Ruthless...

...As a pastor of rural souls I must only but publicly rejoice that Ruth ['The Archers' passim] allowed not her loneliness, unhappiness and her honest-to-God lust to lead her into carnal temptation with the cowman. (If you've not been keeping up with the Home Service then I've not really the time to explain, though I would presume you get the general drift: take 'Lady Chatterley' - but one who said that on the whole she'd better not - as a basic template and you won't be far from the matter in hand.)

As though l'homme moyen sensuel (a cleric is nothing if not a man after all - leaving out the whole women priests question altogether) it was a little disappointing that she called the whole thing off before at least venturing into that twilight world of darkened desire, by whose fell light so much can be learned.

Far from it for me to urge the Vestals of my patch to abandon all discretion and sup the dangerous cup of Dionysus, yet although dear 'Fried Rice' (as we punningly if naively named Nietzsche in seminarian days) is not by and large to be taken as a beacon of light for illuminating the human path, I do admit that his mandate to acquire sanity or sanctity from all that is mad was at least brave if not heroic.

One should not be too sensible if by that cold rationality - howsoever tied to morality or fidelity - that precludes true, pure passion. Not a view I shall necessarily be sharing with Old Tom, or even alluding to in the Sunday homily, yet if I reflect on past moments when one opted to be sensible and not passionate [one thinks University days and M visiting] one damns one's eyes for not seizing the moment and the woman.