Too strong not to resist?

The case for unity is so rational and the practical arguments against breaking away so water-tight that suddenly (following a debate in the Scottish Parliament and impeccable line of defense of the Union by the Conservatives, Labour and Lib-Dems), I felt that if I were a Scot, I'd be tempted to vote for independence, just to accept a challenge and prove that nationality is about much more than being practical.

Professional Funeral Directors

In Tredegar there is a sign 'Professional Funeral Directors', which somehow prompts a vision of amateur funeral directors - and a thought that there must be a good comedy script shallowly buried somewhere between the former and the latter.

By Jove, no god!

A god?? By Jove, no! (Unless your philosophy sucks.)

In a television programme about the Roman Empire someone describes a rather large statue of the emperor Trajan which a while ago stood in the unimaginatively named port of Portus. 'Those looking must have felt he was a god', I hear.

Well, if they did, they must have been extreme philosophical dimwits.



P.S. Just in case you're ever tempted* to make a similarly idiotic mistake: running an empire, however impressive and however impressively, and having a rather large statue of oneself doesn't make one a god; creating, sustaining and, ideally, saving a universe does.

*by... or never mind.

God stalks you

Looking at the slopes of local Welsh* hills, I'm listening to what must be the best song about stalking, nights on Broadway and singing 'them love songs' - and I'm thinking a thought I thought way back in Poland after a period of stalking a pretty girl: true love is always ready to resort to stalking. Isn't the whole history of God's people, and our individual spiritual story, one of God stalking us? Likewise, should we give up on our stray brothers and sisters who tell us, and their Carer, to get lost - or doggedly stalk them till they are found again?

*for some strange reason I often catch myself believing the Gibb brothers and their parents were a Welsh mining family gone - quite rightly, if you ask me! - conservative. (More on the local Welsh Conservatives - soon)

It sucks

In Cardiff now (the painting, not the general)

Democracy, by its very nature, sucks the alleged 'democratic' values out of the system.
(Or in the version for democratic masses: democracy sucks.)

Exists

Either He exists or you exit

The best metaphysical joke isn't when you tell God about your plans, but when you claim that He exists.

Obstinately opposed

(The Damsel in theological distress is obstinate)

"Seeing as the Saviour in the whole Gospel shows that there is salvation for the flesh, why do we any longer endure those unbelieving and dangerous arguments, and fail to see that we are retrograding when we listen to such an argument as this: that the soul is immortal, but the body mortal, and incapable of being revived? For this we used to hear from Pythagoras and Plato, even before we learned the truth. If then the Saviour said this, and proclaimed salvation to the soul alone, what new thing, beyond what we heard from Pythagoras and Plato and all their band, did He bring us? But now He has come proclaiming the glad tidings of a new and strange hope to men", writes Justin Martyr.

And the Doctor of the Church who pinned down, philosophically, the nature of time adds: "No doctrine of the Christian Faith* is so vehemently and so obstinately opposed as the doctrine of the resurrection of the flesh". Tell me about it, St Augustine...


*apart that of the Continuation of the Supply of Good Wine, with the promotion of which I'm hoping to make my modest name go up  in philosophical history (alternatively, it can turn out to be The Sex in Heaven Doctrine [proposed]).

The Giver of Orgasm*

The best philosophical approach to sex is that you have it with God. Because in a  metaphysically most obvious way, the ultimate arouser of your penis, the main caresser of your body, the deepest fountain of your ejaculation, the true partner in your orgasm is not the woman who's below, above or next (or whatever) to you, but God. 


*Hallelujah.

P.S. Not - just in case she ever lays her angelic eyes on this - inspired by the damsel in distress from the previous post.

A Christian damsel in distress

  The dragon kept braying: 'No wine in heaven!', so it had to go.

I am correcting a Christian friend of mine on the question of parties in heaven. She is female, deeply-spiritual and angelic - which seems to be part of the problem rather than the solution here: it must be that angelic side of her that unimaginatively, not to say: foolishly, and unorthodoxly dismisses a cup of outstanding – well, heavenly, to be precise – red ('he meant it spiritually') and Jesus' incentive for us to make it to the other side, and starts giving me some Cathartic baloney that 'well, some kind of resurrected bodies – yes,but they won't be bodies really, because senses are naughty'... At that all the God-imagined, God-willed, God-invented, God-made, God-given and God-sustained wine-appreciating equipment in me gives a mighty holy groan and makes me cut her short. I announce to her that she's a dangerous heretic (throwing in a pithy explanation*) and refer her to a local bishop, subito.

Then, while my God-imagined, God-willed, God-invented, God-made, God-given and God-sustained wine-appreciating equipment is calming down, I admit to myself that even though it is a little worrying to find a fellow-pilgrim not quite knowing where they're going, I somehow enjoy the notion of Christian damsels** in distress waiting for a youthful (well, early 30s***) intellectually bold, not to say: ruthless, Christian knight on a white philosophical horse, slaying her fallacies.

And I know it must be a weakness of sorts, but what can I do? After all, I'm just a simple, intellectually ruthless Christian knight on a white philosophical horse that is keen on rescuing damsels in distress by slaying their fallacies, am I not?

*a few installments of which have already been published here, the rest to come soon, so to speak.

**she's single, in her 60s.

***well, early 4... OK, OK, mid-40s.

The Welsh

A confused nation* in the eery shadow of deserted chapels that long ago gave up a hymn in a language they'd lost. (Not that the English or the Scottish are much better, but in a differently confused way).

*well, a loose collection of lost tribes, more like, but I wanted to sneak in an upbeat, flattering note somewhere. I am a nice guy after all, am I not? 

Illustration by Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru / The National Library of Wales

Meaningless Wales

Another empty valley of empty Wales

Somewhere between zombie Merthyr Tydfil and undead Brecon I looked at the mountains of Wales and they made no sense; the long, green slopes meant nothing, the whole rolling landscape had gone flat. There was no doubt in my mind and heart that it wasn't that they were all made senseless, but that meaningless people have robbed it of purposeful beauty; and what's left for them, and me, is a scenic, hurting reminder of what what what* could have been.



*the triple 'what' isn't another short-lived attempt at cheap 'poetry', just a typo on the run. However, as it seems much better than the lyrics I've waxed before, I'll leave it to look and wonder at from time to time.

Non-God Solutions

P.S.

Non-God solutions just don't work. I'm not Ezekiel, but you can trust me.

(I've just tried another one - and it, predictably, didn't).


P.S. The other day I picked up a book in an un-local library and there I found a chapter on Ezekiel and his vision of the chariot of God. Apparently, some ancient Jewish sages found it so mysterious and profound that they advised others to avoid it. By pure chance (so to speak) I came across that passage today morning and did read it, not for the first time. However, for the first time a thrill of awe went down my spine when doing so, and a renewed and even more frightening realisation that the way I am now, the mere mystery is about to burn me alive, not to mention the reality behind it.