On the Last Things

 

There is no Heaven above. Heaven surrounds us in the most literal sense, and so does Hell. Alive on this precious sphere rotating amid the exploding stars we imagine vertical space: ladders; ascendents; as above, so below. Where were you, when the worlds were formed? They’re still forming.

Advent: Heaven, Hell, Death, Judgement. The Kingdom of Heaven is within us. Why do the nations furiously rage together? Why, inflicting hell on earth? We might find God’s judgement more just than our own. Not yet Christmas bells.

Funeral bells tolling for departed souls; so many. Each person leaving everything, everyone. “This night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?” I count seven friends lost in as many months, as bellringers prepare to ring in the New Year. I go to the cemetery to place flowers for family now in the realm of the ancestors; the communion of saints: so many. All ages. Now in the hands of God. As we rush towards the coming of Our Saviour, we understand we need to be saved. The Jews say of the dead, “May his memory be for a blessing.” Have you so lived?

On All Saints and All Souls

 

Allhallowtide. Staging the passages of grief in the season of diminishment, sensing the presence of the dead among us. It mirrors the Easter Triduum of Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Resurrection Sunday.

Halloween, now a children’s costume party, invokes the ghosts that accompany the living:  months, years, decades after a death. Ghosts of the mind bringing fresh torrents of sorrow. It’s suitable that children, symbols of new life, be given food that pacifies ghosts.

All Saints celebrates those of exceptional holiness, whether they are closer to God, or God is closer to them: perhaps it’s a mutual embrace. Saints are guides through the wilderness of grief, making sacred the way before us. St. John of the Cross, for example, illuminates The Dark Night of the Soul.

All Souls means you, me, him, her, they, and them. All sinners, all forgiven. This is a terrifying thought, Christ embracing the whole world.  Who should not be forgiven? It’s a warm feeling, and a cold thought.

I’ve known six deaths in less than six months this year, some close, some distant. Ghosts of the past are constant companions. The Holy Land is currently a field of deaths. Dear God, Hallowed be Thy Name.

On The Voice

 

We are enjoined to vote about a Voice. A Voice from the Indigenous peoples of this land to the Parliament, to be enshrined in the Constitution from which their voices have been silent. This is prophetic business. There are many voices in the Bible. Among them John, crying in the wilderness; the Shepherd naming the sheep; the “daughter of a voice” speaking to the prophets; the voices of the prophets themselves.

The Voice has opponents. “Society won’t accept this.” But we are society. “The voters won’t vote for it.” But we are the voters. “The courts will be filled with it.” Yes, we know you’ll try. “It’s racist.” On the contrary, it’s racist not to do it. “It’s not enough, not perfect.” The perfect is the enemy of the good. “What if it fails?” Does it help win a fight by expecting to lose? “It’s confusing.” Who takes the first step without aiming for a destination? Clarity is found by seeking.

The Yes campaign appeals to reason; the No campaign to fear. Fear is thought to be good public relations. But the word of an angel is always: “Fear not.” Prophetic business. We can be prophets. We can vote Yes.

On Extra-Virgin

 

Having retired from a job I dearly loved (with a cordially confronting commute), I ask, “What am I now?” Unemployed, superannuated, out-of-date? Retired, relaxed, rewarded?  Consider the comparatives: old and wise or young and bright; young and foolish or old and slow; senior or junior with adult default; elder or juvenile; young and scruffy or old and worn out. As if there’s an ideal age in a world afire with change.

          A bottle of olive oil says “young and fruity” but wine, “aged in the cask”. That’s about it, I think. This bottle is “extra-virgin”. Consider the implications of that. Maybe we have an extra-virgin world, as we learn so little from history. The hulks that provided convicts for Sydney plan to reopen in England with refugees; fans welcome fascist politicians as if no World War was fought.  Nothing won forever. “Then came the generation that knew not Joseph.”

            As for me, young or old and beautiful depends on how you deploy the light. There are some things only time will prove. Reliability, friendship, quality. Good in the beginning, better the longer they last. I could be old and quirky; I’d like to be old and cool.

 

On Incremental Ways

 

The paperwhites are suddenly in bloom again. Suddenly, as we didn’t see the incremental progression, bulb to leaf to flower, or didn’t pay attention. Mathematics takes account of small changes, positive or negative, with big effects. Increments matter. Buildings need to stand. Medicines need to cure. It’s said the accuracy of the cosmos is far greater than can be explained by random chance.

Incremental plastics choke the oceans. Incremental insults poison governments. Little views of violence, little acts of greed. And incremental ways can make you grow. A drawing a day makes a portfolio; 200 words on the page makes a book; 10 minutes in the can makes a film; one lap of the track makes a race. Eventually. Don’t let the eventualness of incrementalness hold you back.

An incremental past is the result of many small decisions, even seeming sudden. An incremental future is arriving faster than you realise. Things change all around you and you change too. Look at photos even 5 years old. You can learn to wobble; you can learn to sketch. You can make a new beginning with everybody, incrementally. A kind word each day polishes your soul. “Thou God seest me.”

On New News

 

So much of what passes for news is not news. Lifestyle, publicity, disease of the week. Speculation on speculative finance. Propaganda, a feature since the tracts of the 16^th century if not the Roman walls. Currying fears, stoking angers, preening envies. Fake news is the lie direct, beloved of politicians and celebrities.

 You know why you absorb it. To see what’s going on, find connection, belong to the bigger picture. News tries to put this across. Still, if you can discuss the gloomy and frightful with yourself so much, surely you can find some light and love to ruminate too. What if you forgave yourself for every embarrassing and witless thing you ever published, speechified, or performed? It simplifies life.

The New Testament is new news. Many complicated explanations come forth around the miraculous healings, but what people are seeking is direct physical cure. “If you will, make me clean.” “Lord, that I might receive my sight.” “If I might touch but the hem of his garment…” People walk, leap, see, speak, recover their right mind, stand up after near-death, even death experiences. What maintains this today? New news. We can be part of the cure. “I will, be clean.”

On Productivity

 

The King has waited all his life for the work or destiny decided before his birth. But so have others. Those with genetic diseases, for example, a decision made at the time of conception. And one unknown perhaps for years, coming astonishingly as a sudden strike. Those who inherit unexpectedly from a will written without their knowledge. Those who unexpectedly fail to inherit.

Productivity. A process of time. And our role it. And a mystery. Does productivity mean we’re a product? Not necessarily something for sale, but something resulting. Resulting from many processes, acts and events. Something productive is that which produces.

This leaves us with what to produce. Lift-off takes a lot of energy. Some birds have to eat their own weight every day to keep up. Looking back at life, we cared so much about so many temporary things. So much time consumed in entertainment. Something to furnish our thoughts.

 What will we produce? What processes, acts, and events will we nourish or discourage? What results from our motivations and desires? More stress, ambition, confusion, casting of wide nets? Or more clarity, understanding, acceptance, and peace? More love, consideration, and care. Be productive. Love more.

On the Distance

 

When I was little, my mother had me on a harness, the perfect way to keep me from getting lost in crowds. So a shopping trip was a child walk. I could skip to the limits and then come back. This was going the distance, then.

Like walking the talk, going the distance implies commitment. Pretty securely, you can’t do it without help. Everything in life is hanging by a thread, so the most important words you’ll hear come from the angels you’ll meet. Fear Not.

Others, not so angelic, build fears. Both religious and areligious types may say it’s your fault. Or you deserve it. Or what did you expect? Or, it’s going to end badly. They direct your attention to the travails of those who let you down. Suggest a loss of faith, strength, direction. Talk up the expectations.

My friends seem to have forgiven my many limitations and mistakes, very few of them deliberate, but often attempts to get under control situations that cannot by their nature be controlled. So natural. Talking the walk will be kinder to you. Seeing the distance with you.

The best words are thanking words. Thank you.  Deo Gratias.

On Responsible Thinking

 

Whoever you are now, you’re not what you were. If something turns out tragically, can you blame yourself for trying?

If you front up in church you’ve already apologized to God. Some Christian gods are more judgemental than others. Some are ruthless, some too easy-going. Are you worshipping the jealous god or the plentiful in mercy? Or one that looks more like a mirror?

General Admin cleanup: Mrs. G. hasn’t lived here for 15 years. Still gets mail from government: do I return to sender? Ten percent off anything you’ve ever bought. Appeals from causes to which you once drew attention to yourself. Crises and disasters you were tangentially involved with but can’t relieve yourself of guilt. Things you ought to have done that you did not do, however long ago. The failings of others. Antique notifications of this and that. The complete story on installation of solar power. Political messages from everywhere. The innocuous and the incautious.

Is there a statute of limitations on regrets? Do we even have a right to get over it? Do we still have to solve it, when the pieces lie in fragments on the floor?

Hand it on. Less responsible thinking; more prayer.

 

On Not So Perfect

 

Euphemisms and platitudes. Hanging around on social media with all the bad news, celebrations and currying of fears, plus assumptions and expectations. The passive voice is a grammatical vice. Real help is specific IMHO.

 Those “experiencing” envy are many and some are already exceedingly rich. See Decalogue 10. On the other hand, most sins are not very interesting; so often they’re so much the same. What is interesting is the good stuff you do that you don’t know about. A lot of what you try to get away from is ingrained and so is part of you. Some of it holds surprisingly great results.

It's not so perfect, though. What if ‘perfect’ meant ‘wholeness’, ‘completeness’, “containing multitudes”? Not ‘perfect’ as frozen in time; time doesn’t freeze. Good for today might be doubtful tomorrow. Faultless is subject to change. Imperfect gives you room to move.

After spending most of my life trying to be lighter, stretching towards the heavens, I now seem to want to be heavier, sinking at each step towards the earth. Weightier, more relaxed and more peaceful. Making life lower. Simplifying striving. Making two steps out of one.

The world will be saved by smallness.

On Philosophical Daydreams

 

When the past looks at you what does it see? Does it feel good about its results with you or believe it’s done its proper job? Does it see room for improvement: how can it become a better past? Maybe it could be a worse past, maybe it really screwed up. Maybe it was a normal past.

We keep hearing about the new normal. Normal is not what came before nor likely what came after. What we’re observing is the normal normal. We think the current circumstances are stable but in fact they constantly change so in ten years you won’t recognise where you were. This applies across the board. Globally, the challenge between the past and the future shows up the fragility, not only of democracy, but of all existing systems. Things must change and are changing, but this is not a handsome process. Personally, we look at last decade’s selfie then look at the mirror: how did this happen? The cost of living is not what it costs to live.

What’s in the house with you? I live with a greyhound, fine and fast. I live with some ideas, too, maybe some are new. Or maybe only normal.