There was the News

Three weeks ago I decided to stop buying a daily newspaper. I was getting fed up of the scare stories, the war stories, the doom and gloom stories, the MP scandal stories and the sex 'n' celebrity stories. I thought, if I want to know what the World has been up to outside the Much Malarkey Manor bubble I can listen to the bulletins on the radio, or catch one of the main news programmes.

All well and good, you might think, except these sources of news have produced exactly the same crop of mental aggravation I'd been seeking to avoid only without the added panacea of multi-level Sudoku and other assorted number and word puzzles to mess with your mind. And I quite missed Garfield, too.

But slowly I have become used to doing without my daily fix of Daily Anger. Experts say it takes three weeks to break a habit. I would question this research when applied to things like cake and watching 'How Clean Is Your House?' 9and whoo-hoo Gok Wah is back on telly tonight telling all us lovely girls how to look even lovelier) but they may be onto something when it comes to cracking potentially destructive or time-wasting habits.

Is it wrong, though, to make a concerted effort to avoid the issues that are affecting our world? Is it socially irresponsible to say 'What concern is this to me?' Is ignoring the news of the day and all its associated politics and social and moral concerns a neglect of our human responsibilities? And am I sounding too much like Gordon Brown?

Of course I care about global warming and the effect it is having on our environment. That is why I recycle and compost, grow my own veg and energy save wherever I can. Of course I care about animal welfare - that is why I keep hens and buy free-range meat from local sources and for half the week I cook vegetarian. Of course I care about people - that is why I became a teacher, and why my friends know I will sit and listen to them for hours on end if it helps them find release from their problems, and that I will be there with practical support to the best of my ability even though I have recently been badly let down by one such friend. And of course I care that half the world seems intent on fighting the other half, hiding behind the name of their God, or their Belief, or their own set of rules and laws and for them I try and find a space in every day for quiet meditation and to send out prayerful thoughts to the innocents caught up in these awful situations.

But sometimes it is good to cushion ourselves from the outside world and take an introspective holiday from war and scandal and immorality. Not for so long that we become disassociated with our environment because that would lead to a sad and lonely isolation which is good for neither body or soul; what I mean is that as long as we know in our hearts that we are doing our best in our own situations, then taking time out is a good thing to do to restore and rebalance ourselves so we can take up the banner of Life with renewed energy and vigour.

I have been waiting all day long for a source of inspiration for today's blog. I'm not sure where this one came from, but it is here now and here I shall let it rest.

I'm glad the inspiration did eventually come, at what is quite late in the blogging day for me. Otherwise you'd have ended up reading some drivel about me wearing my new swimming cap in the pool this morning and looking like a drowning Malteser.

And there but for the Grace of God and a spot of Daily Anger go we all...