Blind drunk we each seek to find the answer in the bottom of a blind bottle. We draw blades across our skin, searching for a meaning drawing out the pain. You don't want it to be over but you don't want to feel again.
Broken hearts are broken bottles; jagged and raw you ride the see-saw. Your emotions run high, your motives run low. Till drunk broken bottles drink pink sober skin, red blood wine drips down your knee past your shin. To the floor.
Temporary respite in the knitting of the skin. In the scar silver thin. In the blood red whine, creeping slowly down your shin. But the bottle found empty and the bottom found bare. There is no discovery, there is no answer there.
One point where I think Catholic Theology comes up tops is in it's analysis of evil, is in it's understanding of good and evil.
Catholic teaching points out that each one of the seven deadly sins, is in fact a perverted love. It is loving something in particular to the exclusion of the overall good. It is loving something in particular so much, that you forget the overall point of love.
Pride- Love of self. Wrath- Love of getting you way. Envy- Love of whatever it is the other man has and you don't. Avarice- Love of the ability to acquire. Gluttony- Love of food. Lust- Love of sex. Sloth- Love of indolence.
To sin, you have to be capable of love. To hate, you have to be capable of love.
Because all Hate-based systems are founded on love too.
The hatred shown by the Nazi creed is not rooted in nothing, it wasn't hate for hate's sake, it was loving something too much. An ideal of what a perfect German should be.
And it occurs to me that the fine line between Good and Evil really is in ourselves.
It is in our ability to control our own drives.
You see, I've realised, Love in itself isn't the test. You can love and still take that road towards evil. And it is Love that will take you there.
It's whether you can win that battle within yourself.
And it is the battle most people fail in.
We say that those who cannot love have no soul. And I guess, for all practical purposes, it's true. Because that set of emotions bound together with logic and reason that makes us what we are, immortal it may not be, but it's what makes us human.
So Loving simply makes you human.
The battle for your soul, the battle over whether you really can claim to be good, or will forever be tormented inside by evil, is the choices you make in HOW you love.
It's how you react towards the object you love, and in how you make pursue that love with regard to love generally.
In many cultures, it has at times, been regarded as th right of the husband of an adultress to either execute his errant wife, or at least demand her death. This is so in several Muslim countries, though I believe it's true that in Uraguay a husband coming upon his wife in flagrante and shooting her is classed as justifiable homicide.
And secretly there are some who applaud these notions. Adultery, after all, is a betrayal of love.
But isn't killing the one you're supposed to love a slightly bigger one?
A woman having sex with another man isn't an act of hate, killing is.
Ultimately, the real evil is committed by the aggrieved husband. The aggrieved husband who acts in blind rage, or worse, in cold blooded hate exorcises his thwarted rage by obliterating the one who causes it.
It is there, in that moment he loses the battle for his soul.
Whatever one thinks of adultery isn't the issue, betrayal it may be, but the only thing destroyed is his dignity and his feelings.
Not really worth a life being destroyed for.
But what REALLY is at the heart of this?
Conditional devotion.
The expectation of receiving something back for your devotion. And anger that you didn't. A feeling you've been cheated, and you want paying somehow.
Nietzche is often held up as ant Anti-Christ amongst philosophers, but it was Nietzche who perhaps summed up that important moral message, which, if you get your head round, really does explain to you the point of love.
'Love is a gift, it confers no rights.'
And if we observed that, then everything would be fine.
But we don't. We hawk it round the market place hoping that we'll find someone who values our love it what we think it's worth.
We decide to love someone on condition that they value our love for them at the price we think it is worth.
So much of the pain in human interaction is basically caused by people's inner inability to cope with the fact the object of their love doesn't value their love for them at the price they want the object of their love to value it at.
But you see, to them it might actually be totally valueless. It might be totally useless to them.
I think both positions are hard. It's hard to be loved by someone who's love is really not the love you want, or worse, is valueless, it's hard to be the subject of. The opposite position is in some ways easier in fact, or seems so, but in fact it's the most dangerous at all. Because your soul truly is at stake.
I think I only really grasped this properly over the last year; it's that, that predicament which really is the dividing line which determines whether, in a metaphorical sense, you're damned or saved. I say metaphorical, because I do believe this life is all there is.
Because unconditional love accepts that even wanting them to love you back, is wrong.
I've been the subject of it. Someone who could not see that for them to love me at all, could only lead to my misery. From my perspective, their love and their hate were just as bad as the other; neither could do me any good, both could only make me miserable. From my perspective, their love was worth even less than valueless; like Phlogiston, it actually had negative weight.
And I'm sure that must be hard for someone to accept. That the Love you feel for the object of your Love is not only valueless to them, it actually causes them pain.
But it's how you handle it. Is it something you face, or something you persist in, trying to find a way it can be done, trying to influence them, trying to change their mind?
Because in those circumstances, you're already on the road to evil.
You're pushing the desires of YOUR heart against a true unconditional desire for the good of the object of your love.
And on a lesser scale sometimes people do try hard, they ardently pursue their suit to the degree that the other party thinks; 'Why not give them a try?'
But it is still wrong, and it will still lead to wrong further down the line. Because you might have won their heart in the short term, but you only have it online.
One day, that choice will still come back to you, having to accept that the other party does not value your love at the price you think it should be valued at.
Accepting that you give them all the love you have, and to them it really is useless. It's not your love they need.
I think that's the difference between the road to Heaven and the road to Hell.
Giving your love and not expecting to be paid back in love. And refusing to accept payment back. Because if it was given, it would only be given out of charity.
Accepting that no matter how high a price you put on yourself and no matter how much you know this is The One, accepting as irrevocable the fact your love really is of no value or use to them whatsoever.
And wishing they can find love that is.
The battle for your soul is won the day you know you will always give them everything they ask for, or you know they need from you (as opposed to what you would like to THINK or HOPE they needed), and would refuse anything they offered you.
Don't you just love answering questions to utility companies and other corporations over the phone?
Frankly, I'm so tired of the time wasted by the ingratiating unctiousness of the call centre employees at the other end and I'm used to what the questions will be, that I simply reel them off like a hail of bullets.
First name, surname, postcode, first line of address, home telephone number, mobile number, work number, e-mail, then...
'SINGLE'
And I remember in the days when I used to process loan applications we'd always get the ones who'd say 'I live with my partner.'
That wasn't the question. In fact, for the purposes of that particular question, it is irrelevant. The options are 'Married, Widowed, Divorced....or Single.'
So for me, the question will never, ever need any thought. For these sorts of purposes, my official status is, and always will be, single.
But of course, this is why so many people feel the need to tell the person asking about their attached status. Because they see themselves as 'attached'. But for the purposes of the question being asked, they're single.
Being single is a complex thing. Being single comes in many vibrant colours and several shades of grey.
And some of those types of single aren't actually so very single at all.
'Single' means, my life is my business. It doesn't concern officialdom and it doesn't concern you. Even when I've been attached, I've never felt the need to say 'Well, I live my girlfriend'. Why tell them? They didn't ask. You have the option to use the 'Mind your own business' answer, revel in that freedom.
This is one of my gripes against 'Miss' and 'Mrs'. Women now can use 'Ms'. They have the option not to show their marital status in their title. I tend to have little respect for a 'Mrs' because she is someone quite happy to advertise the fact she's given up her own birthname and taken on that of a man. And a 'Miss' to me, is someone who one day wants to be a 'Mrs'. A 'Ms' is relishing the fact no man owns her in that sense, and no man ever will.
My Mum hates the fact I send her Xmas cards and birthday cards to 'Ms Crushed', but fact is, as I tell her, I just don't like using 'Mrs' and will make the political point if I have to.
I suppose really, in many ways, that's one of my main gripes about marriage. Having to make a public statement about it. I resent having to make a statement about ANY of it. It's my business, no one else's.
Single. Covers everything.
At one end of the scale is the irresolutely and truly single. The person who really has determined to eschew all human contact of an intimate type. Or the person who just can't, for whatever reason, get that contact.
And at the other end we have 'Well, I live with my partner'.
And in between we have varying levels, the serial monogamist, the person who thrives on one stands alone, and then we have those of us who just go with the flow, drifting aimlessly from one person's arms to another with no rules and no clear plan, sometimes passing like ships in the night, sometimes seeing several people at once with varying degrees of seriousness, sometimes going through periods of relative sparseness but never really nailing our colours to the mast and always ultimately ready to move on.
Single? I'm ALWAYS single. It just means different things at different times.
My friend the Chimney Sweep said of late 'Isn't it about time you sorted yourself some options out? It's not usually like you to go that long without sorting yourself out a couple of girls in the background somewhere?'
And I suppose, yes, that tends to sum up the general median position of my singlehood. A couple of girls in the background somewhere. Never really going anywhere and ready to be jettisoned should it ever look like it might.
I don't really like one night stands over much, but ultimately there's one thing I just fear losing.
The right to use that word.
Single.
I remember when I was little you occasionally used to come across people my parents used to call 'Fweinds', pronounced in that way.
What this meant was, this was the eighties. Homosexuality was legal, but outside London, still something that people didn't always shout about.
So in places like the civil service and other professions, it wasn't uncommon to find that there were people who had a partner of the same sex and lived with them, but it wasn't stated, not openly, only to people who knew them well, and even then, the partner wasn't referred to as a partner, but as a friend.
Of course people filled in the blanks correctly. They knew the friend was their partner.
But it was something that wouldn't have come up at their interview where they would have plumped for the 'single' card. And in fact, it might well be something their employer would NEVER know.
And it wouldn't be something they'd tell people when they first met them. They wouldn't hide it, per se, they might, if asked, say they lived with a friend. And in time it might click what type of friendship that was. But it was never stated. And people were enlightened enough to be discreet about what they'd sussed and not push the point.
In many ways, I think they were luckier than they realised. I really haven't a clue why gay rights groups want to push for gay marriage when in fact, they had the best deal. They had the right to keep their personal relationships private and not have to make a public statement.
It often used to occur to me when myself and D shared this flat that it showed the pointlessness of the distinction.
Me and D shared a flat. It was no one's business. If people asked me about my personal life, I'd state that I was single. If they asked me if I lived alone, I'd say that I lived with a female friend. And I didn't have to say any more about it. Both statements were correct.
Neither of those points were any business of anyone I met. And no one asked questions. No one ever thought that me and D were some kind of inseparable twosome. No one who was asking me if I fancied doing something would feel they needed to factor D in, or vice versa. If I was invited to a party, it wouldn't be assumed I'd bring her, and the same would be true of her.
As far as friends and family were concerned, she was simply the girl I lived with. A friend, in the true sense of the word.
And I often wondered, why would all that change if we didn't just share a flat, but shared a bed?
I guess I would actually like to be able to actually do that- not with D obviously, but with someone- actually be a couple within the flat but present it to the world exactly as it was when I lived with D.
And oh, people would know. People who really knew you would know that you were obviously more than just friends from the way you were with eachother.
But why should you have to state it publicly? Why can't it stay your business and your business alone?
Why should I have to introduce the love of my life to my parents and say 'This is the woman I want to spend my life with'? I never brought my mates round and said 'Here are the mates I want to have for life.'
The Chimney Sweep they've never even met.
Why can't I just introduce them to my new flatmate and leave it at that. In time I'm sure they'd work it out, but still, I don't see why I'm under any obligation to share my private life with them on whether I do or don't share my bed and my life with her.
And the same goes for my boss, my work colleagues, pretty much everyone.
I like to be able to say that I'm single. What it really means 'My love life is my business, you form whatever theories you want on the basis of what you see, but I'm not telling you either way. It's private.'
Maybe being a blogger makes you lucky. Because yes, when you are in love a part of you does want to shout it from the rooftops.
But to be honest, when It comes to the shouting it from the rooftops, I'd rather do it as an anonymous avatar using a pseudonym from a novel.
In real life, to me, that sort of thing, the person you actually say those three words to and mean them?
Well, believe it or not, though the voting was close, we HAD A MAJORITY IN FAVOUR OF LEGALISING COCAINE!
Though I must concede, there were two irregularities which mean that really, there was in fact a narrow minority AGAINST legalising. jmb accidentally voted the wrong way. And I voted, which normally doesn't matter, but in the event of a tie, it's only fair I remove my own vote.
But it was close, either way. I'm not sure this means that the law on drugs is going to change any time soon, just that you lot are- liberal.
Which is good.
Because this week's poll topic certainly involves an open mind.
Pornography.
What a catch all word...
And what a misused word.
It used basically to refer to graphic representation of sexual acts, whether perfectly normally or absolutely vile, whether in good artistic taste, or just pretty sick. And I'm not sure the way we view porn is any more healthy than the way we view drugs. Just as we lump cannabis in with heroin, we lump anything that depicts sex in one great big bundle.
And I think we need to admit that the walls already have come tumbling down on pornography. The question is, do we put them back up?
And yes, I think we most certainly DO need to have a wall somewhere, I don't think anyone would deny that, but where?
What SHOULD the boundaries of 'taste and decency' be?
First, let's look at facts. Up until 1961, Lady Chatterley's Lover was considered pornography. I think most of now would say it was just badly written and sensationalist. Carry on Sergeant had an X certificate when it came out because it was deemed a bit too rude.
Things have changed a lot in the last half century.
Mass communication have broken down these taboos. And left us with a mass of contradictions and potential social dangers to deal with.
We have films such as 'Nine Songs', which are released as mainstream films but have actual sex acts within them. We also have a thriving underground industry based on the sexual exploitation of children to provide images to satisfy the appetites of the truly sick.
Now we need to be realistic about this. How ordinary people view seeing graphic images of actual sex acts has changed. It is no longer thought of as perverted to be aroused by watching other people have sex, rather, it is kind of accepted as normal.
We accept that sex, like eating, is one of those bodily functions that seeing it in action kind of raises those appetites. Unlike say, going to the lavatory.
And of course, many more people now take it further. The fact is that there are many powerful aphrodisiacs, but actually seeing sex taking place is pretty much the most effective way to get a person sexually aroused.
Our culture is getting comfortable with the idea. Go and look at a site like Xtube or YouPorn. These sites are stocked with homemade video footage, made by people not ashamed to post videos of themselves having sex on the net. One wonders what percentage of the global population to date has happily posted videos of themselves engaged in sex acts for all the world to see to the end of time.
And will this percentage rise?
Twenty years down the line will university students trawl the net looking for pictures of their parents having sex with random strangers when they were younger?
Because every person who downloads a video to Xtube must be aware that that is not only a possibility, it is a fairly high probability.
And of course this has an effect on what is culturally acceptable. We've already had live sex on Big Brother, it's only a matter of time- certainly within the next ten years- when real, as opposed to simulated, sex acts appear on terrestial TV post watershed. Maybe it will be the TV premiere of Nine Songs, or maybe a controversial drama series, but it's coming.
Is this a cultural shift we should be appalled about?
I don't actually think so, no.
Sex isn't dirty. Our attitudes to its depiction make it so. I think it's a healthier situation we now have where the 'Adult film' is moving more towards the rest of films in terms of its societal perception and that the boundaries there are blurring. Many actresses who have made a career in adult films now view graduating on to serious films as a viable option.
Will this mean that one day preparedness to actually have sex in a movie is the new equivalent of preparedness to strip for a film?
Probably, yes.
But that's perhaps not a bad thing. I daresay greater ability to use real sex scenes will change film. To be sure, there will still be many films made which have no plot line to speak of and really are just sex films. But there are occasions when I can also see the artistic merits of genuine sex scenes in mainstream films.
What it will mean, is that we can erect the wall where it should be erected.
The sick side.
When we were in Amsterdam once, we noticed a small video shop in the red light district. With covered windows. Now this was puzzling, because the Colour Climax shop sits, windows full of adverts luring the passer by in, right along a main thoroughfare. What could be so bad this shop needed to be covered?
We went in. We looked around for about three minutes. Sleazy Dutch guy asks 'You want buy?'
I'm liberal, but I'm not that liberal.
No, I don't think films such as were sold in that shop should be permitted to be made or viewed. None of them involved children, but unless you wanted a film involving people with animals, people and human waste, or people driving nails through their genitals, there was nothing in that shop to turn on a normal functioning member of the human race.
I see absolutely nothing wrong with human adults watching other human adults doing something that human adults with normally functioning human bodies like to do and like to do very much. I see nothing wrong with such a basic human process being dragged out from under the carpet and reclaimed as being the perfectly normal and pleasurable activity that it is, and one that in fact forms a central part of human dynamics.
And I see nothing wrong with it being depicted and explored in mainstream art and media. And really, I'm not overly fussed if the entire population of the globe decides to download videos of ourselves engaged in sex with multiple partners for the rest of the world to see. And maybe one day we will. Maybe in a generation or two, people will see videos of themselves having sex as just another home movie. They'll be sitting chatting and say 'Want to see me having sex with Darren?'
And of course, with it being that normal, it just won't be a big deal any more. It won't be a billion dollar industry. It will just be- sex. Something people like to do and like to watch.
Because if you think about it, it's actually pretty strange that we'd rather have images of people being tortured and killed on our screens than people making love.
If the activity is legal and consensual, than I see no reason why its visual depiction should not be a perfectly accepted part of mainstream life.
And if it isn't, than the depiction of it is of course, evidence of a crime taking place, and those who view it should rightly be treated as accessories to that crime.
With of course the additional proviso that certain things, though legal, are still abhorrent to the majority, and the majority shouldn't have to accidentally stumble across them, and nor should, these things being accepted as deviant in the extreme, too much assistance be provided to those who want to get kicks out of those things.
I do not want to see the day when people can easily get hold of the sort of material I saw in that Amsterdam video shop.
The only way to stamp down on real perversion and real exploitation is for human culture to fully reclaim human sexuality and embrace the fact that in principle it isn't dirty.
We need to erect a new wall in the right place and welcome everything on this side of the wall into the mainstream.
And then do our damnedest to exterminate what's on the other side.
To start with, I'd like to share some pictures of my local church with you.
They are taken from the website of the Church, which I'm not going to post a link to, simply because it's written by my priest, a man who is also someone I regard as being a personal friend. But if anyone is interested and wants to mail me, I'm happy to provide the link and if anyone is in the area, more than happy to give them a tour of the building.
It's an amazing church really. It was built in 1928, just two years after the law was repealed that prevented Catholics putting towers on their churches. And they went to town with this church. What we have, here in the heart of England, is a church that feels like it belongs in the south of Italy. It's an unashamedly Byzantine basilica. And sometimes it's easy to forget just how lucky you are to have such a beautiful building to be your church.
I suppose being brought up Catholic essentially makes you at some level deeply UN-English. I don't see myself as English, I can't really. My great uncle fought the Black and Tans and my Mum came off the boat from Sweden in 1973. England is where I live, it's not in my blood. I like it here, but I still feel essentially I come of immigrant stock. And Catholicism is by and large an immigrant faith in England. To be sure, the Midlands has, like any part of England, a long history of persecution of Catholics and that, that history is ingrained in me somewhere. To me, Harvington Hall is almost a place of pilgrimage, a testament to the suffering imposed on our faith by that evil woman the English call 'Good' Queen Bess.
But the congregation at my church shows what Catholicism still is in this country. About a quarter of the adults sound like they just left the Emerald Isle, and there are many Poles, Filipinos, Africans etc. And the church is always rammed. This is Catholicism. This little dormitory town has only one Catholic church, and both its weekly services are full to the rafters. It's a living faith.
And our poor priest has his work cut out. Not like the four C of E churches. I think only two of them have regular services now.
The problem Catholicism faces isn't dwindling congregations. The faithful are still faithful- it's the lack of priests. They are dying off. Even when I was a boy, this church had several. It had a college attached to it, now demolished, which meant the church had about six or seven priests attached to it.
I get on well with my priest. He came to visit me when I was on my little break from civilised life and that means a lot to me. He worries when I've not been to mass for a while, because he's a good priest. He knows I'll never be a weekly attender, but he knows at heart I remain Catholic and yes, he would be worried if I dropped out of it completely. He's always glad to see me come up to receive communion and always make sure he grabs me before I dash off, so he can have a quick chat.
We've had some in depth theological chats over the years, and whilst I don't think our theology matches in many ways, he has always respected my theological viewpoints. I think when I was younger, he had some hope I'd take the cloth once I'd had my spell of youthful exuberance.
But a Catholic I am, even so. Some of my detractors have argued that I'm not a Christian, that the views I espouse are a perversion of Christianity. Maybe. I of course, would argue the same of them. And I'm going to explain that.
Actually, I resent being referred to as a Christian. I'm not. I'm not, because I don't rest my faith in the Bible. I don't believe in Christ the Redeemer, the Son of God. I believe in Christ the Liberator, the great philosopher who proposed a radical system of values to change the world. I don't believe in a vengeful god who tells people where they can and can't put their bits, I believe in a conscious force directing the universe which you can call a deity if you so wish, but actually lacks any criteria that would define it as personal, or a 'he' and certainly doesn't care whether or not you worship it.
The particular branch of theology I subscribe to- or to be more accurate, my faith is rooted in, is a type that most outside Catholicism might well deny is Christian at all. Even within Catholicism it is regarded as suspect. It has been roundly condemned by this Pope, as it was by his predecessor. I suspect at one time, it would have been pronounced a heresy. This belief system is called Liberation Theology. Essentially, it's Christian Marxism. It takes as the premise that the problem is sin. Not sin in the prude old fashioned sense that so many see it- but sin in the sense of all those bad bits of being human that taken together mean that we're just not very nice to eachother.
Because sin is real. Not all the things that the moral crusaders say are sins are sins, not really, because as I say, it really doesn't matter where you put your bits.
But it matters if you exploit people, if you use people, if you maim people, if you torture people, if you lie to people. It matters if you abuse power.
And that, is what Catholics who subscribe to Liberation Theology believe.
It's theology for those who believe that Christ and Marx were seeing things from the same angle.
Because to me, Christ and Marx are almost two halves of the same walnut.
And now to perhaps a controversial statement, because I'm going to offend a lot of people, but it's my historical perspective.
I don't like being called a Christian, because I don't like to be associated with what it has come to mean. Usually, it is taken to mean Protestant Christianity.
And to me, Protestant Christianity is a bastardisation of Christ's message, for the most part. I don't mean that in a sectarian way.
Liberation Theology would not be possible within Protestant thought largely because Protestant thought is an Oxymoron. Protestants believe in justification through Faith alone. Protestantism ultimately rests on the literal truth of The Bible, and that, to me, can only mean one thing; a religion founded on ignorance and judgement.
Ultimately, yes, I believe in religious freedom and religious tolerance, but that doesn't mean I believe that all creeds are equal in value.
And I believe that the OLD Testament is the book of an ignorant and cruel religion, not much better in my view than the Valhalla of the Vikings and considerably less fun. I don't justify anti-semitism on racial grounds, not at all, but I think that one of the reasons the Jewish people did get such a hard time in the past is that yes, their religion doesn't really have a positive message to offer. The Old Testament is a bigoted, often racist tract which justifies all sorts of unpleasantness and certainly doesn't present the sort of God anyone should believe in.
A key difference between Catholicism and Protestantism is how we regard those books. I think many Catholic thinkers regard the Old Testament as more a kind of background to understanding the culture that produced Jesus than actually being of any theological value in itself.
To be sure, great evils have been committed in the name of Catholicism. How could we expect that not to happen over so many years in an institution that came to dominate the globe and involved the input of so many, many people. It was and is a Church built up of human beings.
And some of them were flawed.
But Protestantism I hold to be a flawed, bastardised version of Christ's teaching.
Marx invented a term 'Bonapartism'. It's quite an important concept. What he observed was a phenomenon whereby revolutions are perverted by power hungry dictators who then fasten the language of the revolution on to rebuilding exactly what it was that was overthrown.
And of course, Trotsky's supporters used the term of Stalin. So in a sense, Marx predicted what could go wrong in Russia.
I see Luther and Protestantism in such terms. Because yes, you can argue that much was evil about the Catholic Church of the late middle ages. But it was still a force for progress, a counterbalance to the tyranny of kings, to the exploitation of the people by commercial greed. In killing the monasteries and killing the strength of the church to stand up to the state, Luther paved the way to create the royal autocracies and worse.
For Capitalism is ultimately a Protestant creed. And yes, it was a necessary phase, it's the how. The way it happened, the values inherent in the WAY it happened.
Because Protestants don't believe in Justification by Faith and Works, they believe in Justification by Faith alone. It's about getting to Heaven just because you believe.
It's about the Protestant work ethic. It's about I'm all right Jack.
It's a regression in terms of social thought, Protestantism is a Faith that reclaims the Old Testament and places it above the 'Pagan' philosophies of Plato and Aristotle, that says that in that series of squalid tales of people being struck down, turned into pillars of salt and the like because they asked too many questions or disobeyed a ridiculous commandment, there is something of real value to us.
Yes, maybe. In the same way reading The Eddas is instructive.
I don't think it's anti-semitic to say that the moral system proposed in the Old Testament is often pretty repulsive. It's notable that the Gnostics, an early Christian heresy believed that the God of the Old Testament and the Devil of the New were one and the same, that Christ represented the coming of the true God, to save humanity from the lies of the false one.
I don't believe in a real devil, but I do believe that within Western thought are two opposing moral systems; the moral system that Christ grew up in, and the one he wanted to replace it with. Call them the Old Law and the New. Call them right and left, but the division starts then, and it starts with Christ.
It is the belief in select nations versus the universal brotherhood of man. It is the belief in judging people, rather than understanding them. It is exclusive versus inclusive. It is the belief in the righteous, versus belief in the repentant sinner. It is the turning of Lot's wife into a pillar of salt versus Christ's embracing of Mary Magdalen. It is the belief that your main life task is to help yourself, versus the belief that you're part of this world. It is the belief in simple black and white truths, versus a wish to truly understand.
Protestantism for all its pretence of being Christian, is a return to the values of the Pharisees. And unfortunately, the Capitalist cycle is marked out by having its birth within Protestantism and by being imbued with the Pharisaical values of that ignorant school of thought. It is a return to the Old Law.
And yes, maybe by that time, the Catholic Church too had become imbued by Old Law thinking.
You see, to me, Liberation Theology is a return to the real teachings of Christ.
Marx preached the New Law.
At the heart of Catholicism is it's belief in a better way to live, and Marx believed in that too.
The ethics of Marx are the ethics of the New Testament, they are the ethics of Jesus Christ.
To me, it's not about redeeming my soul. I trust in a far more human agency to do that. That's what I have faith in.
It's about embracing the New Law.
And it's about building the Kingdom Christ promised here on earth today.
Because if that isn't the point, I sure as Hell don't know what is.
She is the first thing I think about every morning. I am aware of her existence the instant consciousness returns.
She is the first thing that enters my head.
I don't usually think about it, not really. I've got used to the fact that she is the first thing I think about and I don't think about the fact it is so.
It's hard to explain. She has an aura. I feel her presence and sometimes I feel her absence. Most of the time I kind of feel she's with me in some sense, though I'm sure she doesn't really know that and I'm sure most of the time I'm very far from her thoughts.
I suppose I don't really think about it weekdays because I just see it as part of the brain kicking in to gear, preparing for the avalanche of activity that kicks off the moment one forces oneself to put feet on solid earth; bathroom, dress, fag, cup of tea, e-mail her, shave, do hair, leave flat.
I suppose I do miss her when I don't hear from her, but the gaps are never so long that I really notice how much I miss her when I don't hear from her.
But this morning it was a clear sense. I woke up and the first thing I wanted to do was draw her close to me. I woke up aware of her, aware of the fact she exists, as I do every morning.
And aware of the fact she isn't actually there.
And as I sat out on the step with my cup of tea smoking, I realised that this isn't the same as waking up alone. If I woke up with someone else there, it wouldn't change anything.
I'd still be waking up and she still wouldn't be there.
Because it isn't waking up and being alone that is the thing. It's waking up and her not being there.
It's wanting to reach out for her, wanting to hold her close, wanting to feel her breath against your neck as you stroke the skin on her back.
It's wanting to wake up and know she's there.
It's not to do with sex, sex is the last thing on my mind this morning.
It's not to do with not wanting to be alone, either. As I say, had I woke up this morning and found I wasn't waking up alone, yes, there would be someone to hold close, I'd feel their breath on my neck, I'd stroke their back and kiss their shoulders and be glad that SOMEONE was there.
But it still wouldn't be her. I'd still be lying there wishing it was her. I'd still be where I am now looking forward to the next time I heard from her.
I realise it doesn't matter who I wake up next to, she would still be the first thought that came into my head. It's the first thing I want to know.
That she's Ok. That she's safe. That she's happy.
I want to feel her presence there when I wake.
And just hold her.
Just lie there and feel her with me, know that she's safe, know that I'm safe and feel that nothing else really matters.
Because it wouldn't.
No one could really be her substitute. Waking up and having someone there is better than waking up alone, but it doesn't mean waking up and her being there. It couldn't and it never could. If waking up alone is nought out of ten, and waking up next to her is ten out of ten, waking up to someone else is still only three out of ten.
I'd still miss her.
They say you can't miss what you never had. They lie.
Everything changes. The seasons, weather, emotions, people, thoughts, relationships, sometimes even realities. According to Heraclitus, the weeping philosopher, change is central to the universe - "All is flux, nothing stays still".
Yet somehow we all find ourself stuck in moments that we just cannot get out of – bad relationship, bad job, bad state. We tend to blame that on outer factors and lack of control, but the truth is, in most cases even when things are bad we tend to chose to stay there simply cuz we are afraid to leave our comfort zone and leap out onto the unknown. Sometimes we simple get accustomed and used to the pain, the hurt, the hollow feeling, thinking we are getting what we deserve, cuz surely we do not deserve more than this.
Bullshit!
Life should be lived by choices, not chances. Sometimes you don’t have many choices, but you always have to make a choice, even when it is between two evils. The fact that you are the one choosing should change your perspective, cuz you are the one controlling your destiny. We don’t chose the card that have been given us, but we do chose how to play them.
Charles Darwin said that “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.” Everything changes, and so must you. People often talk about changing the world, but very few of us thinks of changing ourself. Revolution might be needed, but you have to start with somewhere, so why not with yourself? If you really want something in life, you cannot just sit around and wait for someone to change the world or for divine intervention, you have to be the one getting it.
Easier said than done, I know. I am currently finding myself standing on a defining crossroad, not certain which road I shall walk upon. Should I take the safe road, knowing that what I will be getting won’t be enough, but at least I will know what I’ll be getting. Or should I take the unknown road, which on the map and writing sounds like something that could be an opportunity and the beginning of something really grand. But am I really ready for that immense change and the uncertainty that follows – can anyone really ever be ready for it?
Sometimes living out your dreams isn’t as easy as it seems, but it shouldn’t keep you from at least trying. Nothing worth having comes easy.
I suppose all that is left to say is that instead of waiting on the world to change, we should ourself become the wind of change.
Quote of the Day: ”You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” / Gandhi
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