The Middle Way

There is a little strip of gravelly sand between rocks down on the shore in front of our cottage. It faces south and when the tide is out provides a glorious suntrap, on the very rare occasions when I get to take advantage of it. But even then I am conscious of Spain across that sea to the south; I also find myself frequently conscious of St Michael's Way, the mysterious line that originates on Mount Carmel where the prophet Elijah called down the fire of Yahweh, flies to the Northwest by Delphi in Greece, and on by way of various special sites associated with St Michael, up through Italy and France to Mont St Michel, Mount St Michael in Cornwall and finally by Sherkin to Skellig Michael in Kerry.

     Paris and London, Rome and Jerusalem, probably most great cities are inclined sometimes at least to think of themselves as the Centre of the World. Since I conceive of the world in dynamic rather than static terms, I consider an arrow to be a more appropriate image than a point, if one is to seriously envisage this Centre; and a Centre of some kind there needs to be, if we are to conceive of some kind of united humanity. However the transition from a static concept of 'The Central' to a dynamic one is perhaps the essence of our contemporary crisis, because such 'Central' images that we have inherited tend to be stuck in a 'static' mind-set. In this context, and it may be nothing but my fanciful conceit, I have found myself conceiving of this St Michael's Line as a powerful physical emanation of the flaming central arrow of human consciousness, from the Holy Land by way of Greece and Rome and on to where the summer sun sets on old Europe.

     I say that the old business of a Centre that can 'hold', and which our Irish poet Yeats averred not to be holding, has tended to assume a somewhat anaemic complexion too much of the time because our understanding of it is still moored in the static concepts of the past. 'The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity'. With English politics stubbornly installed at the forefront of our minds these days, it seems more critical than ever that the political Centre pulls itself together and finally finds its voice. There has to be more to it than the ususal 'bread and butter' stuff, but here is a voice that dare not speak its name, for fear of being called arrogant, imperialistic etc. It is however the one and only voice that can genuinely rise to the challenges, for instance, of climate change, of keeping the world safe from nuclear weapons, of developing the stable economic and social conditions necessary for humanity to flourish, of motivating us to overcome our differences and do the great deeds that we are at last being forced to recognise as essential to humanity's very survival.

     Even as I lie on that strip of sand, feet to the South, I am vaguely aware of America over to my right, and China away to my left. America may be fixated on the individual, and China on the collective, while of course in fact neither can do without the other and so they more or less cancel each other out and neither of them provide a satisfactory narrative of what human life is about. We may wonder at them and their great achievements, but I for one cannot admire either of them as a polis or wish us in Europe to emulate their societies. The question is, how can our tired old Europe hold the balance; and so we come back to this business of the Centre. I will no doubt stand accused of a blinkered arrogance, but  I do believe that it's as true nowadays as when Teilhard de Chardin said it that Europe cannot escape the responsibility of bearing the spearhead of human consciousness; the question is, how do we recover the strength and dynamism necessary to do so?

     Most of the time the wisest of us are only very faintly aware of all that is involved in sustaining our individual existance. We delude ourselves if we think politicians or anyone else is really capable of being in control; this perhaps is the reason why intelligent and balanced people have a tendency not to take politics seriously and to consider politicians most likely to be dodgy chancers with delusions of grandeur. Meanwhile we can find ourselves assuming that 'the Centre' is a boring place where everyone is trying to see everyone else's point of view and getting nothing done; full of intellectual, wishy-washy types, 'losers' as the Ducky would call them. So it is exciting to see in London politicians of the Centre showing real conviction lately and doing bold things. For myself, I cannot even vote for them, but they are making a difference even for us here in Sherkin; I would like to send them my good wishes and my prayers.