Day in, day out, I listen to the woman next door screaming at her eldest son.
"Kyle! Kyle! Kyle! Kyle! Kyle!" - Always Kyle!
Not only the mother but his little siblings do the same as the mother: "Kyle, Kyle, Kyle!"
Now, Kyle may not be an angel - I don't know! I steer clear of them.
Though I feel so sorry for Kyle.
I'm guessing that it's not Kyle's fault 50pc of the time.
"It wasn't me!"
"You liar!"
"No you're lying!"
The squabbles of children unfold exactly like the squabbles of adults which means that we aren't really grown up at all.
Old childhood feelings of resentment ...
Old reinforced thoughts and feelings from childhood never die ...
If you grow then you learn to change your behaviour, to hold your tongue, to be more patient ( or not, if you remain a child ) and not lash out in the heat of the moment ( or not ).
First thoughts, first feelings. Those little child feelings all bubble up when someone, somewhere pitches that particular note right on key.
And families tend to know how to hit those notes.
Parents do the best they can - and it's the intention that counts.
And really Peace is the result of learning to treat people we disagree with in a manner we want to be treated - that includes children, and overseas students.
I bought several old albums at a country bookstore a few days before Christmas. One was a three album set of Handel's Messiah.
I'm not a big classical music fan but I love Handel's Messiah.
I decided to listen to it one Easter night when it was performed on TV and I was ironing or sewing or doing something in that little room at the top of the stairs on the old farm.
The albums are in their original white leather box. It contains images of Christ, woodcuts by Albrecht Durer.
"The German 16th century painter engraver who was perhaps the greatest print maker in the world..." says the accompanying booklet.
Handel completed the score of Messiah in three weeks.
He collapsed into bed with one chorus unfinished. He was exhausted and slept for 17 hours. They fetched a doctor.
When the doctor arrived he found Handel all excited after eating half a ham and drinking four pints of beer.
Handel sang the doctor the final chorus...
"You must be possessed of the devil," the doctor said.
"I think rather that God has visited me..." Handel replied in a whisper.
He gave all the proceeds of the first performance to charity.
That 1742 performance in Dublin was a sensation.
Handel died aged 74, in 1759, on the anniversary of that first performance.
Good Friday. He refused to die before that day came.
Lifting the needle onto the spinning turntable takes me back to when I was a kid and I used to play the few albums my parents owned.
I loved to learn songs and copy Shirley Bassey or Nana Mouskouri ... never thought about it before but that's a strange combo.
On New Year's Eve I found myself screaming at my mother.
I was babysitting my niece and nephew. I'd invited my mother over for tacos and ice-cream cake. She brought her dog. She started leaving after such a pleasant evening.
Everyone knows that her dog loses it every time someone starts to leave - and she was leaving and ignoring my repeated request to use the front door and take the dog out the side gate.
Her dog growls, my dog screams and screams again. She comes running in bleeding everywhere.
Her eye and throat are ripped open.
I pick her up and start screaming: "She's blind! She's blind!" The dog's screaming. In the background my niece and nephew are screaming.
My mother is standing at the door silent.
I scream one word: "Go!"
So now I'm listening the Messiah. Every four hours I put a drop of antibiotic in Meg's eye.
Every six hours I put a drop of eye lubricant in her eye. And pain killers go in her food daily.
She's wears an Elizabethan collar to stop her from bumping or scratching the eye.
Funny how calm this music makes you.
What would happen if they played Messiah during peace negotiations between Israel and Palestine?
¡•.•¡
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