Thoughts that may lead nowhere
Dec. 26th, 2019 01:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
smokingbootA friend of mine wrote a beautiful piece on Mary as a revolutionary force.
https://radicalhoneybee.blogspot.com/2019/12/mary-unbound-fourth-sunday-in-advent.html?m=1&fbclid=IwAR0P98_qioxObJg9Vaa4jpQe1ey2NoiARAEIhfXRk18mpEZXu_AhyPkdUtw
I know my friend's spiritual background entailed training as a Priestess of Avalon in Glastonbury. Leaving that order, she seems to have found Christianity in a form I much admire, weaving folk traditions and 'hedgerow saints' into the tapestry of it. It's beautiful and profound, even though I detect much heartache behind it... I don't think her life, her being, is at all easy. Often she seems to be stretching hard to find a kernal of something sweet. I can feel the effort. She has been accused of being somewhat twee in her approach, but it leads to a kind of Christianity that is much more radical than the paganism we are greeted with now, which at its core often has middle English values spiced with lots of 60s permissiveness. Sex comes and goes, oo-er missus, but the poor are with you always... And modern paganism has little to do with that basic hardship, that need to survive.
When Christianity is radical it is basically communist in outlook; give poor people food, clothes, shelter, help. Give lots. If everyone does this when they can, no-one goes without when they can't.
Don't tell me we ever took this entirely on board. It got turned around into a kind of feudal fatalism.
Admittedly, the Church created the skeleton of a welfare state hundreds of years before the state existed, and that meant co-operating with the wealthy seeking heaven. I can see how that worked for a while, I can see the trajectory... And the flaws are as obvious as the benefits.
Speaking as a person who grew up fluctuating wildly between states of wealth and poverty, I know that the poor can be every bit as stupid as the rich, the difference is that they have less opportunity to change it. The frustrating thing is when they vote to make things worse. That's the point when I throw my hands in the air and say Have it your own way! Knock yourselves out!
And that is kind of where I am. There has been a little encouragement for me to go into politics, and I really appreciate it, but have decided against it for changing reasons. I used to think that I just couldn't do it, what with lifelong dyspraxia etc, but we see that lack of ability or even care is not necessary. Despite all the proof to the contrary, my heart tells me that a proper public servant should love the people, and I am not sure I do, or at least, my connection is very tenuous. The values I cherish don't matter at all in England, as far as I can see, and until and unless they do, there are other things to do with my time.
Of course Scotland is very different. I'll put my energy into environmental protections, ecological stuff, animal welfare. Time to join the Scottish Greens.
https://radicalhoneybee.blogspot.com/2019/12/mary-unbound-fourth-sunday-in-advent.html?m=1&fbclid=IwAR0P98_qioxObJg9Vaa4jpQe1ey2NoiARAEIhfXRk18mpEZXu_AhyPkdUtw
I know my friend's spiritual background entailed training as a Priestess of Avalon in Glastonbury. Leaving that order, she seems to have found Christianity in a form I much admire, weaving folk traditions and 'hedgerow saints' into the tapestry of it. It's beautiful and profound, even though I detect much heartache behind it... I don't think her life, her being, is at all easy. Often she seems to be stretching hard to find a kernal of something sweet. I can feel the effort. She has been accused of being somewhat twee in her approach, but it leads to a kind of Christianity that is much more radical than the paganism we are greeted with now, which at its core often has middle English values spiced with lots of 60s permissiveness. Sex comes and goes, oo-er missus, but the poor are with you always... And modern paganism has little to do with that basic hardship, that need to survive.
When Christianity is radical it is basically communist in outlook; give poor people food, clothes, shelter, help. Give lots. If everyone does this when they can, no-one goes without when they can't.
Don't tell me we ever took this entirely on board. It got turned around into a kind of feudal fatalism.
Admittedly, the Church created the skeleton of a welfare state hundreds of years before the state existed, and that meant co-operating with the wealthy seeking heaven. I can see how that worked for a while, I can see the trajectory... And the flaws are as obvious as the benefits.
Speaking as a person who grew up fluctuating wildly between states of wealth and poverty, I know that the poor can be every bit as stupid as the rich, the difference is that they have less opportunity to change it. The frustrating thing is when they vote to make things worse. That's the point when I throw my hands in the air and say Have it your own way! Knock yourselves out!
And that is kind of where I am. There has been a little encouragement for me to go into politics, and I really appreciate it, but have decided against it for changing reasons. I used to think that I just couldn't do it, what with lifelong dyspraxia etc, but we see that lack of ability or even care is not necessary. Despite all the proof to the contrary, my heart tells me that a proper public servant should love the people, and I am not sure I do, or at least, my connection is very tenuous. The values I cherish don't matter at all in England, as far as I can see, and until and unless they do, there are other things to do with my time.
Of course Scotland is very different. I'll put my energy into environmental protections, ecological stuff, animal welfare. Time to join the Scottish Greens.
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