I am an orphan in death

 I am an orphan in death having neither grave stone, cemetery, grave yard, burial ground or even place of scattered ashes by which to remember those from whose flesh I am grown.

My mother's ashes are scattered in the sea of a beach on an island I only visited twice: once in her life and once in her death. I know not the place, and would be hard pressed to find it.

My father lies I know not where, his dying having passed some fifteen years before I even knew of it. My memory of him being only that of a child not yet five. Who the man was, I barely know, only his shadow hangs over me, half loved, half feared, and his voice coiled in anger.

As for those who share my parentage, wholly or in part, one yet lives, the others ashes are somewhere I know not fully. I know the county, and have some idea on which downland ridge they lie, but beyond that, I know not.

My cousins? I think they are no more, being much older than I, but may be they live, who knows? Of the four, two I met in life, the one twice only. Only one other did I know more fully, but she was married when I was just seven. 

Perhaps we do need places where we can go and sit and be a while to remember? It is not my lot to have that, or so it would seem.

Still a non-theist?

 I was asked the question whether I was still a non-theist?

You said, quite rightly I think, that my understanding is somewhat Taoist. Naming the nameless is to damage and limit: it is also an arrogance. Being open to the profoundness of what is - to the naked force of being - and knowing that you cannot know - that is fundamental. Imagining that we can have a transactional relationship with the totality of being is delusional: reality is remorseless. In the preciousness and precariousness of life we find the divine light. The spark that ignites the transmutation of the inert into the vital: the promethean fire that burns through us all. Minding, nurturing and guarding that light, both in ourselves and in others, is the function of religion.

So, am I still a non-theist?

Peace: A Three Piece Suite

Peace: A Three Piece Suite

The first peace, the deepest, the root from which it grows; the silence that calms and heals; the point of is-ness when there is no I, no me, no not me, no knowing, no not-knowing, no you, no not-you, no us, no not us – just pure being and the ground-of-being – the rest point of being in the moment – at one with the in-breath, the drawing-in of all that there is and all we are part of – open and accepting to whatever comes. At one with the out-breath, circulating fully and giving out all that we are. Being without attachment or aversion as the Buddhists say. Knowing that the attachments and aversions are what distorts and blinds.


The second being at peace with those around you. Being at peace with the small things of life; a peace that begets patience and concern; a ministry of presence for others, wholeheartedly witnessing their being, no matter how small the transaction, no matter how small the moment. Others are not simply instruments to our well-being - they are not background music to our songs - it is together that we are the choir of life. We are each and all witness to each other; we are each and all ministers one to another. It is of the small things of life that the world is woven.


The third piece is that world peace; that of governments and societies; that of renouncing violence as a means, as a political weapon, of not letting war be, as Clausewitz remarked, “… a continuation of politics by other means”. It is not the continuation of politics - it is the failure of politics, in fact, the greatest of all its failures.

Having recently visited a country that has been at peace for two-hundred years, that has not killed or harmed even so much as one person in its name, I cannot but feel shame to come from a country that has not even managed a decade in those two hundred years when it has not killed and maimed, has not wrought violence and havoc, has not devastated lives in its name.




This is the three piece suite of peace - and one on which we could all sit comfortably if we choose.

[Published in the Friend of 24 February 2017]

The soldier as hero is an icon which we should fear.

Reflections on the changing symbolism of the red poppy.

“Support our Heroes” the poster emblazoned with the poppy logo declared. On it, a photo of a gun-carrying soldier in battle fatigues striding manfully. How different, I reflected, to those earlier Remembrance Day parades that I recall, at which those who really had cause to remember collected in the cold and damp of dull November mornings to truly spend the silence remembering: those they had known; the horrors they had seen; the deaths too immediate and violent to bear: the tortured wounds of those who only half survived. For them remembrance was real. They knew war as a place of remorseless carnage that made no distinction between the brave and the rest.

When the wreaths were laid they were laid in grief, grief for all those sons and lovers destroyed, for the fathers that never came home, for the comrades and friends who suffered and died. It was the mourning for the dead: it was the knowing of the darkness of war.

But now those who truly remember are fewer each year and in place of remembrance I see a pageant emerging. A ritual performance invoking a pride in the warriors of now and of then, in their deeds of destruction and death, and I am worried that we are blinding ourselves to the tragedy of war and to the truth of it as the worst of human failures.

The soldier as hero is an icon which we should fear.

I wrote this on Armistice day 2013. The shift in meaning has continued since then, shifting from collective grief and remembrance towards celebration and lionisation; associating the current military and its operations with the sacrifices and losses of the past; encouraging the viewing of the military as heroes regardless of where they are deployed, or for what purposes. A subtle nudging of our critical faculties: to question what they are doing is to question their heroism - they are risking their lives for Britain – ask no more, question no more, think no more. Framing the military as 'heroes” stops us thinking beyond the label.

I fear we heard much the same when any dared question the use of our military to coerce recalcitrant populations throughout the length and breadth of our once extensive empire. “Our brave soldiers” defending Britain by wreaking havoc and violence on the reluctant subjects of empire were portrayed as heroes, defending Britain and its honour.

The death of two British service personnel in Afghanistan announced today, Monday the 12^th of October, reveals that we still have some 500 military personnel engaged there. We have also learned that, in spite of parliament ruling out the deployment of British forces in Syria, we have RAF personnel flying missions there by being 'embedded' with other forces. We also learn of British drone strikes – some 200 so far this year according to Drone Wars UK – in Iraq and Syria. [Can we regard drone strike operators as heroes, or do we view them as office workers with unusual jobs?]. Are we witnessing the normalisation of war? Making it just part of the routine operation of government and no more exceptional than the collecting of rubbish.

I worry about the effect on the young of this shift in meaning from the collective expression of grief and loss to lionising. Forces Watch are concerned about the “embedding of military values in civilian society” and I think the shift in the symbolism of the poppies reflects this process. A process that means that war dead are no longer viewed as victims of war but as heroes, as icons of manliness, as those who sacrificed their lives; but those who served in the two world wars knew there was little heroism involved but masses of suffering – you did your bit and prayed to survive.

Last week [Thursday 8^th October 2015] it is reported by The Independent on their i100 website that Mr Evans, a survivor of one of the worst battles in Normandy in 1944, where 70% casualties were sustained, has, according to the organiser from the local Loyal British Legion, “offended many people” and that “most people were horrified” when he read his anti-war poem at last year's Remembrance Day Service, and so this year he will be banned from reading it or any similar digression from their agreed script. His poem Lessons read:

I remember my friends and my enemies too

We all did our duties for our countries

We all obeyed our orders

Then we murdered each other

Isn't war stupid?

Mr Evans is reported as saying: "I still don't know who I offended, or what I said to offend them. I have no intention of upsetting anybody. I'm a pacifist - and pacifism isn't supposed to upset people."

The young need to hear Mr Evan's words and need to see through the hero images if we are to really honour those that died.

And when we are encouraged to stand in silence at eleven o'clock on the eleventh, we should also remember those millions who died at the hands of our military in so many parts of the world, for only when we have that real honesty about what our “heroes” have done can we say that we have truly learned from their deaths.

Escatalogical faiths versus karmic faiths

The monotheistic faiths offer a static view of the human's position in life. The task is to avoid becoming tarnished with sin. We starts pure[ish] - original sin aside - and, only if we proceeds blamelessly throughout life will we have succeeded. We must preserve the innocence of childhood in our minds and lives. The development of all adult characteristics is a deterioration from this paradigm state. As of necessity we will become defiled by developing into adulthood we must throw ourselves upon the mercy or grace of the deity as our only hope of not suffering eternal punishment.

Buddhism and Taoism by contrast are developmental. One grows with experience. One learns the path and trains the inner and outer being, honing them to greater degrees of perfection. We are all Buddhas becoming, if not in this life, then in the next. We are seekers after enlightenment, both separately and collectively. For the Taoist it is the white haired sage who is the epitome of attainment. He has shaped and honed his being until, being totally at one with the Tao, he becomes an immortal.

Punishment

Punishment can be explained as being concerned with the re-assertion of authority.
In order to demonstrate that the subject has submitted to authority, they are required to undergo a humiliating, hurtful, degrading  or painful experience that they would not normally tolerate or voluntarily submit to.
Such acts of submission are more concerned with public demonstrations of the power of the authority figure, who's stature they are intended to enhance, than with any benefit that the punished may derive.
Any benefits accruing from acts of punishment are in the interests of the authority figures and not in the interests of the punished. For punishment to work the punished must loose out, suffer, be diminished, be restricted and must be SEEN to do so.
Punishment is coercive. It is as much aimed at an audience as it is at a subject.
Who gains what from punishment?
If punished, is it in your interest to be hurt, degraded, humiliated or harmed? Do you benefit from this?
Does it in someway rectify the situation? Undo the fault? Make amends? Re-balance?

Intimations of the divine

Intimations of the divine are only our emotions filling the void of meaning.