The Beard returns... allegedly...

And so it came to pass that the semi-retired Beard found that not working meant that he actually had less time to digress than he had before... which shows more than anything how easy his job at the Co-op was... but redundancy has now followed up on its heinous threats to the Beard and Mrs Beard and both are now at the vague and tenuous mercies of the temp agencies... which is nice...

And to be honest, the lovely Mrs Beard is indeed loving her new found freedom, looking forward to furthering her already more-advanced-than-the-Beard education at Doncaster University, where she is entering into one of the caring professions... meanwhile a variety of jobs has been taken up, including one which ocasionally featured free beer... which was a bonus...

The Beard on the other hand found that after losing a job delivering furniture, he has found some small amount of work writing... which readers of this blog will find strange indeed... on top of this, he has had a complete change in career, and has spent much of the last six weeks... delivering furniture... but I digress...

Temp work seems to be the thing of the future, which may be no bad thing... especially for those employers who can't be bothered to pay for permanent staff... but hey ho, as the saying goes... of course, doing temporary driving work gives lots of time for thought and listening to the old wireless, or the new radio, whichever is fitted....and recently on the Jeremy Vine show, there was a piece about a poor organist who was beaten to death on Christmas eve...

What struck the Beard about the whole thing were two things... first, that the man's wife is being criticised for forgiving the men responsible, which is, after all, what any Christian should do... after all, does the Bible not state that defying God is the biggest sin of all, and did not the Christian God issue instructions to forgive? It reminds me of a parable that my Curate once told me, and I repeat here...

Two men went up to Jesus, asking for forgiveness for their sins... the first man was weeping, and told Jesus that he had murdered a man... the second looked horrified at this, and said "at least I'm not as bad as he is! I've sinned several times, hundreds to be honest, but they were only little sins..." Jesus told them each to go and get rocks that symbolised their sins.. the murderer returned with a rock almost as big as himself... the other man with a bag of small stones... "Excellent," said Jesus... "Now, forgiveness follows repentance, and repentance is putting back your sin... so go back, and put each rock back EXACTLY where you found it..."

Now the point our Curate was making was that to God a sin is a sin...and that many small sins are harder to forgive than one big sin... I took it to say that God had no sense of proportion.. after all, according to the Bible, repentance is everything... so a person who steals a pencil, then never even feels bad about it is damned... whereas a multiple murderer who truly repents will be saved...

So the organist's wife is on the right track...she is obeying her God, and more power to her.. if more so-called Christian behaved in such a way, maybe the world would be a better place... maybe... also, forgiveness can be cathartic... by forgiving these men, she is telling them that what they did is not going to ruin her life, that she is not going to allow them to have power over her... she is, in essence showing all and sundry taht she is a better person than they are.. which reminds me of something i overheard a Christian friend of mine say about a man who had attacked her... she was being asked, "What if he sits in prison, turns to God, and begs for forgiveness?" To he rcredit, she said "If he finds God in prison, that will be great.. if he doesn't, fair enough... but either way, if he wants to come to my church, I'll make sure everyone welcomes him..." And there are very few like that among the church goers I know...

The other thing that struck me was that everyone seemed to think that the attackers had no reason to attack the organist... when it is obvious to me that they did... I think people are just reluctant to admit what that reason was...

Nobody does anything without having some reason for doing it... if anyone says otherwise, you are reducing people to automata, unthinking machines who cannot therefore be blamed for their actions... these men, and thousands of others, had what they thought at the time was a very valid reason for beating a man to death... they thought about it, weighed the upside against the downside, then deliberately chose to do it... not to rob him, not because he had harmed them, but because they thought it would be fun... they thought, as they left the party they had attended, that the perfect way to finish the evening was to find someone and enjoy the act of beating him to death... and unless we admit that this was their reason, and that they found this to be a valid reason for their actions, we will never be able to stamp out behaviour such as this... why they thought it would be enjoyable, I have no idea.. but they did... and there are many out there who enjoy causing harm... battered spouses are not battered because they've done something wrong, they are battered because the person doing the battering enjoys it... and to make that choice, to choose to hurt someone else because you think you'll enjoy it, is possibly the most evil thing there is... it is a persons way of saying that they are more important than you, that you are there for their convenience, that you do not matter as much as their enjoyment of life... it is the supreme act of selfishness, and it is, in the truest sense of the word, evil.. but it is not senseless, it is not motiveless, and it is not without reason...

But the hour grows early, and I grow disgruntled... and, knowing that this is now not the place for humour, I shall put none down.. but I will say, all your choices are your own, and hopefully one day, we will all learn to make the right ones... but until that day, Wisebeard salutes you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, yet again, at the point where you had all given up on the Beard, and hoped, dreamed, known, that the hirsute one's blog had finally given up the ghost and disappeared, suddenly, with only a little warning, like a sudden bout of norovirus induced vomitting, he returns, complete with bad spelling and incessant use of far too much punctuation!!!!!!

So, was it really November, I hear you ask, when the irritatingly over-paranthesised Beard last posted? Well, according to the evidence available on the worlb wibe wed, it surely was... and now it seems to be March, and so much water has passed under the bridge that some of it is on its way round for a second go...

But I digress...

A lot of stuff has happened in the last few months or so... not least of which was that Beard Junior has not only become legally able to drive, but that he has purchased and insured, entirely through his own efforts, a vehicle of his own, to whit, a nice shiny red Ford Ka, built in 2005... so mobility is now his watchword... a watchword that inevitably smells rather of dog, due to his form of gainful employment as an animal care assisitant... but more power to the young man... his dream is not only being followed, but being followed by himself, which is more than most of us can say...

On the subject of dreams, the one about the teeth has reared its ugly tongue again... (you know the one... you dream it too, and if you don't, I can assure you, you soon will....)

But again, the Beard fails to get to the point, if indeed there is any point... and lest you, dear reader, think that that may be a depressing thought, allow me to correct you.. for life indeed, from a personal point of view, is indeed pointless... now, from the angle of the species, and of the ecosystem, then there is obviously a lot of point to all life... but let's be honest here... ask yourself this... what did your mother do? And her mother? What about her mum? And hers? And hers? Getting difficult? Ok, who was your most direct ancestor in 1513??? It was only 500 years ago, after all? Chances are, you have no idea... and if you do, then find something else to do, rather than digging up the past...

The fact is that in 500 years time it is almost certain that no one will remember who you were or what you did... some of us, yes, the bridge builders and famous authors maybe... as an aside, there are young people today who don't know any Beatles songs... and I met one who, at the age of 14, had never heard of the Beatles... which should be a lesson to us all...

Now, some of you are feeling down.. and I understand why... but I believe that many of us miss the point of pointlessness.... let me expand... which is something I've been doing since I was born, so I should be quite good at it... although, as y Father often pointed out to me, there are ten miles between should and is... and there's no bus... but yet again I digress....

The fact that nothing we do really has a point is a liberating thing.. imagine... if nothing we do relly matters, then we can do anything.. obviously, we should moderate that by only allowing ourselves to do that which doesn't affect others badly... but that's a moral issue, and technically (although horribly) doing bad things doesn't really affect anything in the grand scheme... but once we accept that the amount of harm and good we do is virtually zero, we can concentrate on the things that really matter, like enjoying what life we have...

As an example, the Beard is aware of at least one school colleague who has worked for over twenty five years doing a job he hates... and why? Because he thought it mattered... then suddenly he realised that it didn't... and mourned for the years when he could have been having fun.... and there are so many of us in the same situation...

As for the Beard, liberation from toil beckons... his workplace for the past 13 years is closing down, with the loss of nearly 400 jobs, and much wailing and gnashing of teeth... imminent redundancy has changed the attitudes of many involved, but the Beard remains determined to fill his remianing dys wth jollity and good customer service right to the end, safe in the knowledge that his role in life is small and unimportant... and so he may as well gain happiness, pride and goodwill in doing his job well... and as for the despair at being unemployed... well, the Beard has long held Mr Micawber to be one of his heroes, and is absolutely positive that something will turn up... if the Beard gives it enough of a nudge...

For the real truth of living in the Western world is this... that even the poor tend to have enough... rarely in this country does anyone starve, rarely do they unavoidably freeze to death, or get savaged by wild animals... there are people in foreign parts (such as Warwickshire) whose idea of luxury corresponds with our idea of a slum that needs clearing...

And talking of slum clearance, Mrs Beard and yours Truly have recently returned from a trip to the lovely city of Berlin, where much happiness and high-place malarkey took place, including a trip to Spandau, the Cathedral, Alexanderplatz (which I can recommend over the apparently more popular and far too Americanised Potsdamer Platz....) On the trip I managed to se Hooded Crows, a bird I've not seen since a Scottish trip nearly twenty years ago, Goshawks and a Crested Tit... which was nice... and Mrs Beard enjoyed herself immensely, having finally strolled under the Brandenburg Gate and loitered on Unter den Linden...

But time draws on, and the rest shall emerge another time... but until evrything that mattrs doesn't and vice versa, Wisebeard salutes you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!