water stained copies of the Bishop’s tar water recipe) Berkeley (oh for Cervantes horse whose dear names escapes me) – down the front path pass the swollen grapefuit tree, the glorious hibiscus and Mayr’s nascent rose and out on to the peopleless streets of surburbia to resume my crusade.
I address the mottled bricks, the concreted drive ways, the Libyan date palm opposite. However even they I fear are perplexed. The insensate things I mean. In crusading matters one takes a risk. One travels blind and the world as our patches and scars and embedded slivers of gun shot remind us is full of pot holes, eye gouging birds and the remanence of Colonel Gadaffi’s troops. Let me at least try. My lungs swell barely. This will be a shamefully inadequate account but its the best (I feebly tell myself) I can do. So dear phantom listener. I have taken it upon myself to acquaint the world with the unfamiliar creeds and axioms of my exceptionally distant ancestor – the most distinguished former bishop of county Cloyne Bishop George Berkeley of Ireland. But let me say more (my feelings often get out of hand as yu;ll see. There is prologue to my mission. We have archived the creeds of Comrade Marx (only the exceptionally bright sons and daughters of Parisian bakers study him in any depth) we have arranged the execution of monsieur Trotsky; and the lord has been turned into a virtual salesmen. Such losses are beyond comprehension. Supplies of Salvation are more meagre than water and breathable air.
Without confidence I offer the Bishop’s thoughts and guidance. It is salvation without guarantees. It offers minimal relief and its curative powers are untested. I am convinced however that a daily reading – the taking in and rumination of – of a sentence or two of the Berkeley’s elegant thoughts will have far ranging and significant curative and enlivening effects. Although the global pharamaceutical committee (made up of representatives of all faiths and manner of a scientist) have yet to publish their findings on the efficacy of the Bishop’s nostrums. Mrs Rosa Marcello, my dear neighbour, has been perusing two of the Bishop’s sentences a day for the last twenty years. But many testimonies testfy to their inestimable value. My dear neighbour, Rosa Marcello – ever since she borrowed her daughter’s unread extracts of the Bishop’s works and began reading them daily at the average rate of two sentences a day tells me her gains in virtually all aspects of her life have been exponential. Her weight height ratio has dropped and then remain steady. Her respiratory inhalations and expulsions are likewise. She reports a measurable increase in her powers of retention, her willingness and capacity to listen and interact with her daughter in law and in the vividness and novelty of her nightly dreams. And much more.
If yu will excuse me – dear cat or phantom reader – my salvationist energies are fading. Although not receiving the recognition they deserve, salvationist are amongst the hardest working members of our community. So let me offer a brief reading, glimpse perhaps, of what the Bishop has to offer, a reason or two why yu should place yr life’s salvation problems in his hands.
I quote from point 2, The Principles of Human Knowledge, the Cambridge edition based on the original Dublin College text.
“…the mind of man being infinite, when it treats of things which partake of infinity, it is not to be wondered at, if it runs into absurdities and contraditions, out of which it is impossible it should ever extricate it self, it being of the nature of infinite not to be comprehended by that which is infinite’.
This is an extremely useful text. We see examples of such absurdities and contradictions daily. We who are finite attempt to grapple with (penetrate. imagine, dictate to) that which is infinite and fall into ‘absurdities. Take the terrible Mr Gaddafi, a very finite human. As the Bishop goes on to say with his usual perspicacity :we have first raised a dust, then complain, we cannot see”.
Beware raising dust.
My angina is rumbling. I just remind yu two sentences a day – plus a sip or two of refined Dublin tar water and avoid raising dust – and your salvation will be extended a further day.
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