Origins

Origins

It shocked me a bit when the rector said “what's a Baptist doing reading that stuff?”. It wasn't the book, a life of the Anglican poet/priest George Herbert, but the fact that more than forty years had elapsed since I parted ways with the church of my upbringing. I know I'm just an Anglican 'pretender', but I had long since ceased to regard myself as anything else. So why would this very fine Anglican priest, whom I held in high regard, take exception to my reading about another Anglican?
 
I was aware that his wife had come from a Baptist family before becoming an Anglican, so I wasn't the first of that background he had met. Perhaps it just surprised him that I, as a former non-Anglican, would take an interest in such a person. Another possibility was the alacrity with which I had on one occasion made an off-the-cuff remark about an aspect of his morning sermon. It hadn't occurred to me at the time that gratuitous comment about his preaching, however positive, may not be welcome. Perhaps he detected a slight lack of respect for his priestly duty, or that I thought I might know more than him!

The incident was soon forgotten, but I have since made an important discovery. Notwithstanding the lapse in time, Baptist culture (e.g., expressing a personal opinion on a theological topic) continues to inform my thinking in many ways. Priesthood is one such area and I was well aware of a critical tenet of Baptist belief that distinguishes that denomination from Anglicanism (and most other protestant churches) as well as the Church of Rome: insistence on the “the priesthood of all believers”, and rejection of “Apostolic Succession”.
 
With every member an autonomous conscience in relation to God, this leaves a Baptist congregation not so much a church as an assembly, a gathering together of individual believers without hierarchy, prelates, bishops or priests, functioning within an intentional democratic system of ecclesial government where laity and leaders (ministers) serve as equals. In practice, this may be less evident than proposed, but the principle is integral to the way Baptists see them selves, as I remember.
 
I'm beginning to think the years have not blunted my understanding of this fundamental difference and its unique, if flawed, place in church polity. At least at an unconscious level this teaching must have stuck, continuing to influence my thinking about 'doing church', long way after I'd moved on. However this may be, the good vicar must have sensed something less than attractive in my commenting, perhaps the presumption of a liberty to offer, unsolicited, any sort of opinion at all as a layman. It woke me up, I must say, and on further reflection turned me back to look once again at doctrines once taken for granted.
 
Many years ago and after a period of neglect, as if by an invisible hand I found myself opening the books of scripture again, reminded that “the word is very near you, in your mouth, that you may observe it” (Deuteronomy 30: 14). So it boiled down to this: a necessary and inescapable search for truth, involving the willingness, and the freedom, indeed the responsibility to study and think about the scriptures for oneself, independently and untethered from accepted dogmas; to form one's own opinions on what the Bible says. 

I think that this freedom to act independently has always been a very 'Baptist' way of thinking that is not generally evident in Anglicanism. In practice, it's a freedom that might find scant support even among Baptist ministers, maybe acknowledged, but not welcome.

So where does that leave me now? Nowhere other than where I am, a regular if jaded communicant in an Anglican church, an enthusiast for traditional Anglican liturgy, wherever one can find it. I have learned, I hope, to keep my opinions to myself and at the same time to distinguish the differences that define traditions. I think also I can safely say I wouldn't be who I am without my Baptist upbringing, but it took an Anglican priest to remind me of the fact.






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Diary of a Realist: Clive James

Diary of a Realist: Clive James

Poem: “Event Horizon” (from 'Sentenced to Life' – Poems 2011-2014)

For years we fooled ourselves. Now we can tell

How everyone our age heads for the brink

Where they are drawn together into the unplumbed well,

Not to be seen again. How sad, to think

People we once loved will be with us there

And we not touch them, for it is nowhere.

But once inside, you will have no regrets,

You go where no one will remember you.

Poetic realism (or license) from a Realist?  But to see all this differently, I have chosen religious faith!   Elsewhere, the poet has a line (in 'Nina Kogan's Geometrical Heaven'):   

                                                                            

                                                       “ . . . .  any vision of eternity 

                                                        Is with us in the world, and beautiful . . . “

Faith also provides us with an undeniably 'earthly' vision of the hereafter, grounded nowhere if not in the here-and-now (dogma aside). How does the faith of a Realist react to the thought of “life after death”?  Eternity, by this reckoning may be visioned more as a relationship. Only a deep and sincere faith implicating the 'other' can make this relational, rather than an abstract. Else, fooled again!

The poet continues (in “Event Horizon”):

Into the singularity we fly

After a stretch in time in which we leave

Our lives behind yet know that we will die

At any moment now. A pause to grieve,

Burned by the starlight of our lives laid bare,

And then no sound, no sight, no thought. Nowhere.

What is it worth then, this insane last phase?

When everything about you goes downhill?

This much: you get to see the cosmos blaze

And feel it's grandeur, even against your will,

As it reminds you, just by being there,

That it is here we live, or else nowhere.

Diary of a Realist

“Miracles will never confound a Realist” (Dostoevsky), and the poet is more a Realist than anyone. Except, perhaps, a Realist with deep religious faith, “because it is not miracles that make a Realist turn to religion". A true Realist, if he is an unbeliever, “will always find the strength and the ability not to believe in a miracle (or mystery), and if faced with a miracle as an undeniable fact, he will sooner disbelieve his own senses than admit the fact”.

In a Realist, faith does not arise from the miracle, but the miracle from faith. The “miracle” of Jesus' Resurrection was believed by the Apostle Thomas – a Realist - “only because he wanted to believe, and maybe he already fully believed in his innermost heart even when he said, “except I shall see, I will not believe” (thoughts and quotations from reading Dostoevsky’s “The Brothers Karamazov”).

A True Realist

One of those crucified with Jesus, a “malefactor” who acknowledged who Jesus really was and made the request, “remember me when you come in your kingdom” (Luke 23: 42) was a Realist who deliberately elected to believe. His faith was real. In response, he was told “today, you will be with me in paradise”, that is, “remembered in Eternity”. This “good thief” chose not only to remember God with his last breath, but asked to be “remembered” by God in Eternity, in contrast to the ridiculing of the crowd and insults offered by the fellow criminal. Choosing to “fear God”, he was rewarded with “Memory Eternal” (Cf. a song or Chant from the Eastern Orthodox Christian Liturgy). The relational character of this exchange is evident in the “remembering” now, and the being “remembered” in the hereafter. Still nowhere, but Eternity? What a difference!

“I want to understand something of the truth which my heart believes and loves. I do not seek thus to understand in order to believe, but believe in order to understand.”   St Anslem of Canterbury c.1033-c.1109

The Apostle Thomas . . . believed only because he wanted to believe, and maybe he already fully believed in his his innermost heart even when he said, "except I shall see, I will not believe".          Dostoevsky "The Brothers Karamazov" 

                

 

A Quiet Moment at Erindale

Thin shafts of sun-light

Stream through assembled storm-clouds

In cold air; the Mall's wet pavements in quietness,

Undisturbed, in stillness set.

In silence and peace, where, too, my soul is at rest,

A different light diffuses; where the spirit is

There is no sound, no footprints on the pavement;

Only thin shafts of light in rarefied air.

A myriad drops of rain on the windscreen

Appear diamond-clustered, pin-points of purest gold

Transformed by lesser gleams, utter unspeakable truths

The Word incarnate: love.

Watching and waiting, inner recesses

Are by this love illuminated; neither dispersed in rain,

Chill air, or by cloud diminished; by this same

I too, have access to your house.

Ineffable light of God, uncreated Word and

Fount of life. Illumination of soul's deep,

Spirit's gift; implant of intellect and secret sense;

Beauty beyond compare.

Now dimly seen, from purest vision hid,

Your gift, desired beyond all sense and images;

Object of faith alone and kindled hope

This is my resting place where Spirit says, 'my home'!

No intellect unformed by faith informs the heart,

Nor memory when hope is its neglect

Or will, untouched by love, in truth alone

I must believe, and so, by this, to understand.

Geoff Wellings

1995

Two Stories - Dostoevsky and Christopher Keller

A Bolt From the Blue and a Blind Date

Finding “self-hood” is a principal theme in Dostoevsky's 'The Brothers Karamazov'. The attainment of freedom from “self” was the whole aim and purpose of the mystical Alyosha's early submission to the Elder as a spiritual guide. Self-renunciation was his chosen path, “to avoid the lot of those who live their whole lives without finding themselves in themselves”.

Alyosha's brothers followed very different paths in their individual search for self-hood. A “bolt from the blue” (he is wrongly accused of murdering his father) leads Dmitri (Mitya) to discover a “newly risen self . . . shut up inside him but only made manifest (remembered) by the thunderbolt of relationality let loose by his father's death”. Person-hood is only possible when the false freedom of self-willed autonomy gives way to relationality.

Confined to the “peeling walls” of his prison, Dimtri's “wild speech” is a confession to his mystic brother that “the time has come for me to pour out my soul to you. During these past two months, Alyosha, I've felt the presence of a new man in me – a new man has arisen in me!”

Dmitri has found a “self” he did not know: “he was shut up inside me, but if it weren't for this thunderbolt, he never would have appeared. Frightening! What do I care if I spend twenty years pounding out ore in the mines, I'm not afraid of that at all, but I'm afraid of something else now: that this risen man not depart from me! Even there, in the mines, underground, you can find a human heart in the convict and murderer standing next to you, and you can be close to him, because there, too, it's possible to live, and love, and suffer! You can revive and resurrect the frozen heart in this convict, you can look after him for years, and finally bring up from the cave into the light a soul that is lofty now, a suffering consciousness. You can revive an angel, resurrect a hero! And there are many of them, there are hundreds, and we're all guilty for them!

“Because everyone is guilty for everyone else . . . I'll go for all of them, because there must be someone who will go for all of them. I didn't kill father, but I must go I accept! All of this came to me here . . . within these peeling walls. And there are many, there are hundreds of them, underground, with hammers in their hands. Oh, yes, we'll be in chains, and there will be no freedom, but then, in our grief, we will arise once more into joy, without which it's not possible for man to live, or for God to be, for God gives joy, it's his prerogative, a great one . . .

“And it seems to me there's so much in me now that I can overcome everything, all sufferings, only in order to say and tell myself every moment: I am! In a thousand torments – I am; writhing under torture – but I am. Locked up in a tower, but still I exist, I see the sun, and if I don't see the sun, still I know it is. And the whole of life is there – in knowing the sun is . . . “

“A Future Full of Hope”

 

God's Plan: “A Future Full of Hope”

This is what God says through the prophet Jeremiah: “For I know the plans I have in mind for you – it is the Lord who speaks – plans for peace and not disaster, a future full of hope” (Jeremiah 29: 11).

Jeremiah was the prophet who voiced the “word of the Lord” ratifying a new covenant for the house of Israel, to be established “by putting my laws in their hearts and minds . . . I shall be their God and they shall be my people”. This was understood by Saint Augustine “to be a prophecy of the Jerusalem above, whose 'reward' is God himself” - symbolic of the Jerusalem in heaven. But it references also “Jerusalem called the city of God”, the house of God in that city which had its fulfillment when King Solomon built the temple there.

The human society – the earthly city - represented by Augustine's City of God had (and has) an unremittingly bleak outlook, but “Christianity offers mankind a hope besides which the gloom of the human condition is as nothing . . . always hopeful and, in the deepest sense optimistic.” On the other hand, “Augustine's discussion of the afterlife does not establish a clear picture of what awaits, but instils expectant hope, while nurturing the faith and trust that will enable the hopeful to accept what they find. The weakness of the human mind and its language are just too great in the face of the greatest mysteries. Theology can only instil reverence and leave behind a residue of hope.” As with that other mystery of the faith, the Trinity – the three-personed deity of Christian belief – we must be content “that it is so”. Some things just are beyond comprehension. 
 
George Herbert, a 17th century poet/priest of exceptional spiritual insight, attempted a deeper consideration of the mind of God: 

       I threatened to observe the strict decree

       of my dear God with all my power and might; 

       But I was told by one it could not be;

       Yet I might trust in God to be my light.

       “Then I will trust,” said I, “in Him alone.”

       “Nay, e'en to trust Him was also His:

      We must confess that nothing is our own.”

       “Then I confess that he my succour is”.

       “But to have nought is ours, not to confess 

      That we have nought.” I stood amazed at this,

      Much troubled, till I heard a friend express

      That all things were more ours by being His;

      What Adam had, and forfeited for all,

      Christ keepeth now, who cannot fail or fall.       (The Holdfast)

Realizing the impossibility of following to the letter the “strict decree” the poet said he opted to simply “trust God to be my light”. Even “trust”, however, was not the answer because “we must confess that nothing is our own”; yet even this confession avoided the bedrock truth: through Christ “having nothing” is, spiritually speaking, to have all (not to own all) because “all” is kept safe for us by the grace of God and “more ours by being his”. Or, as St Paul said, he heard the Lord say to him: “My grace is sufficient for you”. (2 Cor. 12: 10).

A 14^th Century writer with lofty spiritual ideals, Thomas A Kempis (d.1263), warned of the dangers inherent in aspiring to achieve spiritual 'perfection'. “Some”, he wrote in The Imitation of Christ, “presumptuous because of the grace of devotion, have destroyed themselves, because they have wished to do more than they were able, (preferring) to follow their heart's impulse than the judgments of reason”. He maintained that the intentions (intuitions) of the faithful depend more on the grace of God than on their own wisdom, “for in him to do they put their trust, whatsoever they take in hand”. 
 
Many devout Christians believe, and see very clearly, God's Will for their life. Some may eventually doubt this and reach the conclusion that they have “blown it”, thinking themselves spiritual failures. “Bible Life Coach”, Sheri Rose Shepherd (Sheri Rose Shepherd) has posted discreet advice to counter this misconception: “You, my beautiful friend, are not that powerful!” Human expectations are sometimes a bridge too far; there are mysteries beyond our understanding.

“The way of a man is not in himself” (Jeremiah 10.23), so we put no trust in the flesh, as St Paul tells the Corinthians: “I will all the more gladly boast (confess?) my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me”. “Left to myself I am nothing. Thou look upon me, I am made strong.” “It is God's to give and console, when he will and as much as he will, and whom he will, as much as it please him, and no more . . .” The Imitation of Christ (Chapter VIII)

We can never say that we have “blown” anything, since our apparent failures are all part of God's plan for our lives; if we never stumbled we would not experience the recovery that faith facilitates when, despite all, and having put our trust in him, we know “that in all things God works for the good of those who have been called according to his purpose.” Romans 8. 28. 
 

None of this is to deny the witness of scripture, that there is in God's plan for every human person a purpose, indeed for the whole world, “a future full of hope”. This is a promise that, taken personally and sincerely in faith, has the potential to radically alter the direction, indeed the end, of any life. The grace of God is ours for the taking on the basis of trust: “in him we move and have our being” (Acts 17.28). 
 
Prior to his recent death after a long illness a distinguished historian had this advice to others who are dying: “If you are, like me, faced with a terminal illness and Christian, you have been given the opportunity to prepare yourself to meet your creator. Be thankful that you have not died suddenly. You have been privileged and it is important that you should make use of this grace to set your affairs in order.” 

A Franciscan saint is quoted as saying “in books we seek God, in prayer we find him. Prayer is the door that opens God's heart” - whereby we accept God's mysterious will and purpose for our lives.

Geoff Wellings - October 2016.
 
 

 

 

beyondblue: Depression and the Desert Monks

When I read about Jeff Kennett's work with beyondblue (The WeekendAustralian Magazine, 17-18^th September 2016) as founder of an advocacy group to support people with depression, it reminded me of studies I had undertaken many years ago on monastic practices in Egypt and the writings of John Cassian (c.360-c.433). I summarized my essay in these terms: “The spirituality of John Cassian is as relevant today as it was for those desert Christians who engaged in spiritual warfare with their own natures. The struggle is never more acute than when threatened by acedia, against which the will and the 'whole person' must be unified in resistance.” Acedia was considered the most dangerous vice afflicting desert monks and there are parallels between “weariness of heart” and the modern-day affliction we know as “depression”, described by Kennett in his own terms to include: “lack of a purpose in life”, and ultimately, “hope”. Cassian could only agree: "the principle is simply this: no work, no satisfaction; no goals, no achievement; no self-discipline, no peace of mind'.

To compare religio/social conditions in fourth century Egypt and modern society may seem unwarranted, but there is much psychologically in common between the eras. The collapse of Rome in the Fourth-Fifth Century AD sent shock-waves across the Western Empire and saw many thousands of men and women fleeing into the desert regions of Egypt to find sanctuary from the unprecedented strife and collapse of civil society. Cassian was not himself a monk, but ventured into the then thriving eremite (monastic) communities of the upper Nile region to discover for himself the nature of a phenomenon that had widespread repercussions for the development and spread of Christianity in the period following the retreat from Rome in the wake of the barbaric invasions from the North and East (Goths,Vandals).

Were they our contemporaries, we might well hear those former companions and cell-mates, John Cassian (c.360-c.433) and Germanos, discussing their experiences among the solitaries in terms of a journey of self-discovery, “as if they had arrived not so much at a new place, as a new accommodation with their own natures”. For us, far removed from any Skete or similar place of solitude, the habitual locus of our spiritual journey might be not so much a place as a new accommodation with our inner selves – our “cell”. In modern thought, the solitary's cell perhaps equates more to what Thomas Merton termed the “unified human person”, for indeed in Merton’s unpublished work, “The Inner Experience”, there seems much with a familiar 'ring' to it: a re-integration of the personality “into a co-ordinated and simple whole” may quite adequately define the essence of Cassian's spirituality in general, and acedia in particular.

Cassian's monk, afflicted with “weariness of heart” (acedia), has all the features of one living a distracted, fragmented and compartmentalized existence. Cassian's remedy is to refocus on the forgotten objective, “which is nothing else than the vision and contemplation of that divine purity which excels all things. This can only be gained in silence, by continually remaining in one's cell , and by meditation.” Here, restated, is the monk's ultimate goal: the kingdom of God, and his immediate purpose, purity of heart.

For the monk who cherishes above all else that solitude wherein his soul is accommodated in pure contemplation, the worst thing that can happen to him is to lose his love of solitude. For that reason, the most dangerous of the “vices” described by Cassian is that of acedia; it is the very end, because it entices a monk to give up and leave his cell. Nevertheless, “a state of deep peace and inexpressible joy” still awaits the monk who wills to resist, who engages the enemy and finally triumphs. This battle, this struggle to overcome weariness of heart with all its features of distraction, delusion and despondency, is for the monk indeed crucial; all his energies must be concentrated in keeping his mind and heart fixed on the goal.

For those whose most compelling undertaking in life is the spiritual journey, Cassian's teaching on acedia remains both relevant and important. The practical issues addressed b y him include many modern day afflictions: laziness, boredom, restlessness and lack of objectivity or purpose. One may start well toward spiritual “perfection”, but for reasons scarcely understood or even recognized, capitulate when the aim and purpose of the struggle becomes too obscure. Cassian's teaching is of practical benefit in deepening understanding of our human nature, and discovering ways of overcoming our frailties. We may work tirelessly, or even joyfully, in striving for our ultimate goal (whatever it may be), yet still give up when the going gets rough!

In Cassian we see an emphasis on the practical spirituality first systematized by his mentor, Evagrius. for Cassian, the spiritual life has a “compelling connection with the daily life of the individual”. It is this insistence on the active, rather than theoretical, life of contemplation that provides the essence of his spirituality, which is seen as spiritual warfare arising from the antagonisms in man's nature between 'flesh' and 'spirit': “man's will is balance between opposing forces, wishing to achieve the highest without toil and suffering. . . in a word, to be pure and lazy. This vital role of the will is made more acute by engaging in appropriate manual work, which is one way to ensure that the will is permitted the luxury of satisfying neither the 'flesh', nor the exercise of the will.

Cassian's stress on the value of manual labor serves to remind us that work is not only useful in order to provide for one's material needs, but also by its intrinsic value work contributes to the spirits well-being as well as mind and body. work enables us to avoid dependence on others, and at the same time provide for the necessarily dependent on us. It also permits us to direct our efforts outwardly in charitable service, as well as inwardly: doing that “other” work which is reading of the scriptures and prayer, meditation and the contemplation of “things invisible” - the opusDei. Humble work predisposes the mind for humble prayer.

The link between work and spiritual health is further developed in Cassian's commentary on the Apostle Paul's letter to the Thessalonians. Without resorting to the Pauline extremes – in our day those who do not work are still fed and clothed! - there are nevertheless important points in this discussion from which we can benefit. The principle is simply this: no work, no satisfaction; no goals, no achievement; no self-discipline, no peace of mind.

There are even more practical issues in the Pauline letter, bearing on ways and means of overcoming the temptations to idle, the evil that is seen as the root cause of acedia. At least three remedies are proposed which seem more appropriate than ever in these modern times: firstly, “take pains to be quiet”, suggesting the value of guarding the heart (detachment) from the trivia and empty distractions of the world; secondly, “do your own business”, a warning about involvement in affairs that do not concern us, and forming inappropriate relationships simply out of curiosity or even avarice; and thirdly, “work with your hands”, meaning humble work that involves both mind and body; work that may not even be necessary or demanded, but performed, like Abbot Paul, “simply to purify his heart, to strengthen his thoughts, persevere in his cell, and to overcome and expel acedia”.

Aussie Bloke - Commentary

“Aussie Bloke” - or The Lonely Male

“Man Up – the old Aussie bloke”: Trent Dalton's Story -http://www.theaustralian.com.au/author/Trent%20Dalton 11^th June 2016

“Those guys had life figured out because they had to figure it out to survive”. Exactly what “figured out” meant for this mythical “Aussie bloke” remains obscure since survival in my experience simply meant staying out of trouble, making the most of whatever breaks life offered and pretending the rest was not worth worrying about. Self-image was the concern of essentially weak characters, the false heroes who, if their manhood was in question, sought to prove themselves with unsociable behavior, perhaps excessive use of alcohol or deeds of daring aimed to impress. The true hero with nothing to prove, the genuine "Aussie bloke" perhaps, was more often conspicuous by his absence.

The “Aussie” male nowadays, it seems, is a troubled soul. He has an identity problem too, or at least that is the gist as I understand it of Dalton's story, or "gender narrative".  Anti-social behavior, violence and self-harm are common problems along with loss of self-respect endemic for many. Alpha and Beta “types” are adumbrated and contrasted but a sense of alienation  becomes apparent: King Lear's “who is it here who can tell me who I am?"

The popular profiling of males nowadays as either “alpha” or “beta” suggests not just a dichotomy of attitudes and behavior, but for Dylan, whose anecdotal story Dalton relates here, a hoped-for dual personae is presumed as the most desirable state. But who can live in different, antithetical spaces?  Not for mere mortals “a mind not to be changed by place or time” (John Milton's Satan); the difficulty lies in trying to reconcile the two along with all the inner conflicts that arise from that attempt.

How does the lonely Male recover himself? Where is his redemption coming from? Not from within the mystery of the in-between spaces of the mind, neither one thing or the other: oscillating between alpha male, self-confident, disciplined, action man, possibly also hard as nails; and beta male, kind, caring, deferring to others, not afraid of his emotions, a 'softy'. Its an escape into an abstraction, a shadow, a myth.

Enter the "Lonely Male": lonely, even if not alone, like the indecisive and deeply troubled Willie Loman in Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman”, with “all the wrong dreams, all, all, wrong . . . the man did not not know who he was” or perhaps Hamlet, facing “conflicts within himself when his indecisiveness becomes as agonizing as the corruption surrounding him” (Bedford Literature notes, Boston USA 199). 

As a profile of the most desirable type of male for today's world, this gender-twisting is no more than a caricature. Characteristics responsible for individuality are innumerable and the glory of our humanness. Everyone is different. However modified by time and experience, one's uniqueness is the sum of all the inherited or acquired traits we carry through life. Choices are made, but nothing is just black and white; one lives within one's own skin with all its variability.

The problem with the "gender narrative" is its disconnect with the social fabric of society; with only a fixed star to guide, a gender-specific objective, the individual is denied the dignity of just being himself, his own person. He is made out to be merely a "type" within the popular imagination. The Lonely Male is born again. Self-realization is the ultimate objective of all; but to know who I am, rather than who or what I should be, is more important than reaching for the stars.

“Phenocracy: Going Off the Genetic Rails” - Stephen H Balch

“Phenocracy: Going Off the Genetic Rails” - Stephen H Balch

Stephen H Balch is Director of the Texas Tech Institution for the Study of Western Civilization. printed in Quadrant, June 2016. Phenotype: noun Biology: the set of observable characteristics of an individual resulting from interaction of its genotype with the environment. Genotype: noun Biology: the genetic constitution of an individual organism – ODE

What Price Virtual Reality?

I'm not ready for “VR”. I certainly have no wish to “freak out” like the Grandmother mentioned in this morning's newspaper. At 80 (also a “Grand”) Ive seen enough 'real' reality without need for Virtual Reality (phenocracy's new, endless frontier), or any other means of contrived excitement. I can do without imagined catastrophes as much as I can do without unremarkable and ubiquitous little disasters in the kitchen.

Nevertheless, there is one tangibility that surprises me continually: I'm alive! Beyond expectations! Its just my private, personal little drama, and whilst I acknowledge modern medicine for keeping me that way (it has my thanks), I've also had my share of good fortune, health-wise. I admit I'm an optimist, and very grateful for all the good things that have come my way in life. Not that its been entirely a 'breeze', my bits of pain and suffering have been real enough but there's not a lot of comfort in being reminded that pain and suffering helps keep me alive. Without pain and suffering how would one know to seek help? As night follows day and effect follows cause, I accept that there are well-worn paths on my genetic map to ensure most of life's challenges are met full-on, not always for my personal convenience, of course (genetic assets tend to look after themselves first).

The Phenocracy does not see the most desirable outcomes in the same way. Not satisfied with doing all that great work keeping us alive, making life easier, so-called cutting-edge science as also progressive thinkers, strive to stretch the boundaries of nature, ever researching, reading the genetic road-map in order to bring us a whole new world of surprises and dare I say drama. However, what makes for 'real' is in danger of being submerged in a sea of bright – very dark, really – ideas that suggests pain and suffering is not all that necessary for life. The vision is of a life enjoyed in uninterrupted joy and pleasure. If disappointed, no matter, VR will provide the appropriate illusion at the touch of a button. It is well within the capabilities of Homo sapiens, no matter how hazardous or novel, to reconstruct outcomes for maximizing pleasure without pain. All can be altered to fit the ideal, but that 'ideal', so called, is an abstraction.

With so many options unavailable to other organisms, humans have the capability to conceive a vast variety of means to achieve their chosen goals: “ . . . generally valuable in a genetic sense, (this) also opens the door to something completely novel and biologically hazardous: the ability to reconstruct life strategies to maximize pleasures and minimize pains, whatever the consequences for reproductive fitness. When this kind of behavioral pattern begins to dominate the organization of a human society, “phenocracy”, the rule of the phenotype, is born.” Stephen Balch believes life in the West is rapidly being reorganized along just these lines.

The Phenotype is a threat to humanity, he says, “because the intellectual landscape of modernity is replete with 'phenotypicthinking'. The corollary is the drive for genetic success: but as humans we are, far beyond any other creature, more than a function of our genes. Phenocracy is not . . .simply a material matter – satiated organisms parasitical on their genomes. It also has its intellectual side, since inverted natural relations cry out for justification. The intellectual landscape is replete with phenotypic thinking”.

But why worry over actual consequences? “There's a growing virtual realm out there, phenocracy's new, endless frontier. While the world of gaming hands out both victory and defeat, rewards and punishments, its signature is riskless heroism, conquest without courage, athleticism without injury, all the ups and few of the downs of conflict and combat. Virtual endangerment fills a vacuum as phenocratic societies become more and more risk averse - “GrandTheft Auto” for kids not allowed onto the street alone. “. . . for those seeking lofty achievement pain and gain have been inseparably joined. As “virtuality” supercedes reality, phenocracy strips the first from the second. Does this build character, stamina, grit? We'll know whenever the machine stops.”

Donkey Holiness

"Donkey Holiness"

(there is always more)

"Every firstling of an ass you shall redeem with a lamb" - Exodus 13.13

From this Passover passage in Exodus the idea emerges that in the redemptive scheme of things there lies hidden beneath appearances, within the essence of living things, a depth of holiness such that despite the awfulness and squalor of man's seemingly 'lost' condition, there is a redeeming intent that suggests the world is not condemned to perdition. There is always more.

In the Passover story 'kosher' animals along with first-born sons were to be redeemed by the sacrifice of a lamb, but an ass is not 'kosher', it is an unclean animal and therefore not worthy of redemption. Yet "every firstling of an ass" was to be redeemed along with all that was holy.

Elsewhere in Old Testament prophecy the Messianic Age would be ushered in by "a pauper riding on a donkey" (Zechariah 9.9). As a prophetic allusion to Palm Sunday, possibly more apparent than real, Jesus' triumphal entrance into Jerusalem on just such an animal nevertheless becomes a symbol of lowliness and poverty (John 12. 12-15). A Jewish Rav (Rabbi)says, "let the Messiah come that I might sit in the shadow of his donkey's dung"#.  Israel, "holy to the Lord", for all her unworthiness, believed redeemed, regardless.

There is much more to come. Despite the hopelessness of crass materialism and poverty of spiritual aspiration in our world, there is yet reason to expect the unexpected. Good must come out of evil because "God is not mocked"; the worst we can do or be is not beyond the hand of Almighty God to show mercy vide Psalm 130. There is always more!

# Chanan Morrison c.2013: "Sapphire from the Land of Istrael"  (Abraham Isaac HaKohen Kook).

        

Easter Story

Easter Season 2016 – A Personal Story

“Jesus came and stood among them” (John 20: 19b).

The Easter Season reminds me how unmistakably God makes his presence felt especially in time of need. In illness, disappointment, hurt, uncertainty, loss of friends or family; in fact in all life's difficulties, as in our joys. In the regular Easter gospel readings we see how Jesus made himself 'present' to his Disciples and others close to him in miraculous ways after his Resurrection. I have a vivid memory of an occasion when the Presence of the Lord was unmistakable. Miraculously, too, I think.

I was nine years old when my father died. I was awakened early one morning by our Pastor's wife to be told the devastating news. During the night Dad had suffered a heart attack whilst bicycling to start his shift at the local Power Station. “Daddy”, she informed me in her quiet way, “has gone to be with Jesus”.

What happened after that was a little more confusing as people, some strangers but mostly relatives and friends, began arriving at our home to offer their consolations. Not unusually, my parent's conversations were couched in religious terms, which I didn't always follow. However, young as I was, I did sense somehow God's 'presence' at that time. It was a very real experience which I have never forgotten.

One phrase I remembered from overhearing the adults talking, and no doubt in their prayers too, came from the Psalms (KJV 116: 15, a favorite portion): “Precious in the eyes of the Lord is the death of his saints”. I have returned to that verse on many occasions over the years. I don't know whether my father was a 'saint' – many seemed to think so – but it is a Psalm-verse familiar to many from the Psalter.

However one wants to understand such an odd statement, one thing remains clear: the assurance that God watches over each and every one of us continually and each soul is “precious”; of inestimable value to our creator. One interpretation of  "precious" suggests "death is too costly". In death, as in life, “absent from the body, present with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5: 8), another verse sometimes used in the Church's liturgy for funeral services.

I accepted that my father was safe “in the keeping of the Lord”, but more importantly, our Heavenly Father, God, was truly present to our family then, as so often since. Dad died many years ago – more than 70 in fact – but for me it might have been yesterday. As the Easter season reminds us, the sense of God's presence is truly a miracle!