Lyrics, love, niceness and being kind

I'm listening to Keane again. One of my favourite lines, which appears in the song Is it any wonder is "sometimes I get the feeling that I'm stranded in the wrong time where love is just a lyric in a children's rhyme". One good line is a whole song, maybe even album, full of good lyrics.

I think it's a good line because, as do a lot of Keane's lyrics, it expresses how I feel sometimes. I don't mean in the sense that I personally don't feel loved, but when I look at the world, or even just my local communities I think more love would be good. Real love is sometimes difficult in practice, but sometimes it only seems difficult. I'm not very good at it, but I know some people who are, and I admire them for it. You need to be quite brave to give this kind of love, because sometimes people don't want it and you might get rejected (actually this may be true of any kind of love), and sometimes the people you try to love might be scary and even dangerous. This is where my cowardly side would rear its head, and I would run away, but some people don't.

It really amazes me, the way some people love. How do they do it? I am pretty selfish really. Sometimes, when I'm in particularly bad moods I can't see beyond myself at all and I don't even care if I hurt other people with what I say or do. Mr C is probably the only person who has seen this part of me, and I wouldn't want to inflict it on anyone else. I don't want to inflict it on him either, when I'm feeling 'normal' but when I'm in a mood I actually don't care. Even in 'normal' mode I'm often lazy or cowardly and I don't show love to people as I should do.

I was thinking about kindness the other day on my way home. I was thinking about how kindness is different to niceness. Niceness is a bit wishy-washy and could mean anything. When people describe someone as 'nice' what does that mean? Apparently men can be too nice (according to some women). That sounds like a weird concept, but I sort of know what they mean. [Basically, men should also have a backbone - figuratively as well as literally]. Having said that, niceness is a perfectly acceptable quality in a human being. However, kindness is better (in general, not just in relation to men!). Kindness is also rarer, I think. I am priviliged to know many kind people, more than my fair share. Kindness is part of real love. Sometimes you have to sacrifice something to be kind, and kindness makes a real difference to people who experience it.

Aggh I am waffling and I've lost my thread. I must go.

How did I get here from Keane lyrics?

P.S. I looked up 'kind' and 'nice' in the dictionary, and the descriptions were similar, but the words that stood out for me in the various meanings given for 'kind' were 'compassionate' (the first meaning) and 'loving' as in "full of love". The latter is given as the archaic meaning, but I think this describes kindness (as I see it) in the best way.

There's a Hebrew word, hesed, which means lovingkindness. I love that word (although I had forgotten the Hebrew so I had to look it up!). It appears a lot in the Hebrew Bible (or Old Testament, depending on your persuasion) when the author is describing qualities of God, but sometimes the translation misses the full meaning of the word, which is a shame.

Rabbi Malka Drucker talks about it like this:

In Hebrew the word is hesed, which is also translated as mercy and grace. It is unconditional, causeless love, the love we have not just for those nearest and dearest, because that's easy. It means behaving as if we love to strangers and even those we don't like [...] [L]oving kindness [is] the behavior we offer when we may feel exactly the opposite of love. And how do we know that this is what God wants us to give each other? Because we are btzelem elohim, in God's image, and hesed is God's chief attribute upon which we most depend. Loving kindness is what God gives us, no matter what. The love that never stops, never gives up, no matter how unworthy we may feel. God knows better than we who we are and who we may be.

Ok, now I really must go.

24 Season 2

We are now watching 24, season 2. Yep, I have got Mr C into it too. In fact, he has been watching more closely than me, as I've been meandering around the Internet at the same time. Always multi-tasking - must be cos I'm a girl.

Anyway, I've been reading some interesting stuff about the B'nai Noach (sons of Noah), people who keep the seven laws of Noah, the Noachide/Noahide laws. The Noachide laws are seven laws passed on to all people. They're called the Noachide laws, as according to the Hebrew scriptures, all people are descended from Noah. According to the Talmud the Torah (law) is a truth for all humanity, both Jewish and non-Jewish. These seven laws are seen as "the pillars of human civilization" (Aish.com). According to the Rabbis, any person who observes the Noachide laws because of love for God and desire to live a holy life can acheive a place in heaven. The Noachide laws are:

1. Not to worship idols.
2. Not to blaspheme.
3. Not to murder.
4. Not to steal.
5. Not to be involved in illicit sexual behavior (adultery, incest, homosexuality, etc.).
6. Not to eat the limb of a living creature [not to be cruel to animals].
7. To establish courts of justice to enforce these laws. (see AskMoses.com)

Non-Jews are also free to keep any of the 613 mitzvot (commandments), apart from the following:

• Keeping Shabbat (the Sabbath)
• Keeping other Jewish holidays
• Studying parts of the Torah that don't apply to the Noachide laws (however, one Rabbi has said that most of the Torah does apply to the Noachide laws)
• Writing a Torah scroll
• Wearing tefillin
• Putting a mezuzah on the doorpost
• Other laws that are a sign between God and the Jewish people specifically, e.g. wearing tzitzit

(Please click on the links for more information about Jewish terms)

Tete a Tete

I finally managed to attend a Tete a Tete session at CCJ on Tuesday. I have been very remiss in not attending any before. My excuse is that I don't live in London, and they're held on a Tuesday evening, so it can be difficult to get there. This week, we had a committee meeting beforehand, so I went and combined the two. I was late leaving work because I got asked questions at the last minute, even as I was walking out of the office in my coat, and consequently missed the train I was aiming for. I was going to be late even if I had got the train, so I wasn't sure whether to go or not, but phoned Louise, and decided to go and stay for Tete a Tete.

On the way to CCJ I managed to slip over on Victoria Station (should I sue?!) and now have some great bruises, to go with the one still on my hand from the CAT scan drip. Nice. I was already cross due to (a) being late, and (b) having to queue to exchange my ticket bought on the train for a Travelcard, so (c) falling over was the final straw. Anyway, I made it in the end, for about 15 minutes of the meeting!

Glad I went though as T a T was good. We were talking about taking texts out of context. We looked at a variety of text including one by Roland Barthes, one from Isaiah, one from Mark's Gospel and a parody addressed to Jerry Falwell. Bizarre mix, but all good for the brain. It's really easy to let your brain go rusty, as it were. Although I do have to think about things in my work, it's not the same kind of thinking as the sort of thinking we were doing on Tuesday night, which was of a more philosophical nature I suppose. In a way I think I prefer that kind rather than the day to day kind, which seems more complex. I suppose this is because at work I'm dealing with real people rather than concepts or ideas, and people are unpredicatable and complicated in way that even the most complex idea isn't. Am I making sense? I do wonder.

This week at work was not so good. Mainly because of one incident, which I am doubtless overreacting to. Sometimes one bad thing just overshadows everything else and weighs me down. Basically I was told I should do something, did it, and then was criticised (by someone other than the person who told me to do it) for doing it and for how I'd done it. It wasn't major, but it just reinforced my opinion that I am bad at my job. My lovely team were sympathetic and agreed that you can't do anything without your head being bitten off by someone or other. The place is a hive of mis-communication. I am trying to address my part in the hive, and it's hard work. So, Wednesday night I was not happy, and was still not happy on Thursday morning. It's unusual for bad mood to carry over to the next day. Thursday was better though, and then it was Friday (no way!), and now it's the weekend...but I have a feeling Monday will involve more (mis/non)communication-related stress. It's not my fault I tell you! (But sometimes I feel like it is).

Sukkot and stuff

http://www.aish.com/holidays/sukkot/default.asp

http://www.jewfaq.org/holiday5.htm

Jewish Year 5766 : sunset October 17, 2005 - sunset October 24, 2005

I know Sukkot has now finished, but I thought I'd write about it anyway! Well, I'm not going to write all about it because you can click on the links above if you want to find out about it in depth. We had a CCJ meeting last Sunday, which was good, although we didn't get much sorted out because we started late and there was a Succah party straight after, which people had started arriving for. We did get to eat Kosher Haribo though, so all was not lost. There is a study tour to Israel/Palestine in December (28th - 5th Jan), organised by the YES (youth) section of CCJ, which should be really good - I went on a similar trip in 2000, which was brilliant - probably the best thing I've ever done. Just thought I would get a plug in there! For more details click here and have a look at the CCJ website.

Clocks went back this morning, so we got an extra hour in bed, but it got dark early, and it will continue to get dark earlier and earlier, until December the 21st or thereabouts - the joys of going back to Greenwich Mean Time.

On Friday I watched possibly the cheesiest film I've ever seen - The Librarian: Quest for the Spear, starring the lovely Noah Wyle (ex-ER). It was made for US cable TV and it shows, but although it was awful it was awful in a so-bad-it's-good way. It's actually had some surprisingly good reviews, and it is a lot of fun, as long as you don't take it at all seriously. In all fairness, it does not take itself seriously at all, and Mr W is obviously playing his character with tongue firmly in cheek and a twinkle in his eye. We (a whole group of librarians!) sat through it cringing at some points and groaning in others - but overall we were smiling, so I guess the film acheived its object. The plot is basically Indiana Jones meets The Mummy, with a librarian as the hero. Unfortunately for librarians, the film doesn't exactly sweep away the old librarian stereotypes, but at least it says that librarians have to be educated, and of course he turns out to be a hero in the end. How could a librarian be otherwise? For some reviews click here