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FOR SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS IN SCOTLAND |
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Bulletins
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Bulletin Intros
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Sponsors
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Aug, 2005
In the short term, luck can be blamed for life's fluctuations - but luck evens out. In the end, our life story is mostly chosen - our unconscious decides what we deserve - we make it happen. Loving relationships - rewarding work - holidays in the sun. Or abusive relationships - drudgery - chaos. Psychologists tell us the programme is set very early on in life. As wee people we get enough love or we don't. This is the real 'Big Lottery': whether we internalise a smiling or a frowning parent - who stays with us for life.People living on the streets almost all have difficulties with relationships - many were abused as children, or 'unclaimed' - naebody's bairn. Homelessness in the real sense is the inability to belong or stay anywhere. As a community worker going round the high rise flats- if the door had been kicked in a lot - if the smell reached the landing - we didn't knock that door. There's a level of poverty we recoil from because we fear people who have given up hope. If they have children we remove them. If they are violent we lock them up - but mostly their anger is turned inwards. The most distressing thing about working with the real homeless is that so many will kill themselves.On Wednesday I woke at 3am, very frightened. The 'bogeyman' had come to get me again - it happens a few times a year - less and less. In my drinking days I took the cognac to bed - sipped from the bottle - till the fear evaporated in fumes. Sober, it's more difficult. I lay and thought about love - people who would care about my distress. I'm not saying there was a whole bunch of them - but a few. Enough to calm me. Some people don't have enough. Not everyone makes it through the night. - Read full bulletin
Aug, 2005
In response to these weekly musings I often get e-mails urging me to 'pull myself together'. There are people who don't consider it 'seemly' to discuss 'weak' feelings like sadness and dread as though to 'own' such emotions is to succumb to them. In 1937, Scott Fitzgerald wrote a brilliant uncompromising account of his experience of the deep discouragement we call 'nervous breakdown' (still published as 'The Crack-Up'). His 'friend', Ernest Hemingway, openly ridiculed him, "Poor Scott has gone soft". Fitzgerald replied, "There are those to whom all self revelation is contemptible, unless it ends with a noble thanks to the gods for the Unconquerable Soul." Scott got through his depression. Ernesto didn't. A friend of mine who has cancer, prefers to talk about it and about how people have reacted. "The worst," he says " are the 'positive attitude' merchants. Sometimes I get the feeling from them that I brought this on myself by thinking the wrong kind of thoughts. It makes me so angry."So if, from time to time, I share my discouragement it does not mean I lack resolve. We all get by in different ways. Some folk try to banish the darkness some say "Hello darkness, my old friend". Most days (touch wood) I get my shop open manage a smile for the postman. As well as the dread days, there are days of sunlight even moments of splendour - as though dark begets light. Maggie Keswick Jencks, inspirational founder of the Maggie`s Centres, declared "All that matters is not to lose the joy of living in the fear of dying." - Read full bulletin
Aug, 2005
The fragility of life. Robin and Gaynor walking in the hills - then hes dead at her feet. How does one begin to cope with that? Poor woman. How to find a reason to go on living? And the submariners - trapped on the seabed, running out of air and hope. Then goodwill mobilises around the world deliverance and joy. No wonder grown men and women wept. But much in human affairs is ugly just now. So many tormented people - so much racial hatred. Some times I just want to escape. Near where I live is the site of an ancient abbey. I like to sit in the old graveyard and imagine being a monk: the divine office - Gregorian chant - study in the old library - tending the beautiful garden. A life dedicated to God - rational - ordered - the world shut out. But William Blake wrote, he who would do good to others must do it in minute particulars. Brother Thomas in the refectory slurping his soup. Brother Oliver in the choir singing off key day after day. Community life is not an escape - not for crabbit people, like me. From my desk - watching the fledgling bluetits trying to get the hang of the birdfeeder. A sparrow hawk hits one of them from on high - flies off with it. Sickening - like a pub fight which is over in one ferocious punch. Then quickly back to normal - finches and tits squabbling over peanuts. It seems so arbitrary - who dies, who lives on for a while. Carpe diem. Seize the day, my friends. - Read full bulletin
Aug, 2005
Wake through the night with terrible sore throat and fierce cough very little sleep. At one stage Im sneezing, coughing, gasping, sweating, shivering and whimpering all at once. Sitting on the side of the bed waiting for calm realise Im also crying have a few sobs. My GP is a well run group practice 10 of them I just take whos available. This time I get a new one a small, thin young lassie aged about 15 but I prefer the young ones. I think theyre better trained up to date attentive not burnt out. Meticulous sensitive examination penicillin and paracetomol. Back home the sky is low, gloomy, slate grey blustery showers. Back to bed - read doze between coughs. Get hungry around 6 - nothing to eat - walk to nearby farm cottage to buy eggs. Sheila feels sorry for me gives me some soda bread she has baked and some blackcurrants from her garden. Dig up potatoes and make eggs and chips bread and butter blackcurrants and ice cream. Mighty Caesar in all his glory never ate better. Cheer up a bit. The end of the day turns warm outside in sunlight after 8 with my camomile tea watching the swallows. A rabbit wanders over starts munching the marigolds. I say shoo but it just looks at me as if to say shoo yourself. I suppose rabbits have to eat too wonder if marigolds are like ice cream to rabbits.Its very peaceful. An empty sort of day but I like empty days more and more. - Read full bulletin
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SENSCOT supporters
Senscot works closely with these social enterprise intermediaries: The development work of Senscot is also supported by the Scottish Government.
54 Manor Place, Edinburgh EH3 7EH
Tel: +44(0)131 220 4104 Fax:+44 (0)131 539 9999
E-mail: mail@senscot.net
Registered in Scotland. Company Registration No. 278156. Scottish Charity No. SC 029210 |
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