Venice; 1.07.08.

Venice always evokes in me strange passions. The sheer undiluted extent of its beauty astounds me. One can visit Florence and see the sights but know that even there, round the corner, there will be disappointment, even slums. But here in Venice the beauty, intensity and passion of spaces that excite and delight goes on street after piazza after canal.

I try to analyse its success. So many scholars and academics – generals of the artistic world - have tried and studied this great city; I am merely a foot soldier trying to understand his terrain. The narrowness of the arterial bending, twisting streets, overlaid and interlaced with contrasting sinews of water of endlessly varying breadths is the main theme my mind distinguishes. But then there is the endless flickering of reflected rippling dappled light dancing seductively on the underside of the hundreds of bridges and up and along the sheer flanking walls. There are the never-ending steel-tipped gondolas drifting lazily through these veins, slapping a staccato through the constant percussion of shoes along the fissured alleyways. The properties of a tightly controlled language of finishes, windows and doorways; the fading glory of exotically painted walls; the glimpses around and through openings into hidden courtyards awash with flowers – mostly geraniums and vines; the punctuating solidity of medieval and classical churches, civic buildings and theatres with their dark, heavy interiors packed full of artisan craftsmanship; the sudden explosive entry into sun-scorched courtyards and piazzas whose generous proportions contrast so strongly with the cool, shadowy, crack-like chasms that lead to them.

I love that I never know if the next alley will lead to a dead-end set of steps to a canal landing, or into square, or round a tight, hidden bend and beyond. I love the lack of an Oxford Street or Bluewater mall. Shops spring into view in the most idiosyncratic places. This is true shopping; trying to find the shops is the biggest part of the adventure!

As one climbs the steps of the miniscule bridges, under which the gondoliers duck at the last moment with that mixture of staggeringly grandiose arrogance and skill, the resulting subtle shift of viewpoint down and along the canals is one of the most exquisite charms of the Venetian experience. What is around that last corner, I wonder? Many Venetians have opened up an arch from the canals into the very heart of their home, where often an ancient chocolate-coloured armchair sits shrouded with silks and embroidered tapestries, telling of the wealth – true or imagined – of the owner.

Windows packed with carnival masks, grinning and gawping at me. Sheer perfection in colour and finish, fresh with the smell of turpentine, which pervades the deepest of alleyways. I pause and breathe in deeply and I am back in the apprentice studios of Da Vinci or Michelangelo. Lines upon banks of sightless, silent faces, all holding a lost language of intrigue and occult behaviours, refusing to tell their stories. Huge feathers sprout from every nook and corner, like ferns in a spume-soaked waterfall grotto. Headdresses fit for princes and princesses, nobles and baronesses abound, each one placed with care and precision.

People move slowly and aimlessly, silenced by the sheer volume and never-ending feast of history and pageant. I feel I am part of a tender deep dance of slumber. Even the most brash tourists seem strangely muffled by the lapping water and embracing walls, by a silence that crushes the intrusive clamours of a modern, hurtling world. Here we slowly and intuitively sense with a growing internal hollowness just what has been lost along the way. How that progress is really a master of deceit. How easily we have fallen for our own lies! How much has been lost amongst the gains. I overhear one of two garish American women remarking that in Las Vegas she visited a life-sized copy of Venice’s Grand Canal, but …. and she gasps for air and for words, eyes rolling, as she acknowledges the sheer outrage of the comparison.

How did we lose this? What created it and made it possible in the first place? I can guess at the answers but clarity eludes me. Something about immense trading wealth, coupled with the centrality of art and creativity, the high calling of being a commissioning patron, and above it all a belief of the essence of God in all things, sacred and secular – in fact the indivisibility of life. There is no secular in Venice; God is everywhere. He breathes through the stones.

Uganda seen from afar

‘Does Uganda still exist?’ my mind tussles with this thought as I relax and unwind in a far-flung world, hidden deep in a mountain valley in the Italian Friuli Mountains. It seems impossible that such differing worlds can coexist in such a small and diminishing planet. I am in the centre of civilisation. At least, I mean civilisation from which my world was spawned. Civilisation from which nearly everything that I value and take for granted has sprung. Values that support and uphold me and make me glad to be alive. This is the backdrop to words, lines, duets, concertos, arias, operas, plays, poems and symphonies that resonate through my being.

Am I wanting the same for Uganda? No – something unique and different! But can I identify and accept the values and beauty that make Uganda what it is and what it could be? Or does it need to go through the world wars and plagues that shaped Europe into what it is today to be able to compete on this stage? Can we get something so wonderful for nothing? What is the essential-ness of Uganda that I need to extol and laud? What qualities and elements do I need to recognise within the chaos and corruption?

Fear and loathing in Uganda - methinks. I am finding it hard to work my way through the utter waste of lives and effort – of human potential represented by the rhythm and way of Ugandan life – even if this is less than half the truth.

Firstly there is the corruption. No! I am not going to give in to the ‘politically correct’ mist that invades my brain and seeks to cloud every true judgement. Of course there are reasons for corruption, and endless extenuating circumstances, but the fact is, no matter how you dress it up, that until corruption is significantly reduced there is no hope for Uganda. You just can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.

Then there is tribalism. Every Ugandan I meet dreads the knock on his door or the ring on his mobile of the distant relative or clansman asking for yet another favour. On the one hand it is wonderful to have an extended family that means you are never in want for a home or a bed. But the country is littered and crawling with half-built structures representing the people’s attempts to tie up their money away from the hands of others. It is an abomination and scourge; a promotion or benefit is lost immediately by the relatives who will camp nearby to eat up the crumbs that fall from the table. A greater educational qualification is a signal to people from distant shores to relocate nearer their family member. A deep sigh rumbles from the belly of every successful but caring wife that I meet in Uganda; “What can you do?” she sighs. “They are our flesh and blood”.

At a broader level jobs are always given to one’s family or tribe, never outside the fold. The contempt and hostility from one’s family if one failed to do so would be too much to bear. There is no concept of ‘the best for the job’. Indeed suspicion is so great between people that the worst are often selected, who will never ever threaten the benefactor’s position, but who, at the same time, will never ever advance his cause. This behaviour is not limited to ‘evil’ or ‘ignorant’ people, but even the very best of men and women cannot see any other way to act, unless they have experienced life in the West.

So what does Uganda offer the world? Gentle, hospitable, softly spoken people who work hard; graciousness; a country of great agricultural potential with a superb climate in most of the central and southern areas; significant untapped mineral wealth; beautiful women!; hydro-electric power; amazing bird-life; Tilapia; biggest crocodiles in world; masses of hippos, crocs, and elephant; much much more ……

Postcard from holiday

It is post-wedding - ‘Life after wedding’. What sort of life is ‘life after’? My daughter has gone; left father and mother and cleaved to a husband – united to him for life, for better for worse, richer or poorer. It is a strange time of life. I feel suddenly very old and quite, quite sorry for myself.

I am up in the Friuli Mountains, Tarcento, NE Italy. Sandy and I have been given the use of a small cottage for a week with our youngest, Hannah, by dear friends. We have been awed by the spectacular peaks and sublime (Hannah’s word) vistas. Jagged, toothed, glaciated walls many hundreds of metres high that feel ready to collapse at any time and wipe us out. The area bears the hallmarks of the terrible earthquake of 1976 that killed hundreds and destroyed its medieval buildings. It is good to be awed now and again. To be humbled and to recognise something far, far bigger and more majestic then my ego and small insignificant life which too often is all consuming and important beyond words. They say we spend 90% of our time thinking about ourselves. Narcissism. This landscape stirs my spirit and lifts my head up out of a spiral downwards towards some inner abyss.

I have also just finished reading ‘The Shack’, by William P Young. Or, rather, it finished reading me! I was sat next to Hannah, with tears coursing down my cheeks, and hoping that she wouldn’t notice these, or the sniffs that punctuated the silence.

A true holiday; being exposed to thoughts and experiences that slowly percolate through the tough, blocked passages of my life, furred up and calcified by a hundred disappointments, crises and conflicts – without and within – that need their grip shifting and loosening. I am relaxing and even ‘doing nothing’!

I am facing the thought of return to Uganda, and a strange concoction of unknown and familiar sounds sights and smells infuse my thoughts. I thought that I would be joyous, such is my love of the life, work and activity out there, but I find that instead I am tormented by doubts and fears. A sickness lurks in the pit of my stomach. Instead of triumphs and successes I can only think of my failures and the difficulties. I am worrying about my legacy there. I am constantly saddened and ashamed of things I have done and feelings that I have had. I so longed to make a good start and to travel a good road. I had a picture of a medieval Franciscan monk walking along communing with his God, in harmony with nature, and blessing each person he meets. But I realise that I have taken the same ‘me’ into Uganda, and what needs to change is not the surroundings but my internal landscape. I can’t change the past. I can’t even change ‘me’. But I can allow Truth to work its effects within me and to walk the road less travelled – and that means more conscious of God by my side, redeeming each situation that seems to be a ‘Snake and Ladders’ slide back into past failures.

So, I realise the wedding has been a milestone. It has reminded me of a point reached, beyond which it is too late to change the past. We are here and not there.

The danger is that I now will start to feel sad and sorry for myself, and be overwhelmed with morose thoughts, instead of grasping with a sense of elation the possibility of being different and having the opportunity to be renewed within.

I am resolved to walk forwards and into Cherish. I will cherish each day. I will cherish each person. I will cherish each opportunity to be a blessing. I will cherish each small dying of ‘me’ and each new shoot of life that bursts out.

Because I am beginning to realise just how much I am cherished.