When storms disrupt the celebrated ‘bread and circus’…
Culture, music, stories, entertainment, adventure, wonder…
Over the holiday season it is not just food & drink that can be found in
abundance. Multifarious ‘circus’ is also omnipresent and plentiful.
The mystery of the season is enhanced with musical extravaganza, from reworked classic chestnuts to new compositions and anthemic winter-beating tunes.
Our TV & radio list tantalising new offerings for the coming year… *green button* “book it” don’t miss out!
Our tablets, phones etc offer visual delights and compulsive interaction that enchants (and beeps!). Our interaction? with ‘friends’ via our technology is neo-vibrant.
Our bedsides or ebooks are stocked with new mysteries and worlds where anything is possible, where shall we adventure away?
We can chose wisely from a feast of culture to colour and filter our world. It might enhance our outlook, it might illuminate new discovery, it may numb pain, it might amplify possibilities. We can celebrate achievements and advances that do indeed glorify life as we know it.
Yet where does this leave us when nature overcomes our constructions.
When storms disrupt travel. When illness inhibits our enjoyment. When loss clouds our vision. When greed kills our senses. When emptiness floods our
relationships. When human nature fails humanity…
The broken tool, the empty Smartie tube, the end of the book, the final episode, the end of a song, the dismissible ‘status’, the deletable email, the last Rolo, the broken person?…
Juvenal suggested to give us Quality Street and American pancakes, offer us Dancing on Ice and smart-phones, offer us Christmas and a new year, offer the best a man can get, because you’re worth it…
I recall “All this I will give you… if you will bow down…”
When nature
overcomes our bread and circus…
I’m
off to read a chapter of Wilbur’s Vicious
Circle, with a small Grouse and a slice of Christmas
cake as Mr Wesseltoft lightens the mood. But I will try to be
mindful that “Man shall not live on…”
bread and circus alone.
Happy New Year!
Jules P Richards 