Edited:  written after midnight.  Some of my tag categories do not reflect the changes today.  Sometimes they do, but not today.  Angry, me?  Hurt at inconsistency, me?

1.  Yesterday morning on the bus to Heathrow (nearest tube), somehow I remembered the Gilbert and Sullivan line, “If everyone’s a somebody, then no one’s anybody”.

Many creeds and philosophies, including Christianity, insist that we are all someone in the eyes of God.  I don’t know the whole operetta or the context of these words or the writer’s intention, but there have been times when I have thought of the ‘madding crowd’ and taken these words as a contradiction of the ‘we are all equals’ position.  I have thought ‘yes, that is true, and how sad, that so many people press to be somebody that true greatness/quality/dignity is suppressed/frowned on/not recognised and respected’. But this time I thought of the quotation and berated myself/felt ashamed for being such a snob.  I thought ‘if everyone’s a somebody, then no one’s anybody – yes, exactly, and thank goodness for that.  That is the point.  Everybody IS somebody and no one is more special than anyone else, and that is a good thing’.  I am sure there must be a balance.  Recognising you are a somebody and pushing to be somebody are two different things.  When you push to be somebody you often put other people down in your own need to shine.  But when you know you are somebody and also that so is everyone else, you can let people be.

2.  The other one was the Bible, Psalm 1







Especially verses 1 and 2 I was thinking of.

I was watching the BBC News Channel and thought that retrospectively I understood why I had thought of those verses.  There was a lot about the situation at St Paul’s Cathedral, and I thought they were playing the role of the fool or court jester of Shakespeare’s time, mocking and mimicking.  Two of them were even wearing harlequin ties.  I felt sorry for the staff of St Paul’s and for their confusion.  I am sure they are intelligent people and know they are being mocked in the media, on reflection.  At the time I felt sorry for them because I thought they were getting confused being exposed to the mockery and not realising what it was, but they must do.

I don’t know any of the people there, but I can’t understand why the Dean felt his position there was untenable given the circumstances, and why he felt he had to resign.  I can’t really understand all the confusion they seem to be feeling and am personally sorry that he has resigned.  Maybe he felt torn between the demonstrators and the people objecting to them being there.

There have been times I wanted to go and join the demonstrators myself.  I have felt it would be an honour to be evicted from the property for what they are demonstrating over.  I’ve also wondered how much I am being manipulated by the media into thinking that way.  Apparently drink and drugs are involved now and I wouldn’t want to be associated with that.

All the news people going with the WWJD angle, as if it really matters to them, and the people being interviewed coming back with easy answers like he would be out talking to the crowds and wouldn’t call the police.  Apparently it isn’t the church that is seeking the injunction anyway.  The church should be this and the church should be that . . . but in a situation like this it is probably not so cut and dried.

I felt sorry for the Dean when he said he found it hard that the demonstrators seemed to think that he didn’t believe what they believed just because he didn’t express it the same way, and the man to his left started whispering into his girlfriend’s ear and messing around.  I saw the way he looked at them afterwards.  He seemed to feel frustrated.  The man was not for listening and was all for distracting his girl.

I would like to be there with the demonstrators, though.  The only way I could know if it is what I really want would be to go there.