Jun 15 2018
Newsletter June 2018
Alan Jackson
Tue, Jun 5, 1:27 PM (10 days ago)
Hello Sea of Faith Friends
The Newsletter will continue during our recess for the winter – I’d love to hear from anyone with suggestions or articles – and I know that folk DO intend to send things in – but we all get side-tracked… (there is a proverb about the paving of the road to hell I think).
Our numbers, like every other organisation I belong to (apart from U3A) are shrinking and with winter holidays for a few of the leaders, a recess is the best solution. I hope that we will all keep warm, keep reading something new and difficult and challenging to exercise brains, create new brain cells and surprise ourselves.
I’m reading some of WB Yeats’ poetry just now – some is easy enough and some pretty obscure, so I’m reading (on the web) some analyses of his work to shed light. I discover that he had a patron, Lady Augusta Gregory, who ran the “big house” at Coole Park. I decided to read a bit more about her in a book called “Lady Gregory’s Toothbrush” by Colm Toibin. Towards the end of the book I discovered that Lady G regarded the Irish as being in two groups – those that had toothbrushes and those that didn’t. Towards the end of her lifetime, more Irish owned toothbrushes, and Ireland became more self-governing.
Yeats and Lady G started The Abbey Theatre in Dublin – they were criticised for the plays they put on including JM Synge’s Playboy of the Western World – well I had heard of that but hadn’t read or watched it and discovered that a theatre group had recorded a production (free on YouTube). The script is free on the Gutenberg Project website and there are reviews of the reception of the play from The Guardian (of the day) and the Irish Times.
All without leaving home during a wet week.
I hope you find a topic of interest and can share via the Newsletter. Drop a line to say what you are reading and how it is stimulating your thinking.
Keep warm.
Appreciatively
Alan
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Alan Jackson
Newsletter Editor
Dunedin Local Group of the Sea of Faith Network
New Zealand
55 Evans Street
Opoho
DUNEDIN 9010