In the very early hours of my birthday I was woken suddenly by a power cut. Being the depths of mid winter everywhere was plunged into darkness, the heating conked out and there was an eery quietness. It reminded me that it was exactly a week until the Winter Solstice; that time when a glimmer of light appears on the horizon. It’s quite symbolic as we approach the end of Advent but of course that’s why the Church chose this time of year, the feast of mid winter, to celebrate the birth of Christ when in fact he was probably born in June!
Thanks for all the birthday wishes – so nice of you all to remember. I went to London to see a brand new exhibition on ABBA at the Festival Hall but it wasn’t that impressive for £20 per ticket.
On the train home I had to stand in the aisle and some bloke accused me of knocking over his girlfriends Coke; then a foul mouthed woman, her huge husband and kids came pushing down the aisle screaming at me “let us through instead of being so ignorant to be on your **** Facebook” I wouldn’t have minded but I wasn’t on my phone and I was appalled at her behaviour in front of her children and others.
I was still pretty seething this morning at the lack of manners, so told a friend who couldn’t believe
I was still affected by the incident, but his forgiveness and calm approach reminded me of the story of 2 Buddhist monks….
….they were walking in silence when they came across a distressed woman who needed to cross a raging river. One of the monks picked her up and left her on the other side. She left without a thankyou. 10 miles later when the monks reached their destination – still in silence – the other monk said:
“I must say you were very restrained not to reprimand that woman for treating you with contempt by not even thanking you”, to which the monk said:
“My dear brother, why are you still carrying her? I left her at the side of the river 10 miles ago”
Another life lesson learnt… I’ll try to be more like the first monk next time!
Please join me on Classic FM on the hour from 1300 on Sunday and/or for my final week after 4 months on BBC local radio this week, ending on 22 December. In the meantime let’s hold hands for an appropriate and beautiful chill out. And happy Winter Solstice on Thursday!
(Thanks to freeimages.com for the Buddhist monk pic)
Thank you for a lovely MMM.