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.