Kippers, premonitions and literature

I wake from a quite sad dream, in which Normy dies peacefully in his sleep and I find his body cold and stiff in his bed, and then wonder where the best place to bury him might be. Fortunately he is alive and well when I wake up, but it gives me pause for thought and I hope he can go peacefully when the time comes, which can't be too far off in the future, considering his age. After breakfast we take a walk to the Post Office in the village, where I buy stamps and then post of the letter to Maire Curie Cancer Care, enclosing the cheque for the Swimathon. The cool showery weather continues, but the village is looking its best, the trees all a blaze of white and pink blossoms and the gardens neat and decorated with spring flowers. I leave Normy with plenty of fresh water and then drive to Saint John's for Mass at half past ten. Today is the first Sunday after ascension, traditionally on Thursday and always a holiday in Germany, where it is called "Himmel Fahrt", literally, heaven journey. The service is taken by Father Roy, and I hope the rumours of him moving on are just that, despite his opposition to women preists, he is a good man. So many people cannot accept views and opinions that differ from their own, but surely that is what makes human society so rich and diverse, otherwise we would all end up as intellectual and emotional clones. I struggle today with a literal interpretation of the scriptures, but find deep solace in the beauty and mystery of the ritual and art that expresses itself in the worship of the essential, unfathomable, transcendent. Part of God is consciousness, and with consciousness the freedom to choose our path and also to interpret our experiences. Interpretation is essentially creative and artistic, the Zen Master DT Suzuki asserts that we can all be "artists of life", and by this he means we have a choice about how we deal with what life throws at us, and how we choose to interpret that experience. As Sartre says, we can choose to act in either good or bad faith, adopt victimhood or take responsibility for our freedom. Where I part with Sartre, is that I choose to believe that my freedom to choose is a divine and precious gift. My justification lies purely from the difference in feelings that arise from acting kindly or cruelly. There is less self to kindness, whilst cruelty always seeks justification and excuses. After communion, I call at the supermarket for bread, wine and kippers, perhaps the sermon on the mount is combining with the Eucharist, or more probably I plan kippers for breakfast and bread and wine to accompany the Caprese Salad, that I intend to make when I arrive home. The balance of the day is spent getting ready for holiday, washing, ironing, arranging mobile roaming and notifying my credit card company of my upcoming trip. Later in the evening I finish the Patrick Gale novel, "Notes from an exhibition", with Normy on his usual place on my knee asleep. I quite liked the book, its structure, a series of written portraits of members of a bipolar artist's family at differing junctures in the life of the narrative. On the positive side, I liked the space for interpretation that this opens up for the reader, but on the other hand it leaves you without a sense of depth, regarding any specific character. To be fair to Gale, he says it is about family dynamics. For me it is a little too clever, precise and over constructed, perhaps lacking in the raw passion, that mania inspired genius demands. I may feel differently tomorrow, and I shall certainly read more from this author. To bed at ten.