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.

      

Boring!?

A teenage grand-daughter complains that the Coronavirus is ‘boring’, and please can we stop talking about it? One can readily appreciate her point of view; it must be very tiresome for a youthful social butterfly to be confined to quarters, hearing the same old doom and gloom day after day. Even our youngest daughter, who promptly baled out of her job in Blighty at the beginning of the lock-down and made off home to Ireland, where she is lucky enough to have family with plenty of space, takes the line ‘why should she spoil a great chance for a holiday with her little girls by listening to the same old ghastly news?'

Baltimore Beacon from Sherkin Lighthouse.

But surely it is going to have a huge impact on the world? Can we possibly begin to make any sense of this hugely confusing moment, or begin to see what might lie ahead, and if there is any unlikely chance that we may be able to influence it? As for my dear wife, she invariably finds some job for me whenever I get my head stuck into such little problems. And as for this blog, it started out nearly five years ago as a sailing blog. How did it end up involving all this other stuff, first Brexit and The Ducky, now Coronavirus?

Public concern in the Anglosphere has lurched from blanket coverage of the one mega-story to the other. Now we can see the continuity more and more clearly, and apparently to a quite extraordinary extent in the USA, what with The Ducky shamelessly trying to exploit the frustration of those chaffing at the restrictions of lockdown, as if everybody doesn’t find it difficult.

For any sane society or individual person, obviously it is very difficult to get the right balance between responsibility and prudence with regard to the virus, and ‘opening up’ both their personal lives and that of the economy. For this reason if no other, we need to struggle with the mountain of frequently dodgy information. But then there is evidently a sad need to combat powerful interests who seek political advantage from setting the one against the other, and posing as the champions of freedom. Here again we find the continuity not alone between The Ducky phenomenon and Brexit, but also between them and the present political struggle. It even appears, unbelievably but as only the Americans can manage, the false dichotomy will set the terms of the forthcoming presidential election.

One way or the other, at whatever cost it turns out to be, we shall get through it; but I for one doubt if I shall see a return to my happy, carefree cruising days. Of course, I cannot just blame the pandemic; there was a crisis coming, the dear Anna M, 50 years old and made of wood, was going to need serious money, which I have not got, - a situation which I avoided thinking about as long as I possibly could. Boring? Well yes, and worse; but after all, what was going to happen only spending more and more time in whatever pleasant corners I could find, ‘kicking around waiting to die’ as my father memorably put it at about my own present age!

So come on, the very meaning and direction of our lives is brought inexorably to the fore in this present situation. Whatever else it may be, this can hardly be described as boring! Personally, I intend to at least go down fighting for a new life for the old boat, and in the process to make a little contribution to a new life for the old world. On both counts, a life without oil seems more desirable than ever, - without the noise, fumes, pollution and money that it involves. While we are at it, there are some more aspects of our old way of life which the pandemic highlights as past their time.

For a start, it highlights the danger of the trend to ever bigger cities, invariably the hotspots for this disease; conversely, the advantages of living more scattered and self-sufficient lives in the country. Personally, I voted with my feet on this matter 47 years ago. How fortunate we are now, to live in a beautiful place with plenty of space and a good garden! More especially with contemporary communications, I see no good reason for anyone to live in a city, except perhaps in the spirit of one going to war, for as little time as possible. Still, there will be demand for them, so let our cities be redesigned, with minimal noise and fumes!

Easter Lilies.

There will remain the little problem of making a living; and I for one disagree with those left-wingers of this world, who apparently think that one can simply print unconscionable quantities of the stuff and get away with it, and who also are quite happy to cede almost total control and responsibility to the state. Yet again, however, we should not buy into the opposite. Indeed this crisis is showing up the right-wing nonsense and hypocrisy also, with governments of every stripe tossed into the bottomless pits of debt. At issue between them are perhaps only certain variations as to who is enabled to get their hands on all that dosh, and who will have to make some show of paying it off, though eventually it is bound to be largely discounted, one way or the other. What that will involve is another story!

It is a good time to recall ‘how few the things are, the which if a man lays hold of, he is able to live a life which flows in quiet, and is like the existence of the gods!’ - as Marcus Aurelius put it long ago. Shelter, heat, food, clothes .... they can all be produced at home in the country, and it is fun to do so, and who would not rather eat fresh, home-grown vegetables, say, than those supermarket ones produced far away in dodgy conditions? But one does still need money for what one cannot produce, and of course there are certain little problems like access to land.... But the revolution in communications has to be a game-changer, enabling one to communicate, cooperate, source and sell products so much more widely and effectively from home. Time I was getting back on track with the Sherkin-Nazaré Alternative Power Project !

More Possible Than Ever!

I always had an interest in monasticism, which was not surprising since one of the salient features of my childhood and youth was visiting my mother’s sister, who was a Carmelite nun, and another the fact that I was educated by Benedictine monks from the age of nine to that of nineteen. This was however to become a cause of regret to my agnostic father, who though perhaps speaking from a temporary exasperation, once said as much. “Those monks” had filled my head with a lot of fancy notions, whereas at the local grammar school I might have been taught to simply “get my foot on the ladder”!

This rather gives the lie to the popular narrative, which asserts that people pay big money sending their children to posh private schools simply in order for them to get ahead in the rat-race, - not that one can deny that there is a huge element of truth in this. It doesn't even matter very much when everyone is convinced that 'the ladder' is going upwards, but when the suspicion gains ground that, on the contrary, it is going in the opposite direction, then one is in trouble. That, in Blighty and the USA, is the difference between the WW2 and the Vietnam war generations. Ladders, after all, must lean on something; if the building turns into a pit, down they must go!

Few private schools are run by monks, but back then in the '60s, I got the feeling that the tension between the monastic aspiration to seek and serve Truth alone, and the worldly requirement to enable young people to ‘get on’, was tearing at the very heart of my alma mater…. You can read all about that if you care to delve into the stuff From the Fractal Frontier back in this blog.

Before ever Christ came on the scene, Plato asserted (in the Republic) ‘that it is impossible at one and the same time to worship money and keep a high standard of honesty among the citizens; one or the other will have to go.’ In words that were apparently attributed to Socrates, he moreover associated democracy with this ‘worship of money’, asking ‘Does not a city change from government by a small class to government by the people through uncontrolled pursuit of wealth as the ultimate object of life?’ 

We might argue that ever since, for the last two and a half millennia, civilisation has been struggling with this issue, and doing its best to have it both ways, equating 'getting on' with being good, virtuous, etc, whenever it was remotely plausible to do so. Even so, we have very often seen the privileged 'guardians of truth' unmistakeably give way to smart 'wide boys', with the result that 'privileged' tends now to be a term of abuse; instead of being proud of it, one is inclined to feel guilty, while notions like noblesse oblige are laughed out of court. It's come to the point where one hardly dares to assert that anything is actually true, for one thereby implies that one has some kind of superior knowledge. 

Is it surprising that we find ourselves in trouble, with political leaders who say anything provided it serves their purposes? It is a tragic fact that the present 'champions of democracy' seem to have failed particularly dismally when the curved ball with Covid-19 written on it came their way; yet without of course being able to foresee it, I have been living with an ever stronger premonition of disaster for years, and I am certainly not alone in that. Whatever way one looked at it, The Bubble was going to pop! There could be no general well-being when the world was so sick.

Where then do we now stand ? It seems we will have to reinvent democracy for a start. Perhaps we might learn from monastic traditions, where democracy has been practised for ages, but not idolised? It is but a method of governing that only works well within a proper ordering of society, with a view to the Trinity of truth, solidarity and the active worship of God. For those who follow Christ, and recall how he (like Socrates) was put to death by popular demand, democracy is anything but an end in itself!

A smother from the East.

Nowadays Fiona and I find ourselves perforce living a quasi monastic kind of life. Undoubtedly we are very privileged, living on our beautiful and so far safe island, but after all we did have to choose to do so, and it has not been easy; yet in most basic and practical ways, it almost seems we might have been preparing for this time for years, what with the new sunroom that I have been slowly and painfully constructing now at last complete, with our communications more or less up to speed, a new fridge and the boat laid up in a safe and cheap place, and in various other little ways. 

Our lives have fallen into a rhythm that could almost be described as delightful except that we miss our family and friends, but then, one cannot be indifferent to all the terrible suffering out there. Yet what's new, except that mass misery and horror seem to be getting ever closer to home?

Our crucified Saviour offers the only hope of living with it! We say our morning prayer with the Church on universalis.com. After breakfast and a morning ‘communication session’, I generally get out to do some physical work, priority at the moment being the construction of a new wood shed. Noon brings that little effort to an end, with Mass online from Glenstal Abbey at 1210. (I thought that was an odd time at first, but find it works very well at the pivot of the day, before lunch.) A read, a snooze, a

Nugget on the beach.

cup of tea, before I head for the garden, and generally going for a walk with Nugget in the evening. Then another look at the computer, supper, phone calls, a game of backgammon, night prayers and bed. The days whistle by.

So where is this going? Might we manage to simply drive all the woe from our heads and hang on to our privileged position? Yet it is a precarious, funny kind of privilege! Here am I, aged 73 with a bit of a heart condition and Fiona struggling to get herself around, with apparently no future and no way out, and the world we are leaving to our grandchildren in a terrible state. I labour away, and most likely will be called away from this lovely spot just when I imagine it is coming right.

However, I am not depressed. Far from it, in fact; perhaps I was never better; and I shall be even happier if I feel that the world is at last actually making the Great Transition, and we have made a little contribution to it; that the world is at last waking up to the threats and the possibilities of a new era. Surely we will finally put behind us silly notions like 'there is no such thing as society', - but can we avoid too the opposite, totalitarian danger?

I am more convinced than ever that small communities, not in isolation, but in dynamic relationship with other communities and also with Nature, are the way to go. Their members will balance prayer, physical and mental work. In their mutual dependency, encounter and solidarity, a new space will open for truth seeking; they will rediscover transcendent reality, as people do when facing challenges together, even while they will become increasingly self-sufficient. They will be thoroughly orientated to sustainability, yet undismayed by all the disasters of this world; they will become convinced of the transcendent reality of love and its final victory. They will discover and worship the Lord and Master of it all, and celebrate their redemption!

It is a vision I and many others have had for years, many centuries in fact, but all too often felt ourselves struggling in vain to realise. 'new worlds, i suggest, are born and not made', said e.e.cummings. A bit of both, I rather think, but it does now feel more possible than ever!