Ordinary Glory




I am a person who delights in negativity- no, wait, come back!- this is a mea culpa, not a manifesto. This is something of which I have long been aware; it is usually easier and always funnier to dwell on the failings and faults of a thing or a person or a place. I had meant, however, as a conscious act of Lenten rigour to dwell at least as often on those things that brought me joy in a less judgemental manner. This is not a renunciation of adherence to Swiftian misanthropy (I wonder what such an auto-da-fé would involve? I would doubtless be made to wear a sanbenito with ‘LIVE LAUGH LOVE’ emblazoned on it and then immolated inside a giant yellow Minion, all while the inquisitor reads from The Little Book of Hygge. But I digress and shall now have to start again). Ahem.

This is not a renunciation of adherence to Swiftian misanthropy- far from it- rather it is an admitting that, for there to be such manifold negativity, there must be some positives lurking out there in order to provide reference points for awfulness. As I turned my mind to it, I realised that there were many ordinary things in which I gloried, which caused me to smile- sometimes with a full-on beam, sometimes with a wry smirk- as I went about my daily business and which, inevitably, pointed me toward recognition of that greater, that greatest Glory. I started to write the odd short essay on them, to edge my mind closer towards thankfulness. These, then, are they.

I had been keeping them as private reflections, written mostly in illegible hand on scrappy bits of paper and in wine stained notebooks, to cheer me or chasten me when either self-pity or self-regard reared their Scylla-like heads. It struck me, however, that we are not short of reference points for awfulness in this day and age, and that, as we are forced daily to confront the extraordinary, some reminders of the glories of the ordinary might raise a smile- it matters not whether a wry smirk or a full-on beam- for others too. That is their sole purpose, take them as you will.

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