A Call to Adventure

I'm back aboard the Anna M in Guadianaland, between Spain and Portugal, and very delighted to be here. With all the talk about a possible Brexit, I am reminded how wonderful it is to be part of a community of nations, able to share all the more fully in the rich diversity of their cultures. Like all things human, the European Union is far from perfect; but what a massive improvement it is on the previous state of affairs! The challenge remains to improve it further, but how people can imagine that it would be better to go back into a nationalist shell rather baffles me.

I have a doleful memory from Ibiza of a drunken boat-load of young Brits roaring out Rule Brittania. I am generally amazed at the indulgence with which people endure such behaviour, and the patience with which they are prepared to distinguish louts from a much more sensitive and kindly majority. However if the British did vote to leave the EU, or even if the vote was close, one would really have to ask some questions.

It is a fact that the EU is rather too large and monolithic a structure for people to relate to with ease, which is why in this blog I celebrate the Gannetsway, the Atlantic region with which I particularly associate. However could it be that, on top of mere insularity, there is more of a hangover from the Protestant reformation at work than one might imagine? Indeed moderns are inclined to underestimate the effect of theology on cultural reflexes, especially their own; one can see this in the stunned reaction to Islamic revivalism. In the case of Protestantism, one sees how the emphasis on individual personal salvation has morphed into the liberal cult of personal autonomy and independence.

On the other hand, there is a lot of mere fear and anxiety at work, with the result of a revival  in nationalism on the Continent too, in France for example. Facing multiple threats, people easily forget that it is a plain and infinitely multi-faceted miracle that the human race has come as far as it has. Maybe God sometimes is inclined to despair of the freedom with which He has endowed us. Maybe Islam has a vocation to remind the West that although His mercy is infinite, His patience has been known to give way to His wrath, as we like to forget, taking Christ's sacrifice for granted.

Certainly we are not worthy of that participation in the divine nature that Christ calls us to; yet this is a time to dare to believe in it. It is a love affair, a dynamic and ongoing relationship and an adventure. It is enabled by the structure of the Trinity and the Incarnation, which is what poor old Mahommed missed. That our relationship with God should be frozen in the words of that prophet from the seventh century is really a sad idea, and it won't work in the modern world; hence an agonising time for all his devotees.

Perhaps it is a chance for all of us to rediscover the wonders of that relationship! And I happen to think sailing the sea is one of the very best images for it....

I write in haste because my computer is down and I must post this from the library in Alcoutim.