Nine over 10

What is the religion
of the Italians?

They are Roman Cath-
olics.

What do the Roman
Catholics worship?

Idols and a piece
of bread.

Would not God be
very angry if He
knew that the It-
alians worshipped
idols and a piece
of bread?

God is very angry.

Recalling that on this date, in

2010, I started writing red mug

blue linen on the pretext of be-

ing under development, I'm heart-

ened to notice that although the

blog has appeared over 10 years,

it is still only nine years old.

I don't know why, but I feel this

is a sign that there's still time

for it. Meanwhile, the dialogue

borrowed above, from a Christmas

Cracker anthology by John Julius

Norwich, can stand for two impres-

sions I've never tried to subdue:

that I'm lucky in what I admire -

worship being a condition which

has discredited itself too much

for emulation, in this land in

which I write - and that what I

do is no more than superfluously

disadvantageous in God's eyes.

But this is to address only one

of the senses. As in the famil-

iar Summer towel, drying on the

rack at such length, one or an-

other of the unblinking senses

may question the freshness of

the thing. This consideration

is akin to fretting the opinion

of God, when He is an audience

I haven't pretended to address.

Flippant as this defense may be,

it deflects a hovering smell in

the air of public comment today,

of an antagonistic struggle for

the soul of the nation. We hear

a gruesome trumpet on all sides,

from Falwell's Liberty Univer-

sity, to Joseph Biden's latest

postures for the Presidency, to 

Pulitzer columnists flogging

us to do the right thing. It's

a hideous abuse of any concept

of liberty, by the foulest

simplifications and reductions

of political importuning, this

grab at the autonomous soul, to

the telling neglect of bread.

Something strikes me as malfunc-

tional in addressing each other,

to remonstrate as if grievances

endow anyone with divine judgment.

Now we are challenged to make mer-

cy popular, and who will grow it?

A student rejects this cant with

grateful resort to invigorating

refreshment in the assets of the

senses. Here I take delight in a

picture I acquired with the trade

of a bottle of Champagne, from an

artist of clarity and strength. I

think of the senses in development,

and admire the company of being.

iv   Valéry Lorenzo

John Julius Norwich

More Christmas Crackers

  being ten commonplace

  selections, 1980 - 1989

Viking, 1990©