Making a pig of yourself.

The other day I was going to a soccer match when a group of rival supporters got on the train. Their behaviour was loutish. They turned their attention to a young Italian woman who did not appreciate their advances. One started touching her and one made racist remarks. She had the sense to leave the carriage. I tried to convince them they needed the next stop which would have got them late to the ground and hopefully lost but they tumbled me and abused me as well. I alerted the police on leaving the train but they were not interested.

What I noticed about the men was how unaware of how awful their behaviour was. 'Ignorance is bliss' the old saying says.

Later I found this quote by Samuel Johnson.

He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.

I was watching the film A Beautiful Mind about the mathematician John Nash who eventually got the Nobel prize but suffered badly with mental illness. Being a human being, especially with gifts like Nash, means struggles: a lot of study and work, being misunderstood, rivalry with others, disappointments and the risk of failure. As the book of Ecclesiates says Dreams come with much business. ( 5.3 )

You might be pleased to know my team thrashed the visiting team.

unseen

.................we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen; for the things that are seen are transient; but the things that are unseen are eternal. 2 Corinthians 4. 18

smoke screen

One of my weaknesses is to have a cigar last thing at night. I used to smoke heavily but feel pretty good about having given up but I just hang on to one vestige of that past pleasure. A while back I went to Romania. I was staying with a family and I thought it wisest not to smoke in front of anyone. On the last evening I was taken to the station and while we waited for a train I thought I am going to have a smoke. The people seeing me off were young Christians on the evangelical end of the church. They started to give me a hard time quoting the body being the temple of the Holy Spirit. I happened to look behind me on the platform and there was one of the saddest sites. There was a pile of rags encasing a poor human form barely recognisable as human.

As the self righteous diatribe went on I wanted to ask them how they could ignore Jesus in the form of this sad man on this railway platform while ‘straining at gnats’ about my smoking. I don’t think my cigar smoking will keep me out of Heaven but ignoring the poor and hungry will. Matthew 25.35