The Simpsons is hard on religion. Poor Ned Flanders thinks it his Christian duty to persist in loving-kindness to Homer, who’s unfailingly rude and never returns things he’s borrowed. His verbal tics (“Okely-dokely!” Home Sweet-diddly Home!”) are the only evidence of his suppressed urge to go berserk against such an unlovable next-door neighbour.
What about me? Do I have responsibilities in this world, that I must faithfully discharge? Yes, but not in obedience to the precepts of any religion, humanism or atheism: not consciously, certainly not literally.
Unlike Ned Flanders, I don’t find it necessary to subordinate my natural self to ideals, from whatever source they may arise.
In the last couple of days, I have watched Michael Cacoyannis’ film version of Zorba the Greek, as a sequel to reading Kazantzakis’ book, got from Oxfam. I discover Zorba was based on a real man called Zorbas whom Kazantzakis knew. Hearing of his death, he remembered so many incidents that he based his first novel on him. Zorba was a “natural man”, who said it was a sin unforgivable by God to miss the offered opportunity to sleep with a woman (see page 16 for my piece on the book). He also said that we should live each day as if it were our last, whilst at the same time living it as if we would live forever.
Zorba confessed that in his younger days he had slain, raped and pillaged in the name of Greece. Now he did not care if a man was Turk or Greek, sinner or saint. Zorba was a man of action and a tender-hearted soul. He disparaged books and scribbling, but like Kazantzakis, I salute him for the mixture of barbarism and wisdom. Given the circumstances, a man may wash out the barbarism from his soul. Failing that he may need to be locked up for the good of others.
Am I personally to judge others, condemn suicide bombers, tell people how to live, fight injustice, worship God, annihilate my ego, obey moral rules, pursue achievement, strive for perfection, share collective guilt for the ills of the world, find out what God wants me to do, ally myself to the righteous? None of those things; which is not to disparage others who may see any of the above as their justification for living.
I also hold it possible that if as some say things are ordained, that Destiny’s zigzag path is non-random, not accountable totally to physics; then some are born to be judged and found guilty, to cause harm through crime, insanity, every deadly sin, terrorist acts and every conceivable addiction or misjudgement that causes hurt to their own selves.
As part of some voluntary work in 1966 I met a young man recently released from Rampton, a hospital for the criminally insane. He recounted to me the details of the extremely violent sexual crime for which he had been imprisoned. Whether this was a confession as part of his expiation, or he gained a special pleasure in the retelling, I am unable to say. I was ill-qualified to hear such a confession, took the view that what he had done was not my affair.
It is only by interacting directly that I can know what a person is, or a tree, animal or cloud[1]. How can I know my own self? How can I discover my responsibility?
[1] See also “Laughing Water”
a wayfarer’s notes 
From an avid student of the answers to the questions you so ably ask….you do or you have done what is given to you to do, you have an attitude that has grown and matured and you have nurtured without system the very thing that others need systems to accomplish. How? Who knows, but some do. Very thought provoking and moving, my hat is off to you, even tho I do it my way.
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thank you Jim. “How?” I don't know if it is relevant but I was student of a spiritual teacher for 30 years until I realised he was neither spiritual nor a teacher. He used to say, “What you are looking for is within you,” but only in turning my back on him did I find it. The only way to do it is your own way, but people still feel the need for someone or some system to follow.
Now that fundamentalism has revealed itself as violence, attacking its own mirror image, surely people will feel revulsion against being followers, and be more inclined to pursue their own lonely trackless path.
The age is dawning when we can all be prophets.
And Moses said unto him, Enviest thou for my sake? would God that all the Lord's people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit upon them!
Numbers, Ch XI v. 29
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I wish I believed that people would find that the violence of fanatics liberates them from being followers, but I'm skeptical. I think disruption creates uncertainty, and uncertainty drives people into the comfort of clusters of people, huddled together, following whomever seems most certain of their own truth.
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No doubt you are right, Hayden, at least in the short term. On September 13th, 2001, after my own sense of physical shock had died down, I was filled with optimism that such a deed of violence would lead to some fruitful introspection. Americans would soberly ask, “What’s wrong with us that people out there hate us so? We thought we were the world’s benefactors.” For that is what I would have done. Instead, there was the immediate building of scar tissue in the form of aggression, propaganda and retreat, as you say, into a huddle to follow the most boneheaded and cocksure.
As a prophet, I fail, therefore, though I take comfort from Dariuswho reminds us that a prophet properly speaking is not someone who successfully predicts, but who helps create the future. To repeat my previous comment, “Would God that all the Lord's people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit upon them!” We don't have to be believers to understand and approve.
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