Symbols

Symbols ©

By

Michael Casey

I was lying in bed this morning having a pray, yes I pray, and afterwards or during or instead of. Things don’t happen in isolation after all, afterwards I wondered what I’d talk about today. The thought of Symbols came to mind, so that’s what you’ll get.

I have a nearly 70 year old picture of Jesus on my bedroom wall, the Big Brother picture you see in Mrs Browns Boys on tv, a smaller version. Its a holy picture that blesses you home. Well that’s the theory. It was on the wall of the family home, then my bedroom, then when I moved house it was on the wall of my bedroom for 32 years there. I didn’t want it on the wall downstairs frightening any passing visitors so it was in “an upper room” which seemed appropriate to me. I actually left it in the old house, but eventually I restored it to its place on a bedroom wall in the new house.

The Burne -Jones Angel which was a leaving present from my computer company has been on my wall at the old house for 20 years. We did not want it dominating the new study, we even offered it to a church. It is a painted watercolour. So I tried putting it on my bedroom wall, only it was too heavy, then we could not put it in the attic, that would have been cruel to angels.

You do the remember Dr Who and the angels after all, before Dr Who went all formatty and preachy and frankly rubbish. In passing Story is everything, speaking as somebody who watched all the Dr Whos going back to the very beginning 50 years ago.

So Symbols do mean something, Faith is full of them. We could have electric chairs or nooses outside all our churches if things were  different, no doubt Trump supports will condemn me immediately. Thinking without Prejudice seems to have bypassed them, but I digress. What symbols are there in your life? The pictures on your wall are symbols of your taste or lack of it. Depends on which shopping channel you watch, or whether you follow or think for yourself.

You may have an old book by your bedside, the Bible, or Playboy Xmas edition. Or both, each one has a separate meaning to you. The Playboy reminds you when you were a professional photographer, women throwing their clothes off just to have you photograph them. The Bible represents your Faith, the real you. Or it could just hide your cigarettes from your nurse, the wacky backy ones.

My mother had a pink tainted wooden clothes hanger, when we broke it she cried, why, because her mother gave it her when she left Ireland for England in Feb 1944. It represented the love, the only material thing she had from her mother. To us it was just a wooden coat hanger,but to mum, it was the symbol of love from Cromane Lower Kerry that she brought to England with her. I suppose the Big Brother Jesus picture I have reminds me of all the love she and dad gave me for decades.

There are other symbols which can mean so much for us. On a Historical note the Nazis bastardized an ancient symbol and turned it around for their Pure Evil madness. The swastika. So symbols have great power and meaning. Mcdonalds has its symbol, Amazon has it’s one too, every company wants a logo, so they can be spotted easily and thus make money faster. Some far eastern companies will copy logos to confuse and ”steal” business.

Weinstein and films was a name, a symbol of film. Then you have a fall from grace so names are changed, but when we all watch films on tv and we see Weinstein now we think of the fall from grace, and not that it’s Shakespeare I Love or Nannie McFee or whatever it happens to be. So symbols have so much power, as does name recognition, so USA companies especially guard their symbol, their trade mark. Because its all about money.

So what do you think when you see Michael Casey,or michaelgcasey, or “the fat silver haired writer in shades from Birmingham England”?

Those are my trade marks I suppose, coupled with the silly photos, the non pretentious photos. I want you to know you’ll get something different and interesting wherever you are in the world, and that can be 40 plus countries now. You’ll also get up to 2000 stories depending on which website you land on. You can even buy a book on Amazon for the price of a pint of beer, would you buy me a beer if you met me in a bar? Or would you just avoid me? Michael Casey stinks, too liberal perhaps?

A beer or a cup of tea, or sharing a piece of chocolate is a symbol of friendship or love even. I don’t expect you give me a pink stained wooden coat hanger, that would be far too generous. However you do give me your Time, every time you visit my words you are giving me a Gift, the gift of your time. And if you then mention my words with a smile on your lips to somebody else, that is friendship even though I will never see your face.

So all I can say is thank you and May Peace be Upon your House, just as the picture on my bedroom wall states.

Now that sounds too posh for me, so I’ll just dash to the lavatory,I do my best thinking there, or my best stinking. It’s always best to finish on a high note, or rasping note…