On March Motivations

 ‘Motivation’ refers to a Latin word meaning ‘a moving cause’. It implies a willingness to act; the cause directs the movement. It differs from ‘purpose’ which sets the aim. Purpose is the reason something is done: theme, goal, design. War is an archetype, according to Jung’s psychology, and our reactions to war follow a pattern, deep in the human mind, still evoked by Homer and Euripides. Is the cause the war, or the war the cause?

“What is truth?” Pilate inquires. In antiquity, as today, power claims truth. There was the father’s power, the gods’ power, the Emperor’s power. When Jesus appears, transfigured, with Moses and Elijah, his power is attested by the company he keeps. He speaks to Pilate as witness to the truth: this is an act of power. (We have a clash of truths). At Emmaus, Jesus directs his survivors “that repentaunce and remission of synnes shulde be preached in his name amonge all nacions. And the begynnynge must be at Jerusalem”.(Luke 24:47. Tyndale).

Now, in the Middle East, we have a clash of powers. War shows its motivating and purposed powers. War is an archetype. But so is peace. “And the beginning must be at Jerusalem.”

 

On February Fantasies

Everybody is fantastic. Even the fantasy-merchants are hard to imagine. Where everything is for sale, the price is fantastic, the deal is fantastic, the cost most fantastic of all.

There’s a fantasy of the laws, protections, authorities, governments. Jesus of Nazareth knew this well. “The kings of the nations are their lords, and they who rule over them are called Benefactors.”¹

Where everything is for sale, as in February, the rulers of nations define their fantasies as blessings.

Dig lower, fly higher. It’s all good. Good boys.

There’s a fantasia. A fantasia on health, on security, on single-mindedness. ‘Divisive’ is a fantastic word, we must be united while dividing up the world, the wealth, and the devil’s brew.

Technology is fantastic, obsolete in a decade. A fantasia on time. Time however is limited, a boundary encircles our lives; this is no fantasy but a thing that exists, even in February, itself a strange construction of time and the cosmos.

If moderation knows our limits, and greed is not so good, the real becomes our treasure. What is real is close to our hearts. It can’t be blurred by fantasy. Not even in February.

1Luke 22:25. Aramaic Bible in Plain English 

On January Journals

 

Journals come by day. Or day by day. Witnessing, authenticating, recording, against the day, hour, moment of rendering accounts. Everyone’s trying to correct the past. But these mistakes and confusions are only small eddies, little whirlpools in the midst of a long fluency in the ever-flowing river of time.

There are limitations. A quarter of a century has left the 20^th behind, and all our errors can stay there too. How embarrassing! That’s so 20^th century.

Journals record the present, good and bad, strong and weak, honourable and miserable. It’s hard to be good at everything, mostly you have to choose. Prioritise kindness, but sympathy is not the same thing; help can be ambiguous. Practice discernment as a skill.

The poet Basho said the masters make more mistakes than others. Because bold. And recovery is an art. Retrieval, rescue, resilience. Anyway you were there; thereness is to be appreciated. Histories are everywhere, crossing and retreating, pulsing and crumbling, histories of stars and nations, individuals and companions, animals, buildings, trees, ideas, oceans. I remember a fraught conversation once (that’s so 20^th century!) interrupted by the comment: “Here we sit, in the midst of eternity.”

It is good, Lord, to be here.

On December Desires

 

While November is the ghost month, December directs our desires: not mourning the old, but embracing the new. Increasingly, the newer and newest of the new. It’s clearly to be seen from the general December environment: secular, retailistic, benevolent (hopefully), expectant (optimistically), crowded, noisy, exhausting. Seeking desires is wearying, because desire is endless.

If I crawl out from under the pile of December demands and expectations, I seem to be still the same person, self-absorbed, flawed, repeating constantly the same mistakes and misperceptions.

The ability to desire is more than instinct. My dog wants a bone; my cat wants a mouse. Humanity, however, is able to imagine more abstract desires put into practice: peace on earth, good will towards men. (There’s no good will towards mice in the cat world.) Yet we continue with these endless mistakes and misperceptions.

Desires for land, resources, prominence, authority, domination, salvation (of others), haven’t changed since Roman times.

I mention Rome because in the days of Caesar Augustus a census was taken, which included the least of subjects, a little child, to be known as the Desire of all Nations, (to those who could see). From all blindness of heart, Good Lord, deliver us.

On November Nocturnes

Have you ever met, in lucid dreams, someone from the distant past, looking as old as you are now, surrounded in light? Did you apologise for what you did? Did the light fracture? What called this visitation? Did you know you could not have done otherwise? November is the ghost month.

 All Souls Day. One place these souls now inhabit is memory. Since ghosts are travelling with us, it’s ungracious to deny them a blessing. How exhausting to be a ghost! Ghosts of those who detracted and hurt me; ghosts of unfriends. This could be the month of ghosts resting.  Rest in peace.

The past is a mountain, and we are mountain climbers.

You are owed nothing after raising this ghost and so troubling others, a kind of incantation. You are more than the wrongs you have caused. The past will settle by itself; consequences fall out by chance or design. You are worth many sparrows.

You are now forgiven for being a witness, a victim, or collateral damage. Forgiveness means - when vengeance seems proper – you write off the debt. The Lord, for example, is plenteous in mercy. So you may forgive your ghosts, (dead by definition), or not. 

On October Occasions

 

October, my birth month, brings reflection. Entering an era of realising how much I don’t need. Responsibilities I’ve outgrown, inheritances I can no longer carry, impressions of a lengthy past that either stands accusing or seems exactly like a dream. Not a dream, but a story.

I rescue an English teacher’s words: “We’re not tragic heroes of literature; we are comedians.” We’re not King Lear, at best, we can aspire to Don Quixote. I find this more comforting with each passing year. To be conscious of failing is actually good for you. To have laid one brick in the path that leads to perdition – but only one brick. To weigh it up: If this happened in the past, something else must happen in the future, if you want balance.

To view the occasions: enigmatic events, tainted times, instant inspirations — casting light across the shadows — or fated flickers changing lives forever. I’ve outlived my detractors and many of my friends; I’ve observed history repeat itself in cyclical patterns. But hopefully, I’ve learned there’s always more to learn, everything fascinating. Occasions arise to live unending transformations, to stop performing the role of someone else. God willing: all occasions dwelling beneath God’s will.

On September Spaces

Does space surround us, or is it through us? Not only universal space, worlds exploding, fragmenting, flaming, but local space as well. The spirit of the person meets the spirit of place, the genius loci. Sometimes it’s not who you are but where you are.

September spaces may be places of safety, places of sense. True spaces appointing the seasons, not truth as an arm of power. Not space as a stage for violence.  Breathing spaces, breathing as a privilege. Sacred spaces, cathedrals and landscapes, seas and skies. Holy spirits.

But the past is not past, fragments are everywhere.

Haunted spaces, that hosted scenes of desperation, inspiration, adoration, abuse, conflict, obliteration, loss. Inhabited by people you knew, now at their eternal rest, spaces negligent and void. New inhabitants. New stories, new conversions, new myths. Space for the crimes of this age.

The genius walks with you; we call her the guardian angel. Given by your ancestors, whatever you think of them now. Ask yourself, anywhere, what is my role in this space? Building, interpreting, extending, imploding, ascending. Find out where you are. Who am I in this place? Here as a witness, here to engage, here in God’s liminal space.