The Light that Shines in Darkness

Back in June, 2019, with Mr Boris Johnson newly installed as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, I professed myself 'aghast and appalled'. I went on, 'I for one am settling in for this morality play in London with both a grim fascination, a frisson of amusement, and a fair degree of trepidation. Ladies and Gentlemen, let us take our seats! Here comes the ogre, but where is the hero who will slay it?' Perhaps I was rather saguine in hoping to remain a mere onlooker! Did I not turn my back on England back in the '70s.?

     At this stage I find myself even more 'aghast and appalled' and hanging into my seat somewhat  desperately, by the seat of my pants in fact. I could not have foreseen than the little ogre of the Brexit Government would find itself overcome by the greater ogre of a pandemic. I am not helped by the fact that I do not buy the idea that 'Science' is going to ride to the rescue with its vaccines; in fact I consider this hope on the daft side. Are we to suppose that it is safe to continue to pump dodgy substances into our veins, to combat successive threats, viri, 'flues, mutations of viri, etc? I am unfortunately of that persuasion that becomes extremely suspicious when I see massive political, economic and social interests piling up behind widespread, uncritical acclamation. 

     Sir Patrick Vallance, Chief Scientic Advisor of the UK Government, opines brightly:- 'In science it is always the case that truth will out and so it is important to identify it along the way, not after the event.' Yes indeed, a highly commendable aspiration there, but it invites the rejoinder, what planet is he on? How long, for instance, did it take for the dangers of the swine 'flu vaccine to be recognised? (Not that Glaxo Smith Klein has done so, but the Irish Government at least was obliged to pay out compensation.) How long did it take for the dangers of smoking to be recognised? What about climate change, the science of which has been known since the 1970s? And when was this famous 'new variant' of the Covid virus first indentified by scientists anyway? Back in September, according to a WHO scientist on tv, though establishing the truth of that has not proven easy for me. Our Sir Vallance will probably say, that's where science comes to the rescue; all that stuff about God, religion, even art, only gets in the way!

     Your scientific fundamentalist asserts that we are merely bio-chemical machines. Scientists are the priests of this religion, and what they say must be attended to. Since they frequently disagree, and what they assert one year is frquently obsolete the next, and their logic seems to point to a society of robots whose function is simply to carry out instructions, some of us treat them with extreme suspicion. It would be unfair to include your true scientist, who has the humility to recognise his limitations; in fact it will not probably be scientists who end up manipulating the robots, but merely people who are smart enough to know what levers to pull.

     My friend Kevin Maguire was wont to say, quoting John Milton and Thomas Hardy after him, 'Truth never comes into the world but like a bastard, to the ignominy of him that brought her birth.' But probably our eminent scientists have not encountered such gems, while your average punter will cover their ears in embarrassment at the mere mention of that b- word; mostly they all barely understand the issue that those useless literary types were grappling with, - how are we to identify and recognise truth, when the assertion of the most basic realities invariably encounters some kind of visceral opposition?   

     That contemporary realities are piling up together to force us all to grapple with such matters is for me the bright side of all this. Such a crisis is long overdue. Sir Patrick is on the money, when he implies that the unwillingness of people in general and some politicians in particular to face reality has caused havoc, and that scientific facts can sometimes help. Yet it may be still more helpful, if we are to thus open minds, to understand the basic requirements of human nature that have to be satisfied first. If we ignore these requirements, leaving them for dodgy actors to exploit, such as the Ducky, who in spite of everything does have some kind of degraded grasp of them, well that is worse again!

     First of all, we must belong somewhere. Those who regard this need as a despicable weakness delude themselves; they do not understand the many different ways that exist of attempting to meet this need, which can even be said to include tossing ourselves into oblivion. Intimately associated with it is the absolute necessity for human beings to have some kind of a language of meaning; and it is this very combination of belonging and meaning that brings us to the third dimension, by enabling us to care, to love.

     By now you may have guessed where this is leading. I am proposing a rather different approach to understanding the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, to whatever notions your paid up scientific fundamentalist, or any other kind of fundamentalist, is likely to entertain. In fact I wish to suggest the key to getting our whole world back on a footing of something approaching sanity. And I am wishing you all a genuinely happy Christmas, where you may welcome Truth coming into the world, 'the Light that shines in the Darkness, that the Darkness cannot overcome!'

 

 

                                        

'Do This in Memory of Me'.

The Fisherman's Master by Patrick Pye

In Lectio Divina' mode, let's consider that first little word in this command of Our Lord's, do. It is a different kettle of fish entirely to watching, listening to or 'getting' Mass. In order to do something, as in eating, making or breaking bread, or making love, the first necessity is physical presence. One simply has to be there in order to do anything. 

     I will admit that one may allow for a certain degree of participation in a deed from afar, as if by way of imagination, but this must fade as one's proximity to the protagonists fades. Why? Let us consider what, in the case of the Mass, we actually do. Some people have been known to speak of cannibalism, mumbo-jumbo, etc. Without going to such extremes, it is amazing how few understand what is going on!

     So what was going on when Jesus was moved to utter the words Do this in memory of me? He was about to die, of course, condemned by the chief priests to death by cruel torture, at the hands of the secular authority, Pontius Pilate, even as this man washed his hands of the matter and renounced responsibility. Why did they do that? 'For the good of the people', of course, or so they claimed. Evidently they felt threatened by the man who was depriving them of their favourite weapon, fear, but went about doing good, healing and reconciling people to themselves, to each other and to God. At the Last Supper, his claims to offer some kind of new and eternal life. in his very own flesh and blood, reached their climax, before their consummation the next day upon the Cross. 

      St John reports in chapter 6 of his gospel how Jesus had said 'I am the living bread which has come down from Heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live for ever; and the bread that I shall give is my flesh, for the  life of the world.' The evangelist describes  how those very followers present at Capernaum found this talk 'intolerable', and they left him. Yet at each objection, Jesus only doubled down on his words, commenting, 'what if you should see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before. It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh has nothing to offer.'  How can we begin to get around this ancient conumdron, in the 21st century?

     Presumably this flesh of his that Jesus declares essential to salvation is a different thing to the flesh that has nothing to offer! It seems Jesus was clearly aware of a transformation that the human body is capable of, which he had an inkling of himself when he walked upon the sea and experienced in his transfiguration on Mount Tabor, and anticipated when he foretold his own resurrection. Is this after all such an outlandish notion? Do we not see how a crysalis turns into a butterfly, an egg into a bird, an embryo into a human person? Genetic science is yielding further insights into this continuity, while quantum physics is transforming our understanding of matter itself,- which perhaps we would do better to think of as a dynamic spectrum of energy fields rather than in static Newtonian terms. Is there any other evidence that may yield more insight into the kind of body Jesus had in mind?

     Perhaps there is a clue to be found in St Paul's teaching that the Church is the body of Christ, similar to Jesus' own teaching, for instance, that 'I am the vine, you are the branches'! Such doctrine reminds us that we do not go to Heaven on our own; if we are to sing God's praise for ever, we would surely get mighty tired of the sound of our own voice! No, the only possible way to do so is to be caught up in the heavenly chorus of all the saints and angels, where time and change no longer apply. I say 'caught up', not submerged! In that chorus, we shall at last find our full individual voice.

     Human beings are in fact always trying to be 'caught up' in something,- this reflects a fundamental characteristic of our nature. Most of the time we make a hames of it, giving ourselves to causes that betray us, intoxications of every kind, relationships that let us down. It is in fact uniquely in relationship to Jesus that we can allow ourselves to give ourselves up totally and unconditionally, without loss of integrity, in the full confidence that in losing ourselves we shall truly find ourselves. The wonderful fact is that his life then flows back into all those other relationships, marriage, family, community, country,- for they too can become aspects of the body of Christ, mansions in the great building that has him as its corner stone.     

     So as the grain of wheat, ground to dust, becomes part of the loaf of bread, and the grape is crushed to make the wine, we give ourselves at Mass, united with Jesus' sacrifice of himself on the Cross, and take our place in his immortal body. We thereby unite ourselves  with our forebears and all who have not deliberately rejected Christ's love, with the saints ancient, modern and still to come and all the angelic host. We hear the deep chords reverberating through the universe, the Big Bang as on a radio-telescope, the final end of all our earthly strivings, the alpha and the omega.

     We thereby point to and anticipate a truly satisfactory human solidarity, as watchmen await the dawn, and indeed even as I like to dream, in a small way on these dark winter days in Sherkin, of that brighter land across the stormy sea to the south. Politicians, pundits and even we plain people do well to reflect that it is such human solidarity alone that in the end can resolve all our little passing problems, pandemics, wars, environmental breakdown. No effective solidarity or solution will come about just because we happen to think it a good idea. It has to have deep roots in our imaginations and meet our deepest needs. If we can imagine no such thing, well it's too bad for us; we shall just have to keep on quacking along with all those who prefer to stick with mere delusions than to face reality!

     We may recall those Gaelic saints of old, priests cruelly martyred for saying Mass, impoverished Irish folk clustered around Mass rocks; perhaps if we are from Co Clare, we may think of people at Kilbaha having their priest say Mass in a cart below the tide line, to get around the ruling law at the time. We speak of a reality passed unerring on from one generation to the next as a particular kind of energy, handed on by ministers themselves enabled by the laying on of hands, standing the tests of time like nothing else, all the way back to the historical Jesus, which continues to reverberate in every language, race and nation,- and gives the likes of me a thrill whenever I get to Mass as I sail the Gannetsway. 

     Whether we like it or not, the judgement of God is upon us now. We have to decide if we really want to live, - to be or not to be, that is the question! Perhaps we have to make a start by asking ourselves, - do we really want to receive the body and blood of Jesus in this coming new year? If so, what are we going to do about it? 

Call for Lifting of Ban on Public Worship

A Letter to the Taoiseach.

On this morning of the the fourth of November, 2020, it looks as if the world is in for an agonising wait to see if The Ducky can be ejected from the White House at last. How anyone could vote for such a blatent, serial liar, narcissist, denier of reality and bully is a puzzle indeed,- but, in the hope that Joe Biden will prevail, I nonetheless feel impelled to sound a note that will very likely be perceived as coming from 'the other side'.

     While schools and universities are open, I cannot fathom the argument that churches and places of worship should invariably remain closed. It seems to me a simple matter of priorities. It may be difficult for some to understand, but the fact is that it is faith in God and the hope of eternal life that gives meaning to our lives, and thus inspires us to live life to the full. This is not merely an individual matter, but calls for communal and physical expression. 

     As believers, our instincts are generally law-abiding, except when laws transgress such fundamental obligations, and indeed reason and justice themselves. The fact is that properly organised ceremonies in airy buildings are much less likely to spread infection than, for instance, visits to a super-market or children in over-crowded little class-rooms.

     Particularly as an elderly person, suffering from cancer, the Mass is essential to my well-being and mental health. Within the wider social and political context, it is partly kick-back against secularist and materialistic pressure that has fuelled such disastrous aberrations as the elevation of Trump and Johnson.

    By the way, the discourtesy and lack of sensitivity to Moslems that they have displayed is, interestingly, shared by the champion of those cartoons in the Elysée Palace, which is not, of course, to condone those savage acts that purport to be a response. There is an arrogance and a fault in our Western civilisation here, which is emphatically not coming from the Man who urged us to take the plank from our own eye before we tried to take the mote from our neighbour's, though His followers may often be guilty of it!

     I am going to protest the ban on public worship with a call for a campaign of civil disobedience; if by the first Sunday in Advent, the 29th of this month of November and the beginning of the liturgical New Year, the Irish Government has not seen fit to lift this ban, despite the representations of their leaders, I would urge Catholics to defy it. Accordingly I am writing the following letter to An Taoiseach, our Prime Minister, and copying it to our local TDs, Bishop and Parish Priest, not to mention by way of social media.

Dear Taoiseach,

It is not apparent to me, and many others, why despite the appeals of church leaders, public worship is treated by your Government as more dangerous and less important than, for instance, keeping supermarkets, schools and universities open. The churches have nonetheless made every effort to comply with your regulations.

However, freedom of religion is guaranteed by our Constitution, and the worship of God, besides being our first duty, is in my view essential to mental health.

One cannot but suspect that there is an agenda at work here other than a truly scientific assessment of the risks. Accordingly, I give you notice that I am urging my Bishop and Parish Priest to defy such regulations, if the Government has not modified them by 29th of this month, the first Sunday of Advent.

Mise le meas,

A Little Iberian Victory!

Sunday evening on the Praia do Norte.

 Thank God for a most productive sally to Nazaré, - not that I caught any fish this evening, but the energy of the sea was thrilling enough. Here's a view behind the beach:-

    Such recent memories are very precious these days! We oldies in Ireland are going to be under house arrest again for a while, until hopefully being let out to spend some money in December. It's not that I mind too much, for there is plenty to attend to here at home in the line of kitchen/heating refurbishment, and not to mention the little matter of my prostate cancer. Still the principle is appalling, especially if it comes to fines being dished out, 'good citizens' maybe reporting the 'irresponsible' etc. What will things be looking like come February? I'm all for taking due care, but personal responsibility is not something that can be imposed, and a clumsey regime of fear will be resisted by anyone with any spirit!

    Anyway we had a productive time as well as an enjoyable one away. The main thing was to fabricate a new set of steel floors, which hold the keel and the hull together:- 

Finally they were all despatched to be shot-blasted at Nuno's fantastic work-shop in the back of beyond. He promised us the steel back in a day or two, but it still hasn't come. Maybe he can see that it is better to wait till the present wet weather has blown through, while even maybe enjoying having one of those gringo types hopping up and down. Being used to 'the English' giving off about 'the Irish', I'm wise to that syndrome. We Irish have a foot in both camps, that of the 'efficient' northener who knows what needs to be done and the 'lazy' southerner who frequently winds up doing the dirty part of it; it's one of our secret strengths!

    Patience was also called for on account of the Citroen. Ominous sounds starting coming from the gearbox on the journey out, which became chronic once we arrived in Nazaré; it sounded as if I were towing a tin can along the road. At that stage we only had two weeks, and a Citroen garage that I went to had no time to even look at it till after we were due to leave. Mario, at whose restaurant we ate most evenings,                  

Chez Mario, with Dad at right and on the wall.

recommended a guy up the road who worked in a little garage at the back of his house, and who was also willing to lend us a Renault van for our local running about. Somewhat amazingly, he had the gearbox out and back in working order in time for our sailing, which was then cancelled because of Storm Alec. Thank you Stevie for taking this in your stride!

    We were delighted to find that we now have neighbours, Damien and James, who are also doing an ambitious renovation, of a huge and famous catamaran, the Commodore Explorer; what's more, they have kindly undertaken to get some epoxy primer on those floors whenever they show up. The big job next trip will be to install them, whenever we will manage that. Stevie fitted one new plank, but there are still a couple more to go; then we shall at least have a strong and stable hull, to which Stevie recommends we apply an epoxy skin, - so hopefully this will be managed in the Spring! 

  

However, the highlight of the trip was getting part of Alec's prototype motor in place. I think it will be a positively elegant and very effective set-up, and am very much looking forward to seeing it in action. Hopefully

Alec will be able to start installation once the floors are in. It is great to have the space to install it, complete with built-in flywheel, directly on the shaft, a concept that could be applied, it seems to me, in very much bigger craft, and with considerable advantages over, for instance, saildrives. I was looking at the set-up that Dan and Kika have on the Uma. Their videos are excellent, informative and great entertainment on a wet and windy winter's evening, but Alec comments on their drive:-

'ridiculously low regen... at 6 knots 300 watts... at 48 volts... amps times volts equals watts, that means 6 ampere/hour... and they were 200 ampere/hour at some points of motor test... that means they're going to have to sail 34 hours to get back what they use in an hour! Also, they're running the motor much faster than the prop. Crazy, so much noise and so many losses in the reduction gears.'

Anyway, hats off to Kika and Dan  for what they have achieved and those great Sailing Uma videos, which combine information and entertainment very well. Dan's t-shirt announces that he's 'in no hurry to go anywhere'. Some talent! I wish we hadn't had to rush home across Spain, over the plain, past those venerable old cities, Ciudad Rodrigo (with Stevie filling us in on the siege during the Peninsula War), Valladolid, Salamanca, Burgos.

    And here's to the day when the ferry home doesn't have to belch all that smoke!

Three Likely Lads

     

Sitting in an airy room looking down on the Praia do Norte, with work on the Anna M under way again at last, it may be an easier place than most to feel hopeful at this time; but anyway life is not worth living when it is ruled by fear. Covid, climate change, nuclear weapons, financial collapse, there is plenty to challenge hope, especially when one happens to be nearly 74 and with 'a serious and potentially lethal' cancer that the medical establishment doesn't seem to have time to attend to, as also with Fiona and her 'acute' need for a new hip. Yet the fact is I feel both well and hopeful. How is that?

     I would specify two factors that certainly help a great deal, - the Catholic faith and homoeopathy. No doubt many readers will conclude that this definitely indicates that I live in cloud cuckoo land, and some will say in particular that I have no business lumping the two together. I reply, see how 'like cures like' - that supreme case of evil apparently triumphant, the crucifixion of Jesus, provides us with the 'remedy for sin', the Eucharist, which is also the remedy for fear and despair. It may be barmy, but how many people have been surprised to find that this particular remedy does work, even in the worst of circumstances?

     Along with the Eucharist, and intensive treatment for cancer which consists of regular doses of water in which a microscope will not reveal anything although they have been supposedly'energised' with various dodgy substances, I am also taking an homoeopathic prophylactic for Covid-19. So now, O righteous and scientifically enlightened folk, you can mock me on three counts; and I will add even a fourth. I still think that I am going to fix this old schooner here in Nazaré, the Anna M.

     In which respect however, credibility has taken a huge step forward by the fact that Stephen Morris has entered the fray. He is one brilliant ship-wright, who has come a very long way since we first met when he was travelling in Ireland, soon after finishing an apprenticeship in Auckland. He has been kind enough to take some time out from building magic replicas of Dublin Bay dayboats in Kilrush. At this moment he and Ger Kavanagh are working at new steel floors, which as usual, turns out to be a considerably bigger job than I had imagined. This steel work is what holds the hull, with all its new ribs, to the keel, and like the ribs, many of the floors have had to be replaced. One does have to be somewhat masochistic to undertake this kind of a job! Yet the fact is there is immense satisfaction in rescuing a beautiful old artifact like that boat, and turning what was in danger of becoming a heap of firewood into a sea-going vessel again.

     Still, the question arises, where do I think she will be going? And who in the fairly near future, when I myself will possibly be crocked, will sail her up and down the Gannetsway? I am in fact thinking it is time to see if the whole project could fly without me. Steve with friends above in County Clare run a beautiful, and newly built, open traditional boat with a club or sailing association, Seol Sionna. I am wondering if this way of operating could fly with Anna M. This would be a rather more challenging project. Why would anyone want to undertake the trouble and expense of running a fifty year-old wooden boat?

        Allow me to set down what I imagine to be the objectives of such an association - not necessarily in order of importance. There is the simple fact of restoring a fifty year old wooden boat, a survivor from the era of such craft at the peak of their development. We are preserving a piece of maritime heritage. A bonus is the fact that she was built as an Anglo-French project; it is good to recall that they can do beautiful things together when they put their minds to it! It is a bonus because part of our agenda is, in a little grass-roots way, to grow solidarity and connection along the Gannetsway, from Scotland to the south of Spain, not exclusively of course, and although with a particular emphasis on Ireland and Portugal.

Our primary interest however would simply be providing the opportunity for members to sail the Gannetsway, with all the joy this gives, getting to know the sea and the wonderful creatures that inhabit it, along with the coastal nations, their languages and cultures, and especially other sea-farers. The sea provides true education, and much more healthily than universities! Then there is the massive challenge we all face of renewing society on a sustainable basis, and a prominent feature of our effort has to be the development and demonstration of technology that is not dependent on oil. This to me means generating power by wind (the sails driving the propellor for electricity as well as the boat), by solar panels and whatever we can manage with hydrogen.

     A patent danger with all the renewable stuff is that it merely works out as toys for the super-rich. This tendency is bad enough with cars, and even worse with boats. However it need not be the case. An electric motor for example is a much simpler bit of kit that a diesel one, and it should be much cheaper to use electric power than oil. However it needs a huge and conscious effort to make the technology available, affordable and practical, which is what we shall be trying to do.

     It is of a piece with the global challenge of these Covid times. People desperately need to get out of the crowded cities and into the wide open spaces that still exist on Earth. We also need to leave behind the illusion of self-sufficiency that goes with 'modern' city living, and replace it with a more genuine self-sufficiency that goes with acknowledging our dependence on nature, not to mention God, while seeking to use His gifts with care and understanding; not in being mere 'consumers' totally dependent on technology which is beyond our active comprehension, while we leave big business to provide it. It is by acting, in whatever little way, that we may overcome the contemporary anxieties, and when we really participate in life that we appreciate its mysteries!

      It is about taking responsibility, while 'Admit no liability' is about the first commandment these days. If one finds oneself very ill as a result of some vaccination, it is highly unlikely that one will succeed in pinning liability on whatever pharmaceutical company produced it. At least I know that the homoeopathic prophylactic which I take will do me no harm, and it is very likely to have a much better chance of success than the lousy 30-50% rate which is considered good enough for a vaccine. But oh horror, it will make no money for big pharma! Meanwhile there is a lot we can do to keep safe, with a bit of common sense; staying away from crowds, big cities and airports for a start. But a life ruled by fear is not worth living.

      A case in point is the notion that some vaccine is going to provide the solution to the Covid crisis. I'm afraid I don't buy it. We have had a neat warning in Ireland, from the threatened 'swine flu' pandemic a decade ago. A Ms Bennett managed to bring a case alleging that the vaccine they dished out to school kids had left her with narcolepsy (along with an estimated 100,000 other Europeans); at least she was eventually awarded costs. According to the Irish Times of 19th November, 2019, Glaxo Smith Klyne had taken the precaution of insisting that the Government indemnify it 'against any costs that might arise from people alleging damage'. This proved very handy, as 'The multi-million euro legal and other costs of the case were to be met by the Minister for Health and the HSE.' 'Neat capitalism' I call it - GSK takes the profit, the taxpayer picks up the bills!
 

     Our journey to Nazaré by road and ferry, from Rosslare to Bilbao, felt very safe, and indeed was a pleasure. There were not many passengers on the ship and we practically had the upper deck to ourselves, enjoying a lovely calm autumn day in Biscay and two good nights' sleep in the smooth, quiet ship, the Kerry. Landing at 0830, it is fine open motorway, free across Spain, all the way, and we arrived at the Zulla Surf Hostel about 1700. 

     The big job this trip is to stitch our new laminated frames to the keel, which we have to do the cheap way, with steel floors. That's what was done the first day, and some of them are still good, so no doubt they will see the old boat out. They will be shot-blasted and painted with a few coats of epoxy primer. The purists of this world would be casting them in bronze, and a lovely job it would be, but apart from not having the time, money or facilities to do it, I have long given up such aspirations to perfection. Just give me a boat that will float as long as I am around! And after all, after all the work, the best of boats sometimes get wrecked after a couple of years. Half an hour, and they are matchwood. Alas, I once saw it happen to a fine wooden trawler. I am content to be, in the context of boats, a poor man!

     The Catholic Church is quite right to constantly remind us that we are sinners, in dire need of God's mercy. 'The root of every spiritual error is believing ourselves to be righteous. To consider ourselves righteous is to leave God, the only righteous one, out in the cold.' tweeted Pope Francis lately. That self-righteousness is of a piece with GSK admitting no liability. At least, in a small sailing boat on the sea, or wrestling with stubborn matter to put together that wonderful artefact which a sound boat is, one knows one's inadequacy, weakness and vulnerability. Therein we can find real strength, as St Paul explained so well. Not that one has to be a Christian to appreciate a project like this, belonging as it does, as Hilaire Belloc put it, to the 'common sacrament of Man', the sea. However, if the world is to weather this coming storm, we will all need to rediscover our absolute need for God's mercy.

Another face of  Nazaré:-  

https://youtu.be/bqhH8IbUQbQ

 

Hope and History Rhyme?

 "History says,

Don’t hope on this side of the grave,

But then, once in a lifetime

The longed-for tidal wave

Of justice can rise up,

And hope and history rhyme”

                           -Seamus Heaney quoted by Joe Biden in his acceptance speech, 21/08/20 

The last time it looked possible that ‘hope and history’ might do some significant rhyming was in the ‘60s, what with the Second Vatican Council, President Kennedy, Bob Dylan, the Beatles, flower power, etc. Is it possible that, with another 50 years under our collective belt, we might make a better fist of it this time around?

Right up there in the '60s buzz were nuclear disarmament, the anti-war movement, empowering and regenerating communities, cooperatives, ‘Small is Beautiful’, rebuilding our relationship with Nature, winding down dependence on fossil fuels, organic farming, alternative therapies, self-sufficiency, ‘Deschooling Society’, goats, rediscovering crafts and artisanal methods…. Hallo 2020, are we getting there again, with somewhat less naivety and more realism and wisdom?

Conscious of the critique, by 1967, that we were just privileged bourgeois dreamers, Fiona and I got stuck into the rough underbelly of Liverpool, helping to run the Simon Community for the homeless drug-addicts, alcoholics and so on. I then got a job teaching in a secondary school on the Scotland Rd.  It was clearly hopeless trying to bash my lowest stream, last year boys into the exam system, and I tried giving them their heads, merely supporting and guiding them as best I could while they floundered around trying to find a way for themselves. I believe that I was getting somewhere too, but this wasn’t to last long. Our flower power had not developed the necessary root-system.

Unable to live with the dead wood of the English set-up, with ‘the writing peeling off the walls’, we came to the West of  Ireland in 1973, and more by God’s providence than anything else, have had a great life here, for all its ups and downs. There is an account of it scattered through this blog, until I came too close to the present for writing history. How will things work out now? Dare we take up again the longed-for hope?

Knowing how often hopes have been raised and dashed in Ireland gives one pause, and yet life has made progress. Passionately fond as I have become of this land and people, I realise that a great deal of trouble has been caused by opting to invest our hopes in the very inadequate vehicle of nationalism. Unfortunately English nationalism seems likely to inflict yet another round of serious damage upon us, but this is not a time for opposing like with like. For their own sakes also, I wish an extreme Brexit could be avoided, but at this stage it is quite hard to see how. 

That appalling Government which they have installed will have to go sooner or later. Whether we can all sit it out to the end of its normal life is open to question. Still, it would be a good start if we get rid of the Duckie this autumn, and to look on the bright side of Covid19, it has already surely opened a lot of eyes to the true nature of the wave of right-wing populism, and given a great shove in the direction of rejecting it.

In fact if, in the light of Covid, you take another look at my outline of our aspirations in the ‘60s, it is quite uncanny how they answer to our present predicaments. It seems we were on to something after all! So let’s hear less neurotic moaning about Covid, climate and so on, and a more proactive response, and good luck to Joe Biden!

Meanwhile, one can feel the climate changing more dramatically than ever, and as early storms sweep in to batter our garden, I can only say that I am glad not to be in the Carribean right now. At least I have never known Horseshoe Bay so pleasant to swim in, during those calm warm days before the storms; I am hoping there will be some more of them before I head for Portugal in September!

Summertime

It's now over a month since I posted on this blog. It has been a busy time, with good weather and family members coming to visit; one appreciates how lucky we are to be able to enjoy it all, with loads of lovely vegetables in the garden to boot.

It is a time of year when one needs to take a break from the Spring work, stand back, and reflect on where one is going. There's much to be said for the New Year starting, like the academic one, in September! I am booked to go on the ferry to Spain in that month, with my dear shipwright friend Steve Morris, for a big effort to get things moving on the Anna M  in Nazaré, Portugal.

I have additional cause for reflection, since I have been diagnosed with stage 2 prostate cancer, and am generally feeling my age. I am told that I will be dead within five years if I don't do something about it. Hopefully we shall do so, but at least it is yet another reason to make the best of whatever time is left.

The times are reinforcing the conviction that I formed over 50 years ago along these lines:-  our politics and way of life will go from bad to worse as long as we think that the interplay of market and state actors is capable of building a worthwhile future, but unfortunately the only way they may be put back in their place is by drastic upheaval; the antidote goes by way of a renewed sense of community and respect both for others and for nature; this will only be again discovered with the realisation that their existence is not futile, but has an immortal destiny.

I believe that the appropriate tool has been given in the Catholic Faith, but of course we cannot sit back and wait for people to find that out. We have to respect and work with everyone 'of good will', in other words, those who are prepared to work with us. Our respect must be genuine, for all those other precious insights that may well illumine truths we do not see ourselves. If our faith is indeed the 'real deal', then it will eventually become clear; meanwhile it is up to us to demonstrate that it works in our own lives.

For too long Catholics tended to withdraw into their spiritual fortress. I came of age as we were challenged by Vatican II to get out of it; I have found a great deal of difficulty and frustration in doing so, yet patience must be the name of the game. Much has been learned in this past half century; now at last we may seriously apply it, for the times are imperatively clamouring for the renewal of community, of sense of purpose and the faith that they depend on.

It is becoming ever more apparent that the kind of  Brave New World on offer these days, where a tiny minority of the Uber-rich pull the strings, while the mass of humanity falls into ever deeper desperation and misery, has to be decisively rejected before it kills us all. It is not just the obvious culprits we must contend with, the Duckies and Johnsons of the world; with the best of intentions neither politicians nor anyone working within the present paradigms will turn things round. The battle has to be joined on all sorts of fronts, but especially in our own minds and hearts, in our communities and the way we live.

The more we can meet our basic human needs from the resources of our own communities, the better, but we also need that community of communities, a renewed Catholic Church. We are most fortunate, who live on the western seaboard of Europe; the ancient stones may be scattered, but they are nevertheless at hand; and as the saying goes, how beautiful they still are!

West Cork shepherd.

Holding the Centre

Today is bright and breezy, with cloud shadows chasing over the sea,- a very welcome change from yesterday when we had the stove lit to chase the damp from our old stone cottage, while struggling to find a way through the thicket of a dysfunctional health service for Fiona so that she doesn't have to wait another couple of years for a hip job which, according to professional advice, she needs to have within six months, and while the dire news piles up around the world. Meanwhile I find myself wondering, yet again, just what Dostoyevski could possibly have had in mind with his famous saying that 'beauty will save the world'?

     My Catholic faith teaches that Beauty and Truth go hand in hand, but Truth is faring no better. Indeed, if we only look at the obvious failings of the likes of The Ducky and Johnson, the leaders of our 'great democracies', then clearly the very idea of truth is, to say the least, under serious threat. If we turn, politically, in the opposite direction, and consider for instance the 'progressives' in my own country of Ireland, we find that the 6,666 lives lost here last year in the first year of legalised abortion are simply not to be remotely considered by them as of the same species as the 1,706 lives lost so far through Covid19, mainly at the opposite end of life. Meanwhile even getting the right balance between prudence with regard to the pandemic, and showing the necessary resolve to overcome it rather than letting it overwhelm our economy, seems to have fallen foul of politics. What is going on in this strange world, how come we are being pulled apart by this ridiculous split between 'left' and 'right', how could Beauty possibly provide a remedy and where does Truth come into it?

     Staying with politics, why does the centre ground so often seem insipid and uninspiring? If we look to artists, so rarely able anyway to inspire us these days for all sorts of reasons, we find them mostly fiddling in some fantasy la-la land. They will probably associate the political centre with flat, unimaginative and insipid people. Might we find solace and inspiration in Nature? Well maybe, but how very depressing a close consideration of what is happening to it can be! Can we find Beauty perhaps in other people, love, family life and what not? Maybe again, but again also, often with difficulty, for what family does not have its disasters these days? Sometimes we fear that the very idea of marriage is dying.

     We may appreciate the truth of Dostoyevski's saying better when Beauty does shine through, like shafts of sunlight when the cloud is breaking up; then we are more likely to be inspired to actually change our ways than by any amount of abstract, rational considerations, however much we may allow them to be true! The most 'enlightened' of progressives could hardly truly contemplate the reality of a woman deliberately destroying the fruit of her womb, nor the state of her mind, without that shudder of horror which is the very opposite of our delight in beauty.

     Maybe it is the ugliness and horror to be found on all sides, and the instinctive desire to overcome it, that can motivate us to find another way. The summer gale that is blighting our flowers (again) challenges us and, after all, they do need the rain that comes with it, bursting out with renewed vigour afterwards!

Heather's out!

Yet there is still something lacking, which is needed to put the steel into our resolve; something that can transform the mere flat, insipid 'middle of the road', where we basically are more concerned with staying safe than with actually getting anywhere, into passionate commitment! There is needed a third element to complete this dynamic power we are seeking in order to save the world! Let us call it Merciful Justice, sympathy and consideration of others! This is where we find the third strand of the rope, the passionate commitment and strength that might perhaps enable us to haul civilisation back from the brink of catastrophe.

    Is such apocalyptic language merely a silly old man's talk? Well it is a funny thing that old age appears to provide one with access to ancestral memories, even indeed one's own. My father in hallucination, between the strokes that killed him, evidently recalled long-buried memories of the war that he had fought in, and I found myself recalling in the early hours this morning, not indeed for the first time, memories that he transmitted in a few brief allusions (in the course of sailing of course, which seemed to be the one activity that enabled some access to such memories for him). In Cherbourg he had mentioned tramping through the streets with a gang of disheartened Tommies, being booed by the locals as they made for a destroyer which would take them back to England. It was only years later that I heard of the fate of the comrades he had left behind, who had been in the rearguard of the retreat to Dunkirk and had been massacred by the SS in a barn.

     I experience the present slide towards a 'no deal' Brexit as just such a retreat, only this time, by a strange reversal, it is the Germans who are on the right side of history. The shame and misery is self-inflicted this time, but the fact is that again, the wave of Anglo-saxon engagement on the Continent is ebbing out, and in danger of sucking the life out of the Continent itself if it is not reversed. Here on my little Irish island, I find myself clinging on to the Main, a bit like the seaweed that I like to watch down on the shore, clinging to its narrow zone of life between the ebb and flow of the tide and the washing of the waves. 

     

     America is there, behind the suck and flow; it is there across the ocean that the tide will turn first! We may have this pandemic to thank for it, strangely enough. I am come back to boring old politics, though it is not in any particular party sense; lofty ideas about saving the world do need to be brought down to Earth. It is in fact in the desire to give to my faith a practical and political relevence that I am, as you may have guessed, groping for a 'secular' expression of the concept of the Holy Trinity, which to me is not just a doctrine but the most complete and satisfactory representation available of the fundamental structure of reality, of everything from electricity to love. It is only by situating ourselves correctly within that dynamic that we can thrive. That famous, level-headed Centre is going to have to visit territory that it has long eschewed if it is to survive these times!

Say Nothing, Do Nothing???

What with appalling neighbour governments in place across the water* in both directions, on top of the climate threat and our problems in facing up to the consequences of the pandemic, it's no wonder that Ireland is in danger of political paralysis. The fact is that nobody in their right mind would actually want to go into government at the present moment. It’s very tempting to fall back on one time-honoured Irish reaction to being confronted with alien force majeure; - Say nothing! Do nothing! Give it time!

At least it is beginning to look as if we may see the back of The Ducky in five months’ time! Is there any chance at all of things being turned around in the UK before five long years? It is hardly possible to imagine that more than a shrinking minority there fail to see now that their government of chancers is horrendously misleading them, but very difficult to see how they might do something about it any time soon, even while things are plainly going from bad to worse. 

One Bird Has Flown!

Now the year has turned. On Sherkin we are back to grey skies, wind and rain, which came in dramatically with a Midsummer gale. One bird has flown to a sunnier clime, virus or no virus. The lockdown, with its fine weather, is beginning to seem quite blissful; now a sterner future looms, fraught with uncertainty. Where will we find the leadership to weather the coming storm? Frankly, Ireland is used to being towed along in the wake of our large neighbours in the Anglosphere. It would be much better if they would change course, so that we would not have to part company too drastically!

Ireland's Naval Might.

If minds are finally to be concentrated in the UK, it badly needs to be done now, with the deadline for renewing the extended relationship with the EU about to expire, and before the situation becomes yet more dire as bad weather and winter set in. But what can be done? I said at the time of that last big Remain demo in London, which I was on, that it all felt too much of a walk in the park to be really changing things. 

A limp acquiescence seemed to set in after the General Election, though I do not believe it reflects the positive convictions of a majority, but only a sad state of disarray and disunity that a small minority knew how to exploit. Now it will indeed take massive demonstrations, with civil disobedience probably required, to turn things round. It might be an idea to start with ‘Cummings Must Go!’, but where are all those remainers now? Where is the will to turn things round?

Meanwhile in Sherkin, let us hope that our summer has not come and gone. It seems to be difficult these days even to enjoy the little things, though more important than ever. Rather than those passing nations and notions, I focus both narrowly on our little corner, with house and garden constantly claiming attention, and also as widely as possible on the Gannetsway, - a cultural framework that reaches back many hundreds of years, and into an exciting future.

Nice When It Happens.

It is anyway a long time since I felt that I could make any difference in the political picture, but even in that I suppose it is good that the odd person is able to sit back in relative peace and comfort, and consider matters with detached sympathy, 'detached' in the sense that I try to hear all sides of the story, to be objective, take a long-term view, and have no ideological axe to grind; but all the same this Dr Robert Palmer seems to me spot on:-*http://www.brexitshambles.com/the-brexit-government-and-a-global-pandemic-the-perfect-storm-in-the-eye-of-a-hurricane/

THIS IS IT!

Heading 'Back to Normal'?

Fiona and I are two and a half months in lockdown now, and still counting. Herself is hobbling around, more than somewhat incapacitated with a sore hip and now 'plantar faschiitis'. Never heard of it? Neither had I, but it's bad news and Dr Google will tell you all about it. 'You shouldn't be self-diagnosing', says a physiotherapist on the phone. Pity about that appointment with a specialist that was supposed to happen in late January! We live in hope.

     We have to be grateful for the fact that the weather has for

photo by Cristiona!

the most part been splendid during this lockdown, and doubly so that we live in the right place to enjoy it; we have had a very good lockdown in fact. One does not hear much of such sentiments, but surely we are not alone in this? The Azores High is in great heart anyway, and going to remain that way apparently for the next while. But it has been a bit weird, living peacefully here while mayhem rules in so many places and so many are suffering, - sickness, riots, job losses and the rest, particularly the intense personal stresses that inevitably result.

     Times not so long ago, when for instance I could blithely head off sailing and forget about the world, are beginning to seem like distant memories from another era; not that, as a look through my old posts will confirm, this state of affairs didn't come well heralded here. It may be some help to remember that this pandemic has only brought to head a multi-facetted dis-ease. 

     They say that 'trouble comes in threes'. Give credit where it's due, - the Americans are certainly good at 'getting stuff out there', and they can be relied upon to articulate what we in polite European society may be more inclined to try to ignore! They also love acronyms, so may I offer a new one, -PPEP; Personal, Political and Economic Problems? Go on Yanks, tell us about the PPEPs, which you excel in getting out there while we are inclined to sit on them even as they feed on each other and rot our guts! 

     It is good and hopeful in a way when these things are brought to a head! In the midst of all the misery, there is an extraordinary syncronicity in the world! We have a chance at last to address issues that have been festering for many years; to me it seems that we are being offered one last chance! Offered by whom or what, you say? Have it your own way! I realise many people will only get turned off if I start talking about God and His Providence. It could do more harm than good, and anyway I refer to Jesus' attitude, that it was not saying 'Lord, Lord' which counts, but doing the divine will, in practical ways. 

     Perhaps everyone 'of good will' may agree that the worst affliction that we have been suffering from is that dreadful sense of fatalism, which results in the time-honoured saying that 'there is nothing we can do about it!' It suddenly appears that there are many things that we can do, which would have been unthinkable a few short months ago. THIS IS IT; the time when we must finally stand up for our better selves and take responsibility for the world in every way we can, however small and insignificant it may seem. It is the cumulative effect of so many little things that will make the difference! It is the fact that we are all being wrenched away from our usual cosy corners that is enabling it, even if we are living a quiet life on an Irish island. The internet brings the world and all its suffering even into our cottage here. This encounter feels odd, but will surely be creative!

    So anyway SNAPP, the Sherkin Nazaré Alternative Power

Project, has by no means been forgotten, while the Anna M waits patiently under her sun cover in Nazaré. Alec is back at his workshop there, with his prototype electric motor taking shape, and I hope I shall soon have positive things to report from this direction!

Living in Bubbles?

It is one of the major thrills of sailing, denied to those who simply start their engine when the wind gets slack, to be in a becalmed boat when a gentle breeze picks up, and the trail of bubbles reappears along the side. One of  my best childhood memories is of peering over the side of a small sailing boat, down into the water gently rippling by, and at a little trail of bubbles appearing beside the bow and being left behind in the wake. Each bubble has its own unique integrity, different from any other, apparently sufficient unto itself; and yet they form a trail, a string, a chain; together they live in the wake until they fade and pop.

Whale-watching in 2005

     Present circumstances are unfortunately just right for the mentality of those who would rather prefer the image of a chain to that of a trail. They get nervous about people who are outside of the box that they are supposed to be in; it is worse when they get to don some kind of uniform, worse still when they wield real political power. How distressing and daft are the stories in the news of people who have crossed oceans in a small boat, only to be told somewhere on arrival that they cannot land!

     You may describe it as a bubble or box, but living in a boat is indeed a bit like living in one. "Isn't it very claustrophobic, shut up in a boat in the ocean!" said one of my adult grandchildren. "But it's all about being in the ocean, and nothing could be less claustrophobic!" I replied. Still, one is couped up in the boat, and moreover, however reluctant one may become to arrive, one does not really belong in the ocean, and we do have to have a destination, or else we are merely adrift until we pop; meanwhile, one needs to understand the sea and the sky, as well as being well organised aboard; our lives are inevitably all part of some system. If we recognised this, we may be able to drop the talk of living in 'bubbles', and think of ourselves as each sailing our own boat, even as we follow the Golden String*? Then again, having just been out in the garden trying to defend my broad beans from the present nasty summer gale, I might think about 'pods' or 'bunches'.

     Anyway, I would like to think that there are plenty of people out there who have been managing to use this extraordinary time of lockdown to consider what they are at and where they are going, and at the same time, where we are. At such times as when we are lucky enough to be relatively free of the usual struggle for survival, we have extra time to examine the framework, structure and purpose of our lives; all too rare an occurrence, it has to be said! 

     This cannot be merely an individual matter; yet we are all too inclined to fall back on ready-made answers, the familiar left or right wing formulae, tribalisms of one kind or another. I would not wish to deprive them of all validity, but it is most important to do some thinking for oneself now and again, and examine our habitual reactions. We must at least seek to understand where the other bunches are coming from, and as Robbie Burns had it, 'to see ourselves as others see us!' As a sailing boat makes progress by virtue of the opposing pressure of wind and water, so a person of catholic disposition makes progress by listening to all sides of an argument, even when disagreeing with them. It has been called 'loving our enemies'.

     Spells of peace and quiet in isolation, quietening the clamour both within and without, are necessary for us to dispose outselves to listen and to hear, dare I say, to pray? We cease to drift as we begin to feel the pressure of the wind, indeed, the Spirit. The land that we are aiming for appears in the empty ocean.... But all too soon, we find ourselves back to trouble and strife!

      In this world, we rarely find ourselves in the blessed zone of equilibrium and sufficiency. In terms of wealth, there is genereally one set of problems 'below' this zone, and another 'above' it. It's the same with the wind for a sailor. In the big picture, having too much money is surely rather like having too much wind, and believe it or not, having too little wind can be every bit as bad as too little money, especially if the sea is disturbed by distant turbulence. In Sherkin we have been living a lovely quiet life recently, but one does feel the turbulence from afar.

     It seems that until lately, the program was relatively simple; that pandemic had to be reined in so that health services would not be overwhelmed and so on. Now we have to raise our gaze and see where we are going. The situation has been more or less stabilised, but the virus is not going to disappear any time soon. If it is anything like colds and 'flus, it will erupt with increased ferocity next winter. People long to 'get back to normality', but that does not seem possible; there is no going back to where we were.

     Yet neither is it easy to imagine how life will work with this virus around. 'Social distancing' seems highly problematic. Can it be seriously intended that, for instance, there should be no more crowding onto buses and trains? How many jobs simply cannot be undertaken while conscienciously keeping 2 m from other people? Not that people are taking it too seriously, from what I see. It could not possibly be done in a fishing boat, for a start! Do we want our lives micro-managed by technocrats anyway? Maybe they just reckon that if they ask for two metres, they may get one, and at least it will not be their fault if it all goes wrong. 

     Before ever the pandemic came along, mediation between individuals and the state was weakening; its technocrats were closing in on all sides.  It seemed to me that the life I led, and on the whole loved, as a fisherman, was becoming impossible, and surely this is true for all sorts of small farmers, artisans and traders; the people I have tended to regard as 'the salt of the Earth', living as St Paul had it 'peaceful and religious lives', or as the Spaniards have it, 'en paz y en la gracia de Diós!' Not of course that this is the first time that the human race has been confronted with impossible situations, existential crises; only perhaps the global scale of things now and technology give it a new edge.

     Would we really want to go back to where we were? Can we tolerate yet more and more wealth being siphoned off to play financial markets, 'invest' in useless things like gold or bitcoin, or waste on arms, or buy property that the owner has no real need of? Environmental pollution out of hand and threatening to destroy the planet? More and more people forced into precarious living? Less and less real job satisfaction and peace? Even solidly productive people denied the possibility of a place of their own to call home? More and more problems of mental health? The individual more and more isolated, in danger of being crushed? Apparently less and less awareness of the presence of God?

     There very evidently needs to be a massive rebalancing and restructuring on the practical level, where the matters of wealth and land must be in play; but can we expect the states to undertake it? Or supranational organisations? NGOs or individuals? Or all of them together? How can it possibly happen? How about the Universal Church lighting the way? Hmmm, how about starting with the practicalities and seeing if some directions of travel might work? After all, when one has been 'lying to' during a storm or a calm in the ocean, one is inclined to head off on whatever course is easiest according to the wind and the waves, so long as it is generally in the right direction!

     The restructuring will entail much more emphasis on empowering small communities as well as the individuals within them. These are not mutually exclusive, but complementary; and not to be understood as undermining the state or international organisations; rather all will be empowered to be more effective in their proper roles. We are back to the Principle of Subsidiarity, upon which the EU is founded, even if it has a long way to go in practising. Particularly in these coronvirus times, national states are inclined to bite off more than they can chew. In the words of Pope Pius XI in Quadragesimo Anno,  'the State has been overwhelmed and crushed by almost infinite tasks and duties - to the great harm of the State itself.' This is before they get around to trying to repay all the money they are borrowing, perish the thought!

     We all like spending a lot more than paying. A favourite trick of politicians and pundits is to magic the paying bit away, to hive it off on someone else. For responsibility to be taken effectively, it has to be located from the start at an appropriate level. There are indeed some problems that can only be addressed on the continental level, more on the national level, and even more on the local and personal levels; having started on the appropriate level, you then need to get the different levels working together. The new communication technology offers possibilities for making this happen that were unimaginable in the past, but we are up against institutionalised structures that are hard to change. To unpick them, we have to start by addressing the situations of the multitudes trapped in disempowerment, while deprived of the basic ingredients of human well-being and dignity, - food, meaningful work, housing, clean air, access to nature and so on.

     So to get back to bubbles, how about redirecting the billions being currently mopped up by the rich and powerful to financing a new kind of society? I would even say, to  picking up a trail that was departed from in England some 500 years ago, when King Henry VIII despoiled that nation's monasteries in order to follow his favourite pastime of making war on his French, Scots and Irish neighbours and to buy the allegiance of his barons. The subsequent establishment of the illusion that this was all for the people's good and general enlightenment was surely one of the greatest propaganda coups  of all time, even as they loosed a tide of beggars on the world!

     No doubt King Henry found great relief from his inner demons by heading off in splendid style to have a go at the French, but there is plenty of English history written to make out that his wars were all about defending his great Reformation from that nasty Pope in Rome.  Ah well, the great British Empire was on the way, and some people have been living on this myth ever since!

     Some of those monasteries had become too rich and powerful for their own good, but the concept that they engendered, of a society focussed on a community that functioned as the local centre for prayer, art, liturgy, learning, education, production and welfare of all kinds, health care and hospitality, where at least work, accomodation and subsistence in a humane and dignified context was guaranteed for all, seems to me one very well worth revisiting! We have a daily reminder of that ruined legacy, a couple of fields away from our cottage here on Sherkin. It is past time to disestablish the bloated industrial cities and put an end at last to the misery and insecurity that goes with them. I'm still dreaming of bubbles, trails, pods, boats, whatever; however we choose to imagine our future lives, we may surely do well to call that legacy to mind!

*Sherkin Abbey.

     *cf 'The Golden String', by Bede Griffiths.