Wisdom in a time of crisis.

When some leaders start to display dictatorial tendencies, human nature being what it is, it is worthwhile looking at what history has to say. Always it is best to take the long view – a timely distance allows one to make sense of what happened and why. 

Even so, relating to current world leadership, inferences may be drawn from the sayings of some historical figures:-

“Those whom the Gods wish to destroy they first make mad.”

No one is quite sure who originated this saying - attributed, possibly to Euripides, but it doesn’t really matter. It is the intent. I believe is quite appropriate today.  By “mad” I don’t think that insanity is implied, rather I believe that what is alluded to is a loss of  “measure” – a term that is no longer fashionable - meaning a loss of proportion; giving to much emphasis on personal gain and aggrandizement and thus ignoring the plight of others.     

Then there is this famous injunction leveled at the English “Rump Parliament” on 20^th April 1653, when Oliver Cromwell harangued the members of that parliament:-

“You have sat here too long for any good that you have been doing lately. Depart I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!” 

Also quite apposite today I believe is this saying, attributed to Edmund Burke, the Eighteenth Century Irish author and Statesman:-

 “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men should do nothing.”

It saddens me to think that some of todays world leaders have so lost their moral and ethical compasses that they think only of themselves.

Then many people have idols; things they value above all others, even, unfortunately more than they value themselves – their self-worth, their honour or their reputation. As has been said before, poets have the ability to say in a few words what it takes others many words to express. 

There is a very appropriate verse in the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (Omar was an 11^th Century Persian mathematician, astronomer and poet) - which goes as follows (verse 69): 

                                           Indeed the Idols I have loved so long

                                           Have done my Credit in Men’s Eyes much wrong:

                                              Have drown’d my Honour in a shallow cup,

                                          And sold my Reputation for a Song 

In this context it may also be useful to recall the words of an old nursery rhyme – a cautionary tale stressing the importance of doing things properly. By doing things properly, doing them well, unintended consequences are minimised. This is a tale of the “Horse-shoe Nail”:-

For want of a nail the shoe was lost.

For want of a shoe the horse was lost.

For want of a horse the battle was lost.

For want of a battle the Kingdom was lost,

And all for the want of a horse-shoe nail!

The nail represents the “glue” that binds us together as humans. The main component of this “glue” is trust. This is what holds us together as a society – trust. Trust that those we deal with believe in ethics, morality, virtues and hold to their values and will do what they promise; trust that people are honest and will treat others in the way they would like to be treated. When it comes to organisations – be they Governments, financial organisation, multinational news conglomerates, political parties, police departments or families there is a need to understand, today as never before, what it means to provide a duty of care and its corollary – a fiduciary duty. Anything else will lead to chaos, as has been displayed for all to see over the last few years.

This leads back to the title of this post – wisdom in a time of crisis. When good men do nothing; when leaders love their idols more than their fellow beings; when leaders love their idols (whatever they are) more than they respect the need for honesty and morality, we are in real trouble. The horseshoe was lost years ago and we have already lost the horse; if we now lose the battle as well, the kingdom and all of us will be in grave danger. 

And it’s leaders will have drowned their honour in a shallow cup and sold their reputations for a song.

Reflections

These are testing times indeed! This is a time for reflection; a time for understanding; a time for empathy; a time for a reassessment – about life and how it’s lived. More than anything I believe this is a time to put aside any differences, opinions and strongly held beliefs. 

We are all human beings trying to survive.

To put this into perspective, we are, all of us, members of the species Homo Sapiens crowded together on a small planet in a very average solar system circling around a very average star, amongst billions of stars, at the edge of an arm of a very average spiral galaxy among an unimaginable number of many billions of galaxies in an unimaginably large universe. 

I fully realize that what I’m about to write may be controversial, possibly inflammatory and most definitely blasphemous! But I still need to ask the question - why do we, puny beings that we are, think we are so special? That God (however He, She, It is determined) is “our” special God? 

Now, don’t get me wrong, I believe in a “higher force” – something that imbues objects (us, amongst others) with “life”. But what that “life” is has yet to be determined. Something that is alive is not “dead”. But what is absent or withdrawn to render what was alive, dead – has, as I say, yet to be determined. Personally I doubt that we will ever truly know. 

As always in moments of high drama or deep reflection, as now, at this time, I turn to poets and poetry. Poets seem to have a greater insight into the human condition than more down to earth mortals such as I.

I have always loved The Rubaiyat, the famous poem by Omar Khayyam (18 May 1048 – 4 December 1131) a Persian who followed the Sufi version of Islam. Khayyam was an astronomer, astrologer, physician, philosopher, and mathematician: he made outstanding contributions in algebra. In the year 1072 CE Omar Khayyam documented the most accurate year length ever calculated up to that date – a figure still accurate enough for most purposes in the modern world. But it is his poetry for which he is better known in the West than any other non-Western poet – in particular his Rubaiyat, translated (possibly somewhat loosely) by Edward Fitzgerald.

To follow on what I said about a “higher force”, I offer the following Quatrains (verses) from the Rubaiyat starting with:

 7

Come, fill the Cup, and in the Fire of Spring

The Winter Garments of Repentance fling:

The Bird of Time has but a little way

To fly – and Lo! The Bird is on the Wing.

11

Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough,

A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse – and Thou

Beside me singing in the Wilderness –

  And Wilderness is Paradise enow.

23

Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,

                                               Before we too into Dust descend;

Dust into Dust, and under Dust, to lie,

        Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and – sans End!

49

‘Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days

Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays:

Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays,

And one by one back in the Closet lays.

50

The Ball no Question makes of Ayes and Noes,

But Right or Left, as strikes the Player goes;

And He that toss’d Thee down into the Field,

He knows about it all – He knows – HE knows!

51

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,

Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit

Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,

Nor all thy Tears wash out a word of it.

52

And that inverted Bowl we call the Sky,

Whereunder crawling coop’t we live and die,

Lift not thy hands to It for help – for It

Rolls impotently on as Thou or I.

53

With Earth’s first Clay They did the Last Man’s Knead.

And then of the Last Harvest sow’d the Seed:

Yea, the first Morning of Creation wrote

What the Last Dawn of Reckoning shall read.

And so it goes on.

Khayyam must have been a cynic who liked his wine, and I certainly think he had, shall I say, a rather  “irreverent” relationship with God! 

I will also say that what I determine to be Khayyam’s beliefs are in line with mine. That we determine our own fate by what we do - good, bad or indifferent. We reap what we sow!

The Seal of Confession and "weasel words".

Few things get up my nose and arouse my ire like injustice and people, or organisations, using “weasel words” to try and escape scrutiny and to try and maintain their authority! It is almost as if their only “crime” was to be caught! Doesn’t seem to matter what they did.

In relation to the recommendations of the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuses, the Catholic Church used their response to argue, 

“.. that children would be less safe if mandatory reporting of confessions was required.

A perpetrator or victim might be less likely to raise abuse in confession if confidence in the sacramental seal was undermined,” the response said.

So an opportunity would be lost to encourage a perpetrator to self-report to civil authorities or victims to seek safety," it said.

And then Archbishop Coleridge went on to compare the “sacramental seal of confession” to client-lawyer privilege and journalistic protection of sources. 

Less safe! And “protection” similar to client-lawyer privilege! To protect a paedophile Catholic in a House of God! And then to claim that an abused child would be less safe! Words fail me – I’m staggered that anyone, anyone, would make such a claim. The hypocrisy is breathtaking.

Weasel words indeed! It seems at all costs protect the “Sacred” institution of the Catholic Church!!!

In relation to the Church’s response, mentioned above, I repeat here something I wrote sometime ago – that I think it is worth repeating.

The Confessional:

As I understand it, this requirement was originally imposed in the Middle Ages, at least in part, by church leaders who expected priests to interrogate penitents and learn if they might be heretics. 

Confession and the authority to grant absolution also greatly enhanced the power of the priest. With sins absolved, the believer would gain heaven. Without absolution, death could bring the spiritual pain of purgatory or the eternal damnation of hell.

It would appear that from the very beginnings of the confessional, practices varied widely among both priests and laypeople. Some clergy emphasized compassion and forgiveness and faithfully kept secret what they heard. Others exploited their power and the information captured during the sacrament. The 11th-century monk Peter Damian (1007 – 1072) famously excoriated clerics for the sexual abuse of minors, which often began with the penitent-confessor relationship. In the later Middle Ages, apparently criminality among confessors was widespread and entrenched. Much of the criminality involved sexual assaults and priestly transgressions against the church's sexual mores (later adopted as a rule or canon).

So, what’s new? There is nothing “sacred” about the “seal” of confession – quite the reverse. At best a priest should be acting only as a counselor for a troubled parishioner, someone to talk openly with – not hide behind a screen. To me – hiding behind a screen while confessing, to God presumably, is hypocritical in the extreme. I mean where is God in all this? Is God only “up there?”; or only in a “house of God”; or, as I strongly suspect “everywhere”! If God is everywhere there is no place to hide – least of all behind a screen! 

Furthermore does a “sinner” require absolution from a priest – also possibly a “sinner” himself - to “return to God”? Please!! 

The Catholic Church has no claim to any “moral authority” while it hides behind its so-called inviolable “laws of the Church”. They are nothing of the sort.

It’s high time they realised that this is the 21 Century – after the birth of the man they profess to worship – the man of peace, the man of love!

Am I faithless?

Now important questions for me are, “Where is God? Is God “up there”? Only in a House of God – Church, Temple or Mosque? Or is God (as I strongly suspect) everywhere?”

If God is everywhere why do I need a priest (in my case – I was baptized into the Anglican church), or Rabbi or Imam, to tell me what to do and how to behave? Most of these people would have received “instruction” about the dogma and the form of their belief system from their specific scriptures or Holy Books. This is religion.

But religion, in my understanding, is not the same as knowledge of God. Certainly not the same as spirituality, which, I have always presumed is the aim of worshipping God.

It may be taken as a given that I have a belief in a Higher Power, or source of Life. Call this God, or by whatever name you may choose. It doesn’t really matter. I really don’t think that God would care.

But have I “Faith”? According to Hebrews 11.1 (King James English Bible):-

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen”.  

I may hope for things, or events to happen or not happen, but does God “look” at me or “listen” to me and agree or disagree? Really?

As the poet William Ernest Henley wrote:

            “I am the master of my fate;

             I am captain of my soul”.

The bit I just fail to understand is this.  Why do we humans, why do we need to reduce God the level of being human? Why call God a “Him”? Why a male? Then, of course being a male and “human” we imbue “Him” with human traits and the need to propitiate “Him”; try to cajole “Him”; ask “Him” for favours; bribe “Him” with sacrifices, often burnt so that the smoke will rise to “His” nostrils (and presumably please “Him”). If God is everywhere why would he need this - how would this please him? Anyway, how would anyone know?

God, in my understanding is Love. Pure love. Now this does not fit with the public image of greed and lust for power and control prevalent in various, most probably all  religious orders, uncovered by various investigations in many countries. Lust – in its most virulent form – sexual lust for minor children; control, through physical and emotional abuse – is now known to be perpetrated by some preachers of “faith” in all religions.

And this is done in the name of God?

It has been truly said that, “no soul was ever saved by hate. No truth was ever proved by violence. No redemption was ever brought by a holy war. No religion ever won the administration of the world by its capacity to inflict suffering on it enemies (re: Rabbi Jonathan Sacks).”

If Jews, Muslims and Christians worship the same God; if these “believers” read from Holy Books that espouse the same principles of Love, Justice and Tolerance; if these “believers” each invoke God’s aid against the other; if these “believers” cannot resolve their differences without the most extreme violence, then religion (any religion) cannot form the basis for a sustainable social order.

To be truly humanitarian it is essential for any person or group to involve themselves in that most difficult of imaginative exercises – role reversal. Put yourself  (or your group) in the place of the person (or group) that you despise, denigrate or simply do not understand.

It is a human failing, I believe, when people (particularly politicians and religious orders) are threatened with internal discord, to focus on, even invent, some external threat. This is the history of the “scapegoat”. Projecting all your failings onto someone else – and then blame them for your troubles. Killing the scapegoat is then seen, in the eyes of those involved, as justified. It is a form of “sacrifice” and deflects attention away from any internal violence that may destroy the group or people concerned. For centuries the Jews have suffered under this “scapegoat” label. Blame the Jews for everything – the most horrendous example occurred in the 1930s in Nazi Germany. But Jews are not the only scapegoats. Currently, in the eyes of some, anyone who is not a “true believer” is “not worthy in the eyes of God”. Apparently. 

According to the history of the three religions – Christianity, Judaism and Islam – all people are children of Abraham. By whose understanding then does God want his followers to kill for His sake; to engage in “Holy” war for His sake; to engage in human “sacrifice” for His sake; to hate and terrorise “unbelievers” for His sake? Such activity is an obscene distortion of everything that I, for one, was ever taught. 

It is the requirement of all, or so I believe, to overcome any “evil” tendencies within us and learn that love is the greatest power of all. This, in my understanding, is the only “message” that is worth listening to. That and the Golden Rule – “only do to others what you would like done to you”. There are no viable alternatives.

But if I know this – that I am not perfect and that I have a negative (or bad) side to my character as well as a good side, why do I need a priest, or imam or rabbi reading from a “Holy” book to tell me? Anyway how would this person know what troubles I’ve experienced or what my shortcomings are, or how to redress them? 

It seems to me that the priests, rabbis or imams should confront their own shortcomings. To quote from the Bible (it has its uses!):  “First, remove the beam out of your own eye, and then you can see clearly to remove the speck out of your brother's eye”(Matthew 7:5). 

So am I faithless?

Intimations of Immortality

Ever since I first read William Wordsworth's poem "Ode: Intimations of Immortality" I have felt especially drawn to the deep understanding of "Life" expressed in this extract from what is quite a long poem. The words seem to "fit" with some hidden wish (or hope) that this is true. I sometimes think that we (I?) need to "reconnect" with our true selves, rather than being sidetracked by the Siren song of the easy pleasures that abound around us.

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,	60
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come	65
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing Boy,
But he beholds the light, and whence it flows,	70
He sees it in his joy;
The Youth, who daily farther from the east
Must travel, still is Nature's priest,
And by the vision splendid
Is on his way attended;	75
At length the Man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day.

                                                                                               William Wordsworth.

All in all, to me, this is a splendid poem.

Love - the greatest gift of all

I know that I have written on this subject before but it is still something that, as I get older, is of interest – grief, mourning and the cause. There is after all only one end to life. But this subject, for some reason, is studiously avoided. So while I’m not sure how to introduce this I find that grief has many facets and is very puzzling. We are, after all, mortal beings. Trying to make sense of death, however, is very hard. We will all, at some stage of our life, have cause to grieve and mourn. 

There was, in my case, the death of my wife Magucha whom I dearly loved.

Then there is, now, the harsh reality, still not fully absorbed, that my life will never be the same. Her love, her intelligence, her insight, her emotional support, her wonderfully infectious laugh, her mischievous quirky humour – is now all gone.

Then, now for me, there is the settling into a new way of life that is part acknowledgement of her memory and the way we used to do things together and part acknowledgement that from now on I’m on my own without her at my side. This is still a work in progress.

Then there is most difficult part of my day, not so strange really I suppose, difficulty in actually going to bed. I defer this necessary function until the last possible moment – 12 mid-night, even 1am. Then I might read for a few minutes before I “crash”. Once asleep I sleep well. It’s just getting the “courage” to actually go to bed. Bed is not the same now, you understand.

Then there are my own questions. But I do believe in something that is above and beyond us all to which we are “attached” by the essence that common to all living things - Life itself. Call this God if you like.  And then where did my Life come from – the same place it will return to? It makes sense to me, that death is a “transition” from this life to the next – just as a birth transitioned me from “that place” to this. This is a subject we, all of us, usually avoid, ignore or change the subject when it is introduced. Why?

Then there is the problem that we humans are unable to imagine “God”, or conceptualise “God”, so we bring “Him” down to our level and imbue “Him” with human attributes that we can understand – passion, hate, vengeance, anger, jealousy and such like. Reduced to this level we now need to propitiate “God” and get “Him” to agree to our point of view – hence the requirement for sacrifices (hopefully symbolic). Is this because humans are all supposed to be born sinful (because of Adam and Eve)? With a sacrifice, it is posited, we can attach our “sins” to whatever, or whoever is sacrificed, and so be absolved of “sin” and be “cleansed”.  

Surely, surely, any God who can be “altered” by anything men do or say, or by the sacrifice of an animal or human (even if symbolic) cannot be a perfect God? God, surely, doesn’t need a reward? God, surely, cannot be bribed? Why load, even symbolically, some poor animal or human (that God created in the first place) with the wrongs that we commit?

But personal sacrifice is a different matter. Is this what grief is – a form of personal sacrifice? That the more we love the more we grieve?

I believe there is a Spanish proverb that goes something like this: “Take what you want from Life, says God. Take it, and pay.”

And so it should be – we reap what we sow! The Law of Cause and Effect applies to all. This is justice and by my book, this is Love – maybe tough love – but Love none the less.

I like to think that this place, this planet Earth, is but a school for what comes next. We all need this school, to learn to Love – and to forgive.

All this, of course, gets me no closer to understanding what Life is; that “essence” that is present when something is “alive” and is absent when something that was “alive” is now “dead”.  

To me “God” is pure Love and understanding - this is “His” greatest gift of all, even if it is the most difficult to accept.

This is all rather circular and brings me back to the point where I started. I still grieve.

We are the Pilgrims, master; we shall go

    Always a little further; it may be

Beyond that last blue mountain barred with snow,

    Across that angry or that glimmering sea,

White on a throne or guarded in a cave

    There lives a prophet who can understand

Why men were born; but surely we are brave,

    Who take the Golden Road to Samarkand.

                                                            James Elroy Flecker

Sire! Thou art not a God.

With all the news about competing military parades - President Trump now requesting a military parade through Washington, it is worth a look at the history of such events. (Note: North Korea’s parade the day before the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in South Korea; President Trump being so impressed by the French parade down the Avenue des Champs-Élysées).

They all started with the ancient Roman “Triumph”. This was a parade through the streets of Rome, organised to honour the return of a victorious military general. This was a massive and tumultuous event with trumpeters, strange animals, and wagons laden with captured (looted) treasures from far off lands. The victorious general rode is a special chariot preceded by captured prisoners.

Often the general was dressed in purple robes and crowned with a laurel wreath. Also sometimes his face was apparently daubed in red – to signify his closeness to the Gods.

But always, standing at his shoulder was a slave, whose duty it was to frequently whisper in the general’s ear, “Sire, remember thou art mortal” or “Sire! Thou art not a God”.

This was in recognition of the fact that men are mortal and vain. Sometimes those in power forget this and proceed to contemplate, vain gloriously, their own grandeur and status, and that, to use modern parlance, they needed to be brought down a peg or two.

So the parades we see today are the modern equivalent of the ancient Roman "Triumph" - without (one hopes) captured loot and prisoners of war. But sadly lacking, in these modern spectacles, is the important role of that vital ingredient, reminding the modern leader that, "Sire! Thou art not a God".

 

The Catholic Church and its Moral Authority.

I ask the question – a valid question – where is God? Is God “up there”, here, everywhere? If, as I suspect, God is everywhere why is it then claimed that a priest is a required “intermediary” through which a believer can “talk” to God.

If God is everywhere is a priest really necessary?

This brings me to comment on the truly appalling, even horrifying revelations in the 2017 Report by the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

The Catholic Church, while certainly not the only one, has the worst record of any institution mentioned. The Catholic Church, through its Archbishops in Australia, has stated, in answer to recommendations in the Royal Commission Report, that any change to the requirement for priests to be celibate, and changes to the confessional will not be considered.

My questions then are:-

Why is “celibacy” so important to the Catholic hierarchy?

Also, why is the Confessional so “sacrosanct”?

And why is it that “Canon Law” cannot be challenged or altered?

Celibacy:

The Church, as I understand it, considers clerical celibacy to be not a doctrine, but a discipline. 

There has never been any doubt, however, that it is an ecclesiastical discipline, as Pope John Paul II said at a public audience on 17 July 1993, that celibacy "does not belong to the essence of priesthood.” He went on to speak, nevertheless, of its aptness for the requirements of sacred orders, asserting that the discipline "enters into the logic of (priestly) consecration."

Because the rule of celibacy is an ecclesiastical discipline and not a doctrine, it can, in principle be changed at any time by the Pope. Nonetheless, the current Pope, Pope Francis, and his predecessors have spoken clearly of their understanding that the traditional practice was not likely to change.

Throughout the early centuries of Christianity, let it be known, clergy continued to get married, though marriage was not required. It was not until the turn of the first millennium that the church started to canonically regulate clerical marriage, mainly in response to clerical abuses and corruption. It was of particular concern that at the death of a clergyman, his wife and children would inherit church property. The Council of Pavia (1018), for example, issued regulations on how to deal with children of clergy, declaring them serfs of the church, unable to be ordained and barring them from inheriting their father's “benefices” (income connected to a church office or parish).

So, it can be seen that celibacy has nothing to do with God (at least no more so that any other human activity) but a lot more to do with mercenary and ecclesiastical considerations – the wealth and authority of the Catholic Church.

Confessional:

Again, as I understand it, this requirement was originally imposed in the Middle Ages, at least in part, by church leaders who expected priests to interrogate penitents and learn if they might be heretics.

Confession and the authority to grant absolution also greatly enhanced the power of the priest. With sins absolved, the believer would gain heaven. Without absolution, death could bring the spiritual pain of purgatory or the eternal damnation of hell.

It would appear that from the very beginnings of the confessional, practices varied widely among both priests and laypeople. Some clergy emphasized compassion and forgiveness and faithfully kept secret what they heard. Others exploited their power and the information captured during the sacrament. The 11th-century monk Peter Damian (1007 – 1072) famously excoriated clerics for the sexual abuse of minors, which often began with the penitent-confessor relationship. In the later Middle Ages, apparently criminality among confessors was widespread and entrenched. Much of the criminality involved sexual assaults and priestly transgressions against the church's sexual mores (adopted as a rule or canon).

So, again, there is nothing “sacred” about the confessional – quite the reverse. At best a priest should be acting only as a counselor for a troubled parishioner.

Canon Law:

I offer the following (adapted from Wikipedia):- “The canon law of the Catholic Church is the system of laws and legal principles made and enforced by the hierarchical authorities of the Church to regulate its external organization and government and to order and direct the activities of Catholics toward the mission of the Church.

What began with rules ("canons") adopted by the Apostles at the Council of Jerusalem (held about 50 AD) has developed into a highly complex legal system incorporating not just elements of the New Testament, but some of the Hebrew (Old Testament) Roman, Visigothic, Saxon and Celtic legal traditions.

It is the internal ecclesiastical law, or operational policy, governing the Catholic Church and other churches. Canon law wasn't just a body of rules and regulations governing members of the church, but rather an elaborate code of ethics shaping family life and marriage. Due to this, it was able to manipulate the fundamental operations of family life within the areas that it oversaw. The Catholic Church (and other churches), have manipulated the basis and validity of marriage, the ability to end a marriage as well as remarriage abilities, and the norms for sexual behaviour. The way that such church laws are legislated, interpreted and at times adjudicated varies widely. In all these traditions, a canon was originally a rule adopted by a church council; these canons formed the foundation of canon law.”

So you see, again, there is nothing really “God like” or sacred in these canons (laws) – at least no more so that in the Common Law of Australia. A canon law cannot, ever, take precedence over the Laws of Australia. Otherwise should we now allow “laws” that apply to Scientology, to Islam, the Hindu or any other faith to also take precedence?

The Catholic Church has no claim to any “moral authority” while it hides behind these so called inviolable “laws of the Church”. They are nothing of the sort.

So I ask again, where is God? Is God “up there”, here, or everywhere?