The Lord + turmeric = success

Some people have been commenting that I seem to be getting around a bit better recently, so I thought I'd do a bit of autobiography.

For several years I found myself unable to whizz around on my feet as I always had. Back in 2000 I broke my ankle very badly, and from 2013 I'd had a series of problems to do with my right foot and leg. So when around 2015 I started to notice a more general slowing down I thought it was to do with these problems, or being out of shape or whatever. But in myself I thought, no, it's something else - I'm not tired or out of breath, my right foot improved, but I still was slowing down.

Then in 2019 things got worse. I found I couldn't do some simple things involving my legs, until the week I took in York on holiday, when I had to buy a stick to help me get around - the one I still use. The "last straw" was that year's September Pilgrimage, which almost finished me off, especially a climb through a village in France (Vezelay, left) and also up on to the ferry at Caen. I got home and felt pretty dreadful.  Luckily that's also when Fr Andy came on the scene - what a gift from the Lord!  I felt traumatised. For example I now had to sit on my bed for 30 minutes before I could even move to get to the bathroom in the morning. Getting up onto the altar at St Brigid's was impossible. A bit of research landed me on "osteoarthritis of the hips", and a visit to the GP confirmed it along with X-rays at the Heath, though they said "mild to moderate" there. So now at least I could put a name on this underlying problem. Docs put me on Paracetamol for the arthritis, and on the whole it handles it - as long as I remember to take it during the day! 

But then a year ago things got worse, when I started to get awful muscle pains in my upper legs, especially when changing between sitting, standing and walking. By September I decided to see the consultant, the top man in rheumatology. It turned out to be a great decision. After pulling me around the shop in every direction, he declared I was nowhere near needing an operation as actually my mobility was pretty good. But the muscle pain was different, it was an effect of the arthritis, and he suggested a different painkiller for that. 

Just on the end of the conversation he mentioned turmeric as the only "alternative" that he had any time for, as it contains  a natural anti-inflammatory, so I bought some capsules, 1 or 2 a day. I started taking one, but not much difference, so I upped to two. Within a  few days the muscular pain was disappearing and more or less vanished, not to return (please God). By Christmas I was realising I could get to the bathroom very much quicker, and I was soon  moving more quickly too, though still with my stick. More recently I am trying to go without the stick more and more in the house, and as the weather improves I aim to be out and about more and more. 

I appreciate that confidence also plays a large part in these things, but I am very very grateful for those words about turmeric, of which I am now a great advocate. So that's where we are. Slow and steady we're getting there. I don't know yet where 'there' will be, but hopefully the dark days of 2019/2020 have receded - at least for the moment! Thankyou to everyone for your patience, love and support.

S & G : 'Late In the Evening'

At the risk of overdoing the Simon & Garfunkel bit - one last song from the Concert in Central Park. And it's one that is not so familiar as the others I've put on here like Bridge Over and Sounds of Silence. But I love this performance for its liveliness, the communication between S & G (especially as they were not getting on very well) and between them and the crowd.   Don't miss the great brass section and crazy drummer, Steve Gadd, who creates the distinctive background rhythm by holding two drumsticks in each hand - you can just catch it as the camera zooms in on him a few times.

Most of all, I love the sight of half a milllion people, mostly young(ish), dancing and just enjoying themselves in the park. So, turn it up loud, and enjoy - words below.

First thing I remember I was lying in my bed

Couldn't've been no more than one or two
And I remember there's a radio comin' from the room next door
And my mother laughed the way some ladies do
     When it's late in the evening and the music's seeping through

 

The next thing I remember I am walking down the street
I'm feeling all right I'm with my boys I'm with my troops,
And down along the avenue some guys were shootin' pool
And I heard the sound of a cappella groups, singing late in the evening
And all the girls out on the stoops, yeah

 

Then I learned to play some lead guitar I was underage in this funky bar
And I stepped outside to smoke myself a "J"
And when I came back to the room and everybody just seemed to move
And I turned my amp up loud and began to play
    And it was late in the evening and I blew that room away

 

First thing I remember when you came into my life
I said, "I'm gonna get that girl no matter what I do"
Well, I guess I'd been in love before and once or twice I'd been on the floor
But I never loved no one the way I loved you
    And it was late in the evening and all the music seeping through

The Boxer in Central Park

It's time for more music. And another Simon & Garfunkel favourite from the famous Concert in Central Park in their home territory of New York City. 'The Boxer', like 'Bridge Over Troubled Waters' and 'The Sound of Silence', is not immediate in its meaning. We just get drawn into the melodies, the harmonies , the lyrics - and even the mistake they make in the first line of this version.  Their Concert in Central Park would have to be one of the great performances of popular music preserved for us - even my mother watched it when it was first shown on TV in 1982.

Sit back and enjoy part of one of the great acts of our time.  The lyrics are below.

I am just a poor boy though my story's seldom told
I have squandered my resistance for a pocketful of mumbles
Such are promises, all lies and jest
Still, a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.

 

When I left my home and my family I was no more than a boy
In the company of strangers 

in the quiet of the railway station running scared
Laying low, seeking out the poorer quarters where the ragged people go
Looking for the places only they would know.

   Lie la lie, lie la lie la lie la lie

Asking only workman's wages I come looking for a job
But I get no offers just a come-on from the whores on Seventh Avenue
I do declare, there were times when I was so lonesome
I took some comfort there la-la-la-la-la-la-la

 

Now the years are rolling by me, they are rocking evenly
And I am older than I once was and younger than I'll be
But that's not unusual, no, it isn't strange
After changes upon changes we are more or less the same

  Lie la lie, lie la lie la lie la lie

Then I'm laying out my winter clothes wishing I was gone
Going home, where the New York City winters aren't bleeding me
Leading me to going home

 

In the clearing stands a boxer and a fighter by his trade
And he carries the reminders of every glove that laid him down
And cut him till he cried out in his anger and his shame
"I am leaving, I am leaving", but the fighter still remains, he's still remains

  Lie la lie, lie la lie la lie la lie

Corfu to Windsor

Every so often over the last decades a youngster in the parish asks me to write and sign a sheet for them, most commonly one of the altar servers. This is the 'service' part of the Duke of Edinburgh Award, Like many others I have watched bits of the TV coverage of Prince Philip's life. For me, it has been these individual moments with youngsters that has brought him closest, and we are being shown that he had a similar keen and personal interest in many other aspects of national life.

My other encounter with his life was on a visit to Corfu back in 1994. On a coach tour of the island we were shown Mon Repos, a large house (below) where, we were told, Prince Philip was born. What a strange journey, from a sunny palace in the Mediterranean, to a life serving Queen and country in distant Britain.  May he rest in peace.  

 

Came the dawn

The Gospel in today's Mass is the first part of St John's account of the wonderful meeting between Jesus and Nicodemus. ChristianArt sent this interesting painting of the scene.  Th egloomy tones evoke the nighttime when Nicodemus came, while a light from what looks like a grave points forward to his role in the burial on Good Friday.  Jesus is shown very much as the teacher, with Nicodemus the Pharisee seated before him. We are to be born again of water and the Spirit, he learns, and God loved the world so much that He gave his only Son.  There was a lot to take in during that night, but John says the dawn came...

 

Mr Byrd's "Haec Dies"

Time for some music - some Easter music to be precise. "This is the day the Lord has made" is one of the ancient texts of Mass for Easter Sunday - or "Haec dies quam fecit Dominus" in Latin. Here is a well-known setting of the prayer by the great English (and Catholic) composer from Tudor times, William Byrd. If you can read music you'll be able to follow the score too.  I sang this when I was in our cathedral choir as a lad back in the 60s. And I was one of the top line trebles I'll have you know! Here it is sung by the choir of Trinity College, Cambridge.

An Eastern Easter

Every Easter I look around for any images of the Resurrection that catch my attention. Of Western traditional artists I like Titian's "Noli Me Tangere" in the National Gallery in London. But for the sheer dynamism of Easter I have not found anything to beat the Anastasis in the 'Church of the Holy Saviour in Chora', in Istanbul. Details can be seen via the link.

It was in 1995 that  I joined a tour of Turkey that included, of course, the great city of Istanbul, formerly Byzantium, formerly Constantinople. On a free afternoon I got a taxi to the Chora Church that dates back to the fourth century. Like Saint Sophia it later became a mosque and, later again, a museum. Layers of whitewash were removed to reveal astonishing mosaics and frescoes. Like Saint Sophia, it has been returned to a mosque, just last year I think. To the right of the main altar is a chapel believed to have been used in funerals, and there, over the altar is the Anastasis.

The Byzantine tradition of representing the Resurrection is to show Jesus descending to Hell, trampling on Satan and releasing those who are waiting, like Adam and Eve, Moses etc. This is a powerful, energetic Jesus, not like the rather washed out one we sometimes see in Western art. I know he's been dead for a while, but the Resurrection is about life!

 

Easter 2021 - A prayer for the World

Easter

...And now the cloth is discarded, left alone - the Lord is risen!  A very happy, holy and joyful Easter to all blog-friends. May you find the Risen Christ, out of the tomb, wherever you are and wherever you are seeking Him.

 

Holy Saturday

One of the most arresting images in Christian art in my opinion, this is the "Lamentation over the Dead Christ" by Andrea Mantegna.  Painted in about 1490, it hangs in the wonderful Brera Gallery in Milan, where I saw it in 2010. It is one of those pictures where reproductions do not really prepare you for the real thing. With very bold foreshortening Mantegna invites us to come up so very close to the dead Christ, who today lies in the tomb.

 

Good Friday

 A moment from the Holy Week liturgies of Christ the King School (see last Saturday's post).

 

Maundy Thursday

Here is our Church as prepared for this evening's Mass of the Lord's Supper.  We are very grateful to the team who have prepared the sanctuary at St Brigid's each Sunday this Lent. The decision to do so was taken very much in the light of the current live-streaming. With a steady view from the camera (at least most of the time) we wanted to bring interest and variety to our celebration of the season. Tomorrow it will look very different...