I know it has been a warm winter by most standards, but the darkness, the bare tree,; the sodden hillsides, the succession of storms – they do wear you down.
Spring is the time of yearI love more than any other. More than the driest day of hot Summer, give me a Spring shower. Particularly one falling on the West Coast of Scotland. It is a time when my boots start to twitch to the promise of adventure. A time when things seem characterised by potential.
So my friends, may your windows be opened wide.
May your air be sweet with the song.
May you come to realise that after the heavy bloat of pregnancy, after the rending of birth, new life leaps into the fields, fresh of fur, eyes wide with wonder.
We don’t get many pirates in these parts. However, a few days ago there was an incident on the Holy Loch involving the boat above.
The Glen Masson is a posh small cruise boat of the rather grandiosely named Majestic Line. It was featured in last years Visit Scotland TV ad. Here she is last spring, beached for a bit of maintainance.
Recently whilst the Glen Masson was moored up, Captain Pugwash, along with Master Mate and his swarthy (is that a racist word?) band of cutthroats climbed aboard in the dead of night and helped themselves to all manner of treasures. Triumphantly they bundled their booty and made escape towards the high seas.
Except pride comes before a fall. In their excitement at a piratical job done well, they turned left rather than right.
This meant that rather than heading towards the mouth of the Clyde (and freedom) they sailed straight up the Loch, where they ran firmly aground.
Ooops.
Police and coastguards did the rest. Booty has been returned, the brave pirates are clinging to bobbing flotsam…
You may have heard about this film that is about to hit our screens;
It is a great story of course; an ancient almost-apocalypse in which an Angry God wipes out most of the planet in some kind of Creation-reboot.
When films like this make it onto the mass market however, it is often a good time to take stock and ask what this rehash of Genesis is speaking in to our culture.
One thing that seems to be central to a lot of mass media output post 911 is FEAR. Fear of the outsider, fear of the enemy within, fear of a great cataclysm that scatters body parts in all directions. Fear like this, at a time of greater (Western) peace and security than at almost any other time of our history, seems totally absurd at first glance. But this kind of fear is contagious. It might also be deliberately induced (take a look at Naomi Klein’s book The Shock Doctrine if you want to dig into this a little more.)
Movies have to make money. They have certainly parachuted some impressive acting talent into this one, be it a dog or be it screen nirvana. Movies have to plug in to a market demographic, and it seems likely that this epic will sell well in Conservative Christian middle America. The sort of places where many people regard Darwinism as the work of Satan, that the Great Flood explains away the fossil record and the words of the Bible are all we need to understand Science.
There is another way to approach the story of the Great Flood however. Some of you will be well aware that there are many other ancient cultures who have a flood myth as part of their received history.
There is the Gligamesh one– from at least 1200 BCE, probably a lot earlier.
Utanapishtim replied: “I will tell you a secret of the gods, Gilgamesh, I will reveal to you a mystery. Shortly after the Flood had been decreed for mankind by the great gods, Enki — without breaking oath — advised me to tear down my house and build a boat, to abandon possessions and save life. Into the vessel was to go the seed of all living creatures.”*
(*A similar story is found in ancient India, where Vishnu tells Vaivasvata Manu: “Seven rain clouds will bring destruction. The turbulent oceans will merge together into a single sea. They will turn the entire triple world into one vast sheet of water. Then you must take the seeds of life from everywhere and load them into the boat of the Vedas.” (Matsya Purana 2.8-10).)
Enki gave Utanapishtim instruction on the boat’s dimensions and construction. It was to measure 10 rods (120 cubits) on a side, six decks dividing it into seven levels, all measured to a height of 10 rods, with nine compartments inside. On the sixth(?) day it was completed. The boat was launched with difficulty, until two-thirds was submerged. Then after everything had been loaded in, including all the craftsmen, the deluge came. Raging storms reached to the heavens, turning all that was light into darkness. As in a battle no man could see his fellow. Even the gods, terror-stricken by the tempest, fled to the heaven of Anu, cowering like dogs. Ishtar cried out like a woman in travail; Belet-ili (Aruru) lamented that the olden time had turned to clay, because she had spoken evil in the assembly of the gods.
Six days and seven nights the winds blew. At sunrise on the seventh day they subsided and the storm ceased. Utanapishtim opened a vent and light fell on his face. Water was everywhere. All was silence. All mankind had turned to clay. On the submerged peak of Mt. Nimush the ship ran aground. After another seven days, he sent a dove forth, but it found no perch. He sent out a swallow; it returned too. Then a raven, and this one saw the waters receding. Utanapishtim went forth from the boat; he offered a sacrifice to the four directions; he strewed incense on the peak (ziggurat) and poured a libation — seven goblets and seven — to attract the gods. But Enlil was furious: all mankind was to have been destroyed. Who had revealed the secret? Enki reproved Enlil for causing the Flood, then explained how in a vision given to Utanapishtim the secret had been discovered. His fate must be decided by Enlil, who then declared that Utanapishtim and his wife shall become like gods. The gods took them to the faraway land, to dwell at the Mouth of Rivers — sacred rivers symbolic of the continuous stream of divine wisdom flowing into human life.
A while ago I read a review of The Ark Before Noah: Decoding the Story of the Flood by Irving Finkel. It tells something of how the ancient Hebrews might have encountered these stories and adopted (and adapted) them as their own during their time in Babylonian captivity;
Over the years, cuneiform flood tablets have continued to turn up. Three distinct Mesopotamian incarnations of the myth have now been identified, one recorded in Sumerian and two in Akkadian. It has become clear that the tale of a universal flood was widespread in Mesopotamia for an entire millennium and a half before the hapless Judaeans, defeated in the early 6th century BC by Nebuchadnezzar, were dragged away from their smoking cities into exile, there to weep beside the rivers of Babylon. Now, courtesy of Irving Finkel, the British Museum’s eminence grise of cuneiform studies, there comes a further clinching piece of evidence: a tablet that actually describes animals entering an ark “two by two”. Not only that, but it offers startlingly precise specifications on how best to construct one. An ark, so the tablet instructs us, should properly be circular in shape, have an area of 3,600 metres, and be fashioned out of plant fibre. All those living in the Somerset Levels may wish to take note.
There is also this fascinating passage;
By plundering the heritage of Babylon, they were at once paying homage to its cultural prestige, and annexing it to their own ends. Just as Christians and Muslims would subsequently transform the biblical figure of Noah into a prefiguring of their own respective theodicies, so the Judaeans transformed the myths of their Babylonian overlords into something that would end up as Jewish. In Mesopotamia, where it was the custom to erect buildings over the remains of levelled ruins, the ancient past literally provided the foundations of new temples. In a similar manner, its legends were made to serve the self-mythologisation of the Jews. Some details of the flood tablet discovered by Finkel – the animals going in two by two, for instance – were cannibalised; others – the specifications of the ark’s measurements, and the detail that the great ship had been round – were not. This, for me, is the real fascination of his find: the light it sheds on how a despised and defeated people won a victory over their conquerors so remarkable that it now gets to be commemorated by Russell Crowe.
We make of these stories what we need them to make. The ‘truth’ of them requires us to look a little deeper, a little further into ourselves.
Perhaps as far back as the melting of the last ice age, and the rising sea levels that swallowed whole villages, whole hunting grounds in a relatively short time scale- certainly within the span of people’s lifetimes, and within generational historical memory.
Or perhaps even further into ourselves- into our darkest fears…
As I was driving through Paisley on my way to the hospital, I saw a sign with these words;
Destiny Charity Superstore
I checked it out later- it is a former garden centre, taken over by Destiny Church to operate as a kind of mega-charity shop. It is how Mega Church does charity shops, and as the man says, it is no ordinary charity shop;
Perhaps with charity shops (if not always with Church) bigger really is better?
Feast days have always been an excuse for some excessive carousing, but in the past perhaps we were more connected to the stories of the saints that we celebrate.
This is probably never more so than with St Patrick, patron saint of Ireland, whose feast we celebrate today.
Like you needed me to tell you this. After all, the streets of all our cities are covered in people dressed in green suits, tongues brown from the Guinness and ears ringing from the bloody awful Pogues.
How shocked would most of them be to hear that St Patrick, that symbol of all things Irish, was actually, well English. Romano-British to be precise, probably born in what is now Cumbria. Aged around 16 he was captured by Irish pirates who took him to Ireland, where he served as a slave for 6 years, during which time he converted to Christianity. He then escaped and returned to England (via France, where he encountered monasticism) before returning to Ireland as a Christian missionary.
Not that the Irish liked him much- he was beaten, robbed, imprisoned and ridiculed. Despite all this, he went on to found 300 churches, baptize thousands, found monasteries and (presumably because he was bored) banish snakes from Ireland.
Raise a glass, but also raise a quizzical eyebrow at all the feasting. I am sure he would.
Well, I suppose it is not that posh really, but one of my favourite places to eat is the lovely Inver Cottage Restaurant, out along Loch Fyne near the dramatic ruin of Old Castle Lachlan. The food is great, and served in a lovely airy space with a seaside/beach kind of feel to it, complete with open fires and good locally brewed beer. It is a place that we go to for a very special treat and feel kind of grateful that they let us in!
The owners contacted us a few weeks ago asking if we would be interested in selling some of our craft/art there. I suppose the beach-themed things that we make are a good fit with what they are doing too. Michaela and Pauline took a whole set of things round there, and it now fills their shelves. All very exciting for a bodging fiddler like myself.
Here is a photo Michaela took through their window, with all sorts of things we have made waiting to be displayed…
In memory of the man (who died today, aged 88) watch this;
As I listen to him- his appreciation of the history of working people in their struggle against the power and wealth of the few, his hate of war and injustice, his passion, grace and good humour, I pray that there will be those who will take up the same issues for the next generation.
I am sad to say that I am not sure who these people are, and where they will come from.
I have just had one of those encounters with mass consumerdom that leaves us angry, frustrated and dissatisfied. To be honest, most such encounters have this effect on me these days, but this one more so than most.
Michaela bought a budget netbook last week as she had broken the screen on her old laptop, and it was simply not worth repairing due to it’s age and general decrepitude. When she got the new netbook home, it was simply dreadful. If she tries to operate two programmes at once (say e-mail and the internet) one of them freezes up.
After listening to her cries of irritation I said I would take it back (to PC World) and upgrade it to a better model. It was an hour and a half of my life I will never get back. Suffice it to say that we still have the same netbook. PC world are happy to recommend and sell goods that are crap, but only willing to exchange them if the crap has been squashed or flushed in some way.
I should not be surprised at the rude and unhelpful encounters I had in the process of trying to sort all this out. Think of the huge industry that has evolved to stoke our obsession with shopping; all those on-line reviews (which we should perhaps have read,) consumer advice websites, comparing Meer cats etc..
We live in a world characterised by the interface between huge companies whose bottom line depends on screwing us out of every last fraction of a penny, and the consumer (me) standing haughtily on my ‘rights’.
The devaluing of the ‘rights’ of man from ideas of freedom from oppression to whether or not our gadgets work in the manner to which we expect – or our holidays entertain us as we hope they will -depresses the hell out of me.
Which is why I came out of PC world miserable. It was less about the money, and the sense of being chewed up by the machine, and more the fact that I had somehow debased myself by conforming to that which I despise.
“When it can be said by any country in the world, my poor are happy, neither ignorance nor distress is to be found among them, my jails are empty of prisoners, my streets of beggars, the aged are not in want, the taxes are not oppressive, the rational world is my friend because I am the friend of happiness. When these things can be said, then may that country boast its constitution and government. Independence is my happiness, the world is my country and my religion is to do good.” Thomas Paine, Rights of Man
Having said all that- I am writing this on my laptop, not Michaela’s.
How blessed we are to have the means to own two laptops anyway…
Yesterday we had our lovely Aoradh Sunday- we gather for worship, then we eat together.
The first thing we do (this being the UK) is share a cup of tea. For people in our culture, drinking tea together is more than just refreshment; it is a symbol of friendship, a symbol of simple community and hospitality. As a friend of mine recently said ‘there are not many problems that can not be sorted out over a cup of tea’.
Yesterday we were drinking a brand of tea that has a long history- a company called Tetley who are the second largest manufacturer and distributor of tea (after Unilever.) We normally try to buy fair trade tea, but someone else had recently given us a large bag of the Tetley stuff, which tastes good.
The family of a man who starved to death four months after his benefits were cut off has called on the government to reform the way it treats people with mental health problems when it assesses their eligibility for benefits.
Mark Wood, 44, who had a number of complex mental health conditions, died at his home last August, months after an Atos fitness-for-work assessment found him fit for work. This assessment triggered a decision by the jobcentre to stop his sickness benefits, leaving him just £40 a week to live on. His housing benefits were stopped at around the same time.
… and it is perhaps just in time.
this fragile tent 