No thoughts

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It’s been four days since my last post here, and it goes without saying that this kind of surprises me – I didn’t check on it, but as far as I can remember, that’s the longest time without a new entry on this blog.

What have I done during the last couple of days that prevented me from posting?

Well, on Friday I went to see Crash, the movie which won the Academy Award for Best Motion Picture this year, and I absolutely loved it. Surprisingly complex for a Hollywood movie, and no black-and-white story where you get told who’s the bad guy and who’s the hero – they’re all bad guys and heroes, just like in real life where nobody is simply good or bad. After that I went to the Aula in the Grund, as there were some towers waiting to be emptied. :)

On Saturday I went to the funeral of a friend’s dad. It was crushing: the whole town was in some sort of emergency situation, the streets were blocked to far out of the town because of all the cars, hundreds of people were standing in front of the coffin. What struck me most was a girl, about 10 years old, who was standing in front of me, and had her hand on her elder brother’s shoulder who couldn’t stop crying. When the eulogy began, the girl began crying too, but she still tried comforting her brother – I have never seen anything like it, the agony in that girl’s eyes was hauntingly heart rending. I had to swallow hard more than once not to cry myself. Then I saw the priest who had held the requiem of two friends’ late mother a few months ago. He was standing some twenty meters away from me and was there as a friend of the deceased. He seemed to be a nervous wreck. Yes, he lost a friend, but shouldn’t he as a priest be happy for his friend to be with God now? I do not mean and I do not have a right to judge his faith in any way, but it was a thought that crossed my mind when I saw him – as he had preached exactly that a few months ago.

Sunday was pretty much doing nothing, and Monday was a boring school day – except for the afternoon, where I’d been sitting at the cafe Art Scène for two hours and finally wrote my real first short-story (three typed pages). I still have to read over it again, but I’m surely going to publish it. And I submitted a poem to the editorial staff of The ICS, which is the English school magazine at the University.

Today was yet another school day, two classes with Mr Weber, true, but I simply felt too tired. Apart from that, I finally got my 1.5gb webspace for naischtnotz.net and am going to put the site back online either tonight (which I doubt though as I already have other plans) or tomorrow late afternoon (which is far more likely).

The only thing left then is a short note for those of you not checking on the sadautumn mainsite regularly (which I perfectly understand as there aren’t updates very often) but interested in The Fallen: I’ve added three poems. So slowly but surely the end is coming (which is in fact already written down and is three poems long).

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4 responses to “No thoughts”

  1. Serge

    i am astonished that there was no pre-written text to fill the gap ;), are you getting old ? :P
    still 4 days is not really what i would call a catastrophic situation .. i think u kept your most faithful reader all together :P

  2. Serge

    alright and now to the more serious post of my comment (and thats the reason why i separate clearly ;) ) :
    sorry to hear about your friends dad, a death never is welcome and if unexpected even more so.
    i would like to add though that the catholics have no tradition of rejoicing for the dead (as may be found in other cultures) and we deplore the departure of a loved one.. even if its our conviction that he is in a better place (which is not mine but thats another story), and why should we not, after all wherever he may be he is not with us anymore and will never be again. so i can perfectly well understand the reaction of the priest and i dont think it is in any way a contradiction with our religion. (this said i would like to add that i am no fan of the catholic church but i like to stay fair)

  3. He was standing some twenty meters away from me and was there as a friend of the deceased. He seemed to be a nervous wreck. Yes, he lost a friend, but shouldn‚Äôt he as a priest be happy for his friend to be with God now? I do not mean and I do not have a right to judge his faith in any way, but it was a thought that crossed my mind when I saw him – as he had preached exactly that a few months ago.

    Good point! Seems like it’s easier to tell other people to trust in God and not be too sad then it’s to act like that yourself. It’s always harder if it strikes closer to home. And often at these times the religious people have to confront their own insecurities. And the fact that they cannot explain the evil, or simply the randomness, of a ‘loving God’.

  4. @ Serge (1st comment)
    Yes, there were, but most of them are still drafts. :)

    @ Serge (2nd comment)
    Hopefully they do not think that we will never see the deceased again, or they really would have the wrong religion. ;) I did never say his sadness was a contradiction to his faith, I was just stunned that he had preached we shall be happy that the dead now is in heaven with God and then he wasn’t this time.

    @ Grommel
    Yeah I read your post about the catholic church, seems as if you’re really no fan of it. :) I did however not want to reproach the priest that he was desperate, it is only natural in our culture as Serge pointed out in his second comment. It was simply a spontaneous thought that crossed my mind when I saw him. (Concerning the fact that it hurts more when it strikes closer to home: he also knew the woman who who died last year, but as a priest he played a different role during the requiem – which is kind of hypocritic from a normal human being’s point of view.)
    You’re actually wrong about saying that they have no explanation for evil: God gave us the free will and with that came the potential for evil. There is no randomness in Christianity, ‚ÄúGott w?ºrfelt nicht‚Äù as Einstein put it last century – which means everything has its reasons. Now I already critized all the problems that come with that in a previous post of mine, and won’t return on that as my opinion is still the same. (http://blog.sadautumn.com/?p=6)

    Again, I can only repeat myself: I do not mean to judge, to reproach or to offend that priest, it was just an idea that rushed into my mind, nothing more. I perfectly understand his grief and I also do understand why he preached that one should be happy for the deceased.

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