belief system is unobtrusive and harmless to others – what rationale or incentive does anyone have to attack it?

I have just spent an imposed fortnight with three atheists – and how very tedious they truly were.

They discovered, through interrogation on day one, that I have a faith.  Every day, since that time, they have debated with each other the impossibility of religion.  Dissatisfied that I do not engage in their ridiculous and illogical discussions, they have asked me questions and been baffled by my responses.  (I have absolutely no desire to share the after-life, in which they claim not to believe, with these people and have not the slightest inkling to evangelise.)

Interestingly, it has come to light that one was raised by very religious parents, the second has his children at faith schools and is fascinated by theology, whilst the third speaks fondly of witnessing the delightful devotion of the faithful whenever he is abroad.

Clearly, these three atheists (like Richard Dawkins) lack the humility to acknowledge the truth.  No-one, who truly disbelieves something, wastes irreplaceable and obsessively long periods of a finite existence focussing upon it.  That is madness.