Following on from yesterdays post about the usefulness of spirituality as a means to turn us towards ideas that might save the world, here is a favourite poem(if it is OK to have a personal favourite of your own poems that is. It might be like favouring one child over the others.) I love this one because it says romething that feels true, whilst also leaving the mystery wide open.

I am

I am bird, I am wind

I am scaled, I am skinned

I am soil, I am stone

I am flesh, I am bone

I am ebb, I am flow

I am stream, I am snow

I am all of these things

And I am nothing

I am love, I am light

I am morning, I am night

I am atom, I am star

I am close, I am far

I am start, I am end

I am stranger, I am friend

I am all of these things

And I am nothing

I am silence, I am song

I am right, I am wrong

I am sea, I am shore

I am less, I am more

I am young, I am old

I am iron, I am gold

I am all of these things

And I am nothing

I had a conversation with a dear friend recently. He is a Church of England priest, so although we share very similar world views our theology has points of divergence. In this conversation I was trying to describe what ‘spirituality’ still meant to me and how I seek adventure in new meaning. Because my friend is full of grace, he listened and talked it through with me, even though he found some of what I said troubling – I entirely umderstand why, but remain unrepentant.

My points went something like this. When trying to understand the spiritual path I am drawn towards, I use these tools;

1. What sings in my soul. I know this sounds like airy-fairy, self centred post-modernism, but I think at some level it has always been true, for all of us. I am just more at peace with letting go the doctrine and codified belief systems that no longer resonate. (I know too that the things that sing in my soul always resonate with the teachings of Jesus, but increasingly I am open to a wider set of reference points.)
2. Things that are to do with love, beauty or brokenness. This is hard to describe other than to say that when one or more of these things is communicated, my own broken humanity responds in a way that makes everything technicolour.
3. What I have recieved from people/sources I trust. You could use the word ‘apostle’ here. We learn tihngs from people who have already taken us along the way. The dangers of trusting the wrong voices are obvious – consider the way that social media shapes us by feeding us bias – but ideas and inspiration is often an external thing, offered by others.
4. What I have found to be useful. This last point relates to how spiritual ideas might be seen to shape both individuals and wider human communities towards good.

The last point is the one that I want to talk about a little more. It has been obvious throughout most of my life that mainstream religion, certainly in the West, has had far too little to say about social and economic justice. More recently, it has had little to say about climate change/justice either. It is not that individuals within faith traditions has not brought huge energy to bear in challenging these great injustices, but rather that mainstream theology has not offered a coherant story or an idea that has enabled the radical changes that I believe to be necessary. By and large, faith seems to have contributed to the status quo as determined by those powers that want things to stay the same.

For example (in case you needed it) I grew up within an evangelical Christian tradition that promoted individual salvation (after we die) above all else. They called this ‘the gospel’. It took me years to realise that this way of seeing the world/reading the Bible/understanding the mission of Jesus was full of subjectivity and distortions, and that there had always been other ways to approach the story. The story has more to teach us if we allow ourselves to be taught.

What still interests me (and keeps me returning, despite everything) is how faith motivates us to reach for something better, somthing deeper, more ‘true’, more loving, particularly in the context of a changing world facing huge challenges. To put it another way, what ways of seeing the world/reading the bible/understanding the mission (gospel) of Jesus might be USEFUL to us?

I think I have found some intriguing clues- not answers as such, but certainly ones that invite me to respond. A lot of this came to me in part through the writings of Fr Richard Rohr, particularly his most recent book ‘The Universal Christ’. I tried to describe some of this in a post a couple of years ago. You could say that Rohr has fulfilled that ‘apostle’ role I described previously, and also that as I read his worlds, something deep inside me said YES. There was great love and beauty in the whole story.

Also, his theological ideas seemed useful in a way that nothing else had for some time. He painted an idea of a unified, interdependent, interconnected world in which ‘The Christ’ was another word for everything. In this reading, God loves things by becoming them. These ideas came from Rohr’s Fransican tradition, and have been tested over time by deep theological thinkers, but it really feels to me that they are needed now, more than ever before.

In this reading, the purpose of faith is to shine light on the great goodness of all created things and the great interdpendence of all created things. It is also to note the brokeness within the nature of creation which we, as part of the whole, seek to heal and to ‘save’. This is not then restricted to saving the chosen frozen in a mythical and much feared afterlife, but rather about the here and now and what is within our grasp. How might such a reading change our relationship to the world?

I would argue that it changes everything.

Those of you who are travellers in a faith tradition will no doubt have all sorts of concerns and questions about my simplistic summary above and you would be right to do so. After all theological statements should allways be questioned and wrestled with. (Perhaps, however, you would be best to start with your own!)

Finally, if you have read this in bemusement that anyone might find motivation and inspiration in dead religion, then… well I have no desire to convince you otherwise. Find yours elsewhere and let that sing in your soul instead.

Today, a re-post of an old poem about looking backwards…

It seemed appropriate once again to remember that the human race has travelled a long way, or then again, perhaps not far at all.

(Recorded up the hill behind where we live, at the old ruined farm.)

Marking the journey towards the the last chance for the continued survival of whole species and perhaps even our civilisation: a conference of world leaders, meeting just over the river from where I live.

This image is of ‘Amal’, a three meter high puppet refugee who has been slowly making her way accross europe to her final destination of Manchester, along routes taken by other Syrian refugees. The full story is here.

I share this story not only because it is remarkable how an outsized animation has been able to humanise a human tragedy more than the humans themselves…

…but also because as we head towards COP26, it should be clear to us that the battle against global warming is inseperable from the issue of global social justice. The huge consumption gap between the haves and the have-nots is the problem here, The fear that keeps our borders high is the same fear that stops us from realising that it is we who have to change.

I want to live

I want to live in a world in which refugees are welcomed

As if coming home. As if the food they are given

Was cooked by their own mothers.

.

I want to live in a world in which people share what they have

With those who have nothing. Where fear of scarcity is foolish

Because we finally recognised abundance.

.

I want to live in a world in which love for neighbours

Made hedges and fences inconvenient. As if real estate

Is not real after all.

.

I want to live in a world in which guns are things for museums

Behind glass with suits of armour. Where tanks are

Used only to store liquid.

.

I want to live in a world in which nothing is expendable, as if landfills

were already full. As if bags of bolts and empty cans

Can be used again tomorrow.

.

I want to live in a world in which children are thrilled by birdsong

and gloriously appalled by black beetles. Where great adventure is made

Out of mountain and forest.

.

I want to live.

Mistake

Can a bad man still love deeply
Or a sad man laugh at the winter moon?
Can a small man dream big dreams
Or an old man plan for distant futures?

Can a wrong man stare deep inside
The soul of his own mistakes?
Can a man already fat from fine things
Learn to live with less, or

Must men always be shaped
By their own scars?

Marking the journey towards the the last chance for the continued survival of whole species and perhaps even our civilisation: a conference of world leaders, meeting just over the river from where I live.

Many

Many voices make great songs, and

Many arms have the strength to save

For beach is not a beach without a

Billion pebbles and sand cannot become

Sand without the breaking of a

Billion waves. And field is not field unless

We fence it and forest is not forest if

We will not let it grow. Many feet make the

broadest footpaths and many hands lighten

The lift of heavy loads. For a sky is blind

But for a billion stars and without a billion

Screens we see nothing.

In case you missed it, COP21, otherwise known as ‘the 21st Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’, starts in Glasgow at the end of this month. In other words, world leaders have a last last chance to find ways to reverse collective self destruction. We stand on the brink, hopeful that someone can perform an act of great diplomacy. Unfortunately, the host of this gathering of the great and powerful is… Boris Johnson. We might need divine intervention.

Or we might need to remember that even BJ is not immune to the pressure of public opinion. Momentum for change is often only obvious in hindsight, but I genuinely think we are seeing evidence of movement.

It occurs to me too that if we are to see this change, it will not actually be about one conference, or one main effort, or one great action. Rather it will be about a thousand million actions, shaped by the emergence of a different way to think about our relationship with the world that we live on.

I have been inspired by an ark that has appeared on the hillside in my little corner of Argyll;

You can read the full story here.

We need our artists and our story tellers. How else might we start to see things in a new light? We need lot of small voices to make up a whole massed choir (to which I will add my own dodgy tenor.)

As we move towards COP21, I hope to post a series of poems/thoughts/agitations.

Michaela, who knows things, tells me it is world poetry day, so what better day to release some brand new poems in to the world?

By the way, these poems will feature in a brand new collaboration with the wonderful Si Smith at some point… watch this space.

Something has to kill you in the end…

Not everything will prosper

Not all that breaks first bends

Not everyone self-actuates

Some wounds can never mend

So if you planned to live for ever

Better think again my friend, for

Something has to kill you in the end

.

Not all streets are safe as houses

Some children fail to thrive

No engines run for ever

Not all species can survive

When icecaps are all melting

Why strive to stay alive, for

Something has to kill you in the end

.

Not all our cells stay healthy

Not all bacteria’s benign

When trouble brews like viral news

Not all will read the signs

It might be the final curtain

Or we might just recombine, but

Something has to kill you in the end

.

Prodigal ape

You cannot choose the weather

You must take it all, for do not

Cheeks sing to both sun and storm?

When you stand before a big sky

It is never silent.

.

You cannot ignore the forest, for like all

Prodigal apes you must eventually return

Crawl soft ground beneath the mother oak

Bury your nose in half-familiar musks

That smell of home.

.

You cannot swim against a river flow

It will go where it will to go

It might take you down to sea

Where awaiting on the shore

You’ll find me.

Slow

Slow like a river though the roots

Of ancient trees. Slow like sails.

Slow like a meadow in a wind that

flows forever. Slow like the sea.

Slow as the tears that stain an

Unlined cheek. Slow like Sunday.

Slow like stories waiting to

Be told. Slow like sunshine.

.

Slow like a worm moving deep in

Virgin soil. Slow like a friend.

Slow like a swallow flies in

New blue sky. Slow like religion.

Slow like the way that lichen

Grows on rock. Slow like a slug.

Slow like glacial flow of ancient

Ice. Slow like a poem.

.

Slow like a thought on a

Rainy day. Slow like pain.

Slow like the heartbeat of elephant

Or whale. Slow like a snail.

Slow like summer back when we were

Young. Slow like news.

Slow like the wait for a baby

To be born. Slow like God.

Let me start with this image, of recovered migrant boats gathered together in Gran Canaria (From The Guardian. Full story here.)

Can I suggest that you take a moment to ask yourself what emotions this picture evokes.

On the one hand the image churns in our fearful underbellies, into that dark part of us so easily exploited by proto fascists like Trump and Orban of Hungary. It is visual evidence of the hoards of ‘others’ massing at our borders wanting to take what is ours, or to come in such numbers as to overwhelm our culture and replace it with something alien and foreign. Something should be done, right?

But each one of these boats represents a story of human desperation. Undoubtably some (perhaps even many) of the passengers on these boats did not survive their attempts to reach Europe from Africa “…Caminando Fronteras, which has spent 14 years tracking and helping to co-ordinate the rescues of people who come to grief en route to Spain from Africa, estimates that 1,922 people died or disappeared while trying to reach the Canaries by sea between January and the end of June this year. (2021) By their calculations, the Atlantic route claimed 1,851 lives last year…” (Again, from The Guardian.) These are vast numbers, on just one of the routes used by people desperate to escape from all those usual evils that circumstance and growing global inequality has inflicted upon them. Men, women and children. Families setting out on a perilous journey with one aim- to be able to live lives of peace and prosperity, like we do. The human tragedy is hard to grasp, and then impossible to bear.

So, if you are like me, you feel yourself being sucked downwards in a vortex of powerlessness and despair. Our social media feeds highten this experience, constantly bringing us click-worthy extremes and promoting the most hateful and reprehensible voices, because there is nothing that captivates and invigorates our ego like our own outrage. Ultimately however, because there is nothing we can do about the state of the world, no wonder that we turn away and seek numbing distraction.

Thinking again about our individual responses to the picture above, it is clear that most of them must inevitably be passive responses. These might still be important, as clearly ‘public opinion’ is still shaping international responses to the so called ‘migrant crisis’, but on the whole, most of us have no direct influence on the complex circumstances that force people out on the open sea in small boats, beyond charitable giving or signing petitions. Where then do we look for hope? Surely these are not our only possible responses? Surely our hopes for the world used to amount to more than this?

I am working on a new book at the moment, which will be a collection of poetry, with art work from the outrageously talented Si Smith, which has the working title ‘After the apocalypse’. The project began about 5 years ago, in different times before we ever thought of face masks and social distancing. Back then, it seemed like the world was being dragged down a different sinkhole by Trump and his ilk. It felt important to resist in any way we could and for me this meant writing a lot of poetry. For Si, it meant producing and curating art. As the Trump/Johnson years have unfolded, it has been hard to hang on to the spirit of resistance. The set backs and defeats have mounted. Protest poetry began to seem like an indulgence, or an affliction of yet more misery on people who had seen enough of that already.

Then came the pandemic. The great disruptor. The great leveller (or so we thought). The killer and seperator. The window through which we look at things differently. The point at which the old normal is no more.

The project then took another shape, in which it was necessary not just to look backwards, but also to look forwards. But how is this possible, without hope? To conceive of a new world we have to hold an image of it in our minds. To work for good means that we have to have some idea of what goodness looks like. This is a huge challenge because most of our aspirations have been individually curated for us by our consumer culture. Instead of protest poems I began to write things like this;

Joy 2

Joy is not a bauble

Not a bubble, too soon burst

Never manufactured cost effectively

It is not bought or sold

It is not gold

.

Joy is not a jacket

You pick from a handy peg, it is

Never something worn externally

It is always a surprise

Like sunrise

.

Joy requires no skill

Its practice is not taught

It is not being ‘happy’ or content

It is just being open, to the

Beautiful and broken

.

Joy is an ambush

Hidden in plain sight

Wrapped up in the most unlikely things

It often comes with grief, not even

Promising relief

.

Joy is a squirrel

Transcending a tree

It is music played directly on the spine

You do not need to look, because

It stabs you the gut

I read recently about this thing called active hope. This has nothing to do with blind optimism or pie-in-the-sky positivity, rather it refers to a process by which we might reset our lives towards meaning and that elusive sacred thing sometimes known as goodness, or grace, or dare I say it, holiness. Yes, I think it is time to reclaim the word from the religious bigots and apply it instead to something less dualistic and a lot more ordinary.

Active hope is a concept put forward by Chris Johnstone and Jo Macy, as a way to help those of us who want to make a difference to reconnect with… hope. Perhaps we should start with a story;

Shambhala. Does it remind you of the Kingdom of God that Jesus spoke so much about?

Writing in this months Permaculture magazine, Chris Johnstone describes active hope as a three step process, something like this;

1. Start from where you are, with an honest appraisal of how you think and feel about your immediate world. Perhaps it might be time to re-callibrate your hopes and aims, or to let go of things that need to be let go. He describes some of thee as like ‘carbon-heavy hopes’ that might be no longer fit for a world plagued by climate change.
2. The next step is about choices. He suggests that from wherever we are, even if it currently feels like a difficult and hard place, there are always a lot of different ways that things can develop, a lot of different versions of how the story can go. This step then is to choose the one you hope for. As long as we are able to make these choices, then we open up the possibiity of allowing hoped-for futures to act through us.
3. The third step is to take actions that might make those hoped for futures more likely.

Johnstone suggest too that when we face worries about the world we are living in, we contrast the usefulness of these two questions- ‘Are we hopeful?’, and ‘What are you hoping for?’. The first might be self defeating. The second one is anything but.

There is another important thing here, which was also part of the story of the Shambhala warriors, and that is the idea that small actions, taken by many, then amplified by the connectivity between all things, have a power beyond our immediate understanding. This takes some imagination in a culture that has glorified individualism.

This is where I am today, looking for active hope.

To be fair, the old Clyde is cleaner than it was, at least to the eye. All the old heavy industry that used to clog the shores of the river all the way up to Glasgow and beyond has mostly long gone, so it would be strange if it were not. But the clearer waters hide something else.

There have been reasons to be optimistic. Some iconic species like otter, seal and porpoise can been seen out in the estuary. We have even been visited by killer whales, and small numbers of wild Salmon have been finding their way up river for over a decade now.

But all that contaminated land continues to leach toxins in the the river. That is just the old stuff, not all the plastics that have found their way in there in the last decades. Then there are the things happening up the river in the watershed- mostly phosphates from farming.

At present, there is consierable focus on a large fine handed out to Southern Water for releasing raw sewage into the rivers (because it is cheaper to pay the fines than invest in new treatment facilities) but it should not come as a surprise that the Clyde has had similar incidents.

The obvious thing about the estuary though is how empty it is compared to what SHOULD be there. It is a bit like looking at our contour-planted hilsides, devoid as they are of almost all the flora and fauna that used to form the great rain forests, and getting excited by the presence of an eagle. The fish are not there. The reefs and kelp beds are shrinking, the sea bed has and is being scoured by trawlers dredging for the only commercial crop left, prawns and scallops. There is a summary of much of this here.

The thing is, we can do something about this. The toxiicity up river is frankly more of a risk to us (apart from the phosphates and other agricultural polutions in the upper river). There is however great evidence that marine protection areas, partiularly ones that can be policed as easily as the Clyde estuary could be, work.

Let us not be complacent. The firth of Clyde is lovely, but it is not healthy. It needs our help.

Dirty old river

Dirty old river all rusty and brown
Coughs out a ship from the dirty old town
Scavenging birds patrol overhead
Searching for things only recently dead

Last resort trawler hauls close up to shore
Scrapes up the last scallop and the very last prawn
A flatiron-shaped tug smooths out towards sea
Like the impossible flight of the last bumble bee

The dirty old river that once was pretty
Collects like a sewer from the arse of this city
Where once swam the salmon, the perch and brown trout
There are only jobbies bobbing about