Catherine’s Blog – day six

I have been away from my laptop for a couple of days – no internet.  Have you missed me?

Thursday 4th August 2011

And they were right, it has rained again. The now typical English Summer is hot and sticky for days on end and then deluges of heavy rain. As if it didn’t rain enough throughout July.  And we don’t seem to have heard much from the Global Warming Brigade of late either, do we?  I wonder which stone those particular doomsayers have crawled back under.  As far as I can remember there has been strange weather for years.  Maybe some little butterfly in the middle of the Amazonian rainforest has been flapping his wings a bit too furiously of late.

Actually it always gives me a tiny thrill when we have bizarre weather, or volcanoes erupting or earthquakes and tsunamis.  Awful, of course, for the victims, and another reason to be thankful we live in England, land of the bland and free, and not on some wretched fault-line in the tropics.  The thrill I get is because we, mankind, despite all of our wonderful technology, are helpless in the face of Nature.  And it makes me realise how insignificant we are.  and when you realise how insignificant our planet, our solar system, our galaxy even in the wider Universe – well you get my drift.   And so when the uncontrollable forces of nature let rip it always excites me a bit, more than a bit, truth be told.

I am, as you know,  in no way religious, beyond a sneaking respect for the teachings of Christ, if not the actions of his Acolytes, so I am certainly not in awe of God.  I am not even sure if I am an Atheist or just a non-believer in any specific God.  I am quite interested in the theory of Zen Buddhism, but “interested in” is as far as I am prepared to go.  Religion has been responsible for far too many conflicts in the World down the ages, and even now, most of the troubles between people seem to have their roots in religious differences.  And why do differences have to divide us?  Why can we not celebrate them like the French.  Vive le difference !!

So here endeth today’s lesson.  Sorry to have gone on a bit.