A Manifesto

The following is based in large part on the moral and political thinking of Frank Buchman and Mahatma Gandhi:

Men are not guided by intellect but by the heart. Far too many put on the cloak of religion and prate about morality, which is dangerous in an age in which we have an overweening capacity for destruction and have grown more cruel.

Modern civilization has become a a positive menace to the moral growth of mankind. Capitalism has become complacent and corrupt. The pace of living is obstructive to the highest goals of humanity. Meanwhile political institutions have become mere instruments for the pursuit of the basic human instinct to garner power.

Life is a mission that we dare not squander. We have a duty to mankind to attempt to do good in this moment of moral and political crisis. Satisfaction lies in the effort rather than in the attainment of that which we should be. We reach for the bright and morning star and that mere act of reaching is what matters. Whether we actually touch the pole star we keep in view is scarcely the issue. This is no introverted quest. The pursuit of salvation is a form of selfishness.

The secret of life is selfless service in the attempt to emancipate humanity. Honour, unlike morality, is more positive than negative. We should be unafraid of the consequences of our actions. The world is no mere spectacle, it is an arena in which we all play our part.

Tribulations

Life is full of endless possibilities.

Life is so often delightful. But for some at the moment it is the reverse. Some face tough tough trials.

There's always something of course, the little things people face. Even me. I have done my back in. Within a few days it will be just fine I am sure.

But some have the kind of trial that does not go away after a day or two. Some face trials that challenge the very heart of their being. For them it takes time to recuperate their inner strength. I am sure it will get easier to cope. Well for most of us it does. We have to be gentle with ourselves for a time until, by the grace of God, we grow more able to cope, as we will.

Every good gift comes from God. God is never evil, he does not tempt us. That is not his way. The evil in this world, including sickness and death, we introduce into this world, just as we introduce sin. But it is not our fault. Nothing that happens to you is your fault. Not anyone's fault.

But sometimes you must feel very weak.

When we are weak, we are strong. God's power is greatest in weakness.

Such a beautiful time of year this normally is, but for some a time filled with tests, trials and tribulations.

Your friends and family are there to comfort you, as is God. Your comforter is the very spirit of the living God. All shall be well. That, at least, I know. All shall be well.

About Loss

Whomever you lose is always and forever with you through all eternity. You are forever together in the mind of all those that have known and loved you. Here's a Psalm for you. It may not seem directly appropriate but perhaps it is. It is a Psalm much beloved of female peace activists but it also speaks of the eternity that is forever true regardless of the apparent shape of life and regardless of any terrible but transient cruel cataclysm that hits you:

Psalm 46

1 God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

2 Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea;

3 Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. Selah.

4 There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most High.

5 God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved: God shall help her, and that right early.

6 The heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved: he uttered his voice, the earth melted.

7 The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.

8 Come, behold the works of the LORD, what desolations he hath made in the earth.

9 He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; he burneth the chariot in the fire.

10 Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.

11 The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.

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I have no idea why we live in broken bodies and lead broken lives and are struck by terrible tragedies. Life is imperfect and we are all imperfect though life is essentially good and essentially we are good. And when tragedy strikes and we or our loved ones are harmed or damaged, we have some sort of alter ego that is the sum total of all we might have been had we stood perfect. There is a perfect you just as there is a perfect me. So too with the person you have lost who lives now and forever. And it is that perfect memory that you are both reaching for and remembering.  Woody Allen once said, "Life is as short as a butterfly's fart but death lasts forever". Which is kind of reassuring.

This transient existence with all its pain and beauty is just a small part of our lives.

You are surrounded by God's love - and it will sustain you. It cannot fail.

Why we matter?

Ahhh, what children we all are. We have our needs and we burst upon this world for instants in eternity bright coloured and filled with excitement. And then where do we go? I believe we live for ever. I wish to believe that we live for ever. And what's more it seems reasonable. Creation is not wasteful. The creator is not wasteful more to the point and I am fully aware of the creator, the great unknown, and the intense degree of her / his involvement in our small but so dramatic lives. We are each one of us like mini soap operas but each with the potential of an epic. That's how we should live our lives of course, each of us, on an epic scale, in the knowledge that our lives matter exquisitely to our fellow man / woman if not to God and all the host of heaven who watch on from the wings. Which is why we should be selfless. Also why we should be loyal.

Selfless Life

What's the meaning of life? Not the great purpose, the purpose of the species or the universe. No, the individual purpose. Yours. Mine.

We hope for the comfort that love, sex, security represent. We hope for adventure. We hope to create, to build.
Happiness is a habit - based on the constant and deliberate decision to put compassionate care for others first. But not to do what pleases others when it conflicts with what is right.
On the other hand, happiness requires that you place your needs first in your deliberations with your inner self and in your choices for action. Thus you choose your own direction and you don't blame others for the constraints placed upon you. Your adventures are yours to determine and yours alone.

That does not mean that you do not have obligations - commitments that are the demands of honour. Commitments to home and hearth for instance. These obligations are there of your own choice, woven close by the threads of love.
None the less you choose and continue to choose your adventures. Certainly the scope of your quests may be limited in some pragmatic way by the constraints of both your conscience and your care for those that surround you. Those constraints you choose. But you are inventive enough to overcome all other limitations. For the ultimate secret is that you have no true limits. To believe otherwise is a sin - As much and as if you were to limit God.

War

Truth is if religion didn't exist, we'd fight wars in the name of race or tribe or political belief or whatever. In Gulliver's Travels they fought a war over whether to eat your eggs from the pointy end or the rounded end once you put them in an egg cup. Some religions forbid war including Buddhism and Christianity (I say unto you resist not evil, turn the other cheek, says Jesus in Matthew 5).
Oh and by the way "turn the other cheek" does not mean staying in a chronically abusive relationship (that is a different issue but is, obviously, wrong and always wrong).
But what is the point in defending religion whilst God watches the religious amongst us kill, wound, and hurt one another, and weeps at what we do to one another? Religious leaders have a great deal to answer for. I once attended an audience with the Dalai Lama (me and a thousand others so it wasn't that exclusive) and he laughed as he held out his right arm and said, "This hand is made for hugging, not hitting". But when did you last hear one of our religious leaders say the same thing so emphatically? If they do they couch their words in mumbling qualifications, as the then Archbishop of Canterbury who said at the time of the Falklands, "War is wrong but there are times when we must stand up and be counted . . . " And am I any better? If Hitler walked in Europe today would I not be in the vanguard to kill him and his? Luther King lived by the maxim, defend others but never defend yourself. But that's a compromise. Jesus' take on war is an absolute prohibition.
But the underlying point is, say you saw some bully beating some wimp into a pulp for spilling his pint. You'd defend the wimp. But would you beat the bully into a pulp in turn? Nope. If he does it again you'd interfere again. But you wouldn't cripple, dismember or kill him in turn. We have a responsibility to protect everywhere from Afghanistan to Iraq. But not to stay there to interfere. There is a fine line between peace keeping and invasion.
In today's Britain we spend billions on Trident. We (little Britain) have enough nuclear force to wipe out half the known world. Two billion pounds is enough to keep a million man army paying them twenty k each. What a peace keeping force. Send them to Syria instead of squandering the money on nuclear submarines. We have our priorities quite wrong.   

So Why be Selfless?

Why is it that most of our troubles, our obsessions, are sexual? Not most of our worries. We worry about health, happiness, debt and the rest. But those do not obsess us in quite the same way as sex.

So what's the thing that the Great Unknown had in His / Her mind when he made us like this anyway? For God's sake, why should I care? Men don't feel guilt anyway - not the way a woman does. We feel shame of course. But that's different, a more transient and immediate thing than guilt. I don't think men have any comprehension of guilt the way a woman does - that dwell on it, reflect on it, dig it all up again female guilt.
Conversely of course, women have no comprehension, cannot truly conceive, the predominant male hang ups. Fear of failure for instance. That is a male thing big-time and though a woman can experience a frisson of what it is to fear failure, she can never truly appreciate how mind numbingly awful that fear can be for a man.

Truth is though - almost all fear is selfish - which is why selflessness is so empowering.

Love Actually

True love between a man and a woman is all about commitment and is always reciprocated. The rest is either infatuation (which is good fun and can lead to love) - Or it's friendship - Or it's lust. Women generally muddle the last three with the first. Men don't. They know the difference. They just don't admit it.

Practical Magic

Be specific in prayer, and be careful what you pray for, lest your prayer be answered.

Practical magic doesn't just happen. You can't look at a man and say, "Fall off your bicycle" and watch him fall (or can you?). You can't say to a coin, "Throw yourself five times heads," with any expectation of success (or can you?). But thinking a thing can make it so if the focus is sufficiently narrow.

Focussed anger kills over time; whereas focussed love empowers.

The people we love grow stronger.

The line between magic and prayer can blurr. How do you pray or wish something into being? It helps if you are one step removed from the situation, if you are not the prospective beneficiary yourself. Then putting shape and mental substance to the child idea creates the reality. The word "Abracadabra" means "I speak therefore it happens".

Selfish Selflessness

Being selfless because it is easier, is selfish.

There are degrees in sin. There are the great sins, of which the taking of life is the most evident; and the small sins, like, for instance, lying for convenience.

Then there are the hidden sins. Pride is an obvious one. But curiously selflessness can also be another when that selflessness trumps what is right.

Of course, selflessness on the grand scale, à la Schweitzer or Mother Teresa, is admirable and, if you have the inclination, should be emulated. But selflessness can also be obscene, as with Poland's Colonel Mastalerz in the early days of the Second World War, who led his men to a futile but selfless death in a cavalry charge against modern armour at overwhelming odds in what must surely have been a act of moral cowardice, though advertised as selfless bravery.

So often, day to day, people conduct apparently selfless acts whereas in reality they do the wrong thing out of expediency either to avoid confrontation, as when indulging a child, or for the "righteous" pleasure of self-sacrifice. Doing what is right does not always mean doing what is selfless. The dollar to the beggar is a noble gesture but with the caveat that it could be used to buy whisky whereas that same dollar to the Salvation Army may be the less convenient but wiser approach. Instances of selfish selflessness abound and these can sometimes (but by no means always) be very great sins.

Remembering Gaza

This interview is with Dr Imad Karam of Initiatives for Change, the film maker from Gaza. It was recorded before the recent Gaza war but is still relevant:

To support the Next Century Foundation's appeal for those families that have lost their breadwinner click on this button:

Changing Anger into Purity and Selflessness

There is so much anger in the world.

To quote Dowsett, whose little book, "With God in my Garden" is one I love: "Faraday, the great chemist, when a young man, awoke to the fact that he had a very strong temper which, unless kept in check, would ruin him. So whenever he found himself getting into this state of heated temper, he went into his workshop and worked it out. He saw that his temper was good energy, of great value to him; and indeed, this great fund of energy within, often carried him through many a difficult and trying experiment."

Life is a lot of awful stuff sometimes. Unbelievably so. But should we allow it to have power over us? Mere words seem trite when catastrophe, and chronic ongoing misery, are all about us, and our own lives are affected, either directly or indirectly. But the challenge we are all given is ultimately to make the best of our circumstances. If you must be angry, use the anger to focus your prayer, storm the kingdom of heaven with your rage. That way at least some good comes of it.

However, what of the chronic anger that gnaws because of some resentment? The keep you awake at night, stew upon it, bitter rage. That product of hurt that swings between raw anger and debilitating depression. Dealing with that requires a different approach, a combination of centering whereby you reach down for inner strength and stillness despite the challenge, and selflessness, whereby your focus and interest is not on the source of the anger but on others. That is at least what I think as I sit here and wrestle with my own inner rage and despair. And I feel stronger because of it. When faced with a direct challenge however you still have to man up and face your enemy. Do not seek that challenge. Christ did not seek the cross. But if it comes to it, yes, go into battle. But always remembering Christ who told us in Matthew 5: "Be not angry with your brother, lest you be put to trial."