Foolishness

This is Holocaust Memorial Day I was reminded, listening to Chief Rabbi Murvis on this morning's 'Thought for the Day'. He drew attention to other genocides which have happened since the Nazi era, Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Darfur, and the current plight of Myanmar's Rohingya, and China's Uighur populations, suffering persecution, denied their distinct identities and way of life, being described as genocidal treatment around the world, and yet again seemingly unstoppable. 

Jews cannot remember their own past without recognising that history is repeating itself, with the resurgence of violent extremism, discrimination and hate speech in our own time. It's a sign of persistent spiritual poverty and deprivation in the world, on a par with economic and social divisions. We haven't yet discovered how to bring about a lasting change that takes all forms of violence out of human efforts to live with our differences in an ever changing world.

It's been overcast and damp all day, but without rain, and mild for this time of year, around ten degrees. This morning I revised and edited the first couple of chapters of my novel, which I deliberately haven't touched for many weeks, so that I could re-read it with fresh eyes. It'll be interesting to see how my approach to telling the story changes as the narrative proceeds, and what I'll need to do, to give it some consistency. I'd quite like to record myself reading it aloud, to find out how readable it is, how easily it comes off the page as a story being told. First I have to figure out the best way to do it.

At lunchtime I walked to Conway Road to collect this week's veggie bag, and then decided to walk into the city centre, which I haven't visited since Christmas, and take photos of progress made on building the Centre Square bus station complex. It's a massive construction site overshadowing the elegance of the new BBC Wales HQ next door. I suppose it had to be built big to be cost effective as an investment, with not only a bus station, but hundreds of income generating apartments, office spaces and shops. 

It took long enough to get the project started, due to finance. To think, a decade ago the post-war bus station was in a huge open area in front of the railway station with a modest block of shops and offices on Wood Street. There's still open area, a pedestrian plaza in front of the station, with the BBC opposite and the bus station site next to it, but all the building loom over the station in a disproportionate way, making it look tiny in comparison. 

Quite apart from the aesthetics of the total concept, I wonder what the psychological impact will be on the thousands who pass through day by day. Is 'build back better and build profitably the same thing? Cardiff Council has nursed planning ambitions to grow the size of the city and its economy nearer to 400,000. The amount of office space available for hire with development projects all around the south side of the city centre, far exceeds present need, and probably future need for decades to come.

The pandemic may not have stopped construction work, just slowed it down, but how much of the available office space will ever be needed and turn a profit for its investors? Lock-down has shown the potential for working at home, and reducing the need to commute to an office. A change in work culture is already under way. We're already running behind viral mutations cause fresh waves of contagion, and there may be years of partial lock-downs ahead of us. What price all that available office space then?

Jesus tells a parable about a successful landowner who invests in building warehouses to keep the stocks of commodities which are the source of his wealth. It's his retirement nest-egg. Then he dies suddenly. His plans seem to have been put before his health - he's a fool for doing that. A story about an individual maybe, but reflecting the story of Everyman in this time when 'one is taken and another left'. 

The Prime Minister has realistically admitted that ridding us of this pandemic is going to take much longer that had been imagined. The government is making plans to restore some sort of normality, but how foolish it would be to set out a timetable. The vaccination roll-out schedule is for the most part going well, but it's patchy, as supplies to each region and delivery cannot be achieved in a uniform way. It would be foolish to think it was possible. A different, more humble kind of planning is needed in such an unpredictable crisis time.

"No sign is to be given to this evil and perverse generation but the sign of Jonah." said Jesus, when asked for a sign to prove who he was. It's interpreted as him alluding to his resurrection, but it occurred to me to see it as an image of a time of crisis. To all intents and purposes, Jonah is dead. He's in total darkness being carried goodness knows where in the belly of the whale, not know if he'll survive. All he can do is to pray and endure. As long as he's praying he's alive. Then when he's thrown on to the shore, he knows what he has to do, simply obey what God has commanded him. It's a humiliating experience, and even so he's still not humbled by it, until God shows him who's in charge a second time. Perhaps we're all a bit foolish like that.

When I returned from town this afternoon, I thought I should try the car and give the battery ten minutes top up charge again, as we're hardly using it at all and I got caught out last week. The battery had drained again and I couldn't get it going. A sure sign that the battery is dying. I got out our ancient mains charger and attached it to the battery with some difficulty, the first time I've had to do this in the two years we've had the car. It started immediately, so I drove it to QuikFit Cowbridge Road, booked it for a battery change and left it there overnight, rather than go through the same rigmarole again. It came as a shock to the system as I was tired after the long walk I'd just returned from, so I wasn't good for much apart from languishing in front of 'Winterwatch' on the telly, happily free of car worries. I know it's in good hands