A cool shower and 3 litres of water later and I am starting to feel human again. A long day in the garden – and more to come. I fixed the neighbours fence, put up some trellis to grow my passion fruit along the fence where the shed was. I planted it two years ago. First year it grew about a metre. Last year it exploded and grew all over the place. I have cut it back but now need to make it behave.
I then moved on to the front lawn. I want to stop people cutting the corner, so I bought a tree last year and planted it in a pot. Today it was time to put it in the corner of the garden. The position is a bit exposed, but I hope it lives. The variety is called harlequin glorybower. Hoping I can keep it under control – maximum height is 8m with a spread of 8m. The colours look spectacular.
The next one I need to plant (Prickly Myrtle) is also a bit big, but will also add some interesting colour.
With the hot sun I fried.
Quite an odd day in terms of daily briefings. It seemed to tie in with something I have been thinking about. I’m not catholic. Far from it. But I was watching the film “The Family” the other day and there was the confessional scene where the priest demands they leave the town after hearing confession.
It got me wondering. Confession is good for you in a lot of ways, not just in terms of religion. We see it in drug and alchohol recovery programmes. Even groups like weightwatchers work on a similar principle.
I started to wonder if the kick back by Martin Luther (the original one) against things like indulgences (get out of hell free cards for a price) has led to a protestant rejection of the concept of confession.
Watching Dominic Cummings today reminded me of my young days. My cousin’s daughter was a couple of years older than me. We were exploring a house demolition area one day when she pulled out some matches and set fire to the dry grass. It was burning well when my father drove along the road. Of course we were putting out the fire. We told him we were being good kids. Somebody else had set the fire (the invisible arsonists). He didn’t believe me. I mean why didn’t he believe me, even though we had set the fire we were putting it out? He stood there watching us put it out and told us not to do it again.
I have no doubt DC did what he thought was right for him. Today he was encouraged to come clean about bending the rules, but he kept saying “Somebody else lit the fire, I was putting it out”. But part of that was probably because it wasn’t a confessional situation, it was a pack cornering somebody, and in those conditions people close down, not open up.
We see the same defensive response from another world leader over the pond.
We all want people to be held responsible, but we also want people to be open and transparent. So how do we balance the two. The truth and reconciliation in South Africa is one example of trying to achieve the balance that has impressed me. I think it might be good to follow this model in the future here (not just for this virus issue, but to help transform our country – and maybe to counter the newspaper shock horror probe attitude).
I am left with the puzzle, would I be willing to accept a commission if it allowed people to ask for amnesty like the South African commission did. Where do I sit on the balance between truth and punishment. Would I be willing to forgive to get the truth? Or am I just too protestant to believe in confession?