Another minor avalanche of cards, letters and e mails this Christmas from friends and onetime colleagues. Everybody seems surprised that there is such a thing as \u2018TIME \u2018, which seems to flow by more speedily than perhaps when we were younger. \u2018I cannot believe that the year has come round so quickly\u2026\u2019 is how many letters begin; our\u2019s did! But we find ourselves saying the same as the weeks go by \u2013 \u2018can it be Friday already?\u2019 It would be more surprising if time stood still.<\/p>\n
People\u2019s news is all about holidays, health \u2013 or the lack of it \u2013 and most of all, about families. The delight of old age is the adoration of children and grandchildren.; perhaps its danger as well. The thought that the little bit of history that your partnership began, goes on and will continue to when you have gone, is a material fact but also a sort of metaphysical mystery. Wise not to over play the card and suppose the family to be more perfect than it is, the love between us is still a remarkable thing and it\u2019s all the more sad when people are without it. So many of the letters we have had are full of praise (paraded sometimes with pride as well) for their children and their accomplishments. The penalty of being elderly is to look back regretfully on the wasted years and the mishandled opportunities. O.K. But we have been parents!! Hopefully, reasonably good ones as well. Struggling perhaps with limited pensions, we have however left behind a human legacy infinitely more valuable.<\/p>\n
One of our dearest friends writes about the hard months of living without her husband, and her tiredness after two years of caring for him. They had four \u2013 or was it five? \u2013children who married young and have had large families too, and they look after her as she does them. In their early forties, some of them are now grandparents! \u2018We must go on\u2019 she writes. There is this determination not to give up which characterises so many of the messages we have been sent. Perhaps it\u2019s partly the generation and the protestant work ethic that is typical of many of us, but sadness, despair at the world situation and increasing immobility are hindrances to get over rather than surrender to.<\/p>\n
But what is the future of our children and their children to be? The incredibly difficult attempt to create a world order based on the survival of the planet and therefore of all its human, animal and plant inhabitants, comes to its conclusion in Copenhagen as I write. The nuclear family is a parable and constituent of the family of humankind. The joy of the one can be a sacrament of the basic unity of the other. However difficult to achieve, may it be so.<\/p>\n
Happy Christmas!<\/p>\n
Bryan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Another minor avalanche of cards, letters and e mails this Christmas from friends and onetime colleagues. Everybody seems surprised that there is such a thing as \u2018TIME \u2018, which seems to flow by more speedily than perhaps when we were younger. \u2018I cannot believe that the year has come round so quickly\u2026\u2019 is how many letters begin; our\u2019s did! But we find ourselves saying the same as the weeks go by \u2013 \u2018can it be Friday already?\u2019 It would be more surprising if time stood still. People\u2019s news is all about holidays, health \u2013 or the lack of it \u2013 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"yoast_head":"\n