Love is a losing game

Last Monday, I walked into town. Town being Cardiff City Centre. I was surprised that I was able to book an eye test online so towards St David's Centre, up the Hayes I walked passing the Tabernacle Baptist Chapel which usually has a pithy comment on the cheese boards outside. I paraphrase but it went something like

"Nid yw Iesu yn hunan ynysu mae o ar gael wastad"

"Jesus doesn't self isolate he is available always" which is a rather irresponsible message if taken literally. The Chapel deacons can expect a knock on the door from Chris Witty and Boris Johnson. What I saw as I walked up towards the Hayes Snack Bar and St David's Hall was profoundly saddening. Human Souls in shop doorways, the homeless, drug addicts with nervous leg movements moving from foot to foot. Agitated beggars, one shouting verbal abuse at another one who finally asked me for a pound for a cup of tea. I am not a Christian so I refused the request marching  as to war sporting my 3 ply surgical mask (Made in China) 

There was no entrance to St David's Centre from St John's Square or Queen Street so I had to walk down Charles Street and come around beside the Roman Catholic Church and in behind Marks & Spencer's Food Concession before uttering the password to the High Viz Security Guard "Vision Express"

So what love am I talking about in the middle of a pandemic? not romantic love that's for sure. Universal Love, Spiritual Love, Christian Love? 

Whose job is it to look after the welfare of Cardiff's street people? None of the folks I saw was wearing a mask. I don't think they were anti-maskers. I think that they had been so worn down by life that they didn't care whether they caught the virus or not. They would get a warm bed, hot food and a ventilator if they were lucky. Beats vaping doesn't it?

You might by now be detecting an undercurrent of bitterness to my words. These poor souls could have been carriers of the virus that we have been beaten with a stick over our heads to fear, yet nobody was out and about looking after their welfare at 10.00 am in the City Centre of the Capital City of Wales. Maybe I had just missed the Council's outreach team.

What was I expecting? The doors of the churches and chapels to swing open with Christian storm troopers dressed in cassocks and Doc Martens ready to dispense food, masks and reassuring scripture?

All I remember from Church and Chapel are preachy words, scripture, do as I say and for God sake don't do as I do!

Our society has been set up for basic survival! Never mind the goats on the Great Orme or Hump Back Whales benefiting from the lack of cruise ships. What about Victor Hugo's Court of Miracles in the Centre of Cardiff?

Instead of asking me for a £1.00 for a Cup of Tea why aren't people on the breadline being offered Universal Basic Income by a Conservative Government? Because that is too much like Socialism and to use their recent phrasing it is a 'Perverse Incentive'.

What kind of perverse incentive are they offering us to wear a mask? That we might continue to live in this fundamentally unjust and unfair world.

Love is a losing game sang Amy Winehouse. Where is the Love? sang the Black Eyed Peas?

Is it in the reading of scripture on a Friday or Sunday?

Where is the love in the middle of a pandemic?

It's not in the Centre of Cardiff, I can tell you that for nothing.