Lights in the Dark.

A peaceful night in Horseshoe Bay.

The Nazaré Project and work on the Anna M remain stalled for the want of funds. We will embark on a political effort to obtain funding once the new European Parliament is in place. Meanwhile, the weather is great in Sherkin, and at least I have been glad of the chance to put in some solid Spring work on our biteen of land, for the first time in some years, since I have been distracted by the crisis with the Anna M and also the business of building the West Room. Today is wet, and I am back to blogging. Coming up shortly is our John's wedding with Andreea in Rumania, and then we have an invasion of grandchildren, so it will be July by the time I get to work again on the boat.

     My old mind does keep ticking away in the background, even while I am barrowing out manure or whatever. I bear in mind one of the amazing bits of wisdom that Pope Francis throws out:-  'An authentic humanity, calling for a new synthesis, seems to dwell in the midst of our technological culture, almost unnoticed, like a mist seeping gently beneath a closed door.' What is this 'new synthesis'? Can it possibly 'seep' fast enough to save us from this same 'technological culture'? 

     The Pope speaks of the need to find a renewed 'enchantment' with nature and physical reality, to fall in love with the world again, if we are to find the necessary spiritual strength to confront the environmental and political emergencies of our time. But how often have Christians taken the line that 'the world' is a lost cause, a write-off, even if we are told that Jesus came to save it? It is not after all entirely unreasonable to regard the world as disposable; a bit like a booster rocket that falls away as we attain our immortal destiny in Heaven.

     So much depends on our personal and cultural situation. Basically things have been fairly ok for my generation in the affluent West, in spite of many 'dangers, toils and snares'. Faith in Progress, supremely a child of 19th century English and American bourgeoisie, carried people along with the sense that things were getting better and enabled confidence in a benign deity. Things looked darker from the point of view of people who for instance were starving in Ireland, whose God, if he was good at all, was darned hard to find in this world.  Hence the 'unhealthy dualism which left a mark on certain Christian thinkers in the course of history and disfigured the Gospel'. 'Jesus was far removed from philosophies which despised the body, matter and the things of this world',  insists the Pope.

     St Augustine comes to mind, living as he did in the twilight of Roman civilisation. There was a great travelling Irishman, Pelagius by name, who made the perilous journey to North Africa to debate such matters with him. The 'Celtic' Christian tradition that Pelagius came from tends to be celebrated these days for its rootedness in druidic sun worship, love of nature and independence (read, freedom from Roman dogma). But the Protestant Reformation, when it finally came many years later, was equally mistrusting of Mother Nature as St Augustine, and to judge by the subsequent course of English and American civilisation, probably yet more prone to treat her as a foreign city to be ransacked or enslaved. Oh yes, then there's that Patriarchy business again, but I shall leave the matter of the crying need for a new 'gender balance' for another day!

     The German Romantic poet Goethe bemoaned his alienation from certain 'worthy Christian souls, in a manner in which the Church has more than once fallen into dissension - One part maintained human nature has been so far corrupted by the fall of man, that to its innermost core not the least trace of good was to be found in it; therefore, man must renounce his own powers altogether and expect everything from grace and its influence. The other part very willingly admitted the hereditary defects of mankind, but wished to attribute to nature a certain inward germ which, animated by divine favour, was able to grow up to a joyous tree of spiritual happiness.'* Here then is a key element of the dualism that we have to overcome. But would Goethe have been able to sustain such optimism through the subsequent history of his country?

      Today our prospects are apparently appalling, and the future obscured in the darkest of storm clouds. At the same time, if the challenges are overcome, there are some truly wonderful possibilities. But conservatives may well object that the 'spirit of Progress', which is invoked for our salvation by 'progressives' in spite of the many ecological sins committed in its name (big industrial fishing trawlers, thinks I) tends to rely on an overly optimistic estimate of the power of merely human reason and a romantic hope for unredeemed human nature. To have any hope of a generalised 'ecological conversion', we need to be ready to make huge efforts and indeed sacrifices. We need all the spiritual resources we can muster, such as access to forgiveness so that we may recognise our sins. We need also to believe this whole shebang is actually going somewhere.

     Enter the great catholic apostle of progress, Teilhard de Chardin. With Pope Francis, he is at last achieving a degree of official recognition. He offered a narrative that reconciled 'progress and science' with 'religious truth'. We may say that he was building on St Paul's letter to the Romans - 'The whole creation is eagerly waiting for God to reveal his sons.... From the beginning till now the entire creation has been groaning in one great act of giving birth.'  The great objection to Teilhard was that he down-played, or indeed had no place for, the doctrine of Original Sin, just as progressives today often seem to downplay the reality of human egotism. Nonetheless, he stood behind such great figures of the Second Vatican Council as Henri de Lubac, which Council is only with the present pope possibly reaching fullfillment, to the consternation of some of a conservative mindset. Secular thinkers tend to dismiss such theological controversies as 'dancing on the head of a pin' etc. In fact they go to the heart of our human dilemma, as they tear through human history, taking many different forms; but, despite its popularity these days, it is hard to believe that the narrative of a great confrontation between 'progressives' versus 'fascists/populists/neo-liberals etc' will get us anywhere good! We should certainly beware of any facile idea of a rerun of the narrative of the 1930s, or any other narrative, for that matter. 

     The Community of St Gregory, named for the great 'romanizing' pope of the sixth century who had some trouble with among others the 'wild Irish' missionaries of the time, was rent asunder around the time I left their care at Downside in 1965. The community had a history of tension between those who wanted to be 'real contemplative monks' and the demands of mission, the school and so on. Some say it reflects the difference between St John, the mystic, and St Peter, the shepherd or catcher of men. I ended up heading for Glencolmcille, in some little way under the inspiration of St Columba. I too was seeking 'a new synthesis'. I very much agree with the Pope that 'the absence of synthesis today is everywhere, especially in the political world. It results in incoherence in policies at every level and ineffective action.' Is it too much to hope that the time for a new, organic and coherent civilisation is indeed coming round at last? It would badly need to, but just what form it might take remains as inscrutable as Yeats' 'rough beast, slouching toward Bethlehem to be born'!

*Quoted by Jacob Streit in Sun and Cross, a good read for those interested in 'Megalithic Culture and early Christianity in Ireland'.

Quotes from Pope Francis' encyclical 'Laudato Si'', via 'An Irish Response' published by Veritas and available at:- https://columbans.ie/shop/