Face Value

Face Value ©

By Michael Casey

We all discriminate, we all  look the other way to avoid Mrs Smith or Mrs Jones, because we don’t like the way they look. Or in Mrs Jones case how she smells, it’s either the lack of water in her house or the buckets of £2.99 a litre perfume she uses, and I don’t mean Jeyes Fluid either. There are some ladies perfumes that ARE beyond the pale, Jack and Jill would go nowhere near them.

WE discriminate because he’s a rambling old fat  silver haired guy who annoys us when we are busy on the till in Aldi or any other store he shambles into. Its normal its natural, but once we interact, such a posh word for actually talk to each other, then barriers do come down. How else would we breed the next generation, without barriers coming down.

It can be that somebody is Gay, and we never talk to gay people do we, don’t want our friends to think we are weak or even a closet gay. We don’t to Asians or Blacks or men with pony tails, not unless he owns a strip club, then it’s different, isn’t it. We don’t talk to the old, because they are boring and have an old people’s smell, and they repeat themselves, and they repeat themselves, and they repeat themselves ad infinitum, doesn’t ad mean something about asvertising? God knows what infinitum means, only really strange people know Latin, or that blonde haired guy on tv, Boris or is it Norris something, lost his job in London, but still he bores everybody about his shampoo.

So on it goes, we really hate somebody, there is even a Mike and The Mechanics song from years ago, about somebody always hating somebody. We can hate people in wheelchairs because they block the pavement, we hate fat people in mobility scooters who nearly run us down as the speed on the pavement, perhaps we should have speed bumps on the pavements to slow them down.

Then there are people with walking sticks who swing and swagger as they move along, why can’t they only be allowed out at certain times to free up the pavement so normal ordinary people can get to Greggs for their morning food rush.

Did you spot yourself amongst  all the negative people. I hope you didn’t, perhaps the lady with Jeyes Fluid dabbed behind her ears, is the only one we might all be tempted to hate or avoid. Now what  brought on today’s piece? I read in the DT about a lady who was going to have twins via a surrogate, she has and still suffers so much because of an accident. I’d never heard of her before until I read the DT. I say God Bless Her and her husband.

The adventure that is called Parenthood is the biggest thing in her life, and her husband. All the business experience and even being in the House of Lords is frankly worthless compared to what is to come. So I know she’ll enjoy it so much, she can hold her babies up and show them the stars in the night skies and remind them to reach for the sky and the stars beyond.

Reach for the Sky was the title of a book about Douglas Bader the pilot with tin legs in the war, in today’s world would he have been despised? The lady I mention uses a stick and has fought tremendous battles with her health, there are millions of us who fight battles with our health, or against prejudice, just because of the colour of our skin, think back to Ali. Or because we believe this or that because of Face Value.

So as Fr. George, who used to work on the track at Longbridge before becoming a priest, who had a very thick Brummie accent once said in a sermon, put yourselves in others’ shoes, the Augustinian way, think 360 degrees, and then maybe we’ll all be in the shoes of the fisherman. And won’t judge on Face Value, you may even make loads of friends.