a peaceful interlude

The noble Heelers is standing outside a cafe.
The cafe is situated in a sleepy town called Dunlavin which nestles in the foot hills of the Wicklow mountains.
It is run by a group called the Camphill Community, whose speciality is mixing handicapped people with people who are able bodied in the workplace and letting each learn from the other, and encouraging each to realise the glory of God in the other, and liberating each so that we might understand the deep mysic truth that I myself am handicapped and the other person is unfathomably glorious and was born for the glory of God.
Well you know what I mean.
I am standing outside the door of the cafe, a new one which only started trading a few weeks ago.
I have come to this town just to check it out.
And the cafe is locked.
A sign in the window informs me that it does not open on Mondays.
Ireland's greatest living poet sighs briefly before begining a magnificent fulmination.
My words amount to a powerful discourse on man's inhumanity to man, and cafes' inhumanity to poets.
I declaim out loud with great passion.
This is what I say, word for word:
"The f--king Paddies. They don't want to work on Mondays. Oh no. Recession or not. We're not working on Mondays. We get our money from State subsidies. Why would we work? The useless f--king c--ts. The Paddy Whacks. We're Irish so we can't be showing up for work on Mondays. Be f--king gorrah. What if there was something good on day time TV? Top o the mornin to you sorr, I'm too f--king busy to work. Oh no. Oh no. Can't risk that. The f--king Irish c--ts."
I ask you gentle readers.
Is there not something ironic about an unemployed Irishman discoursing thusly, with great rabid iterations of the vulgarisms, on the streets of an Irish town?
I'd have been safer back bearding Mussies in their dens on Grafton Street.
My peroration continued for some time.
Now I was just repeating profanities over and over while still peering through the window of the locked cafe:
"F--king Irish c--ts. Won't work on Mondays. F--king Irish c--ts. Won't work Mondays."
An urbane cultured British voice at my shoulder said: "Hello James."
Turning I beheld Chris Harte, who is a mover and shaker in the egalitarian world of the Camphill Communities.
He's English of course.
Hence the voice.
You should have seen me folks.
Great 180 degree turns of our times.
"Ah howya Chris," I cried. "Great to see you. How long has it been? Your new project looks the business! This is what we need. This is how we'll beat the recession and save our country."
All in a rush.
I think I was blushing too.
"Good to see you James," he answered mellowly, with a gentle British burr and not without bemusement. "Come on. I'll give you a tour of my cafe."
As he unlocked the door I thought maybe I might seize the opportunity to run by him my new conspiracy theory about the Camphill Community.
Their founder Rudolf Steiner is said to have been a devil worshipper.
I know for a fact that a hundred years ago Rudolf was involved with a group styling themselves Theosophists who seem to have had some rather ambiguous attitudes about which side they were on in any battle between the God of the Hebrews and Satan.
Some people insist that the theosophists were frankly and indubitably satanists.
Certainly Rudolf Steiner himself was at one time the editor of a magazine called Lucifer.
Lucifer the devil sometimes is accorded the epithet Prince of the Morning, and his supporters will wrongly accord him the honour of synonimity with the sun in the sky.
Hmmm.
Even today there are an awful lot of sun symbols to be spotted on Camphill Properties.
I followed Chris Harte into the cafe.
All this was on my mind.
I decided to leave it for another day.


*****
Footnote: The Camphill Cafe in Dunlavin now opens on Mondays.