ppl c/ manicured images

After being peppered with local gossip & listening to a Camino podcast that featured a film producing couple, I am struck (again) by a certain coterie of society whore chief aim is to broadcast their desire to be seen as superior to others. 

This personal broadcast is often interwoven with trendy notions of positive affirmations of success & influence & allusions to greatness. What's not actually revealed is privilege has been bestowed by birth, access to financial freedom or social connections with concomitant codes of behaviour, fuel this preoccupation with public notoriety or fame. They eventually arrive at a point of believing that they are innately above others & deserving of greatness.

My own view, my own values have led me see the earthy goodness of, particularly older women, some men, who will typically attend church for example, & chose to sit may be two thirds of the way towards the rear, pray quietly & avoid the glare of the altar & public gaze. They congregate quietly, in tiny numbers ever careful to avoid garrulous or vulgar displays of themselves. People that would shun the stage or bright lights are deeply modest in their views & who are innately caring but remain intensely private. 

   As I age & have time to look back I am Increasingly drawn toward the quiet, deep waters where the flow is gentle & draws little attention to itself. 

Where the viewer shunning the limelight & detouring around the din of self acclamation seeks the depths of being at peace & living frugally & simply. 

I realise now how these quiet, some say dull, qualities fuel real integrity & dare I say class in the other sense of the word. Where achievements are enjoyed with publicity & fanfare, & may equally be about enhancing the lives or others, of plants & animals. Essentially so different as the actor who attends to their charity work in company of a film crew verses the person of some wealthy will share that wealth secretly for private reward, or simply because they know its the right thing to do. 

As the pope has recently encouraged the clergy to do; to vacate mansions for a unit in the suburbs, to do away with gold chalices. In a way admonishing the church for being sidetracked by wealth management & conspicuous consumption, to focus on prayer & growing spirituality.