An English Spring can be two-faced, like life itself. The sun warms you and the chill wind finds its way through your clothes, both at the same time.
For a whole week I haven’t written here, but the will was there and a need to understand what’s been happening to me. I’ve been feeling uneasy; even when walking in Nature, under the open sky, my nagging preoccupations haven’t been dispelled. What changed? Will those days of simple joy return?*
Over the lifetime of this blog, the inner landscapes of my life have been transformed, while I’ve been writing of outer landscapes. I’ve been dismantling brick by brick the walls of certainties and assumptions. I’ve vowed that nothing will be sacred unless I find it to be so experientially. I’ve rejected the Bible as violent and authoritarian, quite out of tune with the goldfish bowl in which I swim and through whose lens I view the world – thanks Fleming for the imagery of your dreams! I’ve renounced direct use of the word “God”. It evokes no personal relationship, only a sympathetic second-hand vision based on any genuine experience of others.
What I do have is a strong sense of angels keeping me safe and revealing me private miracles. The flip side of that is that if I feel they could let me down, my joy collapses. This blog has been an unfolding chronicle of my naïve joy in simple things: breathing clean air, feeling healthy in my head, trunk, limbs and functional organs. For these blessings I have given thanks to whatever powers work on our behalf unceasingly – but especially when we align our will to the good of the Universe.
Did that golden thread of trust break down? A number of incidents, one on top of the other, aspects of one theme, have stretched but not broken that thread, as if angels are nudging me “Vincent, time to grow up, time to change!” I don’t think I can express more details yet. Various blogs for example Paul in Original Faith have been asking whether everything happens for a reason. My short answer is “yes”. Mental pain, which has been a topic in Serenity’s blog, must always accompany the clash and grind of a changed direction forced upon us by Love. How can it be otherwise? The pain is not necessary: it’s caused by our temporary resistance to needed change.
About these cadets. I’d been out of touch with the old boys and staff at my school, which in any case closed down in 1967, so I did not learn of my headmaster’s death until years after the event. I immediately wanted to send my condolences to his widow, a most tender-hearted woman. Unfortunately I learned that she had recently died also. So I wrote to their daughter instead, full of belated realisations that I had misjudged my headmaster, and being regretful not to have kept in touch. It’s hard to explain the sense of loss.
The daughter did not reply for eleven years but the other day she phoned and today she came to visit, bringing with her a small suitcase of photos and other school memorabilia, which she asked me to hold in trust on behalf of all those who appear in them. I found many photos of me and long-forgotten fellow-pupils; along with a few long-forgotten articles I’d written in the school 
magazine. She’s five years younger than me, and we’d hardly met before.
*Reviewing this post on January 3rd 2026, I realize what was on my mind. I’d fallen out with my supervisor and decided to quit; then realized why it wasn’t for me anyhow
a wayfarer’s notes 
what an incredible gift of connection and heritage!
how do you feel about this?
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I feel grateful for an angelic gift, in compensation for days of anxious something-or-other.
Thanks for your comment, Hayden. My post was rather hastily written so I have re-edited it now.
Today as it happens my younger kids are coming over, so I am sure they will be interested in the pics. They have not got over one (dated 1971) in which I had long hair, droopy moustache, sideburns and – I was stripped to the waist – skinny torso.
I'll tell you another thing that I feel – the folly of autobiography, for one's past can be constantly reinterpreted. For example I'm starting to awaken to the gifts of my schooldays and not just the deprivations and negative stuff which have long preoccupied me.
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dear Vincent,is it because you are old and mature and that you suddenly started caring for the wonderful relationships life has endowed you with, or is it that he was always on your mind…a part of which was repenting that it didn't pay enough obeisance to a man who has so much contribution in your life. beautiful writing Vincent. hope you met your old friends.
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'This is my friend rauf, and he does not belive in God''what a pity' My friend was introducing me to his American friend on a visit to India.'what a pity' We are treated with pity and sympathy for not confirming to their beliefs and values.Normally I am quiet about my views and beliefs until some one pokes me.This is Easter time Vincent, There was no resurrection, rising from the grave and going to heaven on the third day.This story was fabricated by King Constantine when Christianity was fading, So they thought of adding some drama so this story was added 300 years after the Crucifiction. So there was Easter for first 300 years.So is the story of casting the first stone who has not committed a sin. This was added to St. John's gospel 400 years later, it is not there in the original text.We cannot unlearn Vincent, we only overlap what we already have with new learning.
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Wish I could help scan all the tr of pictures and put them in a website, it is such a treasure.
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Rauf, you are a wonderful chronicler yourself. I will publish more pics from the archive and indeed already have published one on my Omnes Veniant post.
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Hullo! I too used to be a cadet in a military college. And many years after passing out, renewed contact with the school, its teachers and students, with much the same feelings, of seeing anew, what one had received from that place and its teachers and senior boys. We share much in common!
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Vincent,Having myself taken a bit of a hiatus for some days and just enjoying the simplicity of the beach, walking, painting, sitting in silence, serving, I come to realize that I am returned once again to this concept of Love…Love that has demanded much of me…and yes is sometimes causing much anguish as my mind engages in its elaborations. My mind can fight against it and try to find relief from its demands by even supposing what it would be like to return to the conditioning, to the coma. I see the sadness in some eyes and faces who feel I am now so lost without what used to be my “truth” as it matched with theirs…and yet I find with time the sadness in their eyes hurts me less and less…a slow and painful process to be sure, but a necessary one. Love wishes change for me. It is not violent or unkind, but it is persistent and patient. Easter was an entirely different experience this year…a sort of quiet rebirth once again…for the very first time the day had nothing to do with dogma or religion or stories or bibles or anything but a simple day spent with Love and in the sun and gentle breeze. Thank you Vincent for your blog, for your role in reminding me to return to myself always…and to return to my angels in whose arms I find peace, and…Love.
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