A 'Great Reset'?

 

The Crib in Doonaha church.

So, on a mild and pleasant day, we leave 2021 behind us. It has been, and remains till the last, a difficult year, but now it is possible to say with considerable confidence that the 'pandemic' is drawing to its conclusion. Over Christmas we have had three people in the house who have tested positive, but there's no harm on any of them, and so far my wife and I, unvaccinated, remain fine. The biggest problem is that it is going to be hard to persuade the dogs busy 'following the science' to drop their bones!

     It is very understandable that the types who have made big money, or political capital, or just personal prestige out of the vaccines, at such a huge cost to everyone else, find it hard to admit that they have taken us on a hiding to nowhere. The vaccines have completely failed in the avowed aim of eradicating these curious viri, which nonetheless have now gone the way their predecessors have always gone, gradually losing virulence. But the big question remains, can they be persuaded to relinquish the magnificent new powers that they have acquired, the excuse for bossing us all around? Having so widely stoked fear and used it to instil compliance, and caused so much distress and hardship, what hope they will be big enough to say 'ok, enough of that', let alone 'sorry'?

     It is all too true that, between the pandemic and global warming, we have been powerfully reminded that the whole human race, and all life on Earth for that matter, form in a sense part of a single organism. Yet again we are reminded that 'we must love one another or die'. But who trusts 'love'? It is so easy and natural for the super-rich elite, those who have access to real levers of power, to assume that it is their job to guide and preside over this sorry, wayward human race.  How is this to be done, unless by way of some form of command and control, in other words some kind of dictatorship and manipulation? Unless they have managed to get through that narrow gate, the Eye of a Needle, they are all too likely to assume that a good place to start is to acquire yet more power and wealth for themselves, and, boy, what magnificent opportunities have opened up for doing so! Meanwhile we have barely managed to maintain an effective and functional democracy in little old Ireland, for all our revolutionary adventures, and as for our neighbours across the Irish Sea....

     The whole dystopian narrative of a future ruled by one or two Communist Parties on  steroids, with electronic tabs on all aspects of our lives, personal, medical, financial, political etc, is all too familiar at this stage. Presumably if there are more than one, they will be vying with each other to become the Universal one. Such competition, not to say warfare, would indeed assist in keeping the population scared and in order. Instead of it being subject matter for a horror film, we can now see it happening before our eyes. What's more, we find well-intentioned people all round us buying into the line that 'there are just too many people in the world'. Well, which ones are to be deemed de trop, and how are they going to get rid of them?

     Yet this did not come upon us suddenly or without warning; in fact we might say it is as old as the human race. We have always tended to be afraid of some darn strangers taking over our resources and indeed our lives, and not without good reason. More than this, perhaps existential threats to our race, even to the whole of humanity, cut even deeper, and a carefree insouciance in this respect has become a good deal harder to maintain recently. Anyway the End is Nigh remains true, one way or another, even if as far as you and I are concerned we struggle through to old age.

     Repent, and believe the Good News, remains in one form or another the only way out, but we need to be continually reminded that the promised kingdom is not of this world! This does not prevent us from praying thy will be done on Earth, but should prevent us from allowing any worldly power to 'short circuit' the advent of this transcendent and eternal kingdom. The Universal Church squares this circle, in theory at least, in a way no other institution can; yet she is hobbled by her possibly inevitable compromises with worldly power, down the centuries. It should be a source of hope that she finds herself increasingly constrained to the poverty of her Master. Meanwhile, what do we make of the Great Reset, the latest version of this old story, as advocated by the Powers who have lately been dubbed by some 'Mr Global'?

     Let us allow that they have a point, but let us opt for the original Jesus version. The implications, as I understand them, involve not so much revolution against Ceasar, or in rejecting Amazon or smart-phones etc, but in renouncing those very methods of command and control which Ceasar tends to be unfortunately rather addicted to. There is no magic short-cut; we have to patiently build responsibility for our own lives and those around us, practising transparency, listening to others, sharing resources. In this way, on the basis of subsidiarity, even the EU can be sustained as a real zone of freedom, and genuine democracy extended to the ends of the Earth.

     There is no other way to go but, putting aside fear, to trust God to show us how to proceed. It's not the first time, after all, that humanity has faced impossible situations, and been surprised when God has come to our rescue, and although we find all kinds of excuses not to recognise this fact, in the end if we are fortunate we put aside our pride and accept that 'we are His People, the sheep of His flock'. I hope this New Year will be one such occasion!

West Clare at Christmas.