My little Gnudren,
Because old Gnu is so old, he increasingly notices changes about him, and like many old geysers is belly aching about them. He is learning some astonishing things. The first is that Jane, a friend who helps us, is getting taller and so are our daughters, something they ought not to be doing at their age.
The other bewildering thing is that the 4 pairs of trousers that Old Gnu has worn for the past 10 years are getting longer. He now has created turnups on these miraculous trousers, otherwise they drag across the floor and ground and act as mini sweepers and are a tripping hazard. Turnups were the norm for trousers of the 1950s and 60s. They say that the clothes you where are an expression of your personality. That may be true for some people; but not in this case or at any time in Old Gnu’s personal life. The clothes he wears are what’s in the charity shops. I suppose that could demonstrate only a tiny facet of Gnu’s personality – he’s stingy and can think of better things to spend his money on than clothes. I can hear some of you thinking, “I thought as much!” Determined to sort out this vexing conundrum of lengthening trousers Old Gnu took to checking their length on the label and then measuring them to check if a miracle had in fact occurred. It hadn’t; so the conclusion to be drawn was even more alarming. Had Old Gnu shrunk?! At his last medical for a job in 2008 he measured 5 foot 10 and a half inches. After measuring himself again he had to acknowledge the shocking truth: he had shrunk! He’s now only 5ft 8 in! That means he’s shrunk 2.5in (6.35 cm).
The second alarming thing Old Gnu has discovered is that not many people are well these days. When you ask the question, “How are you?”, you expect to hear the reply, “I’m well,” or “not very well”. Instead, they reply “I’m good”. When old Gnu first heard this, he thought, “How self-opinionated of them!”. For the Bible tells us “There is none good, no not one”, – (that statement needs a lot of unpacking) – and that we all like sheep have gone astray. Mr. Handel went to great pains to illustrated this musically.
The third thing old Gnu has discovered is that increasingly fewer people are actually dying. Apparently they “pass away”. Where? old Gnu asks himself. This is rather sad. I suppose it’s symptomatic of the fact that dying is too ghastly a word for many people, so “passing away” sounds less painful. Or maybe it’s an agnostic hope that the dead people are somewhere looking on.
Well old Gnu is determined to die one day, not pass away, because he has the delusional notion that death is not the end and that God and Jesus are more fully the other side of death. Read Lord Oystermouth (Rowan Williams) when he talks about Resurrection in his wee book “God with us”. He expresses this view much more eloquently in plain English which he is well capable of speaking, contrary to some opinions.
Passing away seems irresponsible and impersonal thing to do as if it didn’t matter to the people you passed, as if you were heading for some undefined destination. If you are not delusionally religious like old Gnu you still ought to say with confidence what you believe: I’m dying but that’s not the end; there is something nebulous beyond. Or on the other hand you can, like Dylan Thomas, you can rage against going into that dark night, if that’s what you think it is. As the French novelist Albert Camus once said, – and he had no sympathy with the notion of anything beyond this life, – “There is but one freedom, to put yourself right with death. After that everything is possible.” So, try to avoid passing away. Death is much healthier and we must come to terms with it.
Old Gnu would point you to the far healthier attitude towards life and death that persisted in ages past. This is particularly noticeable in the painting Pieter Brueghel the Elder. His painting, “The Fight of Carnival against Lent”, portrays people going about celebrating life with dead death also present. There are at least two dead people portrayed in the picture. Although this painting of 1559 just may have a tinge of political overtones, (being painted in the Lutheran/Protestant Netherlands while being governed by Catholic Spain,) it eloquently displays life, frailty, illness and death side by side, something that’s true of all human life though many people like to ignore the death bit.
Anyway, this painting is known to have been copied a number of times by Pieter Bruegel the Younger (yes, he did change the spelling of his surname; this is not a typo!) and by others. It is thought that at least 15 copies were made of the painting at the time of which 5 still exist. A couple of them are by Pieter Bruegel the Younger. He does take some liberties in changing the details in the original.
A further copy of this painting was made in 2022 by Pieter Bruegel the Even Younger, also known as “Bert” Bruegel (the painting is signed “Pieter Bruegel de nog jongere, ook wel “Bert” Bruegel genoemd MMXXIII”. He has taken fewer liberties than P.B. the Younger.
“Bert” Bruegel’s copy is shown at the top of this blog. To cheer yourself up, see if you can spot the 2 dead people in it.
Cheers! Have a nice day!
Vetus Pater Gnu
Musicorum et Theologia
Turris LA
X Mensis Septembris MMXXIII
Aha! Just spotted this response 6 months late! Better late than never. There is a dead person in a cart, and the second dead person is a child covered over with cloths in the very bottom right hand corner of the picture. But unfortunately it seems that this part of the picture has been cut off in copy above old Gnu’s rambling blog. You must forgive the site manager for this; he does a tremendous amount to publish this drivel while holding down the demands of being fully employed. Perhaps he had been reading the Old Testament too much where God is always cutting things off or instructing the Israelites to do the same.
When people reply “I’m good” I have been known to say “I was enquiring after your state of health, not your moral compass”. Perhaps Gnu would like to reply with this repost in future. These days precious few seem to know what a moral compass is let alone have one. Personally I rarely ask people how they are for fear that they will tell me, my father certainly always did.
So to “passing away”.
Benjamin Franklin said in 1785 “in this world, nothing is certain except death and taxes”. I frequently say (to anyone who will listen) “we’re all going to die so the sooner you get used to the idea the better both for you and everyone else”. The trouble seems to be that most people find it difficult to face up to their own mortality and this leads to avoidance of the ” Death ” word. In Victorian times people appear to have “fallen asleep” which of course gave way to several generations of Victorian children not wanting to go to bed for fear that they’d end up in the cemetery. Gnu could always try to start a discussion by replying “Where did they pass away to?” or even more directly, “Do you mean they died?” I find it even more annoying when people say “they passed”; the only way to respond to this is to say “What exactly was it they passed?” a kidney or gall stone perhaps?
Pieter Bruegel the younger was obviously just one of those young men with careless enunciation who dropped his aitches.
Finally I must comment on the two dead people reputed to be in the painting. Normally I’m very good at spotting whether people are dead or not, but not in this picture . I did spot the man at the back of the picture about to cast himself out of an upper floor window, presumably in order that he might die, but he’s disqualified by the fact he’s not actually dead yet. I saw some people with stringed instruments, but sadly Bert Bruegel did not take liberties and insert a surreptitious saxophone. After a while I’m afraid I lost concentration & realised that I was in fact now playing where’s Wally. I did find him in the middle of the picture but he seems to have changed his customary red & white stripes to blue & white with what appears to be a red scarf tossed casually over his right shoulder. I’m sure this hides a deep spiritual truth, I just haven’t worked out what it is yet….