Many are they who suppose a blog—such a today thing!—to be ephemeral (“beginning and ending in a day”) in its subject-matter and interest to others. Why should it be so? I celebrate the past, like this stately galleon on the ocean of time, its stern riding proud and high, its prow dipping into the billows of the present, becalmed or stormy, no matter; slowly inching its way into the future. It is a place of glory, gilded in the memory. The older you get, the more the past is precious.
The old are guardians of the old ways, watchful of changes for the worse. There was a time when gerontocracy, not democracy, was the rule. The elders were in charge. There are worse ways to govern. On the radio this morning, they were interviewing people in the streets, in Cuba. Were they chafing for more democracy, political freedom? No! There were those who desired a better standard of living, or the freedom to start their own businesses. Yet not a word was said against the country or its systems for education and health. In 1962 as a student in France I grew a patchy black beard and wore a NATO surplus jacket and when I hitch-hiked got accustomed to lorry-drivers shouting “Castro!” Fidel is still alive, as indeed am I, though unlike him, I gave up the beard and jacket later that same year.
Brothers and sisters in the “developed” countries, we have been brainwashed to think we have the best of all possible systems. We have nothing to lose but our slavery to greedy competing politicians, greedy competing corporations.
My anti-library tirade the other week was prompted by a sense that the past was being forgotten, just when we needed it most. Our new branch library is in the Eden Shopping Centre, which in this venerable town is a stark barren island, a cursed place swept free of retrospect, a “now” place, colonised by remote retail chains which peddle their baubles and ersatz to natives bereft of historical sense. In tune with its host, the library hastens to purge itself of yesterday, to stay obedient to this week’s view, hardly concerned with anything outside the horizon of its imagined readers. The town’s sole bookshop has also moved to Eden, this Orwellian zone washed clean of memory. Like the library, it’s enslaved to the flavours of the month, more devoted to freshly-minted produce than the fruit-and-vegetable section of the supermarket. Waterstone’s is its name. I think of a stone newly dredged from the ocean where it has lain ten thousand years. In an hour it’s as dry as a pebble which has never been submerged; worthy symbol of a store with no memory. And how appropriate to use the name “Eden”, that realm with no past, where Adam and Eve had no navels, no antecedents. They arrived naked, owning nothing but their openness to temptation. This other Eden (“demi-paradise”? Huh!) forbids its fruit and gilded fig-leaves only to those with no money.
There are actually good things about the library-I-love-to-hate, which don’t require me to actually go there (except to collect). I can access the Oxford English Dictionary free from my desk at home, just by entering my library ticket number as a user ID and logging into the Net. By the same means, I can order books from the library’s County Reserve Stock, which is where they dump all the out-of-fashion books of perennial value for readers like me. Having recently watched the film Carrington, I was curious about Lytton Strachey, author of Eminent Victorians. Now I can luxuriate in Strachey’s understated irony, as from the viewpoint of 1918 he surveys the lives of four grand “celebs” of the nineteenth century: Cardinal Manning, Florence Nightingale, Dr Arnold, General Gordon. When I have finished that, I propose to borrow his biography of Queen Victoria.
Last weekend I planned to have an orgy of reading. The actuality was less intense than anticipated, as is doubtless the case with all orgies. The thought was delicious though, and as I returned from the library with Strachey, and a biography of Swedenborg which had caught my eye, I found myself doing something that took me back to teenage years. In those days, I’d start to read whilst waiting for the bus, and continue whilst sitting on the bus; as if there were nothing in my immediate surroundings worthy of note. But now it’s only a short walk from the library to my house and I found myself trying to read whilst dawdling on the street.
Something at least has changed since then. I’ve learned to get my nose out of books and more directly consult the library of Creation, in which everything, except the Eden Shopping Centre, reveals its own roots in time immemorial. In their lineaments the passers-by, my close cousins all, display their ancestry, something which all the trees and smaller plants do also, and the tiniest insects, which are more distant cousins. Persons! One glance gives a peek at their glorious individuality, which owes so much to personal history and genealogy. And their divine depth outshines: an eternal mystery.
Others may marvel at the impending future, the achievements and problems of the day, forgetting that as Murphy’s Law states, “Most problems are caused by solutions”. But give me the past, don’t throw it away. It still has much to teach us.
I need no library, really. It’s just a bonus. This external world, with the continuing exception of our new shopping centre, is rooted in its own past, which we can learn to read like a book from the relics which survive in the present. If I lose touch with that, there’s still the archive of memory. And if I lose that on top of the rest, it’s probably time to leave.
a wayfarer’s notes 
The above post is partly an excuse for not having finished reading Paul's Original Faith. But he, having spent 25 years in its gestation, and heading up its praise on the back cover with the words “Life Changing”, will surely be patient. Give me time, my life is changing. I'm savouring the book. there are many things to say about it. Some time in the next 25 years I will write an essay or two in its praise.
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Coincidentally, I have been spending a fair amount of time of late immersing myself in the past.
A few weeks ago I traveled to my home town to celebrate my Mother's 80th birthday. She wanted to tour a train museum and visit some of the places she frequented in her childhood and teen years.
Sadly many things are gone or the shells of buildings are beginning to crumble from neglect. Chain stores are going up in their place.
And yet there are still some Mom and Pop places, like the cheese shop we visited, and a wonderful pick your own vegetable and fruit place. Complete with an old-fashioned playground with simple, yet, innovative installations that children and adults can amuse themselves with.
This trip, the genealogy discussions with my mother, along with almost 8 GB of photos I scanned while I was there, provided a rich set of new/old memories for me.
My Grandfather is slated to become one of the 1st members of the Santa Claus hall of fame in October. I am to participate in ceremonies with another grandson of a prominent Santa as our Grandfathers are memorialized.
I have been working on a website to commemorate him, and much of the material I collected on my trip is slated for addition to this site.
Shopping areas like the one you described here, are obliterating the landscape. They do little or nothing to promote a genuine appreciation of the past. In fact, they do more to provide a revisionists view, than they do to solidify an understanding of where we come from.
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I think, sometimes, of Vampire Capitalism, or even Capitalism in general, as being a stalled ship. The Captain and Crew wanting only to separate their captives from their past, but take them no where. A stagnant, but profitable, present for all, especially the Captain and his Crew.
And some people riding in this big boat get confused about democracy and start thinking it is only capitalism at its fullest.
Great post Vincent, merry on your way, the light house guides you from the rough terrain, warning you when to exercise your cautions.
I disagree with your surmise of adam and eve and the garden. This occurred in chapter two, they came out of the past, chapter one, which God made for them and which enabled them to enter the garden thru their connections to the identity of God, the knowledge of himself in full. So where did that leave the fall? It was a case of mistaken identity, lol.
Anyway, my point of view, another is how great your writing is and most of your posts, like this one for instance. I had a period in my life where I read night and day, spent everything on it and loved it dearly, the books are still with me, but the names have been obscured until they surface. Good luck with your continued pleaasure.
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I incorrectly linked the website I have created for my grandfather. If your interested, you can see it here.
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“Most problems are caused by solutions”. I like that – never heard this version of Murphy's Law.
Yes, but I was derailed for eleven years by the health stuff. I figure that only leaves you fourteen years for the essays, lol…
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Well, library's are cool, if you watch what you read. We have a very nice one here. But I wish they would put all the religious crap in the fiction section.
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BBC, you want the librarians to decide what's fiction, or the readers? To me, that's what makes the library here uncool. Too much deciding by librarians what the readers should be allowed to read.
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Paul, it's not a version of Murphy's Law, it is from a book called Murphy's Law: All the Reasons Why Everything Goes Wrong by Arthur Bloch. Or to be more precise Murphy's Law Complete being an omnibus edition. Its a compendium of many “laws” and includes a section entitled Problematics, with items such as the following:
Smith's Law: no real problem has a solution.
Big Al's law: a good solution can be successfully applied to almost any problem.
The Roman Rule: the one who says it cannot be done should never interrupt the one who's doing it.
Baxter's Law: an error in the premise will appear in the conclusion.
Sevareid's Law (the one I quoted): The chief cause of problems is solutions.
Anyhow, fourteen years, twenty-five years, doesn't matter if we are having fun. I'm constantly jotting down notes on Original Faith. That is the easy part.
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Jim, what an astute observation:
“The Captain and Crew [of the bad ship Vampire Capitalist] wanting only to separate their captives from their past, but take them nowhere.
Yes! Because without the past, how shall we compare? Without comparisons, how shall we resist the pressures to obey the Captain and Crew? Especially when economic necessity has forced us to be the crew?
This throws a whole new light on my lifelong antipathy to “management”.
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The wine besides, wouldn't make any difference, I have never laughed so hard, well, not recently anyway! No offense to anyone, those rules just break me up!
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Jim, in my Bible Eve is created in Chapter 2 of Genesis – out of the rib of Adam.
I have always wondered what Jews think of what Christians call the Fall. Do they believe in Original Sin? Surely that dark shadow on the newborn child belongs to the diseased imagination of Chrstianity alone.
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Simply put, and I am still laughing at those rules, Adam listened to himself, what came from him, not to the garden and his reality there, and original sin was born.
Cain.
But, TODAY, interpretation differs according to the point of view one takes, and since faces are no means of differentiation, opinion matters. To some jews, it was an opportunity to know oneself better, to yet others, it was a learning experience. Either way, it is all the same, work without pay.
From that, we have TODAY.
I will have to consider that further, this is up to the minute reporting, reality may change.
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Charles, that is the trouble with growing old. People and places so important in memory have died and crumbled in reality. There is an urge to go back and revisit, but I've done this and the places have often changed. Or else I've made do with confabulations in the intervening years.
Still, it is worth going back!
Fortunately in my town it's not exactly that shopping areas are obliterating the landscape. Our new one is about half a century overdue. In the nineteen-fifties there was what they called a slum clearance: a huge mistake by today's standards, as the alternative would have been to put money in to renovate the properties. A flyover, a college and a small shopping mall were built in place of the cleared downtown area; but the largest part was left – for years and years – as a temporary parking lot. the land belonged to the municipality which had compulsorily purchased it for the slum clearance. So it is not vampire capitalism in the worst sense. The Council simply did what it thinks is best for the town; finally creating a real town centre where people are glad to visit from miles around. The old town centre is glorious: I illustrate my blog site at top left with a picture of the Guildhall's cupola and weathervane at the time of its renovation: worthy symbols of wayfaring and climbing up a ladder of wisdom.
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'forced learning experience'. from outside oneself.
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I guess that would make the general christians whinners, like McCain says, since they think they are being forced to achieve, of course he blames us for that.
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Saddly enough the misery, but isn't it cool how it works, I prefer to do without it.
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“The wine besides, wouldn't make any difference”.
Jim, I think it would make a difference! Blessings, enjoy.
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You are right, of course, Vincent, too much difference too fast, like always, lol. Thanks, Cheers, Lol!
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“Jim, in my Bible Eve is created in Chapter 2 of Genesis – out of the rib of Adam.
I have always wondered what Jews think of what Christians call the Fall. Do they believe in Original Sin? Surely that dark shadow on the newborn child belongs to the diseased imagination of Chrstianity alone.”
Let me try to do justice, sober justice to this inquiry Vincent.
The comment about the opportunity, and it beside the 'learning experience' refer to the inner opportunity of perfecting of being human, and that opposed to an outer perfecting of nature to include other humans. The two are much the same but it is a matter of emphasis.
Many Jews I have met have similar ideas as the Christians, remember that the Christian approach was originally Jewish, Rabbinical. They do not use the same words but have the same idea, even the idea of reincarnation is implying that a child is born with errors that have to be met and corrected, that becomes the purpose of life.
At the same time, there is no chance for most of being perfected, hence the Christian doctrine of 'give it up' and place yourself on the mercy of the court. Jews also basically recognize the goal is immense and mercy is in order.
The errors from the 'fall' concept have to do with the man listening to the woman instead of his connection to God. In a way they are two sides of one coin, and the man is the coin and can go either way, each carries its requirements and results.
For some Jews it was planned and not a curse but a necessary part of the growth of the whole of which individuals are a part. In the garden, man could be of any of the three trees, each had its own nature and maturity built into it thru growth. Choosing one defined what one would become.
So a choice was made.
It involved dealing with both sides of the coin thru the woman, so she would become the hingepin for him, however 'she' is metaphorically the whole creative power that we know which bottoms out as sex and childbirth, 'she' is the whole of the process, not just a partial element in the process (which is what we think 'she' is), ie, she is each of us as our power to recreate bodies, but also everything else, like a mutual relationship of ultimate meaning, or a world full of material inventions, emotion/mental uses of the same power process.
Inventing weapons is one side of the coin, the not God side. Inventing worse, deceptions lies, misery, torture, etc, is likewise.
And so on.
Personally, except for a something I can't express exactly yet, I think the Jews and Christians are very much alike no matter what is said. Ultimately I feel the same is true for the Muslims too, I think the differences in the three are almost non-existent and what we know is more illusion when we think them totally different.
Forget the McCain thing, all nonsense, lol, my apologies for that.
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Jim, thanks for your clear short essay on Adam, Eve & the Fall. Not only is it a summary of what, as you say, those three religions have in common, it is also a summary of what I dislike about those three religions. (Not that I like any other religions better.)
For it emphasizes that man must reject the woman (her perceived dominance), sex, reproduction, in favour of an abstraction of male authority which is separate from those things. This makes an essence of those religions which of course has had to be rewritten again and again to suit the more modern moods. Currently, with the disagreement in the Anglican Church about gay priest marriages and women bishops, it looks as if it is about the split the Anglican Church; and the surprise is only that the church has lasted so long till now, for it is an “Irishman's broom” of an institution. I mean it traces its unbroken roots but the truth is, the broom's head has been replaced many times and so has the handle. And that is the reason for clinging to scripture which is their way of disproving my Irishman's Broom thesis: “for aren't they still the same original scriptures?”
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Vincent, you said
“For it emphasizes that man must reject the woman (her perceived dominance), sex, reproduction, in favour of an abstraction of male authority which is separate from those things. This makes an essence of those religions which of course has had to be rewritten again and again to suit the more modern moods.”
This is something I am Textually working on (and I read your point about the text being the proof that the 'continued changes' are valid, no matter how far afield they may go, and could and will post on this later), and it has to do with the misunderstanding about the world that involves sex and male and female separation and resultant roles and these at any level of concepts.
My point is that the One God concept is what is misunderstood and that causes the problem here with male/female roles et al.
Creation implies an energy which manifests creatively in billions or trillions of ways in what we call our nature, Nature and Us.
This then is the One God, and when Adom failed to listen to it as that whole, he divided himself, that whole, into his own parts wherein he could invent these roles that we are talking about.
The fall was that decision, to divide himself inside the whole and not hear the whole but become fully and finally focused on his parts. When he did this, the fall began thru the parts or levels of hearing until he was lost in the maze of the billions/trillions of forms of the One energy of creative power.
My point is that we can return to that whole hearing and then there will not be the confusion about and in the parts, one can enter into any part without getting 'lost' or 'stuck' in any role or misunderstanding from the lessening, then the lessening becomes more, the creative relationship of male/female, man/woman, becomes uninterrupted and fuller than the other way. In theory this would apply to any choice of personal sexual expression one might make, for the object is not to lose sight of the reality of the One God, while having the individual personal freedom to expression of that One God, the One God being the power of Creative energy.
I am working on the wording and expressing of this point. I have a post today in a series called 'the coming of the Moshiach' and this stuff is hit on in part 4 I think. Some of these are kabbalistic, but much of it is plain english.
Hope I am not overstaying my welcome on this subject, thanks for the opportunity Vincent.
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“Brothers and sisters in the West, we have been brainwashed to think we have the best of all possible systems. We have nothing to lose but our slavery to greedy competing politicians, greedy competing corporations.”
Well said, Vincent. I imagine these human beings with so much capital to parade around by erecting such things as a “shopping center” named “Eden”… are not casually predisposed. It's interesting that you mentioned Orwellian – as that really is what it is. A choreographed distraction from times when education was more than paper or a line item, and men saw fit to forge paths instead of just walking them.
Good stuff.
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i came across strachey's biography on queen victoria one holiday in new zealand of all places (in a log cabin in abel tasman) over 11 years ago – i wasn't able to finish it but was pleased to find it again in a charity sale outside winchester cathedral 2 months ago!
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