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| 13th May, 2013 |
I love to listen to the BBC’s Radio
Four, especially on a Sunday
Sundays have always been the day that I find most
difficult when I am on my own because at home it was always a day of visitors,
of family or, in the summer, trips to the seaside.
Usually, when I think it is not going to be so quite
so nice to spend the day on my own, I visit a friend and at other times I visit
a café to eat cake, to read and to write, just as I used to in Budapest, at
Litea. Often I just switch on the radio to listen to Radio Four. I do not just
listen all day, I choose programmes from the play-again schedule.
Being a fan of John McCarthy I was attracted by the
title of last week’s episode Something Understood, a programme that he
introduces – ‘The Greatest of These is Love’
–
I have always enjoyed the chapter in the Bible,
about love and all things soulful, 1 Corinthians 13, that the programme was built around.
At one
stage John McCarthy discusses faith
and hope being all very good, but that love is crucial, a generosity of spirit
towards other people is crucial to mankind. At this point I thought that this
is all about the soul again!
As the
programme went on I began to enjoy it even more, as more of favourite music and passages
of prose, and even a favourite book, were featured.
Joni
Mitchell was featured, with her version of 1 Corinthians 13 in song, and also music
by J.S Bach and then the wonderful surprise of the reading of a long passage
from Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning.
This drew the discussion towards Frankl’s conviction that love is the
ultimate goal to which man can aspire and is the ultimate healer.
John McCarthy described
how when he was in captivity he and Brian Keenan, despite the severity of the
situation that they were in, were still able to make each other smile and
share laughter. This lead his discussion with Salley
Vickers to move towards considering whether it would have been more appropriate
had St. Paul also included humour in
his letter to the Corinthians.
Love of life
The
programme came to an end considering the stream of love that flows through life
and I continued thinking about it all for several days.
In fact
for over a week now I have been thinking about how so much of this programme relates
to my life, to my interests and to my work. I was pleased to discover this
evening that I could still Listen Again
and, while I listened, I wrote this posting.
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