'Escape to the Mountains'? On Staying Sane When the World Is Mad.

The impulse to escape to the hills is as old as humanity, but received a particular edge through Jesus' warnings of the end times. As he says in the 24th Chapter of St Matthew's Gospel, 'when you see the disastrous abomination..., then those in Judaea must escape to the mountains.' 'In Noah's day before the Flood people were eating, drinking, taking wives, right up to the day Noah went into the ark, and they suspected nothing till the Flood came and swept them all away.' Yet 'as for that day, nobody knows it, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, no one but the Father only.' Jesus' conclusion? - 'So stay awake, because you do not know the day when your master is coming.' St Luke adds - 'praying at all times for the strength to survive all that is going to happen, and to stand with confidence before the Son of Man.'

     The advice to 'stay awake and survive' at least is encouraging. All through history, there have been times that felt like The End, as famine, plague, persecution, war or natural disasters swept the land and evil seemed to triumph. In my young days, it was widely expected the human race would finally blow itself up entirely, a threat that has by no means gone away though we are on the whole looking another way. Anyway, here we still are, with a new wave of apocalyptic foreboding sweeping humanity. What constitutes a sane response - an alternative to going mad ourselves?

     We need to begin by recognising that such is in fact the human condition. The Earth is but a passing home, yet this is by no means a reason to disown it. Referencing simple, practical things like giving someone a glass of water, Jesus goes on to urge us in the strongest language to care for those who are already actually suffering the breakdown of human society - the hungry, the thirsty and the homeless - they are the very ones with whom the Son of Man identifies - 'whatever you do to them, you do to me'. The challenge of the 'End Times' is the very challenge to live fully human lives. Jesus characterised the terrifying events as 'the beginning of the birthpangs'. Yet their coming is associated with that of 'many false prophets'.

     How do we recognise false prophets? By their fruits of course, but these can take a while to come in! Possibly it will do to reject anyone who claims to have The Answer, to offer salvation, short of the Son of Man, who when he does come will probably catch us by surprise, and yet be the unmistakable culmination of the human project. We Christians accept that the end will come, even look forward to it, albeit rather hoping not to be there when it happens, as Spike Milligan said about death. But let there be no doubt - in the meantime, we are committed to living life to the full.

     So how did leaving all the 'fleshpots' of London behind, and going to live in the hills of Donegal in 1973, work out for Fiona and myself? Well you can read about it if you delve into this blog, especially the From the Fractal Frontier reports - but in a word, for all its difficulties, very well. It is fair to say that we have lived through the disintegration of the cultural set-up we were born into, even if we now look out cosily from our kitchen window on Sherkin with an old hurricane rattling away at it. It's definitely a good idea to be behind glass this morning, rather than out there on the sea, the mountains or King Lear's heath!

     The truth is that, culturally speaking, we find ourselves back in many ways to where we came from, but nothing like as dismayed as we were when we started out. I am sure that some people encountering us would consider us way behind the times. I'm inclined to the conceit that we are way ahead of them. Anyway our lives have been very good, though of course full of difficulties to be overcome and so by strange, unforeseeable ways to help us on our way. 

     This is the first storm in a long time when no drops of water have been getting into our house somewhere, in which respect we have just had some great help from a young American from Virginia, one of those wonderful Americans who combines intelligence with practical ability - a wonderful antidote to the Ducky's antics. Sadly, one needs to keep reminding oneself that the current President does not represent the USA, any more than the Sulk represents the UK*. Meanwhile we can make a start in

overcoming the madness of the world by concentrating on the basics - food, shelter, power - and taking as much of their production as possible into our own hands, which in turn provides a good basis for the essential business of enjoying life and good company!


  *If you don't know who The Sulk is, see John Crace's articles in The Guardian.