In... Out.... Time for an Overview.

It was well over two years ago now, on the 16th July 2016 to be precise, that having, in the wake of the Brexit referendum, given off yards about ‘that extraordinary act of vandalism, self-harm and misplaced anger’, I wrote that I would ‘take a break from all that nonsense’ as far as commenting in this blog is concerned. I more or less kept to my word, yet it turned out to be a compelling psychodrama for anyone in any way tuned in. You will not have been short of reading material about it, nor discussion if you are any way so inclined, though it has become more and more difficult to communicate with those on the other side of the argument, if such it may be termed. Now that the process is theoretically coming to an end, I will attempt an overview.

What rational debate there has been has been mainly confined to the economic sphere. This has largely been a matter of rustling up whatever plausible arguments that one can muster to reinforce one’s own point of view; it is obvious that economics is very far from an exact science. For what it’s worth, I would have thought the economic factors overwhelmingly point to staying in, but since they are rehearsed ad nauseam elsewhere, by people who should be better qualified than me, I won’t bother with them here. Mind you, some of the leading Brexiteers seem to me totally in cloud cuckoo land as far as economics are concerned. One must seek to understand their motivation elsewhere.

If one should delve in very different spheres, and allude for example to the obvious parallel between Brexit and the English Reformation, again, the chances of deriving enlightenment are slim. Frankly most people have only the vaguest notions about history, prior to 1914, bar the odd raid in a film or something that imparts no meaningful context. Good King Harry and plucky Francis Drake no doubt contributed hugely to the sub-plot of Brave England standing up to them forriners, but again, one is really back to one’s own point of view. What dark paranoia led to Catholic priests being savagely butchered in the market squares of England is hard to fathom.

None of the above provides anything like an adequate narrative for Mrs May's 'different' England. A big part of our problem today is that we have been trying to manage on a very inadequate one; that of the Enlightenment, Progress and Democracy, with a purely individual idea of fulfilment allegedly empowered by technological wizardry, and it is finally proving inadequate, indeed unseaworthy, under present conditions. In their dismay, populists are trying to take us back to national myths, though these failed so catastrophically in the last century. When we consider the EU, to my mind it is in danger of falling apart because it has largely failed to have the courage of its own roots, settling instead for the EnDem narrative with all its limitations.

Just as Brexit clearly relates to the English Reformation, the EU, while it may not like to admit it, relates to the Roman Empire and its successor, the Holy Roman Empire, and finally the Roman Catholic Church. Moreover its symbol is the crown of twelve stars with which Mary was crowned Queen of Heaven and Earth in the book of the Apocalypse, and many of its founding fathers were Roman Catholics. It is based on catholic values of universality, solidarity, subsidiarity, community and dialogue rather than brute power. I do not wish at all to imply that such values are the prerogative of Catholics, nor to deny that all too frequently we have failed to live up to them. I note however that having been effectively taught all down the ages, they were particularly elaborated in the Second Vatican Council, around the time when the EU was taking off. The shock of the ensuing gale, that blew in when the gates and windows of the ‘fortress Church’ were opened, caused such havoc that it may go some way to explaining what to me is the bizarre reactionary stance of some Catholics, who are mostly of the post Vatican II generation, such as Messrs Bannon and Rees-Mogg.

A real catholic narrative has anyway to be rooted in that older narrative which Protestants share. One of the best stories in it is one of the oldest; I mean that of the Tower of Babel. Just a few lines in the Book of Genesis, when men tried to build themselves ‘a tower reaching to heaven’, but the Lord ‘confused their language so that they could not understand each other’, and that was the end of that! Here we still are, trying to secure Heaven on our own terms, finding ourselves at odds with each other, and rejecting the very idea that our only chance of peace on earth and a transcendent fulfilment lies in paying attention to God.

Immediately people will be jumping down my throat to ridicule this idea. How can I say such things after all the violence committed ‘in the name of God’? To which I can only reply that mankind has been violent ever since Cain killed Abel, but who has been showing us the way to peace? Who has even managed to find peace in their own hearts and families, and how do they do so? But to do so, we surely have to try to come to some kind of terms with the rest of the world. I have found that I cannot sit back and see out my days in peace, as best I may, unless I also do what I may to build harmony in the world.

When people argue about climate change, they frequently seem to think that the issue stands by itself. It doesn’t; it is merely one symptom of a massive collision between our contemporary technological version of civilisation and the natural order. Anyone who is at all close to nature realises that this is being rapidly degraded in multiple ways. That climate change is a very clear example of the imperative to achieve a new solidarity among the nations and humility too is presumably why the Duckie and his mates deny it and also loath the EU. At least they thereby acknowledge that the two of them are related.

Where do we begin? How can we make an effective contribution to ensuring that our grandchildren inherit a blessing from us? When all is said and done, is this not one deep desire that we all share? And yet, is there anyone who has a plausible and coherent strategy? It simply cannot happen without a compelling vision of human destiny, of where we are trying to go.

To elaborate such a vision is the business of religion, and as long as we start from the view that religion is hogwash, and mankind’s spiritual journey has proven to be a dead end, then clearly we havn’t the proverbial snowball’s chance in Hell of doing so. In practice all the great religions point in pretty much the same direction, although it seems to me that there is one preeminently thorough and effective expression of it. The narrative goes something like this:-

In our quest for knowledge and power, we became locked into our egos, unhinged and separated from our fellows and from nature. This condition is known as being in a state of original sin, and is inherently destructive. The only way to break out is through personal love; anything less cannot suffice, for to give oneself over to anything less than another person makes us into something less than a person.

Our quest remains that of the New Jerusalem, the City of God. Christ uniquely offers his very body as the locus of that City, continually, dynamically and presently. He is powerfully helped by his mother, who makes it abundantly clear that her son does not come into the world in power as the world understands it, but by humble attention to God’s Word, while the whole business is rooted in physical as well as spiritual reality.

Now, as has been repeatedly pointed out, the whole world has reached a pass where we must either break through into a new solidarity or perish. None of our efforts will be adequate, and sometimes they will be counterproductive and destructive. If their flaws are indeed such that we cannot overcome them, well that is a time of out. Like the rhythm of the seasons, the drumbeat of life goes yes... no..., in... out.... But our last word, if we are not to be finally cast out, must be yes, in, be it done unto me according to thy word!

Getting Going at Seventy-two?

Emile Ratelband, the 69-year-old Dutchman who has caused a stir by going to law in order to 'become' 20 years younger, is surely raising many smiles, not to say laughs, all around the world. We know that, whatever the Dutch court may decide (and despite the tendency of the law-courts and others these days not to let mere physical facts stand in the way of their decisions), de heer Ratelband will clock up the magic 'three score and ten' years shortly. That according to ancient if unfashionable authority is the time allotted us.

     After that, it is time for us to realise that life is a gift and a privilege even more than a right! Yet who among us oldies has not sometimes wished to be 20 years younger? I sometimes certainly have  done so myself lately, as I find myself launching into a project that has the potential to go far beyond me. What a pity it didn't happen 20 years ago! Meanwhile, I cannot but ask myself - why bother, and have I the energy for this?
     

     "There you go, you're on a whole new journey now!", said the lady in the social security office when I finalised my pension. "Yes, thank you,"  I replied, "with a one-way ticket!" Having one's basic cost of living handed out by the state is presumably an advantage of age that our Dutch friend can afford to do without. However I see it as a huge privilege, which has freed me up no end to give time to occupations that I rather enjoy, like working on my old wooden boat and writing this blog; but also, darn it,  look where it is all bringing me now!

     Yet this is one of the true advantages of 'living on borrowed time': one can allow oneself the luxury of being 'brought along'. If you delve into the archive of this blog, you may find a reference to a lovely remark that M. le Curé made in the parish newsletter when I was at Le Palais in Belle Isle about a decade ago; he wrote how he enjoyed being with old people 'qui osent, enfin, être eux-mêmes' - 'who dare at last to be themselves'. That saying has stayed with me ever since. It's not however just a matter of 'daring'. The fact is one is much more likely to be free to do it.

Fiona was shocked the other day by a Catholic priest who said in conversation that the idea of celibacy was 'dead in the water'. To both of us, it seems that the main reason for it given by Christ in the Gospels is as valid as ever it was, namely that it is extremely hard to combine following God's will down the road of freedom with the responsibility of rearing a family, 'especially in these end times!'.

There are other reasons besides financial freedom why the broad perspectives of the open road, indeed, I would rather say the open sea, are very likely to open out in one's seventies. Living on borrowed time, one should realise that being alive is more of a privilege than a right. Now is the time, at last, to give up being a control freak, both about oneself and about others. Indeed of course the two go together. But behold, it's when you lose your life that you win it!' Now you can truly let go and let God - let things happen.

'All very well for dreamers and mystics!' you may say. Well, how are the 'people of this world' getting on? Why did the idea of that humungus train rattling down the railroad completely out of control in Australia the other day resonate in the imagination? It made me think of a lot of things, but especially the British Government and its Brexit train. If only they find a way to derail it! I know that will be a mess, but it's likely to be a lot better than careering on to the end of the line. And meanwhile they think that they are 'taking back control'!

So what does 'winning one's life back' involve? Control does have to be in there. We do have to keep to the road, and we so easily deceive ourselves and make mistakes, though hopefully we are less likely to do so precisely insofar as we are able to get our heads around the fact that we are soon going to die anyway. The great thing, and the reason why I sometimes feel more in sympathy with myself as a child than as a 50 year-old man, is to rediscover life as gift. Then we are open to looking around and seeing what's about us.

In a sense this could hardly be worse. Normally sober boffins are telling us that we are destroying the very planet Earth, that if we don't rapidly change in the next 12 years it will become largely uninhabitable, that the oceans and many species of animal are dying, that human fertility itself is in danger of collapse.... Meanwhile people everywhere would rather look at flickering images of reality, with the illusion that they control it, than at the thing itself.

So how do we get to set sail on the sea of freedom, the sea of life? Catch on to any bit of reality, I say, and even if it disappears in your hand, it will have led you onwards into the Mystery! And that is how we are proceeding with O Projeto Nazareno. I sailed into Nazaré with the Anna M very much against my inclination in many ways, though not without asking Our Lady what I should do, and getting a clear reply. Here I find Alec who rips into the old boat, and we discover that, yes, it was a very good thing that we did so.

An old aunt whom I hardly knew died and left me a few quid to enable the work to proceed, but only as far as renovating the hull. Having emptied and cleaned the engine compartment and its filthy bilge, I would much rather not put diesel back in anyway. Alec and I find we have both been thinking about electric drives for boats for years. He looks around at electric motors on the internet, identifies the best one for the job, and finds that it is made just up the road from where he was at the time in his native Devon with his girlfriend. He wanders down there and comes away with the franchise to sell them in Portugal, Spain, France and Ireland.

It just happens that this is the same territory that I called the Gannetsway, when I was looking for a name for my website about 20 years ago, and achieved the freedom to sail it. When I dropped the subscription once, the name was promptly jumped on by some bright-spark in India trying to get money out of me. That's how this blog became gannetswaysailing. It's alright by me. But what prompted me to keep it going, with no commercial basis? Chatting to a wise friend I said, "I wish I could find a way to make money out of it, without resorting to ads or something". He said, "Don't worry about that, just keep writing!"

So now the blog is pretty valuable in giving some credibility for this Nazaré Project. We're applying for big money from the EU under the Portugal 2020 program to revitalise the Portuguese economy, to fund the research and development of regenerative electric drives. The right people to help us along the road seem to be showing up precisely when we need them.

The latest example was when we went looking for a premises yesterday. Alec had identified various places on the internet, and we happened to pull up in a lay-by to consult Google maps. While Alec was looking at his phone I eyed a place across the road, that wasn't advertised at all. I thought it looked the ticket and got out of the van to have a closer look. I was no sooner at the gate than a car pulled up with the owner in it. I asked could the place be rented, was told it could, and soon we were looking around it. It is ideal for our purposes. Now to see if we can put them into effect!

I am as cagey as ever about getting involved with serious financial commitments, and yes, I do wish I was 20 years younger; but it just didn't happen then the way it seems to be happening now. The world itself has changed. Twenty years ago I was that miserable codger going on about doom and gloom, but not so now. Funnily enough, now that the world is more recognizent of the doom and gloom, I am a lot happier in myself, and perhaps more so than I have been since childhood. I am feeling really whole, with all my faculties and gifts functioning together. In absolute terms, no doubt I had a lot more energy 20 years ago, but I wasted so much of it that probably I am able to actually apply more now, even if I am getting a little clapped out in some respects. The gifts of 70 years plus can far outweigh the drawbacks, friend Emile, and being truly positive does not involve any denial of the 'downside' of reality!

     

     

All Saints' Day, 2018.

October Dawn, by Fiona.

In contrast to the calm that prevailed as we looked out from our Sherkin retreat last week, rank on rank of shining but angry waves are marching on the beach in Nazaré, where the struggle to restore the Anna M goes on. When I arrived here yesterday the streets were wet with recent rain, and the wind had a winter chill. There was a waterspout out off a couple of days ago. Today, All Saints' Day, is however warm, and the afternoon sun, some 15 degrees higher than in Ireland, was almost hot.

This feast is still a national holiday in Portugal, thank God, and it was a great pleasure to celebrate it in the Santuario, with music, with down-to-earth people, and with the sun slanting through the incense to shine on all that gold paint. There was a time when I would have laughed at that. No more; today I truly had a sense of participating in that great eternal community which alone can satisfy our deepest needs and longings, and constitute a meaningful end to our troubled pilgrimage here on Earth; I know that sense would not have been so strong, even at Mass, in our dour northern cultures.

For years I tried to pretend that Heaven was merely a bonus, if it turned out to be true, and perhaps only a dream. But why 'only' a dream? Can anything be more important than our dreams? Are not dreams meant to be satisfied? Now I also vividly realise that humanity inevitably descends into gross darkness when the hope of that destiny is lost sight of. Silly modern Ireland, and all those who think that our poor efforts at work are more valuable than keeping that dream alive, especially now as we face into the winter.

It is not just the season that we face this day. It seems to me that our confidence in life itself, and the whole human project, is facing a time of most acute threat. It is not surprising in these circumstances that, to my profound distress, Ireland has recently voted to devalue marriage and human life itself, along with countenancing the cursing of God. Across the water in Blighty disintegration is seriously setting in, exacerbated by the decision to withdraw from the best ever opportunity for the nations of Europe to cooperate in attempting to bring our civilisation onto a new equilibrium.

Where does this leave those of us who opposed this whole agenda? Perhaps where in truth we always were, in a minority of 'nutters'! But we were able to compromise more agreeably with the world for too long, to pretend that there was not much difference really between those who kept the Faith and those who did not, that we were all much of muchness really, and most people were trying to do their best. Now 'trying to do one's best' in the same old way is not good enough. There are real, hard, difficult choices to be made if the human race is not going to destroy itself and the planet. It seems most unlikely that 'the demos' will take the right ones, on democracy's current form.

Yet in the Gospel that the Church reads today, the Sermon on the Mount, Christ lays out the path for us to take, if we are to partake in that feast with all the saints. It is not some holy war. It involves peacemaking and hungering and thirsting for justice. It commends patience and forbearance, especially when we run into persecution. So on we go, laying one stone of the Holy City on another, as best we can.

But why bother to seriously attempt to keep the roof on this our earthly home? Is it not blasphemous to equate our little struggles with building the Kingdom? What have sustainability, recycling, organic living and so on got to do with it anyway?

I say that reverence for life and for physical reality are inseparable from reverence for their Creator. I also fear that those who have no such reverence inevitably turn destructive; this is 'the other side' of the fact that he who does not love this Earth has no true love of God. Yet we may find, if we get down to work with them, that after all we can make common cause with people with whom we profoundly disagree; even if they do not know it, they too are children of God; let the falling out come from them if so it must be!

Rebuilding the fallen wall.