The Mythic Nature

A long, long time ago, before the dark age of science, when man had grown too confused, too afraid and too ashamed (or simply too stupid) trustingly to hug the universe (Dad's gift) and childishly (&wisely) feel (&love) its explanation, he invented the biggest religious myth of them all: 

"Nature".

Remember the Father

Remember the Father

(He went so deep, and so high...

The amazing thing about his music is that he always remained so thrillingly, thoroghly human. 

Was his reach was so extensive, because he was so divinely anchored?

Apparently his father deeply believed that Mozart Jr* was a gift from God for humankind; and obviously he was right - who isn't?).



PS I know, I know - I found this piece by chance and decided to play it instead of the originally planned and relevant one to broaden our horizons (unless you - contrary to yours truly - already knew it).

Henry did it (in)

One of the many locally issued self-death warrants (executed)

... by the way, all this local talk of  women 'priests' and 'bishops', gay 'marriage', being 'in touch with today's society' is so irrelevant. The Church of England is dead. 

(there may be some living Christians among the rubble, but as a structure it's gone; a few stones may be used to build locally an even bigger Roman Church. The Papists, to the right, will have it).

Parochial

William Walsh’s 1814 painting of Fulford Chapel

This year I've been - even if only for a moment in some cases - to quite a number of Old Continental countries. Some of them are powerful, some used to be powerful, some used to be part of great empires, some were those empires; some influenced the world's art and culture in a big way, some are still influencing them in a small way.

But one thing struck me again and again: take the Church away, and it all is so parochial.

Take Away (& Fall) Civilisation

A civilisation that takes away from its citizen half his income* not only will fall - it should fall.

*and then wastes half of it.

(Anglophile) Contempt

This is England at her stupidest.

The Prime Minister is advocating "a sharp prod" to the locally established Church and talking some utter rubbish about an alleged need for that local Church "to be a modern church in touch with society, as it is today"; indicating how little he understands what Christianity is about: the society must be in touch with Church in order to survive, not the other way round, especially if today's society is in question (to be in touch with today's society is to be in touch with unsustainable-fun kind of death)...

A minor ex-minister (political, not religious) is calling for the local parliament - it beggars belief! have they learnt nothing since the 16th century?? - to interfere and "ensure that the overwhelming will of members of the Church of England, and of this country, is respected", and throwing in a threat "If the synod can't sort it out, we need to help them"...

Swarms of naive, busy-bodied, do-gooding Christians displaying funny quips on their T-shirts, but little respect for hierarchy, aristocracy and royalty (which are part and parcel of Christianity)...


This is England at her worst*.

PS Thus I've reached a very important moment in the history of my Anglophilia. I have seen horrible things happening here and I have heard of outrageous things being done here, but I tended to look at them through the eyes of compassion and understanding for fallen man paying a heavy price for deserting Rome.

But this case is different. First of all, it concerns directly a church (not forgetting that everything concerns religion); perhaps a blundering one, but still Christian. Secondly, it involves a debate. And when intellect is to lead, there can be no mercy; And this particular debate should be informed by so much painful experience and unsettling evidence, that one could expect nothing but the highest standards. Instead we get this.

I have looked at historical England like that (just as I have at my own country), but now, for the first time in my life, I am looking at England with utter, genuine contempt - live, even as we speak.





*which, perhaps, isn't that bad, comparatively? (Oh, I just can't kill the Anglophile in me...and of course - I've just realised - it's not its worst at all, but being an Anglophile I forgot for a moment; actually only yesterday I was going to wirte about something very much connected with this situation, about England's Hitler moment, as I called it)

The WWJD Fallacy

Among the misconceptions regarding the Right Worship of the True God* the most dangerous ones are those that are home-grown (i.e. church-grown or, much more common, chapel-grown). "What Would Jesus Do?" is one of them. It is especially dangerous, because seeming perfectly fine and justified, it produces a dangerous psychological effect: the narrowing down of your choices, the pressure to be like someone else, to follow, insead of what we instinctively seek: the opening up of our choices, and not following, but blissfully hopping around.

And Christianity is about opening up, not about imitating - with all due respect to Thomas à Kempis, C.R.S.A. and, it may seem for a short tense moment, the Lord himself**.

What would Jesus do? How on earth am I to know? I am myself and Jesus Christ is Jesus Christ. He is the person who gives life back to the dead, who tells his disciples to leave their wives and mothers, who reads people's souls, who tells a tree to wither just because it doesn't produce fruit out of season, who warns people who respect nearly all the commandments that they're on the way to hell, who makes a holy upheaval in your life with one word, who wreaks a happy havoc in your heart with one look, who is the Son of God the Father, who withholds his power to let get beaten on the head by some Roman scum, who died for me and all humakind on the cross. What woud Jesus do? I've got no idea - aprart from the fact that it would blow my mind away.

I may make sense only because of this man, I may live only because of this man, I may be happy only with this man, but I will be me and - God permitting - I will realise God's will - Jesus's will - my way. And it is a free way, because love sets free, because Jesus sets free - and we were created to be all the possible colours, smells, tastes, shapes and quirks of love*** and that's why love opens up a joyous infinity of paths.

The real question then is: what would I do? What would I do if I uderstood just a tiny jot better who Mary's son is and if I had just a fraction of a grain of the love he has - or rather: the love that he is.



*Christianity - I just don't want to overexploit the word and bore you with it; after all, Ch. is all about excitement!!
**I'll come back to this soon and explain that at no time was I suggesting that the Lord didn't know what he was talking about. (Son of Man!, I hope my disclaimer is better than I am).
***people as aspects of Jesus, it just came to me.

The Suppression

Oh, what price they they pay for the riches they lost...

You can see the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the eyes of the Brits: the spirituality's not there - it was suppressed.

PS But - to be fair - not all hope is lost: as a nation, they cultivate a connection with the Holy Spirit.

HMRC (Her Majesty's Revenue Circus)

Go on, make these mountains green and pleasant pastures (seen*) a police state#.

It beggars belief.

Margaret Hodge & her colleagues from the Public Accounts Commitee of the local parliament are giving a grilling and condescending smirks to Lin Homer, Chief Executive and Permanent Secretary of HMRC** about the latter impliedly not doing  a sactisfactory job of the impossible job of implementing & enforcing the incomprehensible, unenforcable, (thankfully) loophole-riddled*** tax code that Mrs Hodge and & her colleagues absurdly invented in the first place.

If I hadn't seen democracy before, I'd say it's mad and impossible. Now I'll just say it's mad.

*sorry; just trying to retain the rhyme
**the local extor...  or: not now (maybe it is a police state already?)
**loophole-blessed?

#then again, if the enforcers were to have that kind of eyes, it may be worth considering...

[Public Accounts Commitee, 5 Nov; on now on BBC Parliament]

Sustainable Fun

My religion is one of Sustainable Fun. Because my God* is God of Sustainable Fun.

(And, please, stop banging on about any other 'sustainablity' - there is no other sustainabiltiy. This one is the only one that makes sense, the only one that is possible, in short: the only one that is sustainable; as to the environment - make it a point of  honour to sqeeze the planet dry and use the universe up, ad maiorem Dei gloriam, before it all blows up.)

 

*and yours too (in case you wondered)

K-Pop Project: Failed

Korean Pop Music Project: blew up (gangnam style)

Tax dodgers, I salute you!

I've always liked coffee*, but I'll like it even more now 

Tax dodgers - I salute you!

(Don't put up your prices and keep on hiding your hard-earned money from greedy social-democratic politicians so adept at wasting it or - worse and as likely - abusing it to demoralise and fool the voters they'd robbed in the first place.)


*but there was a tense moment between Starbucks and me a few years ago - I was strolling in the centre of London with a couple of cute Polish girls and realised that Starbucks were following us (fortunately, nothing untoward was going on).  I didn't kick up any fuss though, I just took a double espresso and calmed down; then, gradually, got got used to it.

No Dominion

(The coincidences I love, the coincidences that love me)

 A few hours after I'd thought of the blog's new motto, I was looking up something connected with the BBC and the local country, i.e. Cymru/Wales and ended up - by pure coincidence, it might seem - reading a poem by Dylan Thomas with a mind-boggling title "And Death Shall Have No Dominion"; which, in turn, directed me to the Romans. And I read:

"... to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, he will give eternal life."

BBC, Jim might have fixed you...

The BBC is brimming with news about its own management crisis triggered by its own botched inquiry into its (home-grown) in-house pervert. Well, they don't really need to get out of their own premises to fill their broadcasting schedule.

It seems that what Cyril Northcote Parkinson said about the civil or military administration (put enough penpushers in one place and they'll produce so much work for one another that they'll have no time to do anything connected with the real world out there - more or less) could apply to media establishments too.

It's there

Late one evening - it may have been a year ago,

but probably wasn't - I was crossing a square in Warsaw. A boy was cycling around what was left of a once much bigger structure and two others were practicing a skateboarding trick nearby. Someone from a small group of tourists idiotically teased the soldiers who were in the middle of the changing of the guard. When I was close enough I slowed down and looked at a list of place-names on one of the pillars surrounding a flame that I must have overlooked before. When I'd gone through all the names, I moved on to another list, but I stopped half-way: that particular evening that was all the time I had for those guys who had fallen in so many wars that I so little understood; just like them, I guessed.

Then I looked around and thought: "This is not what they had died for!", and I got extremely sad. But when I left behind the flame, the soldiers, the onlookers, I suddenly realised that it was not all in vain. Just like with the plaque on that pillar, I was overlooking a whole plane. What those young guys had fallen for was there, only not in the direction I was looking: the place is up there, a few yards above our heads. And perhaps if we climbed their tombstones and reached up as high as we can, we might be able to connect with the Poland* they'd been shot, pierced or blown to pieces for.




*because Poland is a spiritual project - or none at all; I mean: none worth mentioning.

( ...Kaniów 11 V 1918  ....St. Hilaire Le Garde (n. Reims) 25 VII 1918 ....Dyneburg 3 I 1920 ...Góra Świętej Anny 21-27 V 1921 ...Dyneburg 3 I 1920 ...Bzura 9-22 IX 1939  ...Narvik 12 V-6 VI 1940 ...Katyń-Charków-Miednoje 1940  ...Monte Cassino 11-25 V 1944  ....Bitwa o Anglię 10 VII-31 X 1940 ...Arnhem 18-25 IX 1944  ...Berlin 26 IV-2 V 1945  ...and a few more)

You say potato, I say Plato

If I'm not a fully-fledged cowboy* philosopher now, I don't know what.

In a local charity shop I notice a large-format hard-cover illustrated book on Plato. I get excited and reach for it, but - as a fully-fledged philosopher tends to do - I keep thinking*** and after a short philosophic (or linguistic) analysation of the situation I conclude that it's not "Plato".
It is "Patato"****.



*don't shoot at me quoting this later on; it's here just counter-factually **to lighten up an otherwise solemn post.
**I'm not splitting; but it does sound awkward, doesn't it? I guess I'll become a Conservative on this one, i.e. apply change after long thorough and muddled consideration and in arbitrarily partial respect for tradition, to so speak.
***or reading; I was so excited that I may have confused the two.
****actually, I must learn to write properly too. (As the better educated among you may have already worked out the tilte was if raw, sarchy fact 'Potato')


(Illustration: This is not a mere shadow of the Ideal Advertising Slogan: this is the real McCoy!)

E Pluribus Duo

I was just wondering what it is that actually unites the Americans. The buck?

Two visions, two logics, two nations, two secessions?

A good deal (kind of)

Americans have just confirmed the sale of their freedom not even for central* government (mis)organised (but paid for with their own money) half-welfare, but for a false promise of bureaucrat-distributed half-welfare.

As as boy I strongly believed that one day I'd see one the end of the Empire of Evil and Soviet-imposed Communism, but I never thought I'd see the end of American freedom.  However, I may have.


*or 'federal', as they know it.

Post-Christian Used Car Dealer

(From AutoTrader, the leading UK car... well, it's obvious:)

... ONE PRIEST [CHURCH MAN] OWNER LAST 6 YEARS, HALF LEATHER, HEATED SEATS...

Covered by cowboys*

That the BBC is biased against the Grand Old Party and in favour of the European Union is common knowledge and probably part of the broadcaster's mission, if someone cared to look it up. Except for a regular slip here and there, the bias is executed in a professionally sly way. Not so at their statutory competitor, ITV. A most anti-American, leftist, Sandinista, Soviet-sponsored banana republic wouldn't be ashamed of what Alistair Steward and the invited 'pundits' (who must have been either financially or genetically Democratic) came up with during ITV's coverage of the 'The-Official-End-of-the-On/Off-Half-Coalition-Between-Reason-Responsibility-and-Democracy' US presidential election . If that wasn't cowboy* journalism, I don't know what shooting from the hip is.



*'cowboy' does not apply (here) to Mr Dimbleby, whose general professionalism, immaculate style - even if not always content - is very impressive and admirable (I just wasn't able to resist the illustration). The word was used for the bunch within the ITV corral; you may think me partisan - which I am - but suggesting that Mr Romney, at that point potentially the next US president!, is 'mad' because he has sympathy for some of the Tea Party postulates and gets on well with a few Evangelicals - which Mr Stewart did suggest! - was on par with the 'journalistic' standards that I vaguely remember from the pre-Reagan or pre-freedom (if it's not one of the same thing) days in the communist Poland.

**Actually, it was even worse: it was pure thick Euro-lefty cow journalism (sorry – I had to vent it out somehow; I feel better now).

picture of Messrs Dimbleby (slick) and Stewart (cowboy): independent

ADP:F

No, they can't change the sad basics of the system

("Campaigns matter", said one commentator. True, they do, more than facts).

The American Democratic Project: FAILED

(It's official now).

ζῷον πολιτικόν (Rawrrr!)

Ah, Politics. Not so long ago I was talking about a moderate, a liberal, and a conservative who walked into a bar and the bartender said ”Hello Mitt” and now I stand united behind all three of them! Because you know what: politics is as much about ideas as it is about people. And there are moments, quite a lot of them in politics, when it is ideas that should give way to people, not the other way round.

Yes, it is embarrassing to show interest in such an irrational, noisy and uneducated system, but there is a saving grace for Democracy: it may be of poor quality, but it's still politics. 

You may be wondering why I get so excited by the US presidential elections. A stupid question - we're all American now, or to be precise: we're still - just about - American, but slowly turning yellow.

Can they make the better one win? I hope so. As to the other crucial question: can he turn America around, I'm optimistic: after all Romney comes from the stock who doggedly followed a crazy (in the wrong sense of the word) religious idea* and against all odds - and against large swaths of reason - persevered, survived and finally prospered. (Yes, his Mormonism is an intellectual liability for Romney).

*I can't say which I felt more: sorry or amused when I ran into two Mormon missionaries in Warsaw, who proceeded to explain to me that between Jesus' Ascension and Mr Joseph Smith's discovery of some new books of the Old Testament (and some old ones of the New Testament) on a few gold tablets somewhere upstate New York the whole of Christianity disappeared from the surface of the earth and people such as St Jerome, St Augustine, St Aquinas, St Benedict, St Francis, St Teresa of Ávila and a few others were completely irrelevant, religion-wise. Bless them.





The framed poster 

Take Courage

"I went to see Major General Harrison hung drawn and quartered. He was looking as cheerful as any man could in that condition."

Samuel Pepys, 13^th October 1660

Can someone remind me please: all this noisy, bright & explosive local celebration - is it because it nearly came off or because it didn't come off after all?

Anyway, it's a jolly good show! I love when people go over the top, especially if it's to do with religion.

And don't get me wrong: was it a bad thing that a major bloodshed was avoided? No, it wasn't. Was Guido & Co's plan misguided? Perpaps it was. But was it a noble try on the part of English Catholic nobility? By king, it was! And even if I were to be hanged, drawn & quartered for saying this, I hope I'd still have the courage and strength - preferably reinforced with a pint or two - to say it again: Yes, it was!!


(I know I qualify - locally - for a punch on the jaw for this declaration, but I also know that whoever would deliver the punch would qualify for a justified retaliation: any power that persecutes Catholicism qualifies, by definition, for abolishment).

*although the pub's not a free house, so I guess I'd have to take pride instead.

Tackle federal with federal?

"... and I promise that all the necessary help will be provided until you have your homes rebuilt", Barack Obama to a bunch of people sifting through what used to be their houses.

Shouldn't there be a federal law penalizing such utterly reckless hype?

A person-to-person beast, A person-to-person Universe

Jaguar: (along Ferrari, and a few others) making the world a better place

Satisfactory answers to questions asked by a person come only from a person. But there's more to it.

As the person is the supreme kind of entity that we can conceive of, the ultimate answer to the metaphysical problems concerning the Universe and us in it - existence, life, mind, body, energy, light* - not only has to come from a person (even if it were to be the very person asking the question), but it must also be a person, as you cannot satisfactorily explain the superior with the inferior.

(Just like the explanation of the exquisite black F-Type convertible beast I walked past in Pentwyn, Cardiff, when thinking this thought: it does not lie in the Jaguar's breath-taking design, sturdy materials, performance or even function, but in the person standing behind the magnum opus - or the person standing behind the showroom window, with his nose pressed hard to the glass. Because Jaguar is a person-to-person project, too.)




*don't ask me, for the time being, whether it's one and the same thing (or non-thing), check Einstein's blog in the meantime.

(Flying to) The One of them

The reason why some find it so hard to acknowledge consciousness, free will and thus Dualism lies in the inescapable supernatural consequences of such an acknowledgement, especially the One of them.

Philosophically, it's such an astonishingly (or frighteningly*, for some) straightforward process: the moment you acknowledge your spirit, your intellect takes off and flies to God.

*You barely have time to think; and some - in their pride, stupidity, stubbornness or God knows what - would rather procrastinate intellectually in Hell than move thier prejudices, fears or ambitions out of their intellect's way and let it draw the conclusion and reach God.

Tear them down!

Mr Cameron, tear down these EU walls!*/**

*not that you built them but you have a unique chance to do something about the problem...

**which reminds me of a night walk down Ujazdowskie Ave. in Warsaw and a thrilling meeting near the Polish Sejm or Parliament - to be continued.

"We welcome change and openness; for we believe that freedom and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace. There is one sign the E-Unionists can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace. Prime Minister Cameron, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for Europe, if you seek liberalization - tear down these EU walls!" [more or less]

Talk to the (invisible) hand!

A hugely important, but often overlooked, advantage of the small (&strong) state political philosophy, intellectually supported among others by the Austrian School, is its ability to nip in the bud any nonsensical and poisonous blame game that pop politics thrives on.

The political blame game is the flip-side of the 'Government Has To Do Something About This!' Fallacy which foolishly urges governments hastily to think of anything (usually: opinion polls), step in and spend money where and when they have no idea, no means and no business.

Being a consequence of that Action Fallacy, the political blame game is at the same time its catalyst  and the resulting vicious circle can derail any political system; and it often has. It possesses, by definition, a particularly lethal potential in democracies.

The small-state philosophy - a hard beast to rear, as it takes a greater intellectual effort to advocate inaction than it does to clamour for action - allows the government to cut short a line on which it could otherwise get easily hooked and relieves the citizens of one of the greatest political threats: their government's action.

....

From Hansard, 2nd November 2020:

Mr John Populist (Marginalseatville) (Lab) "Can the Right Honourable Gentleman explain why the Government allowed for the situation to arise in the first place, why it didn't intervene to stop it and why it is doing nothing at the moment to deal with its consequences?" 

[half the House, in line with the Public Choice theory]"Yeah, yeah!"

The Secretary of State for Little (Mr Efficient)"No. Mr Speaker, I refuse to discuss this. Let the Honourable Member for Marginalseatville  talk to the invisible hand!"

Can you see the hand? But it achieved a lot. (An outline of a human hand dated 27,000 BC, from the Cosquer Cave, France) 

Democracy (the fallacy of)

Scary...no U.S citizen is safe from the grip of the federal government

... a hug of a suffering citizen, a helicopter ride to a town hit by a storm, suspending an election campaign for a days or two (only to pick it up with replenished venom), a hand-shake with a Republican whatever, a false impression of non-partisanship - is it how you get elected* to be the president of the most powerful country in the world?

(Democracy, what a dangerous, harmful waste of time.)

*"... this may be a defining moment for Barack Obama's presidential campaign", a paper commented; but obviously didn't have the intelligence or courage to comment on the system.


Photo: abc 10News