Today is Wednesday of the sixth week in ordinary time, the first reading at Mass today is from the Letter of  (1:19-27).  The letter of James is one of the seven Catholic letters, the letters written by James, John, Jude and Peter, not to a community such as the Romans or Ephesians but to the whole Church.

This is something else that I find people don’t know when I have assumed everone knows it, it’s just too lovely for words.    This is often attributed to Blessed Mother Teresa but was in fact written by Dr Kent M Keith, look him up.

The Paradoxical Commandments
by Dr. Kent M. Keith

People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
Love them anyway.

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.

If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.

Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.

The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.
Think big anyway.

People favour underdogs but follow only top dogs.
Fight for a few underdogs anyway.

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.

People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.
Help people anyway.

Give the world the best you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you have anyway.

I just love that line “love them anyway”.  Is it not those that we find the most unlovable who are in the need of the most love?

If you, like me, have ever been in the position of being at the funeral of someone who you found tricky, and realised just how much love, and lovable attributes they had, this will strike a chord.

There is more information on the subject of this post here

http://www.paradoxicalcommandments.com/

I referred to The Devil’s Beatitudes during the week and was surprised how many where not aware of them.  So just in case you have not seen them, here they are.

Blessed are those who are too tired, too busy,
too distracted to spend an hour once a week
with their fellow Christians in church;

They are my best workers.

Blessed are those Christians who wait to be asked
and expect to be thanked;

I can use them.

Blessed are the touchy; with a bit of luck,
they may stop going to church;

They are my missionaries.

Blessed are those who are very religious
but get on everyone’s nerves;

They are mine forever.

Blessed are the troublemakers;

They shall be called my children.

Blessed are those who have no time to pray;

They are easy prey for me.

Blessed are the gossipers;

For they are my secret agents.

Blessed are those critical of church leadership;

For they shall inherit a place with me in my fate.

Blessed are the complainers;

I’m all ears for them.

Blessed are you when you read this and think
it is about other people and not yourself;

I’ve got you!

~ Source Unknown ~ 

If you’ve ever read a Bad Hymns blog and sniggered at those who like the music of which it speaks

If you’ve ever made a comment to someone like “I bet you find the more traditional stuff a little bit more special”

If you’ve ever tweeted how you didn’t like a hymn in Mass

If you’ve ever said “Oh I know!” to someone who’s tweeted they didn’t like a hymn in Mass

If you’ve ever blogged about how damaging (give me strength) people such as Paul Inwood are

If you’ve ever been unkind to Bernadette Farrell about her music, ignoring her real Christian work

If you’ve ever secretly filmed liturgical dance so you can put it on Youtube and people can gasp in feigned shock and distaste

His Holiness wants a word

http://www.news.va/en/news/pope-francis-at-daily-mass-the-fruitfulness-of-pra

The culture in which Jesus was raised saw children aged six start to learn the Torah, the ancient books of the Jewish law.  They would learn these by heart.  At 10 they would study the rest of the Old Testament which again, they were expected to know by heart.

On Sunday at 9.40 someone sent me a really nice tweet.  It bought a lump to my throat.

Well someone else wasn’t having that!  By 11.34 a Twitter account had been raised which spent the vast majority of the 127 tweets it generated on trying to have a little dig at me, oh the agony.

Just after midday the account received publicity and by the end of the day had amassed a whopping 18 followers.

There has been no activity from the account so far today (Monday) at 3.18pm, but they’d be horrified at what’s been going on behind their back.

Again, think what could be achieved if the energy was used productively.

I had a big row last night which was silly of me. The people I was arguing with all hide behind “anonymous” accounts. Added to which it was only other “anonymous” accounts who were supporting them.

One other chap did offer support to one of the anonymous accounts, although he chose not to address any matter put to him by real people.

I don’t usually name people in my blog unless I have their permission, but considering the argument was about a sockpuppet account, therefore a fictitious character, like Sooty, or Norman Bates, there is no reason not to name the poisonous, harping Bruvver Eccles.

Apparently one of the anonymous chaps is more critical of Eccles than I, who has, along with my family endured abuse upon abuse from this vile character. What piffle. The two accounts are very chummy and retweet each other regularly.

On understanding he’d overstepped the mark this particular account back tracked somewhat, explaining how Eccles was the account he was most critical of, but another still saw him as more critical of Eccles than I.

I have to say I hate to think how I would judge myself if Eccles was a supporter of mine,

Yesterday I published a blog post on how much nicer things have been on Twitter of late, Eccles saw fit to parody this, you can read it here.

http://ecclesandbosco.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/et-in-terra-pax.html?m=1

Why would this be done? Who knows what drives a fictitious character to act like utter filth.

I know it’s Christmas time but my word have I experienced a bit of Peace To All Mankind these past few days.

Last week someone on Twitter sent me a screen shot of a direct message conversation.  the conversation went along the lines of “feeling very guilty about how I have treated Tony”.  My correspondent says “well get in touch and tell him” only to be told (and oh how I wish I could share a picture) “I can’t the others won’t like it”.   My correspondent was not happy about this, but for me, after all the flak aimed at me and my family, it was a gift from God.

Two others were seen to defend me this week when the three of us felt I was unfairly named in a tweet.  I have been in touch with the tweeter to ask what they have seen, as opposed to what they have been told, and subsequently name me. They’ve not been Christian enough to respond sadly, but having had two others acknowledge the unfairness of it all made me want to dance.

Someone whom I had not been friends with emailed me a name behind one of one of the sockpuppet/anonymous/pseudonymous accounts that uses their fakery  to be snide about me and mine.  I’d been told this name before by someone I am friendly with, but coming from this source was touching.

Two other tweeters with whom I had had big disagreements followed me out of the blue, I was a bit weary at first but, so far so good.

Yesterday I had a hum dinger of a Twitter exchange with some people who would call themselves pro choice Christians, on the matter of abortion.  Some of my tweets were retweeted by some sockpuppet/anonymous/pseudonymous accounts and also a chap whom I had appeared to upset before but could not get to the bottom of why.  Usually retweeting like this is done to try to embarrass me (guess what?) but this time, they all appeared to be on my side.

During Saturday evening  I was told someone, who I had not heard of, wanted my email address.  I said they could have it.  This was was really interesting, why?  Last year someone calling themself Darren told me, via email, who the owners of five anonymous accounts were.  I did some googling and was able to verify one of them.  On Sunday morning I awoke to an email saying I had done a good job in my abortion discussion and even one of the more vicious accounts had said so. The email waffled a bit (sorry if you are reading this) and I deleted it. I wish I hadn’t, as I think about it now, it’s clearly the same person who called them-self Darren that sent this email.  I honestly believe Darren to be a mischief maker, but there was no mischief in his latest email, just waffle, lots and lots of waffle.

During the week I upset someone with regard to Tom Daly’s wrapping paper (do wot Tone?) it transpires the Daly family wrapped all Tom’s presents in the rainbow flag to show him how they accept him for who he is.  This didn’t sit well with me, you wouldn’t wrap a newly wed’s Christmas presents in wedding paper would you?  Or a new parent’s presents in baby paper.  I guess I must have articulated myself badly and my tweets came across as homophobic.  I particularly upset one person, who today I have tweeted with happily.

24 hours later I also managed to have a cordial conversation with one of the people I argued with about abortion.

In this past week there has been a nice Christmassy feel about Twitter, less fractious, paths of peace being laid and injustices highlighted.

2014 is looking good.

I have an addiction to popular culture TV.  I love X Factor, Britain’s Got Talent, Strictly, I’m a Celeb, Celebrity Big Brother (not the other one) and all sorts of “reality” TV programmes.  Although not all, and my taste isn’t restricted to such shows either.  There are two programmes I’ve recently been introduced to that when I heard of them I decided were not for me, but I am hooked.

The first one is Channel 4’s Gogglebox.  If you don’t know this show, you’ll be astounded when I tell you.  It’s shows people watching television, that’s all.  People are filmed watching the telly and their reactions shown on prime time TV.

There is a set cast for this, there’s a couple of families, some couples, a few friend duos and the same people are on it each week.  There’s a fascination in seeing how people who are poles apart react in the same way to certain things.  Seeing the middle class couple watching TV with their wine and the two girl friends from Brixton watching with their Pot Noodle and Fanta (other snack foods and pop are available) finding the same things risible, annoying or touching is interesting, although not surprising.

The real stars of the show are the comedic lines that the viewers on the show treat us to.  The comments on the sign language interpreter at Nelson Mandela’s memorial service will now go down in Flavin family history, we laughed until we cried, or choked, I was still giggling 40 minutes later, it was a great tonic in the middle of a busy week.

The second one is on MTV and is called Catfish.  Catfish is the American term used for someone who has a fake identity on the internet.  Some might say anonymous, some might say sockpuppet and some my try and give such behaviour kudos by saying pseudonymous, but it all boils down to the same thing, a fake internet identity.

There are two presenters of the show, Nev and Max.  People get in touch with the show when they are in an on line relationship with someone who they cannot fully identify.  Max and Nev then trace the person using the fake identity, and will take the person who wants to know them to meet them.  The outcome is always interesting.  Some people are exactly who they say they are, some look nothing like the photos that have been sent, some are totally different.  There have been married people claiming to be single, men claiming to be women, women claiming to be men, those who, as I said, assume a different physicality on line.

The episode I found most intriguing was the story of a young lady named Keyonna  who believed herself to be in a relationship with everybody’s favourite  rap star, Bow Wow (me neither).  What made this one so interesting was the fact “Bow Wow” had sent Keyonna $10,000. When our generous benefactor was traced, they turned out to be a young lady called Dee who wanted a relationship with Keyonna, it weren’t gunna happen.

The vast majority of people that Max and Nev help come away hurt, bruised and disinclined to ever trust again, be it in real life human, or an on line persona

Something any rational person will understand.

Today a blog post was made in which I feature.  The post in question was from someone who has just left Twitter after years of abuse being thrown at them.

Among the abusers was I, the comment on the blog said the author had been “parodied in a blogpost by a deacon in Holy Orders” The author has made a link to the post in question, I have authorised this as I have nothing to hide.  What those who hit on the link will find is my blogpost Viz for Catholics where the author is one of 11 people parodied in the blog.  The bitter irony in my case is Viz for Catholics was to make people understand when you are parodied and mocked and, more importantly, your loved ones are subjected to it too, it’s hurtful.  The author has acknowledged their own pain, without remotely referring to mine.  This insertion into the post makes it look as if the whole post was about the author, until the reader clicks on the link.

Like our author I have suffered grievously at the hands of those who have taken to disliking me.  The author and I have had our differences in the past.  Come November this year it was clear we were better to leave one another in peace.  This lead to some disappointment; on 8 November when the author tweeted “Hoping @XxxxxxxXxxxxx comes to see my seaside donkeys on his pilgrimage.  And the shrine to St Isidore in my shed” The shed is a reference to me and part of an ongoing theme.  I once tweeted my home wifi coverage reached my shed and a myriad of sock puppets picked up on this and made references to a deacon in a shed, or a shed in Croydon, have a look there are lots there.

A couple of days later on 11 November our author conversed with a new sock puppet account, one which sprung out of nowhere and made frequent references to me, and even on one occasion said “Acherley, I’ll just be rood about his wife and his parish now. Might as well be hung for a sheep as a ram. Bottom to you. There!”  Quite comedic, well it would be if it were not attempting to make light of the pain caused.

On 5 November there was an exchange with a few people which referred to a dog named Deacon.  Two of the people in the conversation do not like me (don’t know why!).  It would be quite insulting to anyone’s intelligence to deny the comments are not an attempt to snigger up one’s sleeve at me.  One such comment, from our author, referred to using the command “Be Clean – “Deacon – be clean”.

As I have said before, there have been problems between myself and the author in the past.  Where I have caused upset I have made every possible attempt to correct this, I doubt perfectly, but I have sought to make peace.  Even simply by leaving them alone.

Since the start of November I have done just that.   I would have hoped to have been left alone also, to not do so does not sit well with the New Evangelisation, but I shall plough on with it as best I can and hope we really can leave each other in peace.