On Moving Back to West Clare.

A place for everything and everything in its place certainly makes life much easier in a boat, and indeed anywhere else. Its value only comes home to us when everything gets thrown around in a storm, and the simplest of tasks become so much more difficult. Such is the case also when one moves house, as Fiona and I are in the process of doing. It was but a very small taste of what life must be like as a homeless migrant, to whom I feel that I owe this little acknowledgement, as we move to another comfortable house. If any such read this, know that you are often in my thoughts, and I am ashamed of our collective response to your plight!

Our new home.

     We who are accustomed to the luxury of a house of our own can have little idea what it is to be really homeless. A home means not alone a house but a context of meaning and security. Indeed one might have a house, but if it lacks that context, it will not be much of a home. This side of the equation receives scant critical attention on the whole. The most popular form it has taken in recent times is the nation state; people even came to the point of laying down their lives for 'their country, right or wrong'. But having failed to, or perhaps rather been prevented from, examining such vital notions to understand what they really stand for, whole populations find themselves ambushed by the result.

     The English found themselves consistently embroiled in stupid and inhumane actions across their Empire, though it was supposed to be spreading democracy, enlightenment and the rule of law around the globe, and especially on their door-step in Ireland. They passed the baton across the Atlantic to the Exemplary Nation, and what do we find but another story of frightful wars waged in the same grand cause. Like tidal waves, huge lies roll in from the deep; they lift the surfers up at first, only to dash them down on the rocks later.

     Some guys seem to reckon that the main thing in life is to watch for the coming wave and to surf on it to glory. They actually don't care very much about the grand causes they proclaim, or providing anyone with an enduring context for their lives; a temporary hit is enough for them, such as the Nazis must have felt as they drove into Paris. Those who were desperately trying to get away had a very different experience. We can take it as a general rule that whoever they are, the ones trying to escape are closer to truth and goodness than the invaders; they are the only ones who truly have God on their side, but please note that the approach to goodness depends on the truth. By their fruits shall ye know them,  and there really is no other way.

     Now I'm sorry to bring up Mr Johnson the Trolley again, but I have stayed off the subject for a good while now, and his act has withstood gravity for longer than I expected, I must admit. However he does provide a good illustration of what I have been driving at, and I am feeling pretty queasy after reading coverage of his recent Conservative Party Conference. He bases his shtick on what to me are two massive waves of pure delusion, but what to many other of my fellow humans are apparently wonderful. What is particularly intriguing for me is that it is very often quite distinct and diverse characters who buy them, and they may buy into both or just one of them. 

      I refer of course to Brexit and Vaxit, by which I mean the lie that vaccines are the way to get us out of the covid pandemic. As but a casual observer, I have watched the way, in country after country, the roll-out of vaccines has been tracked by a surge in infection. I see how the first to be vaccinated, the Israelis, are still struggling and embarking on their fourth round of shots, yet they seem to be more committed to Vaxit than anyone. Funny that, because they perhaps embody the most committed of the 'nation states', and thereby provide whatever much of the ideology of Brexit that may lay claim to some intellectual and spiritual seriousness. At the same time, the epidemic has provided great cover for the havoc wraught by the said Brexit.     

     Here we are straying into the realm of religion, which of course, unexamined, also provides a rich haul of absurdities. Doing self examination for our super ego is perhaps even harder than doing it for our ego, and most of us would rather stick close to our own notions than expose them to the critical or even hostile attention of others. Our sense of self must have a secure foundation for us to be able to do so. We must first meet the primordial, desperate need to establish our own independence and autonomy somehow. It is Jesus alone who might even enable me to accept the loss of such goods, and thereby contemplate the collapse of the barriers that separate me even, perhaps especially, from those closest to me, - in other words 'to free me from my sins'.

     Once we accept His yoke, the Cross, He restores our autonomy in spades, but now it is founded on the will of the One who made us to be part of the very body of Christ. I sketch out these fundamentals of what makes a real home by way of a declaration of intent as Fiona and I are about to move into the fifth house we have owned. This time we will be in close proximity to our eldest two sons and their wives, now turned fifty, and surrounded by land which they own. One might call it a new experiment in community living. Our next move, presumably, will be the Biggy!

     I have preached the value of community, the necessity of reimagining and reconstructing it, since the 1970s, when we went to live in Glencolmcille, Co Donegal largely on account of the ancient community spirit there and the cooperative effort of Fr McDyer to breath new life into it. Perhaps our life has been more about seeking community that achieving it, but I am far from satisfied with our efforts to do so thus far,- not that I ever took them too seriously, for it appeared to me early in the game that the first thing those who desire community must realise is that it is a gift of God. 

     If we have the temerity to think that it can be realised simply as a act of our own will, we will necessarily seek to impose this will on others, and this is the very thing that destroys true community. To counteract this tendency, our efforts to build community go in tandem with what might seem a contrary tendency, to value solitude. The two impulses depend on one another as much as breathing in and out, and herein lies the revelation which shows how misguided are those who choose to oppose, say, national sovereignty to international solidarity, protestantism to catholicism and so on. It is as silly as setting up our individual freedom and identity in opposition to community, or our family to our community, or our community to our country.  

     In fact authentic engagement at any level leads to better engagement at others; we thereby learn to be responsible. Those who shout loudest at any one level of life are generally the kind of hypocrite who evidently thrives in the upper echelons of English society, hollering about national sovereignty and how they are going to lead their country into a great new era, while actually investing their dosh in overseas tax havens. There is only one way of creating a 'high wage economy', Mr Johnson. First of all people have to invest in it. To do so, they need funny things you don't seem to understand like a good trading environment. They also need a good balance between local commitment and outward looking vision.  

     One of the principal things we shall miss about West Cork is the lovely balance there between the natives and the cosmopolitans. Funny how both terms have acquired pejoritive overtones here and there. Since Mrs May's famous contribution about 'citizens of nowhere', I am proud to call myself a rootless cosmopolitan. I like the Jewish quip, when being subjected to some Fascist or Bolshevik accusation of being such, that 'trees have roots; Jews have legs'. How some people came to see Jews and Catholics at opposite poles on this beats me. We Catholics read and pray the Jewish scriptures every day, and surely seek much the same balance for example between individual person, community and state. Little Ireland has a long way to go, but is better at this game than most, which is partly why this rootless cosmopolitan has come to love this country so. But then there is the light, especially anywhere up this wonderful west coast from Sherkin to Malin Head. I do hope that I shall get to sail it again, in the Anna M, and in some measure, take you with me!

West Clare sky, by Bernie.