Angles & Men: Scratching Where I Itch

Angels and Men is a novel by Catherine Fox, first published in 1996.(spoilers follow) It's central character is Mara Johns, a vicar's daughter. She has an English degree from Cambridge and has enrolled to study for an MA in theology at Durham (not actually specified but very clearly meant). Her subject is the fanaticism of women in Christian sects in the 17th and 18th century. Her tutor wonders why she has chosen this subject, she says:

 ‘I think . . .’ She cleared her throat. Something was pinching at it. ‘I think it will help me make sense of . . . certain things. Of what’s happened, I mean . . .’ ‘Certain things.’ 

One of these "things" is the death of her twin sister, Hester, who had drowned in the Sea of Galilee a few weeks before the opening of the novel. Mara and Hester had been members of a revivalist sect. Mara left after she rebelled against the teaching on the roll of women and the character of the leader but was unable to pursuade Hester to do so. Hester became pregnant and carried a dead baby to term in the belief it would be healed. She was still in the sect when she drowned. 

The name Mara, means "bitter"*. She is bitter against God, the church, aspects of her chldhood, her Father and men in general. Over the period of the university year we inhabit Mara's world as she struggles with the irreconcilable loss of her sister, the invasion of her solitary life by new friends and one particular man, and the loss of the foundation of her life, her faith.

Why It Scratches Where I Itch

At its heart Angels and Men is about the Christian faith, what it is and what it means. The traditionalists, the fanatics, the modernists, the disillusioned, the agnonstics and the atheists are all present. The problems of faith in the modern world are laid bare. The conflicting views mirror my own journey as it has lurched from absolutist to agnostic but never quite to atheist.

An ever-present invisible realm

Mara is a very talented artist, forever sketching people, places and her ideas. She sees the world with an artist's eye. Catherine Fox uses this to bring alive the invisible world of soul and spirit. The novel begins:

The City is a galleon sailing on the river. Listen to the wind thrumming in the trees and singing round the chimney-pots. High on the crow’s nest of the cathedral hear the ping-ping-ping of rope against flagpole. This is where the angels pass by. These are the angel paths, the windy walkways. They are clothed with polished air and their faces are the faces of statues, bright as sunlight off water. No one sees them. ....

Aunt Jessie could see angels; but then, she was mad. Ran mad in the Welsh revival in 1904. She lies now in a quiet graveyard. Her tombstone says: Nearer my God to thee.

And later:

We are so obsessed with people and things. For a moment she had glimpsed another world where it was the space between things which was real. The realm of angels. Objects were gaps, pools of mere nothingness. She saw the angels passing to and fro across the breadth of the universe, transparent, incorporeal, going about their business. 

As Mara looked at the sunlight on the bare branches, the same feeling she had known as a child came over her again. This world was no more than a thin membrane stretched out over eternity. At any moment it might peel back and the glory come blazing through. On days like this it seemed so near, the fabric pulled so fine that it was lit up from behind, beyond, and every shifting play of light, each moving leaf, might be the shadow of the just passing to and fro behind the veil among the angels.

I am science trained and no artist but for me the biological, physical, material world is not enough to describe our human nature. This novel evokes the invisible and invites the reader to see the unseen. In the words of my favourite hymn:

"Immortal, invisible, God only wise

In light inaccessible hid from our eyes"

.......

All Laud we would render, O help us to see

Tis only the splendour of light hideth Thee

What Do You Want?

Despite reading for an English degree and researching theology, at heart Mara is an artist, a talent she tries to keep hidden. Who is she is meant to be? 

Another character, Johnny, a young northern builder, is an ordinand training for the priesthood but he's like a fish out of water - a working class man in a middle class profession. Should he give up the idea of being a vicar? 

In the novel both Mara and Johnny have visions of angels.

A group of friends are socialising and one asks Johnny to tell his conversion story. He told them how, one night in the pool room of a pub a vicar had told him the story of the prodigal son and how the son was welcomed home by his father. Johnny does't believe any father would do that.

 ‘But the vicar says, yes, that is what he does, because that’s what God’s like. No matter where you’ve been, no matter what you’ve done, he’s waiting for you to come home.’ ..... I said, “Listen, I don’t need God, or you or anyone else telling me what to do. I can run my own life.” Well, the vicar gave up and went home and I had a few more pints before closing time. On the way home I saw a vision.’ ..... I turned the corner and there was this bloody great angel blocking the path.’ .....They sat watching him uncertainly to see if he was serious. .... ‘Well, go on. What did it say?’ asked Maddy. ‘ “Hail, thou that art highly favoured”?’....... ‘No. He said, “Don’t mess with me, you arrogant little sod.” ’ 

‘You liar,’ said Maddy. ‘Angels don’t speak like that.’...But it had rung true for Mara. It seemed to her that this was exactly how an angel might speak. Terrifying warriors, not effete pre-Raphaelite musicians.

Mara in her room one night and can't sleep:

The moon must be full, she thought. It was shining into her room through the open curtains, casting shadows across the floor. As she watched, the light seemed to intensify. Perhaps she was imagining it? She waited, and yes, sure enough, it was growing brighter all the time. ... she got up out of bed and went over to the window. The whole sky was white. Strange and beautiful. It must be some kind of atmospheric phenomenon. ....... Then, as she watched, the light began to gather itself. Slowly before her horrified eyes it drew itself in, forming itself, burning, burning. Her hands clawed the curtains shut and she stumbled back to bed, blocking her eyes, her ears with the covers. But she knew it was still there, fluttering at the glass.

Mara's grief over her sister's death leads to a breakdown. She recovers at a monastic retreat. When she leaves she goes to thank Tom, the prior.

She saw Tom’s right hand move to the cross he wore round his neck. The fingers closed around it, and she knew that this was a mute prayer. ..

‘Mara, what do you want?’ 

‘Nothing!’ The word shot frightened out of her. 

‘What do you want, Mara?’ 

Freedom. To be free of all this guilt and fear and shame. To be absolved. 

The ticking of the clock grew louder and louder in her ears. She watched as slowly his fingers uncurled from the cross. He raised his hand and pronounced the absolution. The familiar words slid over one another like pebbles worn smooth by centuries of tides. She felt her lips whisper ‘Amen’ and her hand moving to cross herself before she could stop it. A great sigh left her, as though her soul had been dislocated for years and had at last been slipped back into joint. 

For a moment she sat still in wonder, then a sense of outrage seized her. How dare he do that without asking? He had tricked a response out of her, meaningless as a knee-jerk in a doctor’s surgery. She stood up angrily and turned to leave; but she had only taken two steps when she leapt back with a cry. Tom was beside her in an instant. The room seemed dim and she groped for his arm.

‘Did you see that?’ She could feel her brain gibbering. 

‘See what?’ 

Her mind was still squeaking with terror when to her amazement she heard herself laugh. It seemed to come bubbling up from a forgotten spring. 

‘What did you see?’ asked Tom. The laughter died back down again. Tick, tick, said the clock. 

‘An angel.’ They stood looking at one another. 

‘Do you want to tell me about it?’ She shook her head, and he continued to watch her. Was he afraid she was mad? 

‘I’ve seen it before,’ she heard herself gabble, as though this would reassure him. For a moment the memory of it made her quiver. The terrible countenance, eyes burning with wrath and fierce joy. Very cautiously she turned her head round, but there was nothing there, just a shaft of sunlight coming through the narrow window.

Some days later:

Then a voice drifted into her mind. It was a moment before she could place it. Tom. At the friary: ‘What do you want, Mara?’ Actually, she thought, I want to paint. And for one light-headed moment she felt her spirit rise up and go whirling over the river.

Who are we meant to be? We have our natural bodies, and our lives are formed by nature and nurture, but is there another me, not of flesh and blood but of soul and spirit?

What is God Like?

Catherine Fox uses to the novel to present two forms of Christianity that are in stark contrast, the fundamentalist, fanatical believers who are sure the end of the world is not far off and the staid, safe traditionlists of the Church of England. Mara has rejected both, yet she cannnot escape a nagging feeling that there is another way of believing. At Christmas, one evening, she is outside her parent's house as the snow falls, waving godbye to a friend.

In the porch the candle flame guttered in some unseen draught. Mara began to walk back towards the house. The flame steadied itself and burnt on in the uncomprehending dark.

Fox is pointing to the well-known Christmas reading from John's gospel: 

"In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not." Jn 1:4-5

The darkness in Mara's life is the profound loss of her twin sister. Light is still shining yet she is unable to comprehend it.

Andrew, a fellow graduate plays an important part in the novel. He too has given up his faith and understands Mara's struggles. In this passage she is talking with Andrew and boils over in rage against, God. 

‘Don’t try to placate me! She was my only friend and they took her away from me! 

That’s the kind of god I’m supposed to believe in? I’d rather burn in hell.’ 

‘Well, what if there’s another kind?’ he asked. 

“Merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love”? ’

Later Andrew says to her:

‘You believe in a very strange god, Mara.’ 

‘I don’t.’ She felt insulted. The god she so faithfully didn’t believe in wasn’t at all strange. 

‘You don’t think irrational sadism is an odd quality for the Divine Being to possess?’ 

She looked blank. 

‘Listen. God creates a woman and gives her the ability to draw like an angel. He fixes it so that there is nothing in the world she would rather do than draw, then he damns her in perpetuity if she picks up a pencil.’ 

Mara stared at him. He’s right. That is what I believe. 

She turned away and faced the window in amazement. She saw the beautiful morning, heard the birds singing on the riverbank, the bells chime. Someone somewhere was laughing at her. She put her hand over her mouth to stop herself joining in. It was a theological gaffe of stupendous proportions. 

So that was the angel’s message. For an instant she saw it again in her memory, like sunlight flashing off a distant window, the fierce eyes, the wrathful joy. Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong, you fatheaded finite fool. How can you even have thought it? She remembered Andrew’s earlier words: What if there’s another kind of God? Gracious, slow to anger. She heard herself laugh.

Another Kind of God

Mara projected a personality of cold, indifference to people as protective armour. She didn't want people too close and certainly not a God who could not save her sister. The novel plots the steady attacks on her defences until they are finally breached. In Christian understanding it is the unrelenting Grace of God that breaks through.

The poet Francis Thompson wrote the poem, The Hound of Heaven on this theme:

I fled Him down the nights and down the days

I fled Him down the arches of the years

I fled Him down the labyrinthine ways

Of my own mind, and in the midst of tears

I hid from him, and under running laughter.

Up vistaed hopes I sped and shot precipitated

Adown titanic glooms of chasm'd fears

From those strong feet that followed, followed after

But with unhurrying chase and unperturbe d pace,

Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,

They beat, and a Voice beat,

More instant than the feet:

All things betray thee who betrayest me.

Both Mara and Johnny reject the God of Christian conformity and go through doubt, darkness, despair and anger before they finally hear a voice speaking to them individually. Then their faltering faith can throw off dead dogma and creeds and become a living thing. 

"Wrong. Wrong, wrong wrong - does that apply to me too?

 * “Don’t call me Naomi,(pleasant)” she told them. “Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter" Ruth 1: 20"

Quotes from: Fox, Catherine. Angels and Men . SPCK. Kindle Edition. 

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The G-question 3: Two Kingdoms

The apostle Paul found himself pulled in two directions:

“The good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.”

There were two opposing forces in his life which we all recognise. Jesus called these forces the Kingdom of the World and the Kingdom of God.

Our physical self is the product of evolution, the survival of the fittest. It is governed by the laws and equations of biology, chemistry and physics. Survival is built into our genes so we are driven to think constantly about ourselves and our own needs - for warmth, food, shelter, rest, self-gratification and so on. This is how I understand the Kingdom of the World. 

"Love", in this me-first world is expressed in the sexual desire that has evolved to procreate the next generation, in family affection and friendship that enable the survival of the tribe, and in our “love” of money, power and possessions which are humanity's survival systems.

Yet me-first, is not all we are; another kingdom is at work within us, an altruistic force that puts the needs of others before our own. This other kingdom was the focus of Jesus teaching. Matthew records the start of Jesus’ ministry in these words:

“Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand”.

I prefer to use a less religious phrase - the Kingdom of Sacrificial Love. I believe this is the essence of the good news (gospel) that Jesus preached. He was directing his followers away from a self-centred life to a love-centred life. Bishop John Robinson, in his book Honest to God, titled his chapter on Jesus, "The Man for Others".

The Kingdom of Unselfish Love runs counter to our ego-centric, selfish, evolution-born selves. Where scientific laws and maths equations rule the Kingdom of the World, self-sacrifice, repentance and forgiveness are the laws that rule in the Kingdom of Sacrificial Love.

Jesus was faced with the conflict between these two kingdoms before the start of his ministry. Matthew's account tells of him retreating to a wilderness for 40 days where he was tempted by Satan. There were three challenges. - personal survival, personal status, and personal ambition. He rejected all three.

In the “Blessed” sayings listed in Mat. Ch 5, Jesus spelled out those who are blessed by God: the poor, the pure in heart, the merciful, the peacemakers, those hungry for righteousness and so on, and later in the Sheep & Goats parable he teaches that the division of humanity after death is based on sacrificial love, not on what you believe.

In The Sermon on The Mount (Mt: 5-7) Jesus sets out the values of the Kingdom of Heaven but sets an impossible standard:

“You must be perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect”

He finishes with the challenge to build the house of our lives on the rock of the Kingdom of  Sacrificial Love, not simply by hearing his words but by living them out.

Our inevitable failure to live the sacrificial life means we constantly need forgiveness. Jesus taught that forgiveness has a price, not the price of his death on the cross but the price of our forgiveness of others. The prayer he taught his disciples includes, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us”. This prayer is entirely about asking for  Kingdom of Sacrificial Love to come ever more completely into our lives as we face the daily choice between the values of the two kingdoms.

We have created a society where the gods of money and power rule – the survival of the richest. We completely ignore Jesus’ warnings about camels and needles, or rich farmers building bigger barns.

Jesus’ way of sacrificial love is a narrow way, few find it and few live it. The writer G K Chesterton said:

“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.”

In Conclusion

Though I am no longer a traditional Christian believer I remain a faltering disciple of Jesus and believe in his Gospel of The Kingdom of Sacrificial Love.

_______________________________________________

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The G-Question 2: Model Dependent Realism

The term "model-dependent realism" was coined by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow in their 2010 book, The Grand Design. 

Models use things we can see and understand to help us picture things we cannot see or don’t fully understand. At school, atoms are pictured crudely as miniature solar systems. This image/model is a helpful starting point but far from the reality. Light is pictured as both a particle and a wave since neither image/model is adequate by itself. Models are only approximations to a reality that is ultimately unknowable. Fortunately in the physical world equations can describe the behaviour of atoms and light where models fail. 

There can be no adequate model for G-O-D

But what about the spiritual world? What about G-O-D? I don’t like the G-word because there is no agreed or adequate model, and there are certainly no equations. Who or what is G? What is G like? Does G answer prayer? Does G hold you to account when you die? Is G simply a human invention to plug the gaps in our our knowledge, such as the origin of the universe or the origin of life? These questions will bring a multitude of different answers depending on who you ask.

If G exists, he* is someone (something?) we cannot see and who (which) is completely beyond our understanding. We are faced with a mystery, so to think about G at all we have no choice but to use models based on ourselves. Words like Creator, Judge, Ruler, Lord and so on, but with attributes stretched to superhuman level using words like omnipotent and omniscient. In the Hebrew scriptures we find expressions like Jehovah-Jireh (God the provider), Jehovah-Rapha (God the healer) and Jehovah-Nisi (God the banner or victorious) to flesh out the meaning of Jehovah. Islam has 99 attributes of Allah to help pin down the mystery that is Allah.

When Moses had a vision of a voice coming from a burning bush telling him to go to Egypt and set free the Israelite slaves, he asked, "What is your name". The voice replied, " I AM". Not so much a name as a statment of existence. The writer of this ancient text had the wisdom to know that you cannot put a name to a mystery.

Jesus had an interesting, down to earth approach. He modelled a relationship by referrring to G as Father.

This World is Not Conclusion

Has humanity actually deceived itself? Is there nothing there to model in the first place? Many would say yes; there is no G of any description. Personally, I cannot adopt this absolutist position and instead find myself in tune with Emily Dickinson in her poem, This World is Not Conclusion:

This world is not conclusion.

A species stands beyond  

Invisible as music 

But positive as sound 

It beckons and it baffles  

Philosophy don’t know  

And through a riddle at the last  

Sagacity must go 

To guess it puzzles scholars 

To gain it men have borne

Contempt of generations

And crucifixion shown 

Faith slips and laughs and rallies  

Blushes if any see  

Plucks at a twig of evidence  

And asks a vane the way  

Much gesture from the pulpit 

Strong Hallelujahs roll  

Narcotics cannot still the tooth

That nibbles at the soul 

G is Love. So Love is G?

In the Bible, in I John 4:7-8, we read:

“Beloved, let’s love one another; for love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love.”  

The word “love” here is the translation of the Gk. “agape” which means unselfish, sacrificial love. This is the love that Paul describes so memorably in 1 Cor:13.

Love is patient and kind; 

Love is not jealous or boastful;

it is not arrogant or rude.

Love does not insist on its own way;

it is not irritable or resentful;

it does not rejoice at wrong, 

but rejoices in the right.

Love bears all things,

believes all things,

hopes all things,

endures all things.

In my evangelical Christian past I expected G to be visible in the world as he clearly seemed to be in Jesus’ ministry. This visibility I conceived to be a powerful G showing himself in healings and miracles, which would then lead to an awareness of the supoernatural with G sweeping through a community as the power of his Spirit was made visible. I became absorbed by historical revivals "moves of God" in Wales and the Hebrides, and modern revivals in Toronto and Pensacola. A friend offered to pay for me to go to Pensacola, but I refused the offer because I wanted to see this power in my hometown. 

Yet no amount of prayer, worship, preaching or fasting brought revival about - “We piped for you, but you did not dance”. We were like the priests of Baal (1 Kings 18:20-40) who danced round the offering on the altar but could not set it ablaze. 

If G really is G, why is he not seen to be G? Surely if G has any existence, then he must be present in the world and in every part of it, and not just among Christians or any other exclusive group. 

I eventually realised instead of looking for a G of power I should be looking for the G described in John's letter, a G of sacrificial love, and when I did, G was visible everywhere. Every day across the whole Earth people of all religions and none, lay down their lives for one another in selfless love. The Parable of The Good Samaritan is lived out across the world every hour of every day, and the G who is Love is revealed.

Sacrificial love is the way I have come to understand the G-word. It is the refuge where I have made my home. Instead of trying to imagine an incomprehensible, unknowable and unseen G, I think instead of unselfish, sacrificial love. Also, as John's letter says, in giving this love and seeking to live unselfish lives, we become children of G. 

But I also understand G as Jesus taught, the Father who welcomes home his erring children.

* G is always thought of as male - why? Surely just patriarchal societies stamping their culture on the deity.

The G-Question 3: The Two Kingdoms

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The G-Question 1: Mystery & Certainty

 

Mystery and our need for Certainty.

Mystery and certainty – in face of the former we seek the later. Our curiosity and imagination are stimulated by the unknown. They are the driving forces behind advances in science, maths and technology but despite huge progress many of the mysteries surrounding the human condition remain unexplained. Religion and philosophy step in to fill the voids in our understanding. We seem to need the comfort of words of wisdom, gods and myths in the same way that Linus needs his security blanket in the Peanuts cartoons. 

Take these age-old questions:

• Why is there something rather than nothing?
• Was there really a Big Bang? What banged and what came before it?
• How did life begin and is there life elsewhere in the universe?
• Are human beings just highly complicated physics or is there something else, like an eternal soul?
• Do we have free will?
• Is there a God (or perhaps gods) and if so, what is God like?
• Is death the absolute end of us, or is there an existence beyond death?
• Where do the laws of science come from?
• Are moral laws just a human invention or are they built into the universe?
• Do miracles really happen?
• Etc etc

Science, philosophy and religion grapple with these questions. Some religions claim to have answers, but unlike science where consensus arises over time, there is no philosophy or religious belief that has universal consent.

Why do we believe what we believe, and how do we know if we are right?

The Believing Brain by Michael Shermer addresses this question.

Here is a summary:

Core ideas:

1. Patternicity: Our brains are wired to find patterns in random data. This tendency helps us make sense of the world but can also lead to false beliefs.
2. Agenticity: We often attribute agency to these patterns, believing that intentional agents (like gods, spirits, or conspirators) are behind them.
3. Belief Formation: Beliefs are formed first, often based on emotional or intuitive responses, and then rationalized with logic and evidence.
4. Confirmation Bias: Once a belief is established, we seek out information that confirms it and ignore or dismiss evidence that contradicts it.
5. Cognitive Dissonance: When confronted with conflicting information, we experience discomfort and are motivated to reduce this dissonance, often by reinforcing our existing beliefs.
6. Science as a Tool: Shermer advocates for the scientific method as a way to test and validate beliefs, helping us distinguish between true and false patterns.

These ideas illustrate how our brains can both help and hinder our understanding of reality. 

Whatever our belief system, religious, humanist, philosophical, political, economic and so on there is a desire to be right, and our thinking will be strongly directed by the first five of Shermer’s core ideas. Once our beliefs are firmly established it becomes hard to question or overturn them. But the proper position for Homo rationalis is to treat beliefs with a degree of scepticism, being prepared to modify them in the light of new evidence and our own development, or even abandon them altogether. 

Shermer advocates using science based reasoning as a tool.

1. The Null hypothesis:
   The assumption that something is not true until proven otherwise.
2. Burden of proof: 
   The burden of proof lies with those making a positive claim not with those who do not believe the claim. E.g. UFOs exist.  Then show me an alien, or alien spacecraft. There is a God. Then give me the evidence.
3. Science of convergence: 
   Where lots of lines of evidence from different science disciplines converge on the same conclusion. The Theory of Evolution rest on data from many fields - geology, palaeontology, botany, zoology, biogeography, comparative anatomy and physiology, genetics, etc.
   If someone wishes to challenge the evidence, they must overturn every piece from every field by giving alternative explanations for each one.
4. The Comparative Method: 
   This is a way of looking at history and asking why did this happen and not that? E.g why was America colonised by Europeans and not the other way round? Why is North Korea much poorer than South Korea? Explanations for these must rest on many lines of hard evidence not just simple ideas such as race superiority or ideology.
5. Positive Evidence: 
   The principle of positive evidence states you must have positive evidence in favour of your theory and not just negative evidence against rival theories. Creationists cannot assert the lack of a scientific theory for how life began means the theory of evolution is wrong and that God is the only explanation.

The Fundamentalist's & Certainy

Religions claim to have answers to the mystery of humanity's existence, but how does a non-religious person seeking spiritual truth decide which religion to embrace? For fundamentalist believers  there is only one choice, their way or no way, and that choice determines a person's eternal destiny. If this really is at stake it must be the most important decision of one’s life, yet there is no rational way to make it. Suppose you make the wrong choice, what then?

Fundamentalism is all about certainty - the certainty of being right and the certainty everyone else is wrong. It not only pits one religion against another but inevitably leads to conflict as one certainty seeks to impose itself over another. In England, Catholics and Protestants vied for supremacy with bloody consequences.  Islamic states demand conformity to the Koran and Sharia Law and crack down harshly on dissent. Under Modi in India, Hindu-based nationalism is growing and causing conflict with other faiths and secularists. In the USA, Christian Nationalists, who are mainly white evangelical fundamentalists, are aiming to impose their Christian values on the whole population because they are certain they are doing the will of God.

This short poem attacks the certainties of belief sytems:

The Place Where We Are Right 

by Yehuda Amichai (Israeli poet)

From the place where we are right

flowers will never grow in the spring.

The place where we are right

is hard and trampled like a yard.

But doubts and loves

dig up the world

like a mole, a plough.

And a whisper will be heard in the place

where the ruined house once stood.

Death and taxes are reckoned to be life's great certainties. Taxes we put up with, but death as the end point of human existence is harder to accept. An indifferent and meaningless universe seems to be an afront to our sense of right and wrong and our desire for justice. If physical laws govern the physical universe are there built in moral laws too? 

We are biological creatures but are we also spiritual beings? Where does reality lie?

The G-Questiion 2: Model Dependent Realism

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Epiphany - Poem by Joanie Mackowski

 

EPIPHANY

A momentary rupture to the vision: 

the wavering limbs of a birch fashion

the fluttering hem of the deity’s garment,

the cooling cup of coffee the ocean the deity

waltzes across. This is enough—but sometimes

the deity’s heady ta-da coaxes the cherries

in our mental slot machine to line up, and

our brains summon flickering silver like

salmon spawning a river; the jury decides

in our favour, and we’re free to see, for now.

A flaw swells from the facets of a day, increasing

the day’s value; a freakish postage stamp mails

our envelope outside time; hairy, claw-like

magnolia buds bloom from bare branches;

and the deity pops up again like a girl from

a giant cake. O deity: you transfixing transgressor,

translating back and forth on the border

without a passport. Fleeing revolutions

of same-old simultaneous boredom and

boredom, we hoard epiphanies under the bed,

stuff them in jars and bury them in the backyard;

we cram our closet with sunrise; prop up our feet

and drink gallons of wow!; we visit the doctor

because all this is raising the blood’s levels of

c6h3(oh)2chohch2nhch3, the heart caught

in the deity’s hem and haw, the oh unfurling

from our chest like a bee from our cup of coffee,

an autochronous greeting: there. Who saw it?

 

Joanie V. Mackowski is an American poet. She has published three volumes of poetry, and her works have won multiple awards. She taught creative writing on the faculty of the English department of Cornell University.

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Meditation: Love is a Choice

The good that I would, I do not; the evil that I would not, that I do

Who is to deliver me from this body of death? (Paul of Tarsus)

Paul is speaking about the common condition of mankind - the tension between our everyday selves and the selves we aspire to be. We live with the tension by ignoring it, thinking this is the normal state of human existence. Or, we use other people as the yardstick of goodness and judging ourselves against them, believe we are as good as most and better than some.

But can we entirely shake off the sense of an independent absolute standard, a law of love, against which we fall short?

Robert Browning: That a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?

In the language of Chrisitan belief our lives are in a tussle for control between the devil and God.

John Donne in this poem says he is like an occupied town or like a spouse married to God’s enemy and can’t escape, unless God uses a battering ram against his unwilling heart. He needs to be broken and made anew.

Batter my heart, three-person’d God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp’d town to another due,
Labour to admit you, but oh, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captiv’d, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be lov’d fain,
But am betroth’d unto your enemy;
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

Donne is saying he is helpless to divorce himself and wants God to do it for him.

Anne Bronte penned this verse in her poem “A Prayer”

"I know I owe my all to Thee;
Oh, TAKE the heart I cannot give!
Do Thou my strength my Saviour be,
And MAKE me to thy glory live.

She too asks be made to live the life she wants.

George Macdonald disagrees with this idea. Love is not about how you feel, it’s about how you live – what choices you make.

We cannot expect God to give us nice feelings so that giving ourselves in love is automatic. Most of the time there are no special feelings, so our internal conflict is to be decided not by feeling but by our will.

God does not by the instant gift of His Spirit, make us always feel right, desire good, love purity, aspire after Him and His will.

The truth is this: He wants to make us in his own image, choosing the good, refusing the evil. How should he affect this if he were always moving us from within? …..

For God made our Individuality as well as, and a greater marvel than, our dependence.

Made our apartness from himself, that freedom should bind us divinely dearer to himself with a new and inscrutable marvel of love;

for the Godhead is still at the root, is the making root of our individuality and the freer the man, the stronger the bond that binds him to Him who made his freedom.

Substituting LOVE for the God idea, this might be the translation

We cannot expect LOVE to give us nice feelings so that giving ourselves in love is automatic. Most of the time there are no special feelings, so our internal conflict is to be decided not by our feelings but by our will.

LOVE does not make us always feel right, desire good, love purity, or aspire after a sacrificial life.

The truth is this: LOVE wants to make us in its own image, choosing the good, refusing the evil. How should this be affected if LOVE was always moving us with feelings from within?

For LOVE creates our ability to love but does not make us dependent on feelings of love. We are left with an independent choice of the will.

When two people love there is giving and receiving; it is not a one-way street. So with ourselves and LOVE’s source. It does not overwhelm us but invites us to respond, not out of our feelings but out of our free will.

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Meditation: Refining

Divine Burning
From CS Lewis' anthology of the writings of George Macdonald

He will shake the heavens and earth, that only the unshakeable may remain. He is a consuming fire, that only that which cannot be consumed may stand forth eternal. It's just the nature of God so terribly pure that it destroys all that is not pure as fire, which demands like purity in our worship. He will have purity. It is not that the fire will burn us if we do not worship thus; yea, it will go on burning within us after all that is foreign to it has yielded to its force, no longer with pain and consuming, but as the highest consciousness of life. The presence of God.

He is like a refiner’s fire, and he shall purify

Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see the Father

O Thou who camest from above

The Pure celestial fire to impart

Kindle a flame of sacred love

On the mean altar of my heart

There let it for they glory burn

With inextinguishable blaze

And trembling to its source return

In humble prayer and fervent praise

Ready for all They perfect will

My acts of faith and love repeat

Til death Thy endless mercy seal

And make the sacrifice complete

Jesus says: You must be perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect.

Impossible! – too hard a burden to lay on our shoulders, simply piling guilt on guilt until following Jesus becomes a miserable burden, a Sisyphean task crushing and condemning us.

The Adam & Eve myth speaks of an innocence and purity in the Garden of Eden. The myth - a story to show a reality - speaks of the loss of this purity when Adam & Eve knew good and evil. They are banished from the garden but the memory would always be with them. This loss is what we recognise within oursleves - hence the truth of the myth. There is a spiritual void within us that cannot be filled - to be free of guilt, to be full of love, a return to the garden where the Father walks in the cool of the evening. We are caught between our natural selves and spiritual selves. Jesus is simply shining a light on this.

He sets before us the purity of the Father's love, revealing the weakness of our own, contaminated as it is by our selfish ego. Gold contaminated with base metal needs refining.

Dare we ask to be refined?

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Meditation: The Seed Shop

 

The seed shop by Muriel Stuart

 

Here, in a quiet and dusty room, they lie,

Faded as crumbled stone or shifting sand,
Forlorn as ashes shrivelled, scentless, dry -
Meadows and gardens running through my hand.
In this brown husk, a dale of hawthorn dreams,
A cedar in this narrow cell is thrust.
It will drink deeply of century’s streams,
These lilies shall make summer on my dust.
Here in their safe and simple house of death.
Sealed in their shells, a million roses leap.
Here I can blow a garden with my breath,
And in my hand a forest lies asleep.

Meditation

We too are the the fruit of biological seeds sown by our parents, grandparents, great-grandparents and on and on. Back and back the lineage goes, species by species to the first spark of life on Earth.

We sow in turn into generations yet unborn. Life to life in one endless chain of humanity.

But to what end? Just more biology?

Words too are seeds. We hear them, see them and speak them. But what fruit do they bear?

“You have the words of eternal life”, Peter said to Jesus

These words of eternal life we too may hear - seeds that fall into our minds. What fruit do they bear?

Jesus told this seed story:

A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed,

• Some fell along the path, and birds came and ate it up.
• Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root.
• Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants.
• Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.

“Listen to what the parable of the sower means:

• When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it,the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in their heart. This is the seed sown along the path.
• The seed falling on rocky ground refers to someone who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away.
• The seed falling among the thorns refers to someone who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful.
• But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.”

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Four Loves

All You Need is Love the Beatles sang in 1967 but what is love, actually? To answer this question CS Lewis wrote "The Four Loves" as an exploration of the many shades of meaning behind that simple word. He used four Greek words to focus on four different forms that love can take in human life - each with its own beauty, challenges, and potential pitfalls. 

The book can be read online here. But note: it was written in 1960 by an Oxford Don so dated in many ways, particuarly in his examples and written by a scholar so over-wordy by today's standards.

What follows is summary of Lewis' book generated by AI and then edited,

Storge - Affection

Affection is the most natural and instinctive form of love. It is the love that typically arises within families - between parents and children, siblings, and even toward pets. Lewis sees it as a foundational love, one that develops out of familiarity and the natural bonds that form through shared experience.

Affection is not usually a deliberate choice; it simply grows from our proximity and long-term interactions with others. It provides a sense of belonging and stability, offering comfort in times of need.

Despite its warmth, affection can sometimes be taken for granted or become overly possessive. It lacks the conscious choice found in other types of love, which means it may not always rise to the challenges of a more reflective, moral love.

Philia - friendship

Friendship is a love that is deliberately chosen. Unlike the natural bond of affection, friendship is built on shared interests, mutual respect, and common values. Lewis considers it a unique form of love because it is both voluntary and  a way of engaging with people outside of our circle of affection.

True friendship involves a balance between giving and receiving, with both parties valuing each other’s company and insight. Friends often serve as mirrors, reflecting back to us parts of our character and helping us grow.

Because friendship is based on shared choices and common ideals, it can be fragile. When one friend changes or when interests diverge, the bond can weaken or break.

Eros - romantic love

Erotic love, or Eros, is the most intense and consuming form of love. It is characterized by passion, desire, and the yearning for union with another person. Lewis distinguishes this form of love from mere physical attraction or lust; it is about a deep, soulful longing to be united with another.

When balanced by reason and other forms of love, Eros can lead to profound personal transformation and a deeper connection with one’s partner.

Lewis warns that Eros can become problematic if it is elevated to an idol. When the beloved becomes an object of obsession, the love can turn possessive and self-centred. For Eros to be wholesome, it must eventually integrate with other aspects of love - such as friendship and selfless care - to avoid the pitfalls of obsession and unrealistic idealization.

Agape - unconditional & selfless love

Agape, is perhaps the highest and most challenging form of love in Lewis’s hierarchy. It is a selfless, unconditional love that does not depend on the worthiness or actions of the recipient. In Christian tradition, Agape is often seen as the love of God for humanity—and the love that humans are called to emulate.

Unlike the other loves, Agape is not limited by personal connection or mutual attraction. It is extended to all, regardless of personal ties or emotional reciprocation.

Practicing Agape demands a renunciation of selfish desires and a commitment to the well-being of others, often at personal cost.

Lewis acknowledges that while Agape is the ideal, it is difficult for humans to consistently practice this form of love without it becoming tainted by personal biases or emotional limitations.

Comments

Lewis emphasizes that these four loves are not mutually exclusive but can and do interrelate in a healthy life. For example, a deep friendship might blossom into romantic love, or a passionate relationship might be enriched by the steady comfort of affection. However, problems arise when one type of love is idolized or allowed to dominate our emotional lives to the detriment of the others. 
Human love is inherently flawed. Recognizing these imperfections is crucial for cultivating a more mature, reflective, and ultimately redemptive love.

The Reflection of Divine Love:
Lewis argues that the various forms of human love are, in a sense, echoes of the divine love (Agape) that we are meant to emulate. Each type of love contains a “shadow” of this higher form, and the journey of life involves transforming our natural inclinations into something that more closely resembles unconditional, selfless love.

Love as a Discipline:
Far from being a mere emotion, love in Lewis’s view is a discipline - a practice that involves choice, sacrifice, and sometimes even pain. The process of loving well demands both humility and the willingness to confront one’s own imperfections.

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Paul McCartney's Dream

Paul was going through a difficult time, working hard and dealing with tensions in The Beatles that would eventually lead to the group splitting up, He writes:

"I fell asleep exhausted one day and had a dream in which my mum (who had died just over 10 years previously) did in fact come to me. When you dream about seeing someone you've lost, even though it's sometimes just for a few seconds, it really does feel like they’re right there with you and it's as if they've always been there. My mum was very reassuring. In this dream, seeing my mum's beautiful, kind face and being with her in a peaceful place was very comforting. I immediately felt at ease and loved and protected. My mum is very reassuring and like so many women often are, she was also able to keep our family going. She kept our spirits up. She seemed to realise I was worried about what was going on in my life and what would happen, and she said to me. 

"Everything will be alright. Let it be."

As far as religion goes, I'm obviously influenced by Christianity. But there are many great teachings in all the religions. I'm not particularly religious in any conventional sense, but I do believe in the idea there is some sort of higher force that can help us. So this song becomes a prayer, or mini prayer. There's a yearning somewhere at its heart, the word amen itself means. 

So be it or let it be.

When I find myself in times of trouble
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom
Let it be
And in my hour of darkness
She is standing right in front of me
Speaking words of wisdom
Let it be

Paul Mccartney / John Lennon

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