Ash Wednesday Again.

Nothing unusual about this Irish March weather anyway; it is boisterous, chilly and wet, but with the day lengthening and the sun strengthening, when he does manage to break through the scudding clouds. It was much more pleasant here in February, I am told, and it certainly was in Alcobaça, where I stayed for my last trip to Portugal; it is nearer to our premises at Fervença than Nazaré, and for most practical purposes, more useful.

     It is also a delightful town, especially around the massive old Cistercian monastery. However, they rather spoilt it as I was leaving, in the name of a pre-Lent Carnival, so I came home at a good time. There were massive loud speakers blaring ghastly music all over the place, and lines of kids in fancy costumes who somehow gave the impression of being dragooned into 'enjoying themselves'. I failed to detect any real spontaneous upwelling of joy. Maybe I'm an old curmudgeon, but I'm somewhat allergic to that kind of thing, especially in old Catholic cultures, when they keep up a form of religion but have largely lost the content. Real joy depends on some sort of brush with the Divine, but when the salt loses its flavour.... 

     So much for a couple of hundred years of rationalism! The massive Abbey church was always meant to be austere, and was desecrated by Napoleonic troops, but one would have thought they might have got around to at least some Stations of the Cross on the bare stone walls. If I had the money I would try to get them some Thompson ones. Thank God for the women I came across saying the rosary in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel, and at least a surprisingly large crowd at Mass on Sunday. But where were the youngsters?

     Quite apart from the existential threats hanging over their future, I really fear for their personal spiritual health. Where are they going to find joy in life, and the will to overcome those threats? What is going to keep them interested in the human project, and inspired to accept the challenge of the future? No wonder that all over the developed world, more and more people are getting depressed and relying on drugs to keep going. How can this trajectory be turned round?

March garden.

     On a cold March day in Sherkin, the very lack of comfort forces one to dig deep to maintain the will to live, and that's all part of its advantage! But when I am away from home in Portugal, and though I very much appreciate Portuguese food, I do miss the home-grown vegetables, picked straight from the garden. Hey-ho, it's coming to life again; not that I bother with much 'deep digging' there any more. Fiona and I have kept an organic vegetable garden for nearly half a century now.  It is all part of that which keeps us committed to our home on Sherkin Island. Without making a huge deal about it, it is amazing how much food can be produced from a very small area. The crucial thing, of course, is the fertility of the soil.

     In spite of accepting the principle all those years ago in Somerset, I think it is only lately that I have really adopted the organic approach, and at the same time abandoned the attempt, even the desire, to remove all the weeds. They call it continuous cover – just cut them and leave them there to rot, preferably covered with some kind of mulch, and anyway don’t be afraid to adopt the ‘wheat and tares’ attitude. So long as they are not choked and overcome, plants thrive in company, like most things, while the soil thrives with continuous cover.

     It took a long time to change my basic approach. I used to start from the intent of getting what I wanted out of the ground. Nowadays my starting point is to husband its fertility. Of course I am very lucky that I can basically leave to Fiona the business of coaxing out of it what we need. It’s a good question whether all this stuff about organic living, the transition to a carbon free society and so on, really does hang together with the kind of spiritual revolution we all so desperately need?

     In my blog last week, I threw out the phrase ‘organic politics’. Afterwards I found myself asking whether it really stacks up? Well, in politics also, our approach has tended to be based on the assumption that we and our lot know what is best and has to happen, and must overcome all those ‘weeds’ who resist us. The approach has been that of the farmer who sprays with weed-killer, killing everything, before he plants his crop – far from the holistic approach of thinking first of the soil’s well-being, and then, in harmony with that, in humility, coax it into yielding a harvest.

     There is of course a religious dimension to this transition; in fact perhaps religious consciousness has led the way. When we really encountered people outside our own box, it became clear that it just won’t do to insist that our religion is right and everyone else’s is wrong. But such an attitude does not necessarily imply mere relativism. I as a Catholic am free to believe that ultimately the Catholic Faith is uniquely not just reconcilable with all other positive spiritual aspirations, but actually able to offer them fulfillment, which is why it is catholic and potentially universal.

     This is not to say that at this moment in history we have the Whole Truth, all wrapped up, while the others are going nowhere. No, they are very likely ahead of us in some respects, and we can learn from them, and expect that the ultimate fulfillment will draw on all the spiritual gifts and insights of humanity. The way ahead for all of us is to dive ever deeper into the Mystery, while each must jump from the ground on which they stand! A religion that stops short of that plunge into Mystery, insisting on staying on its own ground while refusing to acknowledge others, is a form of idolatry that will die away. It is actually diametrically opposed to the conviction that all good things come from one true God, and will return to Him.

      As for politics, the notion that our Party or Ideology is right and others are wrong is going nowhere. Does this imply a wishy-washy liberalism, with ‘my truth’ and ‘your truth’ forever equally valid? No, we have to make decisions and stand our ground when necessary; this calls for, first of all, the insistence on one’s own inner voice and experience, but also a continuous and rigorous self examination of our conscience. This will also lead us to respect the conscience and the experience of others.

     Unfortunately, it is very rare for our long years of education to equip us for this most vital task. In fact much of what passes for education seems to be expressly designed to stifle and ignore it, to condition young people to accept the service of some deadly monoculture rather than the cultivation of a rich and creative garden; and unfortunately there are reasons to fear that the internet, instead of opening us to others, is actually tending to reinforce the pressure to deliver what is expected of us. Little ground is left for dialogue, for mutual service and mutual enrichment. What would a politics look like that took such principles seriously?

     Perhaps, just perhaps, we are beginning to see it, all through Europe and by no means least in the United Kingdom. The notion that one can achieve freedom by cutting oneself off, defending one’s own bit of ground to the last, king in one’s own castle, is being defended so shrilly because the tide is washing it away. A politics is possibly emerging that is based on considering first of all the state of the ground, and then of growing our own crop in a spirit of dialogue, of mutual respect and consideration both for the earth and for other people’s crops, not to mention their flowers!