Michael Louis Hedley

I've just recently finished reading Memories of the Future by Siri Hustvedt. A profound experience. What keeps coming back to me is this, 'Let us not forget that a memory is always in the present. Let us not forget that each time we evoke a memory, it is subject to change, but let us not forget that those changes may bring truths in their wake.' (page 177)

Well I happened upon this thought of his which touched me today. Spend your money on the things money can buy. Spend your time on the things money cannot buy.

This week I’m happy to announce the publication of my novella Behind the Walls . It is about a canny, resourceful young Catholic boy, the girl he befriends and the courage they find to create a future of their own despite their personal difficulties and hardships. Behind the Walls is flavoured with an element of medieval mystery and is inspired by a rich sense of the past which still resonates in the streets surrounding Newcastle’s City Walls where I was born and brought up. Behind the Walls is currently on promotion with Amazon in paperback and Kindle versions and will shortly be available to order from bookshops. I hope you will enjoy and leave your review on Amazon.

Hard to believe that it's over a month ago since I posted anything. How is it that time slips through one's fingers so easily? I was visiting someone recently and noticed a book on the bookshelf in the bedroom I was using that I had lent him some twenty odd years ago. It was a delight to pick it up again and revisit it like an old friend. Rushing to Paradise by J.G.Ballard I'd forgotten how good this dystopian novel was. It has returned home with me. It has meant that I have been dipping again into his work and I reckon I'll have another look at Crash next. While I was flicking through notes I'd made on some of his other books over the years I found this which made me smile. 'The knew they were being lied to, but if lies were consistent enough they defined themselves as a credible alternative to the truth.' J.G.Ballard from Kingdom Come p. 204.

It's funny what jumps out in the context of current life, something that didn't when I first read it too many moons ago to specify exactly, but I suppose that's significant on both counts. I'm referring to Grahame Greene's novel Stamboul train, one of his first which I picked up again recently. A conversation early on the Ostend to Istanbul train when Mr. Opie chatting to a perfect stranger in his compartment about the relative merits of first and second class travel. 'Yes, that's so-yes,' the other answered with alacrity. 'But 'ow did you know I was English?' 'I make a practice,' Mr. Opie said with a smile, 'of always thinking the best of people.'

Gratitude for the abundance you have received is the best insurance that abundance will continue. (Muhammad 570-632)

On the Metro today I noticed a young mother with her baby in a pram. She was lost in thought. Suddenly she looked down at her child and smiled. Her face was transformed. Love beamed out with the power to light a thousand lanterns.

So, it's Easter Monday, we all seem to be agreed on that, yesterday Easter Sunday also known as Easter Day, filled with memories of times past and do you remember when moments of childhood and beyond. The day before seems problematic. In church notices it's Holy Saturday, in newspapers simply Saturday, shop opening hour listings as Easter Saturday, as did Metro Information boards, Sports commentators and in general parlance. (This coming Saturday is Easter Saturday). Then it was Good Friday, everyone seems to agree. Good, as  in the old English meaning of Holy. What was the day before that? Maundy Thursday. What's that? It's from the Latin word Mandatum which means a command or order to do something and refers to the command from the Lord, 'love one another as I have loved you.' There's a thought. Happy Easter.

I always like to spend a bit of time during this special week to get stuck into something that's going to take me forward, so I was delighted to hear that Richard Rohr's new book was available. This wonderful teacher has produced something remarkable. I have enjoyed reading, pondering and sharing his insights in his perhaps final work,  I hope it's not, but he hasn't been well recently.  The Book: 'The Universal Christ' (How a forgotten reality can change everything we see, hope for and believe) A small measure of the man and his thinking is contained in the dedication of the work. "I dedicate this book to my beloved fifteen year old black Lab, Venus, whom I had to release to God while beginning to write this book. Without any apology, lightweight theology, or fear of heresy, I can appropriately say that Venus was also Christ for me."

As I was quietly working away on the long table in the Lit and Phil yesterday I noticed a young student nearby working away on Middlemarch by George Eliot. She was typing away whilst watching a T.V. production of the book. Exams clearly beckoning. I thought I must pick up the book again myself, one of the great novels. As I was reflecting on the great issues of her book I remembered something she wrote that had resonated with me a long time ago and I had sent as part of a birthday greeting to someone close. 'Oh the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person; having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but to pour them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, knowing that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away.'

I've just finished reading A Sport and a Pastime by James Salter which he wrote in the Sixties and  a sentence of his has been running through my mind since. 'The more clearly one sees the world, the more one is obliged to pretend it does not exist.' (page 154)

I thought that my voyage had come to an end at the last limit of my power, that the path before me was closed, that provisions were exhausted and the time had come to take shelter in a silent obscurity. But I find that Your will knows no end in me and when old words die out on the tongue, new melodies break forth from the heart: and where the old tracks are lost, new country is revealed with its wonders. (Rabindranath Tagore)

Be wary of accepting an unwrapped sweet from a man walking his dog.

Let it go. Let it go. What, let it go? Yes, let it go. What even that? Yes that too! Let it go. In the words of W.H.Auden Saying Alas To less and less.

St Francis could be overwhelmed with gratitude before a piece of hard bread or praise God for the breeze that caressed his face (Gaudete et Exsultate 127)

I do love new authors, but there is a great joy also in revisiting an old friend on the page, with that in mind, I have been dipping into Graham Greene's short stories, or as he often called them entertainments, and particularly 'May We Borrow Your Husband and Other Comedies of the Sexual Life. This gave me cause for thought - '.....at the end of what is called the sexual life the only love which has lasted is the love that has accepted everything, every disappointment, every failure and every betrayal, which has accepted the sad fact that in the end there is no desire so deep as the simple desire for companionship.'

If you don't transform your pain you will always transmit it especially to those closest to you.

I came across a lovely comment by Philip Pullman about Kolymsky Heights by Lionel Davidson, namely "The best thriller I've ever read." On the strength of that I read it myself and wasn't disappointed, an excellent piece of work, thoroughly enjoyed it. The story tore along at a fair old pace. On the back of that I dipped further into Lionel Davidson's works and have read A long way to Shiloh, The Rose of Tibet and latterly The Sun Chemist and from that book I came across a Yiddish proverb that has given me plenty of  cause for thought. -Gott shickt die refuah far der makke - God sends the remedy before the affliction.

If you have forgiven yourself for being imperfect, you can now do it for everybody else too. If you have NOT forgiven yourself, I am afraid you will likely pass on your sadness, absurdity, judgement, and futility to others. What comes around goes around.  ( From Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation)

A little bit more from Ernest as I promised yesterday. 'Tell them about when I was little,' young Tom said, rolling over and taking hold of David's ankle. 'I'll never get to be as good in real life as the stories about me when I was little.' (page 61)

I've been revisiting an old friend these last few days. Ernest Hemingway and his Islands in the Stream. Isn't it funny how something jumps out from the page that didn't when I first read it in 1971. I suppose all manner have things have changed in me and about me, whereas his word remains constant. Two bits to reflect on The main character  Thomas Hudson has his three sons come to stay with him. He is living on his own, everything neatly ordered till the boys arrive. '...every sort of gear they owned was scattered over everywhere. Thomas Hudson didn't mind it. When a man lives in a house by himself he gets very precise habits and they get to be a pleasure. But it felt good to have some of them broken up. He knew he would have his habits again long after he would no longer have the boys.' p.56. I'll add the second bit that leapt out at me tomorrow.

A bit of whimsy, perhaps more than that --- by lack of understanding we remain sane.

The power of the word. Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe. In 1862 as Civil War raged between the Union and the Confederacy President Abe Lincoln met her and said, ' so this is the lady who started the Great War,'

If everything isn't going right, go left!

Some words of Francis of Assisi came to me this morning as I was busily organising myself.  He offered this, 'start by doing what is necessary, then do what is possible and suddenly you are doing the impossible.

It would have been Albert Einstein's birthday today, 14th March, it seemed appropriate to remind myself of something he said, 'the most beautiful thing that we can explain is the MYSTERIOUS. It is the only source of true art and science. All those to whom this emotion is a stranger - those who can no longer pause in WONDER or stand wrapt in AWE - they are already dead: their eyes are shut.' The emphases are his.

That extraordinary incredible Sci Fi novel, The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber, came to my mind this morning for no particular reason and especially the observation on p.59 ..in human relations kindness and lies are worth a thousand truths. I thought  of the  wonderful little, but big, story of Spit Nolan by Bill Naughton at the same time  and the generosity of a white lie. The whole issue of truth, lies, false news, morality engulfs our world right now.

Just finished Becoming by Michelle Obama, what an impressive read, thoroughly engaged with it. I think it will make an excellent book club choice, plenty of issues to chew over. How important like minded people are to support a vision and how sad when so much that is so good can so easily be kicked into touch when somebody comes along and doesn't get it. I don't know why it should come into my head at this point but 'by lack of understanding we remain sane' seems apt.

The key to finding happiness in modern times is simplicity.

Following on from my most recent remembrance. I was thinking about a piece a priest, Hugh Lavery wrote about holidays and people sending cards saying wish you were here to friends and colleagues, hiding the fact that they genuinely wished it because they didn't know what to do without friends and work mates around. I don't know whether that's true or not , but how he ended the piece resonated with me. 'It's not rest we need, its recreation, to play again with the abandon of children.'

It came to mind this morning, for some reason, sorry don't know where it came from originally, but I like it. We don't stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing.' keep playing.

'It doesn't matter, too much, generally speaking, a human life; it can be summed up in a small number of events - his father had just relived for the last time, the hopes and failures that formed the story of his life.' This made me shiver when I came across this piece that I had written down from Michel Houellebecq's book The Map and the Territory. page 149 if you are interested. I remember  at the time being troubled by that as I was reading the book and as I read it again this morning in my notes about the book I realized that I still am.

A couple of threads I pulled from somewhere today. ...paid the price for living too long with a single dream..  don't know where I conjured that from and something from St. Francis following.. Start by doing something which is necessary, then do what is possible and suddenly you are doing the impossible. Now perhaps there is a connection between the two.

I was thinking of Cicero this morning as I looked out across the water via the porthole window in my room, with a number of books on the shelf in front of it, and remembered what he said once. 'A room without books is like a body without a soul.'

I was having a meander through notes I've written to myself over the last few years and I happened upon this today which has resonated with me again more so since I have been moving around from place to place without any fixed abode. It's from John Banville's book The Blue Guitar which I had read. 'And yet once you go away, and stay away for any length of time, you never entirely return... even when I came back here, to the place I started out from and where I should have felt the strongest sense of being myself, something, some flickering, yet intrinsic part of me, was lacking. It was as if I had left my shadow behind. (page 198)

I like to have a few books on the go at the same time. Always a novel, then as well, perhaps some autobiography and something challenging and uplifting, not that a novel cannot be all of those things. Any way over the years I've been delighted when a new Haruki Murakami book has landed on the shelves, so I was happy to buy his latest hefty work some 681 pages called Killing Commendatore. Take a journey into his engaging, challenging (there that word), edgy and uncomfortable world and be drawn along as I have been. A thoroughly delicious read with much to ponder, he  always offers an opportunity to suspend belief and soar with it. One sentence that has lingered with me since I finished it the other day. Towards the end the narrator, who is never named, states baldly and boldly- 'We all live our lives carrying secrets we cannot disclose.'

I was flicking through some notes I have in search of a lost thought when I came across this gem by Levi Asler (1. 4. 05. -I know!) Reading is confrontation. At the end of a good book you may decide to change your life, and a reader or writer is somebody for whom that possibility is always open. This is why a person who discovers a great work of literature (or music or art or any other form of creative expression) often appears for the moment like a crazed animal twitching and mumbling incomprehensibly. Don't talk to this person... give them time... they are emerging from some cocoon right now and you are an unwelcome witness. Trying to think of the last piece of creative expression that affected me thus.

The ferryman said. The sun is shining and the sea is calm. I don't often have the chance to put those two thoughts together in one sentence.'   Just finished a lovely book 'Lost Connections by Johann Hari' It's a book that addresses depression in a way that looks at all manner of disconnections in people's lives. You don't have to be suffering from depression to benefit from reading it. I reckon it offers a wonderful proactive guide to avoiding depression all together as well as helping people to break free of it. At the end of the Chapter on being disconnected from other people there's a lovely final paragraph which touched me and I'd like to share it with you today. 'Sitting in the middle of Amish country, Freeman Lee told me he knew he would seem strange to me. "I understand how you guys would look at it," he said. "But our thought is- you can have a little bit of heaven here on earth, if you interact with other people....