consolation without cause ?

At the time when I studied catholic theology, to locate myself, I heard of this phrase: Consolation without (identifiable) cause – must be from g-o-d*. To this day, I believe there is a value in extending happy events and extrapolate their meaning in this way – and some clearly seem to arrive with a suddenness and impact on the body-memory that makes it difficult to believe in a mediating factor as they do. Only I leave the church out of it and I refuse to buy into any kind of trade-off spirituality. Some things or events are just beautiful as they are or – as they are sending meaning into one’s life.

Yesterday, as I approached the doorway of my block of flats, in the Arab quarter of a part of Bonn where I am currently staying, a toddler girl with her parents came out. Instinctively, I greeted her in English and said how I liked her hat (black woolly with ears), indicating the ‘ears’ with my index fingers as I said it. She toddled down a few stairs and came over to me, less a couple of yards away, to hug my knees. I thanked her for a hug and she toddled back into dad’s arms, presumably asking mum who that was, because I heard mum replying ‘she is a neighbour’. And we went our separate ways. – She made my day, the tenderness of her unconditional gesture humming through me still.

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*mis-spelling intentional, to honour all those who have been hurt or believe to have been by powerful influences associated with a church or otherwise: Hoping to cut through any perceived power that may hold.

stock photo

~ by Barbara S on January 23, 2022.