It’s the pits !

It must have been in about 1971 that I was in Ireland, visiting my wife’s parents.  We used to go there once or twice a year in those days, and I got to know the locals quite well.  One evening in winter we were with old Michael and Katie (of the MacCoilidh family) in their marvellously warm living room in their little cottage by the main road.  Someone (not me) suggested that we ought to be singing so as to bring cheer to the bleak frosty night outside.  That was a cheap trick because none of those three would be the first to sing a single note ; and so I was obliged to go through my entire repertoire – all borrowed from the Dubliners -  and all of which I faithfully murdered, in both tune and word.  But nobody cared for the musical niceties ; the point was that we had a wail of a time.

After a while, old Michael rose from the fireside.  He was a short man with jet-black hair and blue eyes ; he was wiry and as strong as a typical farmer of those parts.  He said little, but always his words were kind ; and always he had a ready smile.  And always he was rather shy.  So now, having risen from his chair he stood, slightly bow-legged in the way of farmers, by the door to the scullery and back garden.  As if he was not sure of what to say next, he tapped me on the shoulder and beckoned me to follow him.  Into the pitch-black of the garden we went, Michael leading and me not having a clue of where we were or where we were going.  Utter darkness.

“I expect ye’ll want to pay a visit,” he whispered when we were out of earshot of the ladies inside.  “Come, follow me.”

After a few more yards, took my arm so as to point me in a particular direction.  “There, now, this is the place, d’ye see?”

Actually, I couldn’t see anything.  But, by following the sounds of my host, I probably managed to do the decent thing ; but I shall never be sure, because Michael was far, far too much of a gentleman ever to remark on another gentleman’s bad aim in circumstances such as these.

All this came to mind a month or two back, when I was reading the adventures of a Victorian parson who was the incumbent of a remote country parish.  In those days, ordinary country people had no inside toilets ; indeed, they had no proper toilets at all.  It was the task of the man of the house to dig the pit that the entire family would use for their convenience.  The procedure was quite simple : when the stench of the pit became obnoxious, he would dig another and use the rubble to fill the old one.  And, if he failed to maintain these arrangements, he would soon have the parson on his doorstep to read the Riot Act to him.  Wives knew how to make good use of parsons in those days.

And all this came to mind again yesterday, when I read of the doughty Indian bride who refused to live with her husband until he provided a toilet fit for a lady to use.  Of course, he protested.  He couldn’t see why his new wife shouldn’t just use the ground in some corner somewhere – just as he did.

Well, she wasn’t having that!  “I want a proper toilet,” she demanded ; and vowed to stay at home with her parents until the man of her dreams came up with the goods.  I couldn’t help wondering how different her life would be if she had a good, old-fashioned Victorian parson to turn to.  He would soon have had that idle young man busy digging a proper pit ; he would probably have boxed his ears as well.

Now, I don’t know what life is like in a poor village in India ; I can only guess.  But, thanks to the country parson, I do have an idea of what poor country people are like.  He describes the poor people as being very poor indeed.  But they were so often very far from being pleasant.  They (both men and women) tended easily to violence and drunkenness ; and, of course, idleness.  Their children were often disastrously neglected and abused.  What the poor people needed, almost more than anything else, was leadership ; for they were incapable of improving themselves.  And it was generally the parson who provided that leadership, assisted by whomever he could recruit.

Also, with people such as these, a deal of bossiness was needed, for the poorest of people lack the discipline needed to lead useful lives.  They lacked both discipline and knowledge.  One has to admire the country parsons ; after all, nobody forced them to devote their lives to the poorest.

I imagine that parts of rural India are not much different from rural Britain in ages past.  But, that example of the bride and her lavatory remind me of the great differences between Oriental thought and Western thought.  Of course, we are not supposed to make unfavourable comparisons, are we?  We are supposed to be all relativistic and multi-cultural.  But the old complaint, that the East is fatalistic, has truth in it I think.  Does this explain the poverty in an ancient civilisation (like India’s) where almost fantastic degrees of wealth have been enjoyed by the elite for so long?  How do we explain an ancient country very rich in minerals, in agricultural land, in abundant fisheries, having such abject poverty in its midst?

Can it only be a lack of leadership?  Or is it more to do with aims?  After all, to be a leader, one must not only be bossy ; one must have a clear idea of where to go ; and an idea of how to get there.

And what about Katie and Michael?  For all I shall ever know about that dark night, they might have had the most resplendent toilet facilities in all Ireland – perhaps it was just that the light bulb had blown.

A meeting of minds

I have never been an habitual reader of the Bible.  This is a failing, I know, but my carelessness goes back to my childhood, at a time when I suppose I identified the Bible with school assemblies – and I more or less hated school.  It is the same with our great authors – Shakespeare, Milton, Dickens, et al ; I associate them all with school, and I have more or less ignored them all until comparatively recently.

As a result of all this, I am not like a cradle Christian, and for that I am somewhat grateful for my early life.  I am grateful not least because I spent so much time trying to make sense of the crazy world of the adults in my life that I became insatiably inquisitive about all things.  But, most of all, I became inquisitive about people and what makes them tick.  In other words, I am religious without being hampered by religiosity.

Of course, much of what I learned came from books ; for it’s all very well to observe behaviour in order to learn, but it is vain to try to invent theories that explain that behaviour without reference to greater minds who have given the matter more thought.  And in the course of my explorations, I have learned that it is also vain to trust the theories of others uncritically.  There are few experiences more depressing than a correspondence or a conversation with someone who quotes Shakespeare by the yard or the Book of Genesis by the metre ; or a blogger who pastes whole column-feet from Wikipedia.

With regard to my approach to learning, I recently came across two kindred spirits, and I stress that they are both far more clever than I ; and the second of those spirits is possibly far more clever than most people give him credit for.

DH Lawrence is not particularly well-known for his philosophy and his religion.  But I do recommend his very last book, published a year after his death.  It is called Apocalypse.  In it he addresses the meaning of the book, and compares his understanding with the many other opinions that have flourished since the earliest times ; opinions which range from the scholarly to the downright loony.  I have skimmed through Lawrence’s Apocalypse, as I usually do with a new book, and have only just begun to read it.

In the Introduction, there is a quotation which caught my eye : Lawrence wrote this :-

I am no ‘scholar’ of any sort.  But I am very grateful to scholars for their sound work.  I have found hints, suggestions for what I say here in all kinds of scholarly books, from Yoga and Plato and St. John the Evangel and the early Greek philosophers like Herakleitos down to Frazer and his ‘Golden Bough,’ and even Freud and Frobenius.  Even then I only remember hints – and I proceed by intuition.

Now here we have someone who is no mere book-learner.  He gathers information and proceeds to think about it ; and from his thinking he receives trustworthy intuitions – spontaneous realizations about the meaning of what he has read.  He does not feel bound by what he has read, but uses his readings as a springboard to deeper understandings.  He is a true seeker of knowledge.

Also he writes elsewhere that you can divide books into two classes : those that do not bear re-reading : and those that do.  A good book, he says, will offer new revelations at each successive reading.

Now all this is just what I should have said if only I had Lawrence’s skill with thoughts and words.  For, surely he is right on both counts.  For books by even the great writers are not there to be taken at face value ; they are not there to be slavishly believed and slavishly quoted from.  Even the greatest books are there to be intelligently interpreted and re-interpreted ; this is the secret of their greatness ; this is the seat of their power ; this is the key to the evolution of human consciousness.  Any other approach comes close to idolatry.

But there are limits to interpretation.  The aim is to allow the meaning of the original text to evolve ; to keep its spirit alive ; for it is the spirit that gives the text its life.  The aim is not merely to change the meaning of the text, for that is not evolution, but substitution, and that is likely to end in meaninglessness. I regret that many interpreters make that mistake.

Realization

Realization

Atop the lonely mountainside
There sits a lonely child ;
The chill that penetrates his bones
Makes hard his soul and wild.

He thought him freedom he would find
When once he broke him free
From labours of the rocky climb.
But it was not to be.

Thirteen long years of study toiled
To learn the ways, the thought
Required ; that adults said they knew.
He sees that all was nought.

The liberation promised him,
By those whom learning thralled,
Scant record left ; now he could see
That ignorance him walled.

Forlorn he sat, that lonely youth,
Beside a wind-stripped tree,
His intellect was numb with cold
His mind and soul agree.

The wide warm world before him spread
Beneath his rocky perch ;
So many things unknown to him
Appeared in mists to search.

‘Twas there the knowledge that he sought ;
A-far from barren prose ;
‘Twas there the brooks of living flowed,
Where dwells the summer rose.

There, too, the creatures of the wood
Are born to roam and fly
According to their natures’ will,
So free from pedants dry.

How, far below, each lifesome thing
Did raise its smiling head !
Their gazes turned to meet his eye
And sullen hues were shed !

High-hearted now, he raised his soul.
Or did his soul raise him?
He cared not which nor gave it thought,
Such joy did fire his whim.

And with his soul, he raised his eyes
(Or did his soul raise them?)
And saw, above the kindly mist,
A sight worth more than gem.

A mountain tow’rd afar from where
His climb had left him sad ;
All clad in green and topped in white,
All for the new-woke lad.

Resolved he was, from that point on,
Exploring for to go ;
To seek belov’d enlightenment
And cast away his woe.

‘Begone!’ he cried as down he swept,
By rock and thistle foul,
Forever down to that old ground
Where doubts went cheek by jowl.

‘Let come that light!’ he cried again,
As through the town he sped,
“Which melts the gloom of pallid thought
Where doubt and dust are bred.’

Behind him left he bricks and slate
And streets of tarmac black ;
Such speed he had that all was blur,
No thought of going back.

Now on he raced, by path and lea,
Towards the vista seen
To offer promises of joy,
Of treasures bright and keen.

‘Cross moor and hill, through copse and fen,
By dells’ and dingles’ charm,
The young man scythed his merry way.
And learned he nought of harm.

His tomes were but a mem’ry now,
His pains a source of strength.
Long dreary hours of classroom talk
Were shrunken in their length.

So here at last, in Nature’s arms,
The spring of all that’s wise,
He felt he had come home at last,
Had won a mighty prize.

‘Mid scents and sounds, and colours soft
He felt the taste, the zest
Of perfect peace, once only dreamed.
So laid him down to rest.

Jamie MacNab 2012

To a greater good

I have only visited a convent once ; it was in the middle-north of England where the friend of a friend was serving.  I was fairly young at the time and knew next to nothing of religious life, so I had only a jumble of ideas of what to expect.  My first surprise was that they let me into the convent at all ; I had half expected that I would be required to wait outside while my companion went in to chat with her old school-friend.  But, in fact, there is a homely and comfortable reception area made for the purpose of entertaining all kinds of visitors ; and we were both made very welcome.

I began to wonder what on earth I could contribute to this meeting of old friends.  Are nuns allowed to speak to men?  Or even to listen to them?  I prepared to make my own vow of silence for the duration but I needn’t have bothered, for the sisters were only too eager to chat ; not, I hasten to add, out of a wish to discover news of the wicked world beyond their walls, but out of simple friendliness mixed (I think) with a charming politeness.  They understood my dilemma.

The talk was of many things, but mainly about news of the girls’ mutual acquaintances ; but this broadened by degrees until even I thought of something to say.  The nuns spoke mainly about their work, which reminded me that even they had to earn their living.  All this was unexceptional.  And there was absolutely no talk of religion or vocations or the good life.

Perhaps it was that delightful visit of forty years ago that silently prompted me to buy a DVD which explored further the life of the religious.  It concerns the lives of the sister at the Carmelite Monastery of the Holy Trinity in Notting Hill ; in the heart of London. It is called No Greater Love, which reminds us of Jesus’ words that there can be no greater love than to lay down one’s life for a friend.  And that is what these girls do ; they devote every minute of their lives to the betterment of the world and its people – their friends.

Of course, a worldly cynic might say that there is no great sacrifice in retreating from the world in order to work and pray.  Some might even say that it is abandoning the harsh world so as to lead a comfortable life ; and is it possible to deny that some, at least, have done that?

But when you consider more closely the training that the sisters have been through, it is not easy to be so dismissive ; for their transition to religious life, and then their everyday lives, are far from easy by our standards.  I received an insight into this when I watched another film, The Nun’s Story,  in which we meet Audrey Hepburn and Peter Finch in leading roles.  This film is based on a true story and, as far as I can tell, is pretty much true to form.

It concerns a Belgian girl who comes from a prosperous family and whose father is a leading medical doctor.  We follow her from her decision to decline a comfortable life, through her pains at telling her family of her decision, on to her fairly terrifying training, and further to her years in Africa as a nurse.  We also see her assigned (to her disappointment) to escort a sick patient back to Belgium by sea ; she has no choice because she is the only nurse who has the necessary medical knowledge.

To her immense disappointment, she was to have no return to Africa and the patients she loved.  Being a nun, it seems, is the surest way of learning to cope with personal anguish ; of learning to find happiness through losing one’s self and one’s desires – in the service of a greater good.

The end of the story comes not in the safety of the convent.  And it comes as a surprise.

Lives renewed

It’s good news for a British couple who won over £40million on the lottery, but I wonder about how it will change their lives.  Will the change really be for the better (no pun intended)?

I have read, at various times, how big winners have vowed that their new riches shall not make them wasteful or greedy.  They promise that they will continue to live in their modest house, keep working as usual, take normal holidays and, at most, indulge themselves in a few of life’s little luxuries.  All very well and good, we might think.  But it does disturb me that a wealthy person should hold his old job, which he no longer needs to maintain himself and his family, rather than resign it and give another person the chance to earn an honest living.  Likewise, isn’t it a little selfish to keep the old terraced house, when they could so easily make it available to a young couple who really need it?

Thoughts like these were going through my mind as I read a charming book about a 19thC parson.  He was not a wealthy man ; but he did know that, one day, he would inherit £2700 – not a great fortune even in those days ; but certainly enough to remove any acute financial anxieties he otherwise might have had.

As a curate, he was keen to have his own parish ; to be his own boss, as it were.  But the parish he greatly wished for – and which he might have successfully applied for – was beyond his means.  He had noticed how the run-down vicarage was constantly being fixed by carpenters, masons, tilers and so forth.  And the poor parson must have been at his wit’s end to keep the place habitable.

So the curate gave up on that idea.  He resigned his curacy (as his time was up) and lived at his parents’ expense while awaiting a new opportunity.

Well, the question arises, “What should the child of wealthy parents do to occupy his time?”  He would not have thought of taking a job, and thereby deprive a poor man of the chance of making a living.  He would not go into trade, for the same reason.  He might applied for another curacy ; but that would have deprived a promising newcomer.

So, he did the decent thing.  He simply made himself useful to other parishes, as well as his old one.  He was greatly respected and had many friends among both rich and poor alike.  He had saved lives, he had helped farmers with their labours, he had dug the gardens of poor widows, and he had given hope to many.  And he never took a shilling.

Perhaps the curate had read some of William Cobbett, who was a farmer, “Money,” he said, “Is like muck – no good unless it be spread.”  So the wealthy have a duty to spread their money ; to spend it wisely and to invest it honestly.

We might add that time also is for spreading ; for giving in charity ; for receiving with gratitude.

I don’t know what the lucky couple, who won the jackpot, will do with the aid of their fortune.  But I hope they don’t do anything vain, like hang on to their old jobs, their old house and their old habits.

One thing at a time

It’s strange how we seem to spend so much time either looking forward to the future or else remembering the past.  How often are we in the here-and-now?  Aristotle recommended that we take up the art of contemplation to remedy matters.  And who better to make that suggestion?

How to begin?  First, ensure that you will not be disturbed for the next fifteen minutes or so.  Then make yourself comfortable.  Close your eyes.

Contemplating, Aristotle said, is simply paying regard to a series of statements or ideas which are infallibly true.  They must be so, because if there is any doubt about the truth of a statement, then you will start thinking about it – and contemplation must involve no thinking.  It is just regarding, or ‘looking’ at ideas that come to mind.

Sounds easy, doesn’t it?  Well, try it and see.  Aristotle himself found that there are not very many of our notions that are truly infallible.  Like his masters, Socrates and Plato, he concluded that, while we have lots of opinions about the world, not much of what we know is truly true.

He began his exploration of contemplating something like this.

“I am a man.”  (Well, that’s not a bad start.)
“My name is Aristotle.”  (No!  The name my creator gave me is unknown to me.)
“People call me Aristotle.”  (That’s sort of OK)
“I live in Athens.”  (No.  Has this place always been known as Athens?  Will it for ever be called Athens?)
“I live in a city people now call Athens”  (OK)
“I am fifty years of age.”  (No.  I have no proof of my exact age ; I have only the opinions of others.)

…. and so on ….

And so he indeed went on.  And, as he went, he had to amend almost all his ideas about himself and the world ; he had to compromise on the exact truth ; he had to admit opinions under the guise of truths.

It’s awfully hard to live fully in the here-and-now.  Maybe that’s why my own thoughts turned back to school-days while I have been writing.  I remembered a puzzle that Mr Fryer set us all those years ago.  “You think that one plus one equals two, do you?”

“Of course!”  we replied.
“Well, arithmetic is a language,” he said, “And its meanings all depend on how you use it.”

To the blackboard ….. (and I hope I remember this right!) :

a = b
a+a = a+b
2a = a+b
2a-2b = a+b-2b
2(a-b) = a-b
2 = 1

Well, it took us a bit to work that one out (we were young and thought we knew everything).

What larks!

I have never been a great fan of television, but I have come to appreciate the availability of tv recordings ; in fact, I have a growing pile of dvd records which do much to brighten the winter days.  But I do wonder sometimes at the antics of the broadcasters.  The BBC, especially, seems to be very intent on some kind of political mission designed to change the ways in which we see ourselves.  It is not enlightening, I think.

A month or two ago I enjoyed watching an entire series of stories made by the BBC some years earlier.  It had the charming title Larkrise to Candleford.  It was really well-made and featured some accomplished actors and actresses.  Of course, it was not beyond criticism concerning some matters of fact, but that generally counts for little in fiction ; we tend to filter out such discrepancies in favour of enjoying the story.

The story is set in rural Oxfordshire in the late-ish nineteenth century ; an exciting time in which great changes were taking place, most undoubtedly good and some not so.  As well as the usual ‘human interest’ aspects, the story is very much concerned with how ordinary people were adjusting to those changes – and in some cases influencing them ; in particular the people of the hamlet of Larkrise and of the small town of Candleford

But there were some puzzles in the plot.  For example, the hamlet and the town were separated by about seven miles ; and yet people would pop off on foot from one place to the other at the drop of a hat on some trivial errand or other ; as if they were going to the corner shop.  But, even in that great age of walking, working folk did not make a round trip of fourteen miles on a whim.

Most of the characters in the stories are memorable, as one would expect in fiction.  One that particularly struck me was the country rector.  He was widower, quite ancient and stuffy, and with a bit of a posh accent as you might expect.  He was a dyed-in-the-wool, rabid Tory,  of course.  But he was also a deeply unpleasant man.  One of his rather pious parishioners even referred to him as a ‘brute’ and a ‘sadist’.  His daughter had been so suppressed by him that she could hardly show any personality at all, being almost crippled by shyness.

I thought all this rather odd, and rather BBC-ish, but not entirely beyond the bounds of possibility.

As if set to balance the dreadful rector, we had the village stonemason.  He was a right-on liberal with advanced political ideas ahead of their time.  His self-appointed task seems to have been to educate the locals out of their complacency and to lead them from serfdom.  He was so inflamed by the injustices of his world that he would risk everything to voice his complaints.  He was made to suffer in consequence.  A champion of the poor indeed.

It was the stonemason who wrote a very rude letter to the very top man at the Post Office in London, complaining that the poor people in his village had to pay an unreasonable sum to the Post Office merely to receive a telegram.  The reason for this surcharge was that the village was more than seven miles from the local post office ; hence the delivery costs had to be paid.  Indeed, such a charge on poor people was unjust.  At a time when a farm labourer was lucky to earn ten shillings a week, three shillings and sixpence was a heavy price for a telegram (which, by its nature, would require urgent attention on an important matter).

Well, I thought it was so very like the BBC to portray Victorian people in this way ; choosing the best and the worst to make its political points.  But then I remembered that the tv stories of Larkrise and Candleford are based on the recollections of a person who actually lived there ; the BBC series was an adaptation of her writings.  The story was not pure fiction.  So I bought Flora Thompson’s books – three of them under one cover.

What a surprise!  Miss Thompson’s recollections of the people she knew in her youth are very much at variance with the BBC’s interpretation of them.

The rector, it turns out, was actually very much respected in the parish ; and a welcome visitor in just about every household.  He was a personally charitable man who took his duties seriously. If he was a Tory, he certainly wasn’t a brutish and sadistic one.

And what about the right-on liberal, agnostic stonemason who fearlessly provoked the mighty Postmaster General to secure justice for his fellow villagers?  What about this David who challenged Goliath?  Well, actually, he didn’t.  It was the village innkeeper who did all that.  Ah, but the innkeeper was a nice devout Christian, you see.  And, to make matters worse, Miss Thompson explains that he was a Catholic.

Well, the BBC can’t have Christians (and especially Catholics) taking up the cause for the poor, can we?  So, the corporation just switches everything around.

There are a number of other serious discrepancies of a similar kind in the BBC series.

Why does all this matter?  We might ask, “Does the truth matter?”  Is it right to distort Miss Thompson’s recollections so as to make political and religious points?  We might bear in mind that these are real people.  Is it morally right to defame the dead rector?  to insult his daughter?  to deprive the dead innkeeper of his credits?

The BBC would argue that is right to do so.  After all, its politics are of foremost importance ; that is why it exists.  And, to the BBC, what is history if not something to be amended so as to augment its political message?  The reputations of dead individuals count for nothing at the BBC.

I can’t help asking, “What are the great weaknesses in the BBC’s arguments for a ‘liberal’, atheistic, socialistic society?”  Are those arguments so shaky that it is really necessary to lie about them and about the alternatives?  And can that atheistic, socialistic society long endure if it is based on lies and distortions?

And doesn’t the BBC insult its clients with such distortions?  Does it imagine that we are all fools?  Or does it imagine that only its poorer and less educated clients are fools?

Or could it be that the socialist/atheist/iconoclast factions are now so strong in our country that they just know that they can re-write history to their hearts’ content without fearing any opposition or serious criticism?

What are we?

I was just reading a book in which JRR Tolkien’s name cropped up, together with a few lines of his.

Although now long estranged,
Man is not lost or wholly changed.
Dis-graced he may be, yet is not de-throned,
And keeps the rags of lordship he once owned.

Man, Sub-creator, the refracted light
Through whom is splintered from a single White
To many hues, and endlessly combined
In living shapes that move from mind to mind.

….

We make still by the law in which we’re made

(JRR Tolkien)

These thoughts of his remind me of how far humanity has fallen in the last few hundred years, during which time so many people have been beguiled by the easy doctrines of physics (especially) that they have come to think of themselves as machines – biological machines, to be sure, but machines nevertheless.

Now it is true that there is much that is mechanical about a person – as a trip to the dentist will remind us ; but there is also so much more that is not mechanical.  For example, can consciousness be properly described in mechanical terms?  is love a mechanical process? is free will mechanical?

Tolkien here straightens our ideas, I think.

A Happy New Year

Just a note to wish everyone a Happy New Year. ‘May your days be merry and bright’.

Has Europe lost its soul?

I have so often wished for the gift of being able to write as the great writers do.  And, together with that gift, I have wished for another ; that of thinking as they do.

As you probably know, Jonathan Sacks is our Chief Rabbi.  Read here what he says about how our Judaeo-Christian heritage has shaped us and so much of the rest of the world.

We are not better than the others

“We are not better than the others, and yet we have a better time of it. We, the small minority who live in peace and affluence, must tread a quite different road to heaven from the great majority, who face death in poverty and fear, in suffering and hunger.

And yet I believe that these suffering souls will be happy for all eternity, because they are the least of His little ones and so God’s most beloved children.”

Fr Werenfried van Straaten

http://www.acnuk.org/prayer_for_the_day.php

I read Fr Werenfried’s Thought for the Day every day ; because I have come to understand that there is more to his life than preaching good.  He has actually done good, so that many, many people have had cause to thank him.  And I thank him.

Moonshine

By Highstone Mead there blooms a rose
Whose blush can tell where lies her heart
(As far from her as swallows fly
For distant lands, these shores to part).

For ever must the kindly Moon
Entangle with her darkling thought ;
And braid her flowing hair with lace
Of silver bearing hope un-taught.

Does Queen of Night in truth concern
Herself with cares of hapless love?
And can Selene equal shine
On mortals’ grief from high above?

“Do rays that fall on one of two
Effect the same on other side?
And make the holy combine whole?
For faith!  Let golden hope abide!”

So speaks the rose in colours soft
As heart uplifts to praise the Moon,
Who blesses all that in her trust.
The parting shall be over soon!

The reluctant traveller

Tom Walker reflected on the story he had just heard from his patient.  ‘Fear knocked at the door,’ he mused ; then,  ‘Faith answered – and  no-one was there.’  Oddly, flames raise (in the imagination’s eye) the unspoken terrors that too often trouble us.

In his well-practised way, he gave a slyish glance at the clock on the wall opposite.  It was important to get the timing right in a psychotherapy meeting, so as not to end with anything substantial unresolved.  He mustn’t open up new, sensitive issues near the end of a session.  On the other hand, he mustn’t let his patient think that he is trying to draw the meeting to a close before the allotted fifty minutes.  He wished that he had unlimited time to give his patients, for he loved his work and hated having to end a session without reaching a definite milestone in the scheme of treatment.  However, time was pressing for he had other patients to see.

But the astute lady he was with caught his glance and studied her watch.  ‘Goodness, Mr Walker!  Is that the time already?’ she said.  ‘But I’ve hardly touched on what I came to see you about.’

‘That’s all right, Rosalind,’ said Tom, ‘I suspected you had more to say, and to be honest, I didn’t really expect to get around to it in our first meeting.  It doesn’t do to rush important things.  Besides, we do still have time left, so why not tell me what the matter is just to get it off your chest for now?’

‘Why did you suspect that I hadn’t told you about the real problem?’

‘Just a hunch,’ he replied, ‘It often happens that way.’  He lowered his voice and smiled conspiratorially.  ‘How can I expect you to reveal your real fears to a perfect stranger?  Surely you’d want to weigh me up before you’d risk it !’

Rosalind gave a bright laugh and said, ‘How right you are !’  Then she added, also as if sharing a conspiracy,  ‘But I think I can trust you, so I’ll tell you more.’

‘Excuse me a moment,’ said Tom.  He pressed the intercom button to the reception desk.  ‘Hello, Maggie, do I have anyone for three o’ clock?’  Then, returning to Rosalind, ‘We’ve got another hour if you’d like it.’

‘That’s fine,’ she replied.  ‘And please, do call me Ros.  May I call you Tom?’  And then, settling back in her easychair, ‘That’s an interesting painting you have up there.  Where did you get it?’
‘In Bristol,’ he replied, ‘I have always wanted a garden like that but, you know … there’s never the time to do all we want, is there?’
‘So you content yourself with just admiring a painting?’
‘No, not quite.  You’ll laugh at me, I know, but I’ve actually tried to make my garden at home like that one in the painting.’
‘Any luck?’
‘No !’  he laughed, ‘I just don’t have the eye for it, even if I had the time ; and my fingers are just not green enough.’
‘But I can tell that you greatly desire it,’ Ros said.
‘Yes.  In fact, I think of it much more than I should.  But, hey !  Are you trying to analyse me?’

Ros  laughed again and said, ‘Well, there is such a thing as being afraid of success, isn’t there?  Maybe you’re not bold enough with your gardening.  And maybe you try just a little too hard?  What do the four gods in your painting say?’

At the mention of the gods, Tom felt uneasy.  He felt that his deepest privacy had been violated.  He suddenly felt his advanced years.  The pain in his shoulder – with him fifty years – grew intense.  Perhaps it was time for him to retire from all this?  Then he could finish his garden.  On the wall he looked up at Nyx, born of Chaos, who was gazing at Thanatos her son.

That first meeting had gone well for Ros, Tom thought, as he drove home in the early evening.  It is not  uncommon for an intelligent person like her to be highly-strung. So when she had been assigned a difficult task by her employers, it might be expected that she should be anxious about it.  In such circumstances, dislikes might evolve into fears ; and fears into phobias.  The important thing was to catch it early, and she had done this.

His mind was set to devizing a programme for Ros.  Probably the best way to tackle her agoraphobia would be to arrange, when she has been prepared for it, a practical session in which he would accompany her to a place which gave her the worst difficulties.  It’s all very well merely to tell the patient to remember the tactics for dealing with the problem-places, just as it is well to rehearse them off-line ; but an irrational fear is a terrible thing, and may be sudden in its onset ; and it may drive all the good sense out of a person.  That’s where companionship on occasions of trial makes all the difference between lengthy treatment and brief.

But, before he could prepare Ros for the test, he must prepare himself, so he decided to visit to the place which she had said filled her with absolute dread.  It wasn’t that far.  On his iPad he found the place on the map and then entered the co-ordinates into his satnav.

He was perhaps a mile from the place when he remembered that he already knew it.  He had been there many years before, as a cyclist, keen and very fit.  It was an old railway station on a disused track that ran between Chester and a salt mine, also now disused.  It had long since been a country path for hikers and cyclists.

When he got there, he barely recognized the place.  Of course, he knew already that the track had long gone, but he was unprepared for the sheer overgrowth.  The modest buildings were completely covered by ivy, and the trees of the surrounding forest had advanced so as to entirely overhang the track.  But, curiously, they had not taken root on the trackway itself ; for that was now a clear path gently covered by the autumn leaves of the last century or so.  And it looked as if people still used it for recreation, though it was now a rather gloomy passage.  The only sunlight came from above the station platforms, where the treetops did not meet.

‘I wonder what on earth brings Ros out to this place?’ he thought.  ‘When she told me she took walks here, I imagined it to be as I now remember it – open, sunshiny and always with cheerful hikers about.  And, thirty years ago,  wasn’t there a helpful old chap who lived in the keeper’s cottage over there?’

It was then that Tom began to feel uneasy.  That old chap.  He had been rather odd, with a strange look about his eyes.  Ever watchful.  Missing nothing.  Weighing everybody up with unnatural care.  But saying almost nothing.  Wearing an old-fashioned railwayman’s uniform, he would sometimes find – as if he had sought out – some person, usually elderly and unaccompanied, whom he would invite to his tiny home ‘for a nice cuppa tea an’ summat wholesome.’  Tom looked sharply about as if he half expected to see him.

As Tom paced the station platform, trying to recognize the features he had once known, and his head buzzing with thoughts and questions, he tried to compose himself by imagining what Ros actually experienced in the place.  And, as the shadows lengthened and sky above darkened, he thought that he must be getting on to her wavelength.  He felt a chill in his whole body, though there was no breeze in the deep cutting.  He gazed up and down the trackway, through the tunnel of trees ; but saw no light, for there it had failed.  And, with the dying of the light, all natural life seemed to desert his presence, so that what was left were mere shades of sounds and withered odours of decaying leaves and branches.

And the cold.  He felt his pulse quicken and falter, even as his breathing did likewise.  Was it merely a dislike?  Or was it fear?  His thoughts turned involuntarily to his beloved garden, neglected.

‘Well, I’m sure not bringing Ros to this place,’  he muttered under his breath, ‘As far as I’m concerned, she can scrub it forever from her list of holiday haunts, and without any loss at all !’    He regretted that he had ever come there : or had even thought of coming there.  It was as if these thoughts reminded him that he was a therapist ; and right then it was he who needed the therapy, for his apprehensions were growing uncomfortable.  He had to admit that he was more than a little nervous, and he knew not why.

But he did know that there are two main possibilities with an emotion like fear.  (Why mince words? for he did indeed feel fear.)  You can either experience that emotion or you can think about it ; but you can’t do both at the same time.  If you can think about your fear and also feel afraid, then you are not thinking seriously enough.

And what if you don’t think at all?  What if you simply abandon yourself to circumstances?  You will experience the fear, and you can let it do what it likes to you.  If you are healthy and in a physically safe place, you might feel as awful as you like, and the fear might reach a dreadful peak, but it will then evaporate.  This is the bolder step to take deliberately.

‘Which do I do?’ thought Tom in his confusion.  But before he could decide, events took a new turn, and denied him all notions of controlling the situation he was in.

For it was just then that he became aware that a shadowy mist was emerging from the tunnel of trees over the rail trackway.  The mist was not so much drifting from the tunnel as being gently expelled from it, and it was engulfing him and the entire station.  And, mixed with the vapour was the smell of smoke.  And in a few seconds, he was just able to make out the front of a mighty steam engine which seemed to drift before his eyes, slowing all the time so that it came to a silent halt just as an old-fashioned carriage appeared right before him.

And that was not all.  For he then heard a voice, evidently of a native of these parts, ‘C’mon now, Mr Walker, it’s time for your journey!’  It was the ancient railwayman who had lived in the keeper’s cottage all those years ago!  Dimly in the cloud of steam, Tom could see the rickety, shadowy old man, very business-like and fussing as he opened the door of the carriage.

‘But … surely you must be dead !’ Tom managed to stutter.

‘No time for talk, Mr Walker.  Hop aboard now ; you can’t keep the train waiting.’  And grasping Tom’s elbow he pulled him gently but briskly to the door and then pushed him up into the carriage.  ‘There you be now !  Na’ticket needed for this one.  An’ that’s a job done good !’

The door slammed, and the old man blew his whistle.  Immediately the train pulled away with a jerk that staggered Tom into his seat.  And, for the first time, he heard the chuffing of the steam engine, soft and slow and unstoppable.  He heard also the click of steel wheels on a track, and wondered what on earth was happening to him.  But he saw nothing, for the steamy fog outside was denser than ever, and the carriage was unlit.  He felt nothing beyond a guess of a dream ; a perilous adventure ; but he could not guess what that adventure might entail.  He was left with only a succession of fleeting images ; from thoughts that did not seem to be his own.

Thus it was that Tom succumbed to the rhythmic thrum of the train’s wheels as it sped through the darkness.  Was it this, or was it the smooth swaying of the carriage, that overwhelmed  his mind?  The image of beautiful Nyx, goddess of the night, appeared to his understanding – and he smiled in fond recognition.  Then blessed Hypnos came, and he was aware that his eyelids had relaxed and met.  Then all was forgot as even Morpheus slumbered.

When Tom came to his senses again, it was the brightest day in his living memory.  No cloud marred the even blue of the sky ; a sky that seemed to shine without the aid of sun.  The sun himself (if indeed it was he) bathed the landscape and all that it met there with a gentle warmth ; it filled the carriage as if from the bottom up, and he felt its life enter his limbs.  For a minute or two, he reflected on the dream he knew he had had ; a dream that had left no trace but perfect calmness.  Then he roused himself and lowered the carriage window.  He marvelled at the fuller scene outside.

The train stood at a deserted platform set in rolling countryside.  How long it had been standing, he knew not.  Nor had he any idea where he was, though he had a vague feeling that he had known the place.  Was it from long ago in his youth?  or was it somewhere he had read about?  No nameplate announced it, and there were no staff to be seen.  All was calm and undisturbed.

Since nothing seemed to happen here, Tom decided to explore further.  He reached out of the window and twisted the big brass handle of the door.  It opened easily.  He wondered if he might cause a disturbance if he slammed it shut in the usual manner, so he pressed it shut soundlessly.  And, at the instant he did so, the train began to pull away, as if by a secret signal ; for there was nobody to be seen.  Now he found himself in the centre of that wider landscape ; in the centre of that broad and perfect day.

The station was very neat, clean, and well kept, but there were no buildings at all.  No timetable poster and no warnings about trespassing on the track.  Nothing that might identify the place.  No people.  The track curved away both to the left and the right, set in a high hedge ; the train could be known only by its receding trail of steam, for it was now beyond earshot.  The only feature he could see, that indicated human habitation, was the feint line of a footpath that wound its way across the lush roll of the meadow beyond.  He did not so much decide to follow it, as felt drawn to it ; as if in answer to a call.

The going was surprisingly easy.  He passed cattle here and sheep there, but he saw no fences and no gates.  The path took him through several copses and across streams at suitable places.  Tom looked back only once or twice, but marvelled at how far he had come in what seemed such a short time.  Looking ahead, he saw the path descending towards a great wood that covered all that was visible in the balmy haze.  Through that wood he continued, for the way was clear, and there he heard an endless chorus of birds who seemed to take up a theme as he approached them, and quieted as he passed.

So he continued until, at last, he came to a glade, and here he himself rested, not from weariness, but gladness.  He slept.  When he awoke, it was to the sound of a woman’s voice.

‘You have slept well, Tom.’
With a little start, he turned towards her.  ‘Ros !’ he cried, ‘Can it really be you?’
‘Yes, my friend, it is me.  And now we meet again, as we should.’
‘Surely I am dreaming …’
‘No, Tom, this is no dream, though it may seem so.’
‘But, where are we?  And why are we here?’
‘We must all come to this place when our work is nearly done.  That is the way of things.’

Without another word, she led towards the far end of the glade ; and then briefly through the wood until they came to open country again.  There they passed through an arch of green and into an area bounded by an antique wall of stone.

‘Why !’ exclaimed Tom, ‘This is my garden !  The garden in my painting !’

‘For indeed it is, Tom, and here lies your final task of this kind. This is the garden that you must finish before you may move on. I thought I should never get you here. I thought I should never even get you to the railway station. I am sorry to have been so devious, but it had to be done. Your time was up, you know, and you had such a fear of that final journey – and I wanted so much to make things easier for you.’

‘And so you decided to come with me?’ A light flooded Tom’s mind.

‘Except … well … no-one may accompany you.  But I determined that I should be here to welcome you – that much is allowed us.’

Raggedly and in confusion, Tom whispered, ‘Where are we?  Are we in ….’

‘I think not !’ she said, with her silver laugh, ‘But, if all goes well, you are on the way.’  Then, adding gravely,   ‘Ask no more questions of me, Tom, for I may not answer.  There is much yet for you to do, and it must be entirely on your own account.’

Even so it was that Tom set to work in his garden.  It simply had to be finished – brought to perfection – before any more progress could be made.  It was a hard and taxing labour.  But it was truly a labour of love.

Of prophets and prejudice

Long ago I read a newspaper article which beautifully praised the life and works of a famous artist.  I have forgotten his name but that is of no consequence, for similar articles appear from time to time describing such clever people.  What struck the writer of the article most strongly was the ability of the artist to visualise ideal scenes – the sort that idealise Nature to a seemingly impossible degree.  Thus it was that he could paint a scene (real or fictional) not as it would normally appear, but as it seemingly ought to be if only the faults and vagaries of Nature were removed or rectified.  But perhaps that, in itself, was not the true genius of the artist ; rather, his genius showed itself in what he described as the perfect clarity of his visions, and in his wonderful ability remember and to paint exactly what he saw.

I expect there are many artists who share this gift in some measure ; and many more people who have the vision but lack the artistic skill to reproduce it.

And I expect there are just as many who have the visions (and maybe the artistic skill) but of a kind that are not at all beautiful – visions of perfect awfulness.  And it may well be that just about everyone has had such visions (both beautiful and horrid) in dreams.  Perhaps the great artists manage to enter into a dreamlike state whilst remaining fully awake.  Those with experience of hypnosis will have a good idea of what I mean.

One also hears occasionally of people who experience vivid impressions of scents and tastes, and even bodily feelings such as tensions and pains, though these are not so easily conveyed as art.

So four of our senses may be directly and vividly stimulated without any involvement of the organs of sense.  And generally this is accounted a good thing, a mark of genius.

When we turn to the fifth sense we find, first, something similar.  For example, it has been said that Beethoven could hear an entire symphony before he even set pen to paper or toyed with his piano keys to confirm his hearing.  Perhaps his profound deafness sharpened his imagination, but I don’t think that wholly accounts for his ability here, for Mozart also had the gift or genius.

I suspect also that great poets may vividly hear their lines before they begin to write ; as if their muse (or genius) is instructing them on what to put on the paper ; so as to ensure that the sounds, the rhythm, the rhyme, the metaphor and the meaning are all quite perfect for the context.  Again all this is generally marked as a gift of great price.

But then, the general opinion changes markedly in a certain respect.  For if the person who hears the voice in his head is not an acknowledged literary master, then his voices are taken to be signs, not of genius, but of madness.

There only so much that might be written about many things in the world ; but when it comes to people, the possibilities for discussion are endless.

The traces of thoughts

The traces of thoughts

To the roots of mountains ;
to the utmost heights of streams ;
to Sun and Moon ;
to the very womb of Cosmos…
Seek thee the source of all things good.

Hark the music of the Spheres
And be glad.

Watch the paths of shooting stars,
Feel the breath of world’s first wind,
In Ithilien fair scent first blooms
That touched the tastes of angels,
And recall.

Thine infinity is not thine own,
Sweet soul,
Nor yet thine personhood.

Your I you love and all admire
Is a universe indeed ;
Touched by angels it surely is,
But yet by something more.

Seek it with impressive drive ;
And strive to know it as ne’er before ;
And think the thoughts that from it come.

A worthy search, a worthy find.
A loveliness of other kind.

But pause …. and first recall your words …
And question boldly – then -
Find a thought that comes from I?

But ask not, “Whence comes I?”

Jamie MacNab 10/2011

After Atoms of Stars …  http://atomsofstars.wordpress.com/2011/10/13/the-inward-eye/

Enduring truths

It’s  interesting how marriage can change a young man’s mind for the better, and sometimes to his complete surprise.  It is as if a thousand thoughts, neglected and unspoken in the careless days of bachelorhood, silently combine in wonderful ways to produce new understandings of the world ; which then make themselves known step by step.

This process, of unconscious thinking, has a name given by psychologists : they call it latent learning.  Of course, psychologists, being of a cautious disposition, presume that all the unconscious knowledge we have has been previously learned at a younger age, from the time of birth ; there are few now who are so bold as to presume that individuals might have knowledge that they brought with them into this world, or knowledge that they might have acquired directly mind from mind.

These thoughts were going through my mind recently as I was re-reading Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, a book I first read when our first daughter was on her way into the world.  For reasons I could not have been fully aware of, I began to take an interest in what was to me a somewhat alien world – the world of myth and legend, of allegory and fable.  And, to my surprise, through that master story-teller I discovered the importance of these genres ; and their essential truths.  Much more was to follow in the coming years.

Most people now know, I think, that Tolkien wrote his great book in order to fill a gap ; a gap so obvious that no-one seemed to have noticed it ; or, if they had noticed it, they felt unable or unwilling to fill it.  What was missing was a truly Anglo-Saxon grand myth.  True, there was Beowulf, but however fine that was, it made but a small contribution to our heritage and was of limited scope.

On my first reading these aims of Tolkien quickly drifted far from my mind.  That was because I was so enchanted by the story, so drawn in to the adventure, that I forgot completely the wider aims of the author.  And that was just it ought to have been ; for no successful story was ever written merely to be an exemplar of a  genre ; a mere literary exercise.

And who can doubt the success of The Lord of the Rings?  And who can doubt the essential and eternal truths it first embodies and then expresses?  Who does not, at some point and to some extent, identify with each and every character in the tale?  Whether you be woman or man, you will sympathise with Eowyn in her dilemmas.  Also with Aragorn in his dangers and toils ; with Gandalf in his mighty hopes and fears.  And we can even identify with Sauron in his striving for mastery over all things both living and unliving.  And who needs reminding of hobbits?

In myth there is a hidden power.  It is the power to stir those obscured thoughts that come to the light of consciousness only when stimulated by some mysterious power that is latent in the very words we use.  If myth were mere fantasy then our rational minds would dismiss it on first sight, and by this stage of our evolution, myth would simply not exist.  But, although a myth may contain elements of fantasy, it is not those elements which stick in our minds and touch our hearts.  And that is why true myths are ageless and enduring.  That is why they adhere to our language.  That is why all successful novels are based on traditional myths.  That is why myths appear and reappear in all our arts and sciences.

From out of the void

From out of the void

From out of nothing did all creatures come
And Time and Chance provide their present forms ;
And all the things, both live and not, that home
Themselves in human mind, have fated norms.
So speak the seers from lofty chairs, new-found,
In places long renowned for more than schemes
That merely glance at Nature and the ground
Of Being ; seeing Earth for what she seems.
But from the spirit that belongs to Man,
Full-formed and of glad, enquiring mind,
A more reflective mood descends to scan
The World and find a  truth of deeper kind.
How comes a thing from nothing?  How come Chance,
Unaided, brings the World to great advance?

Jamie MacNab 2011

Investment

Investment

Survey the hills of home, now bathed in light,
Whose gladness is to please the jaded eye
Of careworn soul, grown weary of the slight
Reward afforded by the dreary tie
Between desire for pleasure and its gain.
And yet, those hills ; what are they if not heaps
Of stones and dust?  And what the light? – in main
An airy nothingness.  Yet fancy leaps,
Investing beauty in the dullest dust,
And so transform the merest native Earth.
Creating things of wonder, as we must,
Is surely our appointed task. If worth
Be reckoned fair and made as kind to kind,
Then beauty’s born from aught but living mind.

Jamie MacNab 2011

In search of the Light

In search of the Light

You steadfast sentinels who guard the heart
Of England fair, stand ready yet, amid
The fallen of your number ; ne’er to part
From sacred duty.  Loyalty unhid.
And yet, what life have you, our standing stones,
That turn their faces to the new-born sun?
As if to capture clouds of glory, tones
Of Heaven’s colour, counting all well-won.
Does blood run freely in the veins of rock?
In hearts of stone, does deity choose to dwell?
Is spirit content in granite to lock
The forces that all ills may sure dispel?
You played your part as vanguard of the quest
That found the light and kindled us, the West.

Jamie MacNab 2011

Guardians

Bright the World

Bright the World

You asked me where the light, that springs anew
Each lovely morning of the world, is born.
But ready answer had I none to view ;
My mind so misted, thoughtless and forlorn
That I was sightless to the inner ‘scape
Where sense and reason meet to make a blend
Of that which cannot else be given shape.
How oft do our inquiries sadly end !
And yet necessity impels us all
To seek illumination at its source ;
It’s been so ever since our shameful fall,
When destiny near lost its holy course.
Had insight been in darkness left, unfurled,
How seek the Love and Mind that brights the world?

 Jamie MacNab 19 September 2011

The way the world is

There are few things more enlightening than to listen to what people say about themselves.  In most cases people are far too modest.

For example, there is a growing tendency in these modern times for people to think of themselves as essentially machines.  Some will openly declare as much ; while others speak of themselves as if they were but machines,- leaving that conclusion as a strong inference.  Ask someone how his eyesight works, and he is likely to reply that it is something like a video camera that registers whatever objects he happens to look at.  And his ears are like a tape recorder that registers whatever sounds happen to fall in range of hearing.

In other words, people see themselves as passive observers of the world ; the world does what it must, and the senses merely register and record what is going on.   But this way of thinking can have pernicious effects, which politicians and other clever people with ‘an agenda’ are not slow to take advantage of.

Also this way of thinking says that the world does what it likes to us ; and, being mere machines, all we can do is respond mechanically to what the world does.  Thus the world makes us what we are in the minutest details of thoughts, words and deeds.

So, we are just machines ; but the world also is just a machine, and so we are nothing more than cogs in its complex mechanism.  It is a world of causes and effects, and nothing more.  Whatever happens must happen ; and there could not have been an alternative, except by chance.

And yet, when people reflect more deeply on their relationship with the world, they are not convinced that everything is mere mechanism ; in particular, they have feelings that they themselves are more than just machines.  They feel that they have the will to act somewhat independently of what the world is doing ; they feel that they have the power of making real decisions ; they feel that they have the ability to perceive the world, and act upon it, in their own ways.

If it is true that we can perceive the world in our own way, then at least one interesting conclusion arises : that the world is becoming as we make it.

But, it will be objected, How can our perceptions of the world affect the world itself?  How can our consciousness (which is non-material) affect the world (which is material)? Surely consciousness and matter are different kinds of substance ; therefore, how can they affect each other?  How can they act and react upon each other?

The evolution that matters

In a sense, everything is history.  For example, when I look at an object such as my computer screen, I am aware that I see it not as it is but as it was a fraction of a second ago ; this is because it takes a definite length of time for it to be neurologically processed and to be presented to conscious awareness.  When we move away from that kind of example towards more everyday awarenesses, to thinking about what to have for breakfast for example, things get even more historical ; if I decide on cornflakes, then where does my liking of them come from if not from pleasant memories of breakfasts past?

In a sense, then, while the arrow of time is always pointing forward, our sense perceptions of the world are always pointing backward.  It is as if Nature made us to feel more comfortable to look at the past rather than the future.

And in a sense, everything is spiritual.  For, even though I can persuade myself that I am looking at a material thing as I gaze at the computer screen, the moment I start to think about it, it becomes entirely a phenomenon of consciousness ; i.e., not material at all but spiritual.

These thoughts and others like them were crossing my mind as I enjoyed reading the history of the events following the Norman conquest, from the time of King William himself to King John.  I was conscious of enjoying that period of history as a purely spiritual pleasure ; for there is no way I could possibly enjoy it as a sensory one.  I might have imagined what it is like to be clad in heavy chain mail on the Sussex Downs ; I might have imagined what the weight of a swinging sword or mace might feel like ; I might have imagined the pain of taking an arrow-hit in the eye.  But there is no way that I can experience these things that are long in the past and beyond hope (or fear) of repetition.

“How wonderful life must be for the historian, I thought, living one’s subject entirely through one’s imagination!”

And imagination is but one short step back from its alluring cousin, fantasy.  “How comforting it would be,” I thought, “If the nobler Anglo-Saxons had never allowed themselves to become embroiled with those ghastly Normans and French!”

But then, history is history, as they say, and the events cannot be realistically imagined as being different from what they actually were.  All ‘what if’ scenarios are mere fantasy.  Perhaps that is why so many students of history see their subject as elaborate lists of dates, names and deeds ; nice and safe lists with little margin for error.  But surely this is not history at all ; it is  little more than chronology.

So, perhaps that is why they also like to have each item in the list tagged with the opinion of their teacher ; in the belief that this somehow adds veracity to the content of the list.  But such opinions are so often conditioned by the political opinions of the teacher, which always contaminate history with modern ideas alien to the age being studied.

Of course, history is bound to contain large amounts of historians’ opinion, but I do not think that this is what it is really about.  For, surely, no subject is worthy of study unless the student is in some way in love with the subject being studied.  And what is being studied in ‘History’?  it has to be simply people.  So the first requirement of an historian is to love people and, from that, to desire to know what they did and why they did it.  The ‘what’ is easy enough ; that is the bare menu.  But the ‘why’ is where the recipe is ; it leads to the kitchen where the tale of entire nations and civilisations is cooked up.

History is a tale with many story-lines, therefore with as many aims ; but apparently without an over-arching plot.  In 1066 nobody in England had the faintest suspicion of a Hanoverian monarch.  History has many chronologists but not an all-knowing author.

And yet there are patterns in history, which suggests something about human nature.  And the patterns do not lead to mere repetition of events, which suggests that human nature is changing.  For example, in general, the farther back we go, the more violent are the methods of government ; and this suggests that we are moving in a direction where force as a method is giving way to persuasion.  And violence, of course, is the outcome of ways of seeing the world and of ways of thinking.
Therefore, it seems to me that history is the tale of the evolution of human consciousness.  It is a spiritual tale.

A tricky question

Well, the multicultural experiment seems to have had a short life but a merry one.  What began as a grand design, apparently hatched up by the BBC and the university history departments, seems to be gurgling down the drain.  This does not mean that the multiple cultures in our country have disappeared ; but it does mean that the predicted harmonious relations between those cultures have not been supported by the observed facts.

So what is to be done?  There will be no shortage of advice to (and from) the politicians, the academics and the broadcasters, but we may be sure that the substance of the advice will not be either broad enough or deep enough to make a difference in the longer term.  We may be sure of that because the august bodies that determine our fate have failed to realize that the problems are moral problems, whereas they see them as political.  What we shall be given is not moral solutions but politically correct solutions ; they will be solutions founded on the political beliefs and expediencies of the various parties, and hence of no lasting value.

But you cannot be rid of political correctness ; indeed, we should not wish to be rid of it.  But mere PC is not robust enough to support a nation, any more than mere sand is strong enough to support a skyscraper.  What is needed is a moral foundation, a rock on which to build with confidence.

Perhaps we can accept that morality is the set of unalterable principles which guide us in governing the relations between people ; and, because government is all about the relations between people, moral principles are indispensable to social stability.  And, because the principles are unalterable, they must be simple.  In themselves, they are not detailed enough to be made into state laws.  For example, the moral principle “You shall not kill” cannot be absorbed directly into law for there might be occasions when killing is unavoidable or even just.  It might well be unjust to punish somebody who kills in self defence or in the defence of other innocent people.

So, we need to build a body of secondary principles upon the moral foundation.  We might call these secondary principles our ethics. They represent our generally agreed interpretations of the moral principles ; an ethical principle amplifies a moral principle by giving concrete examples of what is meant by it.  It is to the ethics that politicians turn when drafting their policies, and to ethics they turn when drafting or amending a particular law.

But now we come to the thorny question :  who decides the unalterable moral principles on which everything depends?

A simple answer is that the politicians do.  Another simple democratic answer is that the people do.  But both politicians and people are variable in their opinions of morality ; so both these answers land us back in the realm of political correctness.  And PC doesn’t work.

So, who does have the authority to decide the moral principles?

Time to step back and rethink

Many miles of news have been printed about the recent serious disturbances in London and elsewhere.  Clearly, the mere fact of the riots indicates the corruption we have in our society today.  People are even beginning to talk about our having lost our country.

On the Daily Telegraph blog site, Pym Purnell has written a blog titled ‘Seven steps to reclaim England‘, and it received a number of thoughtful comments and suggestions (as well as some unenlightened ones).  But I think, in general, the better ideas were more concerned with reclaiming control of current circumstances rather than reclaiming England ; they were topical rather than systemic ; they were more in the nature of a national medicine than a healthy diet.  But they were necessary.

However, if we truly wish to reclaim the England (or the Britain) that we all loved, we must look deeper.  If we do not, then we will be committing the same class of errors that led us into this mess.  We will be looking for redemption through procedures rather than through thorough reform.

The true believers in socialist philosophy, whom I blame almost entirely for our present difficulties, imagined that they could best improve our country by enforcing arbitrary laws that would promote the ideals of egalitarianism.  The laws would make all people equal ; tinker, tailor, soldier, burglar – all of equal worth.  And such is the appeal of egalitarianism that many people who considered themselves politically conservative were taken in by it.  They imagined that they could take the bits of political correctness that they liked and discard the rest.  Well – the rest is history ; and it is also our present plight.

And our present plight (in summary) is characterised by unwarranted ambitions on the parts of people who desire much more than their personal circumstances allow.  Thus we have an uneducated mass who demand employment on their own terms ; we have a half-educated mass who believe themselves to be worthy of grander positions than employers are able or willing to pay for.  We have created, in the laboratory of the social scientists, many thousands of women whom society has deemed unworthy to be mothers until they have carved a prosperous career for themselves ; created a climate in which to be a young married mother is to be beyond the pale ; in which to wish to be a good mother who educates her children in the ways of her family traditions is to be deviant.  Women now join men as mere Soviet-style units of production in the economic machine.

The socialists have also appealed to would-be conservatives by making an abstraction of society.  Society now is simply an economic entity, as if money and purchasing were all that counted.  To do this, they abolished the concept of nation with its connotations of kinship and shared traditions.  And, to emphasise their disapproval, the socialists have actively encourage mass immigration to dilute the character of the nation.  And this measure was calculated to be the last nails in the coffin of what was once Great Britain.

Many of these things, nominal conservatives went along with, because they saw advantages to themselves in the new freedoms on offer ; they were blind to the trap that was laid for them.  But the awful truth is that we have to discard the principle of egalitarianism itself, for there is no justification for it if we are to have a healthy society.

For all the faults

 

For all the faults, though ne’er so grievous, borne
Upon my soul so perfect made but marred
By misdirected hopes and fears so long,
My prayer attend, O Lord, with mercy sworn.
Thou  know’st of whom I speak so no retard,
By extra words, impede or do aught wrong.
Thy faithful servant all her life has loved
And honoured Thee in heart and mind and deed ;
But now lies low, so hurt by fate ungloved ;
And of thy healing hand so much doth yearn.
Pour out on her what things may do her good ;
What goodness that might be is no concern.
If we were best in wisdom to decide,
What need had we to tame and quench our pride?

[For Sr T]

Tempting ideas – and where they might lead

I am not sure why, but from an early age I have been curious about psychology – from even that time before I knew the word psychology.  Of course, each of us is an individual, but what really interests psychologists is those things we have in common.  Like it or not, there’s more to humanity than just individuals – there are types of individual.

I was thinking about this as I remembered a conversation that I shared some longish time ago.  It was one of those turning points in my life.  It’s a marvel how our lives are shaped by little things.  Or are they little?  Judge for yourself.

Thoughts which take strong materialist line have a funny way of turning out.  For example, it you say to a certan kind of physicist, “I see the light coming from that searchlight,” you are likely to find yourself drawn into a strange dialogue.  For the physicist, putting his authoritative scientific hat on, is bound to respond with, “No you don’t.”

“But I can see it!” you cry.
“It is important for you to remember that what you call light is, in fact, electromagnetic radiation.  It is a field of electricity and magnetism, both of which are invisible,”  he announces with an air of finality.
You overcome your diffidence in the face of such authority to venture, “Then what is that beam of light I see shining away from us up into the sky?”
“That is not a beam of light,” he replies with a hint of impatience.  “What is happening is that some of the invisible radiation is reflected off the particles of dust and moisture in the air.  This reflected radiation then enters your eyes, and your mistaken response is to say that you see light in the sky.  What you really mean to say is that the radiation has caused your brain to produce light in your conscious awareness.”

“So how can you prove that no light is coming from the searchlight,” you dare to ask.
“That’s easy,” he says.  “We could do an experiment. We could, of course fly to the Moon, where there is no atmosphere and no dust.  You would find there that, if you shone the searchlight slightly away from you, then you would see no beam of light coming from it, because there is no dust or moisture to reflect the radiation back into your eyes.”
“Thus demonstrating that the radiation itself is perfectly invisible?”
“Yes, quite.”

“So, generally speaking,” the physicist continues, “There is no light at all in the world around you.  It is all in your head.  Light is a phenomenon of psychology, not physics.”

Now I know it comes a surprise to many materialists that their doctrines lead to such a conclusion ; their instinct is first to deny it and then to find a way round it.  By extending the above experiment, it can be shown that the world around us has no colour, no sounds, no scents, no flavours and even no solidity of touch.  And there is no such thing as beauty either.  All such things are psychological, all experienced in consciousness and nowhere else.

It also comes as a surprise to many materialists that our ancestors certainly gave much thought to the appalling consequences of materialism.  A dark, drear, colourless, utterly neutral world of nature gave them no comfort at all.  And it went against their direct empirical experiences of living.

So, they came up with answers.  And, just to tease a little … you will find the OT fascinating. 

Are we getting physical, then?

The great Oracle at Delphi once told a young Athenian that Socrates was the wisest man in the world.  When the youth asked Socrates why this was, he replied, “I suppose it is because I know nothing, but I do have opinions on many things!”

We can see that Socrates was using the word knowledge in a special way here ; what he meant was that he had no certain knowledge of anything ; he did not know reality.  This kind of humility was thereafter a persistent character of most of the writings of learned people right through antiquity and up to the modern age.

Then something new happened.  First, we discovered (or invented perhaps) powerful mathematics ; then we invented what we now call the scientific method.  The mathematics enabled us to make statements about the material world that were more or less precise and in a way that had hardly been attempted previously, and the second enabled us to investigate the material world in a highly particular systematic way.

To begin with, these two aids to investigation allowed us to produce a vast amount of information about the world ; and then allowed us to use that information to manufacture new powerful technology – including the technology to make more powerful means of studying the world more closely.  By the end of the nineteenth century, we had a veritable explosion of information in physics and in its technological fruits.  It is hardly surprising, therefore, that scientists of every stripe were eager to emulate the methods of the physicists

Now there was nothing wrong with this emulation and there still isn’t anything wrong with it as long as we remember that the methods of physics are directed at the material world ; particularly at the non-living world.

But man is a forgetful creature ; also much given to speculation, and easily deceived by appearances.  Thus it was that he forgot the original purpose of physics and the scientific method, and it was this forgetting that turned initial successes into a disaster.  For he began to see living things in purely physical concepts ; and, from there began to perceive living things as machines.  Biological machines.  Perhaps this new way of seeing things was epitomised by an enthusiastic late eighteenth century stock breeder ; he asked, “What is a sheep but a machine for turning grass into meat?”  Few people then imagined that Man would be characterised as a machine that happens to turn shepherd’s pie into thoughts.

But that is where we are today.  Man is a machine which is governed entirely and exclusively by the laws of physics.  Gone is the mind, gone is the psyche, gone free-will, gone is personal responsibility ; banished is the soul and the spirit together.  We are simply machines, assemblies of particles, at the mercy of our material environment (however you might try to dress it up in the exciting tales from quantum mechanics!).

But there is hope.  Physics as it is done today has almost exhausted itself grappling with the myths of the sub-particular world ; and, having led their colleagues astray, it will be the physicists who start breaking out of the prison they have made for us all.  This repentance began about a century ago with such luminaries as Rutherford and Planck, who sounded the warnings and offered the keys of the prison.

Was it not Rutherford who said, “Whether we like it or not, we live in a spiritual world.”  And was it not Planck who said, “Consciousness is everything.  Matter is derived from consciousness.”

But did their colleagues listen?  No.  For the physical sciences are easy to do ; no great wisdom is required.  And they are profitable ; research grants are readily forthcoming, if only for the sake of the saleable technology.

On the other hand, a science of humanity takes the harder road ; the road trodden by Socrates and most of his successors ; the road of modesty.

Does it make any sense?

Whatever we might think of religion, we cannot deny that it fascinates us.  Almost any post on the subject, except the most anodyne, risks attracting undue attention.  That, I think, is a sign of our times, which bear an uncanny resemblance to former, pre-Christian ages.  And yet, religion endures as ever.  Perhaps that is because its writings contain some ideas which still have the power to rather startle us – after we have had first thoughts about them.

“Whatsoever you did to one of the least of my brothers, you did unto me.” Fr Werenfried van Straaten, of the ACN, thinks these words should be dearer to us than all earthly wisdom

It is generally taken for granted now that Jesus was referring to the weakest members of a society – the poor, the humble, the incurably sick, and so on.  Whether we be religious or not, we generally see now the merit of the sentiments involved ; but it was not always so.

At around the time of the Incarnation, it was common to live life with a starkly Darwinian perspective on life – although that name was unknown to people then.  In Greece, for example, weakling babies would be taken to the hills and ‘exposed’ ; left to die either of starvation or aided by the teeth of animals, to be consumed and forgotten.  And, for the Romans, any manifestation of weakness was despised ; their world was only for the strong, the ambitious and the ruthless ; and the more one fell from those ideals, the less regard was paid.

And, even in that gentlest of all religions, Buddhism, it is still held that a person does not live so as to help the poor and the weak, but for his own personal advancement towards a state of blessedness – and forgetfulness.  “It is my destiny that matters, not yours.”  Similarly for Hindus.  This explains, I think, the abject misery of so many amid the fabulous riches of the better off.

Taking all this together explains the extraordinary resistance to the Gospels in the early days ; for the message, the Good News, ran counter to the prevailing orthodoxies.  It was subversive and threatened the powers of the great.  A pacifist, a do-gooder was not merely someone to be derided, but someone who had to be eliminated along with his dangerous notions.

Many questions arise from this doctrine concerning “the least of my brothers.”  But, of all the questions, perhaps the most puzzling is this, “Why on earth should almighty God be in the least concerned with the least of his people?”

I don’t mean this to be personal

Something to think about
Some strange ideas about human nature have emerged in recent years.  One such idea appears to be that humans have no control over their actions.

The world is made of particles
The argument for the idea runs like this.  The entire universe is composed of particles which are perfectly invisible to us ; but these particles assemble themselves in systematic ways to produce larger particles, such as molecules  ; and the larger particles arrange themselves in ever larger groups, until the largest of them are actually able to influence our sensory organs.  In other words, they become visible, audible, tangible and so on.

The world is determined by natural laws
This is not a particularly surprising model of what the world might be like.  We can imagine such things as rocks, puddles, mountains, rivers and so on being made of trillions of invisible particles, all arranging themselves according to what appear to be natural laws which decide on the shapes and sizes and masses of natural things.  In accordance with the natural laws, objects, such as the stones, puddles, mountains and oceans, etc., may only take on certain physical arrangements.  And the things themselves have no power to alter their physical arrangements.  A mountain cannot choose to grow either bigger or smaller, heavier or lighter, etc. ; nor can it decide where to place itself on the Earth’s surface.  This model of the physical world is easily imagined, so no surprises there.

Humans are no different to non-living things
When we come to living creatures such as people, we can certainly imagine the shape and size of a person being decided by the same natural laws that decide the shape and size of a pebble or a mountain.  We can just about imagine those same natural physical laws arranging the matter of our bodies so that we move about on the Earth’s surface.  We are able to imagine this because, if circumstances are right, even pebbles move about on the Earth’s surface – in high winds, for example.  The difference between a moving person and a moving pebble is that the person moves more elegantly and in a much more complex way.

All human behaviour is determined by impersonal natural forces
But now we begin to approach a puzzle.  The puzzle is this : a person will often move about without there being any external natural forces being applied to his body.  But pebbles, etc. do not.  Thus, the model seems to say, people move in that way in response to internal forces acting on the body.  But those forces are of exactly the same kind as the external forces that move pebbles ; indeed, those internal forces are dependent on external forces, in the form of the food we eat (so it is doubtful if they can really be called internal).

Humans have no personal control over their behaviour
And the puzzle deepens.  For this model of the world does not give the person any control over his movements ; all movement is governed by the natural laws which decide the way in which the particles of the body shall act.  So a person has no more control over his movements than does a cloud of dust being driven by the wind.  It’s just that his movements are more complex because his particles are more complex.

Humans are completely material and mechanical
In the new model of the world, there is no ‘essence’ to a human being ; no mind, no soul.  There are just material particles doing what particles do in accordance with the usual natural laws.  Thus there is no ‘person’ in control of the human’s body ; there is no transcendent ’soul’ which is in control of the body.  The model is completely material, mechanical and impersonal.

Humans are machines that have gone crazy
There are many surprises to be investigated in this model of the human being, if only because it is utterly unlike the models we have been used to.  One puzzle is that a completely material, mechanical and impersonal biological machine could ever have come up with the ideas of personality and free-will.  Surely, aren’t such ideas aberrations in the proper functioning of the machine?

My mistake …

It is not wise to generalise too freely about the behaviour of people because, to an extent, behaviour follows personality, and personalities are complex.  Behaviour also follows thoughts ; and our thoughts are complex.  Thus our general behaviour is complex ; even our habits are complex.  Perhaps that is why we are prone to make mistakes, for the more complex a system is, the more there is to go wrong.

During WWI, much interest was shown in the performance of people and their technology.  In particular, there was concern at the unreliability of the artillery in use.  It was observed that there was a high incidence of weapons failing to fire ; of weapons failing to detonate on landing or detonating prematurely or landing in the wrong place.  A number of such types of fault were reported and the authorities decided to investigate in a way that had not been done before.

Their inquiries took them to the munitions factories, and it was here that they made their most interesting discovery, for they found that the operators who assembled the artillery shells worked under the most rigorous procedures.  But, of course, this was not the surprise, for one would expect such a dangerous job would be closely controlled.  The big surprise was not the close controls, but the fact that the operators committed so many errors.

The operators, on average, made about 12% errors ; out of every eight actions that an operator took, one of them was quite simply wrong.  Even the operators’ inspectors made errors at the same rate.  This does not mean that the weapons they made suffered from a 12% defect rate, for many errors were discovered before the making of the weapons was completed, and were duly rectified ; also, some errors did not result in malfunction.  That 12% conceals a complex situation ; but the result was, nevertheless shocking to the investigators and to the manufacturing staff.

So surprising were the results that it was decided to repeat the investigation in other areas of employment, for perhaps it was the very nature of munitions factories to make people nervous and prone to error.  But, over a period of time, it was found that the 12% error rate under controlled conditions is endemic in people.  No matter what kinds of tasks were investigated, the average error rate was more or less constant.

It might be thought that there is some defect in the British psyche that accounts for the errors but that is not so, for the results have been replicated world-wide.

An interesting study was carried out in the US in the sixties.  The investigators in a hospital decided to follow the fortunes of prescriptions issued  by the doctors.  They would follow a prescription from the diagnosing doctor to the pharmacist, then to the nurses and then to the patient.  The upshot of their findings was that some 15% of patients were receiving the wrong treatment.  The study was replicated in the NHS with a similar result.  It will be noted that the correctness of the prescription itself, and of the diagnosis, were not investigated because doctors would not permit such scrutiny of their work.

It would seem that people are too complex to be relied on to work with a very high degree of consistency.  We may be creatures of habit, but our habits are themselves not habitual enough.  It is not only the lower orders of society who are wayward in thought and deed ; I’m afraid we are all affected.