15 February 1802: Charles Lamb on city life.

Saint Paul’s is one of the few buildings that Charles Lamb would recognise in the City of London today. Here he is, on this day in 1802, writing to Thomas Manning, a young friend newly arrived on the continent, which Lamb himself had never visited and never expected to.

“I must be told if any building in Paris is at all comparable to St. Paul’s, which, contrary to the usual mode of that part of our nature called admiration, I have looked up to with unfading wonder every morning at ten o’clock, ever since it has lain in my way to business. At noon I casually glance upon it, being hungry; and hunger has not much taste for the fine arts.

Is any night-walk comparable to a walk from St. Paul’s to Charing Cross, for lighting and paving, crowds going and coming without respite, the rattle of coaches and the cheerfulness of shops? Have you seen a man guillotined yet? is it as good as hanging? are the women all painted, and the men all monkeys? or are there not a few that look like rational of both sexes? Are you and the First Consul thick?

All this expense of ink I may fairly put you to, as your letters will not be solely for my proper pleasure, but are to serve as memoranda and notices, helps for short memory, a kind of Rumfordising* recollection, for yourself on your return. Your letter was just what a letter should be, crammed and very funny. Every part of it pleased me till you came to Paris; and your damn’d philosophical indolence or indifference stung me. You cannot stir from your rooms till you know the language! What the devil!—are men nothing but word-trumpets? are men all tongue and ear? have these creatures, that you and I profess to know something about, no faces, gestures, gabble:”

*Count Rumford, Sir Benjamin Thompson, was an American born English scientist, engineer, town planner and inventor.

From The Letters of Charles and Mary Lamb, 1796-1820″ ed. E.V. Lucas)

Let us pray for a full share of that part of our nature called admiration, and full bellies for all school children that they may have a taste for all aspects of learning.

Mary’s Meals, a simple solution to world hunger

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February 13: Fireside hours

The following passage chimed with me when remembering a prolonged bout of ill health, during which time I spent many hours sitting next to the Aga cooker, chatting to my grandmother. What was said is largely forgotten, but one morning I said, ‘I feel hungry!’ for the first time in months. ‘Feed that hunger!’ she said, which good advice set me on the road to recovery.

But here is Mary Lamb writing to Dorothy Wordsworth in 1810 remembering their recent time together.

I hope we had many pleasant fireside hours together, but I almost fear the stupid dispirited state I was in made me seem a very flat companion; but I know I listened with great pleasure to many interesting conversations.”

From The Letters of Charles and Mary Lamb, 1796-1820, edited by E. V. Lucas.

Sometimes the ‘wallflower’ is quite happy just to be there with family and friends. In that kitchen of my parents’, there was always room for one more on the bench, however silent or vociferous they might be. Budge up!

9 November: Life and death in deserted places.

A deserted lochside, but for the Church.

Fr Tom Herbst OFM, late of the Franciscan Study Centre here in Canterbury, chaplain to Kent University, and the sisters at Minster Abbey, friend to many in Kent, friend and contributor to this blog, died this evening in Pilgrims’ Hospice, Margate. Please pray for him and all left behind to mourn and celebrate him. Here is a November blog of his from a few years ago.

It seems to me ironic that the Yuletide feast begins, these days, around the middle of November.  Seasons of penitential purple should, in some ways, be hungry affairs; an open reminder that we all stand as beggars at the Lord’s table.

When Jesus fed the five thousand they were, I believe, impressed for two reasons. Obviously the dissolution of the wall, which separates nature from supernature, was something to write home about. What is sometimes overlooked, though, is the very real hunger in that place.

When the Apostle remarked that the multitude had nothing to eat he was, perhaps, saying more than he intended. Certainly the crowd had fasted that day. Many had fasted for their entire lives. Food was a precious commodity in a desert land and no harvest, however bountiful, was proof against starvation. Roman soldiers returning to barracks or out on a foray often simply took everything the people had. And if, by some chance, the strong provider failed? Did anyone ever count the widows and orphans found dead in the roadside ditches of ancient Palestine?

Those listening to Jesus on that long ago day believed that God saw it all. They wanted to believe that God cared. How amazed they must have been when the power of God filled, not only their hearts, but also their bellies. TJH

6 November: Providing for Autumn and Winter.

No need to disturb an anthill to illustrate this post. This is the work of a provident mouse, who amassed these apricot stones, snatching the blessings of the plenteous days of summer.
Doctor Johnson paraphrased Proverbs 6:6-11 in the verses below.

“Go to the ant, thou sluggard.” Proverbs: 6-11.

Turn on the prudent ant thy heedful eyes, 
Observe her labours, sluggard, and be wise: 
No stern command, no monitory voice, 
Prescribes her duties, or directs her choice; 

Yet, timely provident, she hastes away, 
To snatch the blessings of the plenteous day; 
When fruitful summer loads the teeming plain, 
She crops the harvest, and she stores the grain. 

How long shall sloth usurp thy useless hours, 
Unnerve thy vigour, and enchain thy pow'rs; 
While artful shades thy downy couch inclose, 
And soft solicitation courts repose? 

Amidst the drowsy charms of dull delight, 
Year chases year with unremitted flight, 
Till want now following, fraudulent and slow, 
Shall spring to seize thee like an ambush'd foe.   

From "Volume 1 The Works of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., in Nine Volumes", via Kindle.

This is one of those instances where we actually have to think when trying to live by Bible teaching. Panic buying, anyone?

After the parable of the rich farmer filling his new barns with grain up to the day before his death, Jesus goes on to say: Consider the ravens, for they sow not, neither do they reap, neither have they storehouse nor barn, and God feedeth them. How much are you more valuable than they? Luke 12:24.

We should be thinking of other people’s barns, empty because of climate change or conflict. There are Cafod and other Church and secular agencies that we can help fill them.

22 August, Going Viral XC: How sisters are helping around the world.

The secondary impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have hit many countries hard, including worsening hunger in places like the Democratic Republic of Congo, where Catholic Relief Services provides food and cash assistance to hard-hit families. (Courtesy of Catholic Relief Services/Justin Makangara)

This article from The Global Sisters’ Report

describes how sisters of many congregations are responding to the challenges thrown up by Covid-19 and its variants, and how precautions against the disease can make daily life much more difficult.

November 29: Doctor Johnson and the Survival Tree.

The Survivor Tree

More than 200 years ago Dr Johnson was visiting Scotland, and commented often on the desolation caused by the lack of trees. It’s taken the climate emergency for action to be taken but that action is paying off. First, Dr Johnson:
“It is natural, in traversing this gloom of desolation, to inquire, whether something may not be done to give nature a more cheerful face, and whether those hills and moors that afford heath cannot with a little care and labour bear something better?  The first thought that occurs is to cover them with trees, for that in many of these naked regions trees will grow, is evident, because stumps and roots are yet remaining; and the speculatist hastily proceeds to censure that negligence and laziness that has omitted for so long a time so easy an improvement. To drop seeds into the ground, and attend their growth, requires little labour and no skill.  He who remembers that all the woods, by which the wants of man have been supplied from the Deluge till now, were self-sown, will not easily be persuaded to think all the art and preparation necessary, which the Georgick writers prescribe to planters.  Trees certainly have covered the earth with very little culture.  They wave their tops among the rocks of Norway, and might thrive as well in the Highlands and Hebrides.

He that calculates the growth of trees, has the unwelcome remembrance of the shortness of life driven hard upon him.  He knows that he is doing what will never benefit himself; and when he rejoices to see the stem rise, is disposed to repine that another shall cut it down. Plantation is naturally the employment of a mind unburdened with care, and vacant to futurity, saturated with present good, and at leisure to derive gratification from the prospect of posterity.  He that pines with hunger, is in little care how others shall be fed.  The poor man is seldom studious to make his grandson rich.  It may be soon discovered, why in a place, which hardly supplies the cravings of necessity, there has been little attention to the delights of fancy, and why distant convenience is unregarded, where the thoughts are turned with incessant solicitude upon every possibility of immediate advantage.

from “Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland” by Samuel Johnson)

And here is a hopeful story from Scotland; a video clip on a remarkable and inspiring tree being helped out of loneliness.

This is still a good time to plant trees in our neighbourhood.

19 November: Unexpected Highland hospitality

The Glenelg inn today has a reputation for finie food but it was different in Doctor Johnson’s time. He and Boswell were on theway to Skye, but had to spend the night at a very poor inn, Their comfort was greatly increased by a random act of kindness.

At last we came to our inn weary and peevish, and began to inquire for meat and beds. Of the provisions the negative catalogue was very copious.  Here was no meat, no milk, no bread, no eggs, no wine.  We did not express much satisfaction.  Here however we were to stay. 

Whisky we might have, and I believe at last they caught a fowl and killed it.  We had some bread, and with that we prepared ourselves to be contented, when we had a very eminent proof of Highland hospitality. 

Along some miles of the way, in the evening, a gentleman’s servant had kept us company on foot with very little notice on our part.  He left us near Glenelg, and we thought on him no more till he came to us again, in about two hours, with a present from his master of rum and sugar.  The man had mentioned his company, and the gentleman, whose name, I think, is Gordon, well knowing the penury of the place, had this attention to two men, whose names perhaps he had not heard, by whom his kindness was not likely to be ever repaid, and who could be recommended to him only by their necessities.

Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland” by Samuel Johnson

24 July: On Gluttony II.

Fish & chips by the sea: feast or gluttony?

This post is a response to Ignatius’ reflection of yesterday. WT.

Ignatius,

It’s always good to see your posts in my inbox. Once again, you’ve got me thinking. Thomas’s five ways to be a glutton would seem to encompass that other modern phenomenon, anorexia, if you count that as a form of ‘too daintily’.

We are not all called to be ascetic monks or nuns after the pattern of John Cassian but you have a point when you suggest that most people in the Western world are infected with gluttony.

‘With nourishment in mind’ I think is the key to discerning a right attitude to food and drink. But what are we aiming to nourish?

We speak of a feast for the eyes; it is good to present food handsomely, whether it be a birthday cake, a bowl of porridge, Sunday roast or Marmite on toast; that is to respect food and those who provide it, from the Creator of all to the checkout operator. So there should be nourishment for the senses: all of them. Sight we have mentioned; Smell and taste of course; touch, not just of finger food but the crunch of fresh batter giving way to soft, just cooked fish; hearing: the sound of cooking, of cutlery on plates, of grace said or sung.

Nourishment for the soul as well (by CD)

Yes, there’s nourishment for the soul as well. Grace before a meal is perhaps the formal start of feeding the soul, to be continued through conversation, but it happens all the way through from the purchase or growing of ingredients, choosing what looks and promises to taste good for those at our table: K likes that goat’s cheese, we’ll have some of that. We can enjoy blackberry ice cream at Christmas if we fill our baskets on a family walk in August.

We can feed body, soul, family and community if we join events which include a shared meal, street parties, parish picnics, even humbly contributing to cake sales.

I think that respect for food ‘from farm to fork’ would go a long way to combatting gluttony and obesity; grow what you can, even if it’s only windowsill herbs from the supermarket, so you have a connection with the land; buy fresh if you can; eat less fashionable parts of animals and generally eat less meat. Cook from scratch with your fellow diners in mind. Whether as cook or diner, be thankful for food and for all that goes with it. And bear in mind that many people go hungry all over the world.

10 July: Foraging Season in Kent.

I think we can declare the foraging season open! There have been a few wild cherries that the birds have not eaten, not enough to make a mall jar of jam, but the first blackberry was picked today, 6th July, about 9 days earlier than expected. Like the cherries, it was a little tart, but early, like the first apricots – a revelation to 9 month old David!

Last week I was harvesting lime – linden – flowers by the river, when a man, who looked Mediterranean, saw me. He grabbed a handful of the flowering branch-tips and plunged his face into them, inhaling the scent deep into his lungs. What memories were quickening for him?

This evening I went to look at a tree I had marked as likely to be in full bloom today. So had someone else. Being taller than most people, there were still a few flowers within my reach. I went home along a path I rarely take, and soon reached another lime tree in flower, scenting the wind. Plenty for me and those who might come after me.

Our other discovery was two walnut trees in public thoroughfares, ripe for foraging the soft-shelled nuts for pickling. As our daughter said, the longest day is past, Christmas is coming!

Let us pray for good harvests throughout the world, an end to the locusts in East Africa, and freedom for those fighting famine to do their work in peace.

22 June, Intergalactic Exploration XXXIV: What became of docility?

The Ossyrian virtues of docility and self-sufficiency had worn thin during the trio’s extended stay on earth. Self-sufficiency, Alfie the Chihuahua reflected, was always an illusion. Back home he had stayed in his pod like a good citizen, accepting without complaint the ten day week’s rota of meals as they arrived through the serving hatch, but with little enthusiasm except on Ninthdays when there was a dish he could actually taste. He was reminded of this flavour when he ate a bagful of cheese and onion crisps, but he very soon realised that the crisps had more taste than ‘Welpow Pie’, and furthermore, that Cheddar cheese was much nicer than the crisps, if bad for a dog’s digestion. A sore tummy once in a while was a price worth paying for getting away from endless grey mush. Alfie, despite being no more than 5% of his Ossyrian stature and weight, was happier living as an earthly dog, even with that annoying Ajax.

Neither of them showed much docility towards the other, T felt. Before the Ossyrian apocalypse he had hunted and eaten many a mongoose-like creature. In a bad light he could almost imagine that a chihuahua was … but he would not let his mind wander too far down that alley, if only because they would read his thoughts.

‘I’m hungry. What about a walk to Peter’s Fish Factory, T?’ projected Ajax. T shuddered; that was a close call! Next time he felt murderous one of them might read his thoughts more clearly. But a walk along the beach promised to be a positive distraction from snarling and knocking into the furniture. ‘I must buy Mature Doggy Megabytz next time’, he promised himself.