I dreamt that J. Guillaumier dropped his pen in a teacup at 8am after ruminating on the words of Pope Francis, less than two months after his election, that Christians should see atheists as good people if they do good. More defining contemplation to be less derogatory towards anything holy and his unawareness of what to say next to get attention contributed to the decision to join a Cistercian Order and lived happily ever after.
Before retiring into voluntary seclusion, he left a very enlightening spiritual testament the gist of which is that, no matter how annoying and complacent it may sound, mental and spiritual growth and salvation can be the good that comes out of suffering. Jesus Christ, his model thereafter, himself bore all the pain of this world and that's shattering and unimaginable and even more impressive than the divine power of creating the world in the first place.
He also took a mathematics course in order to gauge the extent of the Muslim persecution of Christians - a staggering brutal Holocaust. There is an enormous difference of his 10,000 Christians slain and the 100,000, the actual number. I would call that inaudible thud of the pen, a storm in a teacup.
Not like the other storm in the Mediterranean, which obliterated the azure window in Gozo - one less pane to clean. The loss of a familiar sight was a disaster of tsunami proportion, the sound of which woke me up abruptly.
The day started with a hearty breakfast which culminated in dipping those delicious Maltese biscuits (ottijiet) in coffee. This was only a taste of things to come on the 8th day of this month, Women's Day.
The morning was spent enjoying excellent videos of the performance of Mahler's Number 10 Symphony and Rachmaninoff's Number 2 symphony. If you make a subtraction, you get number 8.
The next eight hours were spent being tourists before we watched the thrills, emotions and drama a football match can offer when a team four goals down can offset such a debacle and register a 6-1 victory - Barcelona v P.S.G. The joy of the supporters of the winning team was indescribable in that it was turned into a valley of tears - 90,000 of them losers and victors alike - a truly memorable day.
John Azzopardi
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