A new edition of 'Wavedancing'?

 When I wrote Wavedancing in the very early years of this century,  I could not find a  publisher, and published it myself in the name of the Gannetsway Press. It is a story of the finding and the loss of a viable and inspiring context for living,- of a place  and a language of meaning and value- and it points to some possibilities for recovering some such again. Like any story, it aims to entertain, but not merely for entertainment’s sake,- not to provide a momentary sop to the general vacuity of a life with no access to the Divine, but to celebrate and further inspire those willing to confront the restless ocean and embark on the voyage to the land of Truth, Grace and Freedom, to Eternity.

It occurs to me that maybe Wavedancing has an advantage in having been written at a time of, for myself at least, relative innocence,- before, for instance, it might bear any relationship with the politics of the United States of America or I had even heard of one Donald Trump, and before the massive acceleration in the collapse in confidence in our institutions since Covid, and just to think, such a short time ago, it was before the internet had swept over us. Still, perhaps we are now, in all our brokenness, a little nearer to God, even if we are also even nearer the U.S.A,- pace, Garcia Naranjo and his ¡tan lejos de Dios y tan cerca de Estados Unidos! Yes, Bob Dylan, times do change, but what goes round, comes round!

Ever more decisively, we are now being shown that there is more to life than ‘scientific facts’, that we cannot take the world and its denizens at mere face value, and that we cannot live on bread alone. Bit by bit, a massive edifice, conspiracy even, of lies is being torn down, but not before it somehow managed to enlist all the great and good, including the Pope, all the democratic governments, the medical and media establishments, and succeeded in trampling all over our rights and undermining the prosperity, health and well-being of millions of human beings.

Tu es Petrus.

Where to begin to rebuild trust? Is it remotely feasible that Donald Trump would do so? It would be a highly significant development, though I fear it is highly unlikely, if President Trump were to join a new Pope in apologising for his predecessor’s bringing moral pressure to bear to make us take those jabs. However, what I have tried to do is to get behind that failure, to the narrative which enabled it. 

It has been almost universally presumed for the last couple of centuries or so that Science provided the only generally valid terms of reference, the only basis on which authority could make rational decisions. In fact it has become increasingly apparent that most decisions by the powerful are taken on the basis of some form of graft, while even the name of Science, as the disinterested pursuit of Truth, was generally being taken in vain. As has so often been the case with God Himself, its name was invoked but rarely was it actually heeded. 

Post Covid, there is a mighty struggle going on, between those who are still possessed by ‘Scientism’, along with the massive urge for power and control that goes with it,  and those who are resisting it and seeking alternatives. It may be hoped that ‘Scientism’ peaked with Covid, but the struggle very much goes on. This of course is not to dismiss Science, just to get it back in its properly subordinate box.  Indeed there is  an urgent need to rehabilitate authority; but there remains the question, what kind of authority do we need? The attempt to portray this struggle as a tug-of-war between ‘progressives’ and ‘conservatives’ seems to me another distraction.

Here I somewhat reluctantly return to another beef that I had with Pope Francis. I thought his jibe at President Trump, about Christians building bridges, not walls, rather cheap-jack and unworthy. After all one doesn't have one without the other, and I like the old farmers' saw about good fences making good neighbours. As a sailor I can be a bit snotty about the fence builders too, my preferred environment being the sea, where there are neither bridges nor walls, except however the walls of one's vessel. Surely the skipper's first duty is to make sure the water does not enter! Which all goes to confirm that the political question is highly fraught, and I would rather a Pope who stays out of it.

What is universally required is the fearless quest for Truth, and I seek to try to reframe our options in such terms. It is in such endeavors that we achieve our true humanity and dignity. Stories like this novel of mine are as ever apt to be dismissed as merely fantastic ‘mythologies’,  but I hope that my work is in the very long tradition of these stories. In the footsteps of Jesus Christ, we aim to fortify, encourage and celebrate ‘resisters’ who, in the very act of confronting lies, greed, evil and chaos, emancipate themselves and more clearly delineate transcendent truth.  I hope that this little effort may prove more widely accessible now than when I wrote it some twenty years ago. 

A literary friend of mine commented on Wavedancing that 'it is well worth rewriting'! It has taken me a while to get over that, but to some extent I am now attempting it. I am also recording it for an audio edition, so there are now two biggies to look out for on this blog,- this and the Anna M getting back in the water. This old man has never been busier, even while trying to keep his wife happy and working on our little bit of land,- one might say that the sailor and the farmer in me are still battling it out!