A Hand Offered in Peace

-


I was brought up a Methodist, among which's precepts is the tradition of referring to one another as Brother and Sister [not that we did at our church, but it was the 1960s by then]; although as I've said before, I've tried in the many decades since I left that church to follow my own styling of Zen Buddhism, light on ritual and heavy on introspection. My take is that when the realisation of one's innate frailty and tenuousness in this world takes hold, then one is best placed to accept the condition of others with whom we share this temporary, temporal, and corporeal existence. Tolerance is de facto the Lingua Franca of one enlightened by this self-knowledge. Having said that, even I have been moved to suggest all manner of unpleasant Old Testament visitations on the perpetrators of hatred that have been so in evidence in UK cities of late. The trouble is I [we] also run the risk of sounding exactly like the kind of swivel-eyed fascist lunatic - I won't ever grace their kind with anything as elevated as holding a 'political' opinion: they sit well outside of that spectrum - that we rightly want to see marginalised and defused in so doing.

In comparing the cold idol-worship of the established orthodox and high Christian churches with the sincerity and passion of Islam, Thomas Carlyle writes in the lecture 'The Hero as Prophet' [Friday, 8th. May, 1840]: 'Idolatry is nothing: these Wooden idols of yours, "ye rub them with oil, and wax, and the flies stick on them," - these are wood, I tell you! They can do nothing for you; they are an impotent blasphemous presence; a horror and abomination, if ye knew them.' We could reach a similar conclusion in comparing the flags and shibboleths of 'patriotism', with the reality of Islam as it is in modern inner-city Britain. The gesture of food offered to the mob by the Imam and worshippers of the Liverpool mosque under attack should stand as a salutary lesson in human conduct to us all in these febrile times: get a grip on your own humanity and you'll find your place in harmony with your brothers and sisters...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Of Feedback & Wobbles

-
Image
Many years ago I came up with an analogy for poorly damped feedback loops. The feedback loop that prompted this frankly tart analogy was indeed a horror. Anyone who remembers shame-faced their first attempts at clutch control resulting in the good old kangaroo launch across the lights only to stall in the middle of the crossroads will have some idea of the kind of data transfer lag involved in said system. The analogy I made was that of a large blancmange. Untouched, a model of stasis and eminently stable and predictable; but prod the bugger and the resultant chaotic behaviour needs a very complex physical model and some very decent computing horsepower to predict its outputs, if at all. The system in question was a large and complex audio-visual display at what eventually became 'The Electric Mountain' in Llanberis. We were ultimately contracted to maintain the thing having been witness to and peripherally involved in its installation. Certainly not involved in its des...
Read more

A Time of Connection

-
Image
I was just reflecting on the vacuum of continuity that's left behind when someone dies: that sudden sense of disjoint, of fracture, in one's personal history that takes one completely by surprise at the oddest moments. These pinch-points in memory can often yield some surprising revelations of fact about periods in one's past. One such occurred to me tonight, tending my rather lazy meal of pizza in its journey from shrink-wrap to mouth via the oven. Al's recent demise still catches me out from time to time: the space he left bounded by forty plus years of friendship. But the thing that struck me tonight was just how much change was happening on a personal and social level in the very early years of our acquaintance. Between moving here from Birmingham in September 1980 and our buying our first proper house eighteen months later, all manner of things occurred that would chart the course of our lives to the present day. At around the time of our meeting Alan & Irene [...
Read more

Sister Ray

-
Image
Ray Keats - aka Ann Key - local artist & family friend, died this morning. She'd been ill for some years, but never let it get in the way of her work or of tending to the massive network of friends, colleagues and fans she had accumulated over the decades. Her house on the High Street of Rachub, just below where we live - a former cockle factory(!) - bought many years ago when she and her late husband Ronald moved here from Manchester to set up home in Yr Achub, is currently still home to her paintings and drawings, and the front window displays her work, including the last drawing she made in hospital, just days before she died. Her good friend Colin has been a diamond in her latter years, looking out for her and just being there when she needed him. She will be much missed by this tiny community of ageing bohemians up here in the hills, but suffice it to say, George, her cat, will be well looked after now she's gone.
Read more