What Kind of a Stage is This?

 

'All the world's a stage....'

     I have to admit that this lockdown is rather suiting me, in a way. To be stuck here at home means I am more immersed in this place than ever,- now that the weather is picking up, I live in an extraordinary dialogue between the house and garden on one hand, and the sea on the other. In our faces the whole time, this sea is like a mirror held up to the soul, within us and beyond us, reflecting, beyond the grey ennui that sometimes engulfs it, now the turmoil and confusion, now the sublime beauty and serenity that together inseparably inhabit it. 

      Over there are the soaring seagulls and gannets, giving piquancy and depth to the little corner of peace and fertility which we try to nurture here in our garden, with our tits and finches, robins, wrens and dunnocks. They reflect the everlasting conversation of Father and Son, the transcendent and the immanent. Meanwhile the way those rocky outcrops defy the waves, attempting to shelter the bay within, remind us of the grim struggle that keeps the waters at bay, leaving us free to act for a while as if we had no need of their defence, even while we depend on them, both the rock and the waters, to maintain this stage, to keep this space open. 

      We tend to prefer to forget the threatening waters on the whole, but if we succeed in doing so, then our human dramas become mere affairs of play-acting and vacuous strutting,- we do indeed become 'mere players'! Some do believe this is all there is to the human condition, and more act as if it were. It is by attending to, indeed participating in, the above-mentioned conversation that we discover that actually truth and beauty do exist, that the stakes in our games could not be higher and that the ultimate prize is barely imaginable,- for humanity has eternal potential. It is Holy Baptism that initiates us into this conversation, in its full dimensions, and the other sacraments are there to give us the grace to follow through with it.

      To return to my own small share in the drama, in a much more limited dimension of it, I have explained before in this blog how in my youth I was immersed in the sea by crossing the Channel back and forth in a 27' wooden sailing boat, with no electronic aids whatsoever, other than a transistor radio, which gave us the BBC weather forecast, - Thames, Dover, Wight... was the litany.  At least it meant we should be able to avoid gales, but my Dad would be under pressure to get home for work on Monday morning; the biggest problem was fog. Those big throbbing engines, the swish of a bow-wave, the glimpsed looming dark shape with a white moustache.... Then there was the little matter of making a landfall in the fog, and the time when we mistook Le Tréport for Dieppe, or a man wading in the sea fishing for the beacon at the entrance to Rye Harbour!

     Yet more often than not, the one side receded and the other rose to meet and embrace us quite gaily. Two different stage-sets; different languages, customs, ways of doing things, mais plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose! Yet some things are different, and some actors reflect truth more authentically than others who merely parrot the lines. One all-too-common illusion in the England of those days (not to mention today?) that was soon exploded for myself was that the wogs begin at Calais! Didn't they have huge and magnificent steam engines there, that could pull trains all the way to Moscow, and such pretty girls! These days it might be expressed more subtly, but it is an illusion that all too often afflicts us, that our own stage-set is the true and right one. The moment we forget that our lines are part of a conversation with Another, then we are merely parroting them. By that immersion in the sea, that baptism, one learns to attend to the conversation, the Other, and so we may distinguish what really does grow and endure,- the green wood from the dead.

     Forever seeking the reality behind the appearance, one finds oneself a bit of a stranger everywhere, since all too many people settle for parroting their lines. Conversely, however, one learns the skills of being at home everywhere even as a stranger. In fact most people do respond to authenticity, and of course humour is a great help, as it hinges on and highlights the disparity between reality and appearance. But of course so many are actually possessed by the narrative in which they find themselves; they become defensive when challenged, and this is how we all tend to get into trouble. We do not allow for the possibility that what we see as Dieppe might in fact be Le Tréport, which has a shallow bar!

     It is the finding of other points of reference, preferably at right angles to each other, that can finally put us right. Hence the wonderful value of learning different languages and getting to know different cultures; yet this does not detract from the primacy of the Word of God. He, She, Them (dare I suggest we call them Heshem?) infuses all situations with the same ongoing dialectic, whereby we may discover Truth. Meanwhile, it is essential to believe in this possibility, even as we struggle with all the false narratives that plague and even appear to dominate the world! Heshem after all created us, completely understands us and our needs, wants to help us and is all powerful; however, He respects our freedom, above all wanting us to enter into a real conversation!

     It was poor Dom Luke, more than anyone, who alerted me to the possibilities of a fatal collision between differing narratives,- while the one outstanding thing he had insisted on was the vital necessity of paying heed to those gleams of light which penetrate our clouds from the Beyond, he found that the boards on which he walked could not tolerate the light within him. Education has a fatal tendency to tell us No, never mind such luxuries, such dreams,- you must learn the worldly talent of telling people what they want to hear! As a journalist, briefly, I saw even more clearly that this was the way of the world. It occurs more subtly and therefore more dangerously in our market economies as in totalitarian states, but Luke insisted that the very survival of life depends on people finding the strength and courage to be true to themselves,- to attend to the reality behind our games, the light within.

     Maybe, just maybe, one might hope that some rays of light are shining through the clouds of boredom and disruption that seem to engulf our youngsters in these lockdowns. Surely it should be obvious at this stage that the system of swotting to pass exams is futile and broken, and as in so many aspects of life, a big reset is called for! When we lose contact with the Everlasting Conversation, education in the humanities turns on its head, spoiling imaginations, undermining moral awareness and conscience, in the same way that the Church can find itself losing souls instead winning them, and allopathic medicine sabotages our immune systems instead of enhancing them. So besotted with our power and obsessed with our comms are we, that we seem incapable of paying attention to the simple fact that we are in immanent danger of destroying life on Earth itself. We have to learn humility fast. 

      It is a start to pay attention to Nature. Indeed there is much to be said for heading to the general territory where I seem to be finishing up, in a secluded and beautiful spot, with some bit of intellectual work set in the context of physical survival work like growing vegetables, doing the odd bit of building, and when possible doing some sea-faring. I think we have to help people who have the inclination to do so, and Fiona and I welcome guests to participate here. There is no shortage of things to do.... If anyone is interested, contact us by email, gannetsway at gmail.com .

  

Turning the Titanic

      Fishing methods that destroy fishing, 'husbandry' that leaves the land dead, food that does not sustain, 'defence' that would make the Earth uninhabitable, 'comms' that have people locked into their own silos and unable to communicate outside them, 'sport' that leaves participants physically wrecked, 'health-care' that leaves people with all kinds of pathologies, transport that chokes both itself and the people using it... - they frequently go under the name of Progress and their  enthusiasts will proudly state that 'they believe in Science'.

     Before you ask,- no, I am not a Luddite, merely a lookout peering into the fog! In a kind of a way I believe in Science and Progress myself - radar would have been handy on the Titanic - but as is generally the way when some ideology achieves the primacy, it promptly becomes a kind of parody of itself. What is wrong with us that we have such a talent for turning our triumphs into defeat? We may say, in shorthand, it is that apple we ate and the fatal tendency engendered by Original Sin to worship the work of our own hands; this however is rather 'old hat' stuff, and the fact is that the massive hubris attached to our pride in Progress has escalated exponentially with the power that science and technology have brought to us in recent years. When people are sailing along on the wings of power and prestige, we can surmise that idolatry has taken over; conversely, there ultimately remains only the one key to putting us right,- the worship of God through Jesus Christ. 

     Meanwhile, what little signs, what ignored warnings, should we be looking out for? The thing is, there are always disadvantages and snags attached to technological progress,- icebergs and rocks presenting dangers to navigation; we cannot know them all ourselves. The trick is to only listen to people who one has reason to believe really know what they are talking about, who realise the risks, lay them out and give reason to believe that they can be overcome. As the yachtsman said to the old salt in Baltimore, 'I hear you know all the rocks and can take me safely to Schull.' 'You would be right in the first point and wrong in the second.' 'Well how can that be?' 'I know where the rocks ain't'. Technology has put us in the way of making the world uninhabitable, so I suppose that it will have to come into play big time if we are to find our way forward, but how are we to get it back in its box - to be a good servant rather than a bad master?

     There is a clue in the question. Let us make sure it is a servant rather than a master in the first place. When we see, for example, vaccines touted on all sides, at the top of every newspaper, while intelligent discussion of their dangers is forced underground, alarm bells should be ringing. When we see the likes of the British Prime Minister riding vaccinations to glory and using them to vindicate Brexit, we are likely to be correct in smelling a rat. He's a classic Captain Titanic!  Poor people, who cannot afford a vaccine, may turn out to be the lucky ones!

     It is all very well for me, you will say, living away happily on my bitteen of island land,- and I will reply, well, difficult it may be, but there is nothing to stop many more people opting for such a way of life, while whole swathes of the Western seaboard of Europe continue to suffer massive depopulation. The biggest obstacles would be in their own heads, their education, attitudes, skill-sets and aptitudes. Perhaps the principle challenge in my life has lain in trying to realise a culture that is capable of overcoming such obstacles. Thanks to this pandemic, we have taken massive strides in recognising the power of the internet to enable us to do so.

     Then again, as regards the pandemic, I have no reason to doubt my homeopath when he says that he has been treating Covid successfully, with no serious problems and none of his patients having to go to hospital. This is no reason not to be sensible about avoiding it,- and homeopaths were to the fore in promoting hygiene in the 19th century- but I do object to the massive command and control effort to dragoon us into doing so. We will have to live with this disease around in the end, like all the others, and we will;  but it is not hard to foresee that there will be no lack of occasions for taking that authoritarian approach  to things, as we get deeper into these coming times. Can we envisage an alternative? What might it look like?

     I worked over this kind of ground in my 2005

novel, Wavedancing*. (I found few takers at the time,- the Celtic Tiger was roaring away. Remember that? Fortunately for us, I foresaw that it would go belly up, but try telling that to the world!) Getting there by a different route to what is happening now, I imagined at a critical juncture 'thousands of people ambling around rather like empty puppets, vacant and staring, unable or unwilling to do anything to help themselves, let alone others. They were suffering from a collapse of the very will to live.' (p.276).

     I would suggest this is already happening on a widespread scale, to people near you, and is likely to only get worse as the vaccines roll out. One thing one would like to avoid is for such opinions becoming the preserve of Trumpistas, so I shall conclude with a quote from p.386 of Barack Obama's book (A Promised Land) with reference to the 1976 swine flu epidemic,- 'President Ford (Republican)... had fast-tracked mandatory vaccinations... with the result that more Americans developed a neurological disorder connected to the vaccine than died from the flu'. There may be some circumstances in which the balance of risk falls in favour of being vaccinated, but if one would like to avoid those famous 'complications', and a command and control future to boot, I would recommend that by and large one should eschew the vaccines!                                                                                                                                                                                                

Cape Clear from Cow Strand.

   *If you would like a copy, send 20euro or pounds or whatever to me at Horseshoe Cottage, Sherkin Island, Co Cork, Ireland, and I will post it to you.                                                                                                                                              ps, if you would like to be notified by Signal, email or Twitter whenever I post a new blog, please email me - gannetsway (at) gmail.com                            

St Brigid and the Radical Centre.

It is St Brigid's day in the evening,- a sodden Sherkin lies under a heavy pall of cloud and rain, the sullen Atlantic heaves grumpily beyond a washed out and deserted Horseshoe Bay,- yet the sun is getting stronger, whether we can see it or not. In the garden the daffodils are pushing up strongly and the bushes are abudding. Some day very soon, the sun will come out, - and I shall be tipped into the Spring work..., 

     Meanwhile, this is the kind of evening when we must live on our dreams. Not the airy optimism  of a Boris Johnson promising his country that Brexit would bring 'a bright new future', or the Ducky talking up his disastrous presidency while promising 'the best is yet to come'; nor even the liberal version of airy optimism, which seems to imagine that the 'deplorables' will just go away, for in the words of the Guardian columnist and Berkeley professor Robert Reich,  'There’s no “center” between the reality-based world and theirs.... There is no middle ground between lies and facts. There is no halfway point between civil discourse and violence. There is no midrange between democracy and fascism.'  In spite of all the Ducky has said, does Reich imagine that all those millions of his supporters are about to 'see the light' or that they will simply be cowed into submission?

     'Speaking truth means responding to the world as it is and denouncing the poisonous deceptions engulfing the right.... It means protecting and advancing science....' avers Professor Reich. Granted that there are times when such people simply have to be faced down, nonetheless Professor Reich is on dodgy ground, for the whole difficulty and challenge of intellectual life is precisely that lies and facts do not in reality fall into such tidy distinction as he imagines, and violence may indeed lurk beneath the rhetoric of democracy. One might have expected anyone who witnessed the wars in Vietnam and Iraq to have realised that, and how about the French Revolution, that might be said to have put the democratic bandwagon on the road? Note also the element of 'scientific fundamentalism' at work here, which is frequently to be found on the political left. in spite of the apotheosis that it reached in Marxism and communist Russia. 

     Also in the Guardian, we find Dr Charlotte Summers of Cambridge University singing from a not dissimilar hymn sheet. In an article urging us to trust 'the Covid vaccine'*, she informs us that 'As a scientist, I firmly believe that scientific progress will provide the exit strategy from this pandemic.'  Sorry, but such words are far from reassuring to the likes of me. I thought Science was supposed to be strictly a matter of what one definitely can see, of evidence rather than of faith? Let it not so dazzle us that we have no perception of the much greater realities that we cannot see. She is welcome to her 'firm belief', but it's a pity she wouldn't take a leaf out of St Paul's book - 'If we could see God, we would not need to believe in Him'. 

     Or out of Pope Francis' for that matter, who addressed theologians at the Gregorian Pontifical University (10th April 2014) in these terms:- 'Philosophy and theology enable us to acquire the convictions that structure and strengthen intelligence and enlighten will; but all this is fruitful only if it is done with an open mind and on one’s knees. The theologian who is satisfied with his complete and conclusive thought is mediocre. A good theologian and philosopher is open, or incomplete in thought, always open to the ‘maius’ of God and of the truth, always in development. And the theologian who does not pray or does not adore God ends up sinking into the most repugnant narcissism.' 

     So here is the nubb of it,- theology remains the queen of sciences, and when scientists do not adore God, they become very dangerous. To an extent, one might say that if they only just respect Nature, it is a start, though far from adequate, as one can see by looking at the state of the world after a couple of centuries of 'scientific progress'.  Science may indeed be fine; the hard evidence, the technology and the insights that it can provide are sometimes invaluable, but elevated into a god, it is highly dangerous. 

     Thank God there are a few politicians about nowadays who understand this. Joe Biden seems to be there, and Ursula von der Leyen, who under attack for the cautious approach she and the European Commission are taking to the vaccine roll-out, said - "I remind you that a vaccine is the injection of an active biological substance into a healthy body. We are talking about mass vaccination here, it is a gigantic responsibility.” 

     Hereabouts is the answer to Professor Reich's question, -'How can Biden possibly be a “centrist” in this new political world?' This is how,- 'with an open mind and on his knees', and this is the way we should all be proceeding, and the only way to achieve steady conviction and direction. Are we really in 'a new political world' anyway? Only in that the exceptional period that the Americans term as 'normalcy' does seem to have come to an end. Pandemics, demagogues, along with disasters of all kinds, have frequently strutted the world stage, only somehow for most of my lifetime, we managed to think of them as relegated to other God-forsaken parts of the world or to the past, all because of that wonderful thing called Progress. 

     It has to be admitted that it was a fun time for those fortunate enough to be in a position to enjoy it. I myself was delighted to get the chance to swan around in sailing boats out of it now and again, but we must admit that it boiled down too often to complacent consumerism and  insouciant hedonism, which did not make people very happy. Though we knew about climate change and the ruination of so many natural systems for years, we blithely carried on living beyond the Planet's means as if it were someone else's problem. No more!

     This is the context in which we must find a way forward, though I do not imagine it will be achieved by any system of 'command and control', which will  no doubt be attempted, for it will not be easy. Governments need to work by identifying, encouraging and supporting the initiatives of those trying to develop constructive ways of coping. 

     If we simply depend on vaccines to 'get back to normal', we shall be sadly disappointed! Yet coping mechanisms like online working and living in bubbles are very likely pointing the way ahead. Let us hope that with some great leaders in place from the Radical Centre for a change, and stripped of much illusion by the pandemic, we will rise to the challenge of finding sustainable ways of living, which by the way, is the only real way to put horrors such as abortion behind us.

     So I come back to the kind of dreams that I have been dreaming for about half a century, of a new flowering of sustainable and prayerful community living, in respect of and in harmony with Nature, in an ancient tradition that in this part of the world goes back to the likes of St Brigid and St Columcille.  I was dreaming a lot about it even in the wheel-houses of little fishing boats, such as the Eiscir Riada here, second from the left, tied alongside Teelin pier in the early '80s. 

photo by Bill Vial.

     I was trying to find a way of living from the sea that would endure, but it wasn't to be. Those fancy Danish nets of mine on the pier caught plenty of cod, though the Rosses men who stuck with lead rope  rather than rings on the soles of the nets did better again. They got through more gear, and faster, but then they mostly had somewhat bigger boats, and were also used to fishing miles of salmon and crawfish nets. We all had to chase from one boom to the next, till booms became very hard to come by!

     Some day I hope, probably when I am gone, there will once again be thriving communities along the West coast of Europe, with fishing as a staple. They will have to carefully work together, in a spirit of husbandry rather than competition, for which online connectivity will be vital. I imagine they will reinvent sail power, while they will use electric motors powered mainly by hydrogen fuel cells. They will partly produce their own hydrogen on board, but ashore it will be produced  using wind and sun, along with all kinds of food, by small farmers who will sell it in much the same way as they used to sell churns of milk. The distribution of hydrogen will be big business for vessels large and small, using both sails and hydrogen to get around....            

*https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/dec/03/the-covid-vaccine-trust-safe-works-political

     

After The Twitter Tiger

      The poor old Duckie, Donald the failed Duce, is looking like a Twitter Tiger now, without whatever it takes to become a proper fascist. It is amazing that so much of his presence could be simply turned off at the click of a mouse. I wonder however whether it is wise to take this as the last word on the matter. He may be pretty scattered himself, but the depth of his support should at least give cause for caution in completely writing him and his followers off, particularly if the latter come up with a more focussed and competant leader. 

     Like so much that is false, Trumpism nonetheless thrived on a few sparks of insight that the world, and particularly America, finds difficult to acknowledge. The first and biggest is that the old ideal of The City on a Hill is widely  discredited,  even in the subconscious of those who profess it, pace Barack Obama, whose tome A Promised Land I am currently reading. I note that the biggest set-backs that Obama encountered in his campaign were when questions bubbled up from the Black experience regarding the self-image of Americans as a Chosen Race; when Michelle blurted out that she was 'proud of her country, for the first time in her adult life', or when Barack's old pastor said that 9/11 was in part 'a matter of America's chickens... coming home to roost', - referring to 'our record of wanton violence overseas'. Even the Ducky in his presidential campaign averred that America's military interventions overseas hardly qualified as success stories.     

     What the USA in fact stands for in many minds is MONEY more than anything else, so there was a certain relief when that guy came along saying it out aloud, relieving the folks of their sense of guilt when he stood before his golden gates saying, Behold, I'm Mr Money, or even better, 'The King of Debt', and what's more, America first,-I'm here to unapologetically put YOU first'! After all that idealism of Barack Obama, which one might dismiss as a lot of hot air, it was a relief to get real again!

     If the Ducky had been left in peace to tickle up the feel-good factor of Americans, he would have been re-elected. It's the pandemic that popped that bubble. Yet even here, there is a strand in his narrative that scores. He was mad to call it a hoax, and I do not wish to imply that in the practical reality we are faced with lockdowns are not a necessary response, yet there is something that seems very wrong with them in practice, some element of a death wish. One obvious example of it is the fact of all these old people having to die in isolation, cutting across every human instinct (especially Irish ones). Beyond this is the horrible uneasy feeling that we are witnessing the onset of a ghastly totalitarianism, which is buttressed by the conviction some of us have, that when society loses touch with God, it inevitably falls prey to some kind of thralldom.

      A more immediate and empirical conviction is that the pandemic could have been tackled much more promptly and effectively were it not for willful mass blindness to the possibilities of homoeopathy. This goes back to the dawn of the 'scientific age' in the mid 19th century, when the 'gentlemen of the Medical Council' suppressed the results, strongly favouring homoeopathy, of a Government survey of the effectiveness of the treatment administered to cholera victims in the various London hospitals. In response to a parliamentary question, they unanimously asserted that 'That by introducing the returns of homoeopathic practitioners, they would not only compromise the value and utility of their averages of cure, as deduced from the operation of known remedies, but they would give an unjustifiable sanction to an empirical practice alike opposed to the maintenance of truth and to the progress of science'.*  

     There are none so blind as them that will not see! The pity is that these attitudes have not changed, while science has moved on to the extent that, in the age of quantum physics, there is the possibility of a better understanding of homoeopathy. However I readily admit to being scientifically illiterate, which probably has helped me to appreciate a good thing when I see it. I looked over Fiona's shoulder for years as she studied homoeopathy, practised for a while and used it en famille. Since I was diagnosed with prostate cancer last autumn, I have been using it myself, and am fairly confident of success. I admit however that we are sailing in the dark, and I learned long ago that the first rule of navigation is to consider the possibility that one might be wrong. I have difficulty, however, in persuading the medics to do the same!

     So to get back to where we started, for all the indignation about the Ducky these days, let us remember that but for the pandemic, we would probably be facing another Trump presidency. Much will depend, for President Biden, on how it goes now. Will the vaccine cavalry in fact ride to the rescue? Anyway, whatever did happen to 'Yes We Can'  and all that? Is there a torch that can be raised aloft again? What went wrong and how can America, and the rest of us, avoid being dragged, deeper, into the same old cycle? Will the Biden Presidency help rid us on this side of the Atlantic of the mendacious vandals of Brexit? And will we finally be able to walk the walk with regard to climate change?

     It is true of course that money talks, especially in American politics. One of the exhilarating features of the Obama presidency was that the underdogs appeared to be getting the better of the plutocrats. One did not have to be black to feel that. However, I think, if one wants to see the values of a Promised Land prevail, there are certain mistakes that the Democrats should not make again, possibly on account of big money too (from Planned Parenthood for instance), such as championing especially partial-birth abortion, which is impossible for many of us to distinguish from infanticide. It would almost make me vote Republican, if I were American. Why not do the right thing, and stop handing good ammo to the other side?

     Beyond this, there is a further reason why that famous flame of Liberty has nearly been  blown out. As St Peter said, 'God does not have favourites'. The real Promised Land is not the property of any nation, tribe or language, or even political party. If it belongs to anyone, it belongs to the poor, the hungry, the rejected, vulnerable and homeless. If President Biden can remember this, he should do ok. If the Republicans only remembered it, they might be a respectable party again. May they all succeed in reuniting their country, in humility though, without jingoism of any kind. Joe Biden is stepping off on a good note. For now at least, I wish the new President well!

 

God Bless President Biden, from the other side of the Atlantic (looking West from the Priest's Strand, Sherkin Island}!

     

*Click here for article from the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine. 

     

Sorry Doc, I won't be taking the Vaccination.

 Sorry Doc, I won’t be taking the vaccination! The question is bound to come sooner or later. I shall seize the bull by the horns and set down in writing some of the reasons why this will be my answer, and in the process attempt to answer another question that comes my way now and again,- what do you think about this pandemic?

‘Science’ of course is supposed to answer such questions for us. Politicians and everybody else are generally expected to defer to her dictats. However there are in the case of the pandemic the mainline scientists, whose general approach is that we must fight Covid with lockdowns etc until the vaccines deliver us from it, and the fringe 'loonies' who insist that lockdowns are in fact counterproductive* and sometimes even dare to question the efficacy of vaccines. I cannot begin to pretend to get my head around charts and facts and figures, so how do I set about establishing my own position in any kind of a rational way? 

I cast around for experts whom I deem genuinely capable of setting aside their own opinions and drilling into the data to find out what stands up. It is a tall order. Meanwhile, for my part, I can only make a start by reviewing what I have gleaned from my own journey. I am allergic to endlessly sparring over ‘facts’; in the end one does have to situate the problem within whatever wider frames of reference one has managed to establish, while the test of integrity is our willingness to painfully interrogate them.

I have strayed from the question,- what about that vaccination? It’s not a new problem. My doctor has been trying to get me to take a ‘flu jab for some years. I pointed out that I knew several people who had had the jab and still had ‘flu. One exasperated response to my refusal was ‘well don’t come to me when you get pneumonia!’ He's a good man though, taking my jybes in good heart, and as for the medical 'industry' as I am tempted to call it, I recognise that there are many good people in it, and also that there are times when, like the Fire Brigade, they are vital.

 

Yet as it happens I have so far neither caught the ‘flu nor had pneumonia, though I do generally get a bad cold around the turn of the year that sometimes threatens to get on my chest, but which Fiona’s home brand of medicine - mostly homoeopathy and diet - has so far always coped with. Yet for a start, we do not ‘fight’ it, but rather regard it as a kind of annual revamp of our immune set-up, like training a horse to jump fences. It is one of the big theoretical objections to vaccinations, that they bypass and rather sabotage the natural workings of our immune systems. Are we supposed to get yet another jab for every kind of virus that comes at us?

There is the question mark over these substances that we fire into our veins so blithely. Neither the manufacturers nor their insurance companies are prepared to stand over them, and they insist on governments taking the responsibility for any ‘complications’. It is anyway of course very hard to actually prove when the vaccines are to blame. In the case of the swine ‘flu vaccine, it took ten years and much effort to pin the blame for narcolepsy on it, to the extent that the Irish Government had to pay compensation, though GSK still refuses to accept responsibility. The fact that the current crop of vaccines has been turned out under massive pressure does not augur well.

In the case of the pandemic, what is the alternative to ‘fighting’ it with lockdowns and vaccines? Pandemics in the past, though like the ‘Spanish ‘flu’ they were sometimes much more deadly, nonetheless passed eventually. Meanwhile, supposing we seriously take a look at ourselves and ask whether the ‘fighting’ posture is the best one? After all, in the cause of ‘security’, our leading nations are apparently willing to expend astronomical sums on weapons that would wreak unimaginable havoc, death and destruction, in a completely different order of magnitude to this pandemic. They do not exactly achieve peace. The attitude to health, out of the same stable, gets through vast sums of money forever ‘fighting’ this and that, without actually being very successful at building a healthy world.

There is a pattern of whacking molehills to be discerned. We wallop dis-ease in one form and it erupts in another; and of course we tend to forget that everything is interconnected, on psychic, physical, social, economic and spiritual levels. Supposing we ask ourselves, might the pandemic be trying to tell us something, even to help us respond to much greater threats? Might it have something to teach us? Let us look at it holistically. It is possible that Covid19 could have been brought under control months ago with homoeopathic prophylactics.**

Beyond this, were there by any chance apparently unconnected signs in differing modes that our way of living was unsustainable and in the gravest danger of breaking down? Had we any personal indications of the need to slow down, consolidate, integrate the various facets of life into something sustainable? ‘Progress’, profit, GDP, the very 'scientific worldview' have broken down as yardsticks by which to pace our lives.

In many ways we clearly need to go backwards, for an immediate and particular example, with regard to things like heating this house, in which we are fine and cosy after a long and painful change from dependence on large amounts of oil to warming ourselves mainly with two wood stoves. Such a move needs to happen, of course, in tandem with efforts to improve insulation and avoid the need for excessive heating. We might even need to wear thick clothes in the winter, instead of T-shirts!

Both Chimneys in Action.

There’s a lot of work involved in tending them in this cold weather, not to mention in the cutting and curing of firewood, but actually I enjoy it. No better exercise than cutting and splitting logs, and I even enjoy the little ritual first thing in the morning of kindling the embers for the stove in the west room, which stays in all night and heats those few of the old radiators that I have kept. It’s a great occasion for that prayer to the Holy Spirit,- Come Holy Spirit, kindle within us the fire of thy love; send forth thy spirit and we shall be recreated, and thou shalt renew the face of the Earth!’

Nothing reveals our need for renewal more clearly than the general paucity of ritual these days, reduced as it so often is to banal things like football. Ritual is the human way of pulling our lives together, in  the interaction of meaning and community. Again, we need to take a step or two backward in order to go forward; but can we call this renewal a matter of ‘making progress’ at all? I scratch my head trying to think of another word. I can only think of an old English West Country sailor's term for making headway against the wind - winnin’ . So that’s the best I can wish for you this New Year,- may you be a-winnin’!

*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_vAQyVlXzU&t=10s

**Preliminary results have emerged from the use of homeopathic immunisation (Homeopathic Prophylactic) in nearly half of the Cuban population. The Cuban government has utilised HP since 2007 to successfully control diseases such as leptospirosis, cholera, dengue, hepatitis and now COVID19. The effectiveness of their COVID19 HP is around 90%, which is totally consistent with the results from HP interventions in tens of millions of people worldwide. - Irish Society of Homoeopaths, 14/12/20

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!