People can be good to each other

Source: friendship day image hd Free Photo https://www.vecteezy.com/photo/30639071-friendship-day-image-hd

In recent months I have been travelling to Sydney from the South Coast more often than usual to spend as much time as I can with my mother. The grand old lady is increasingly becoming lost inside that terrible thick fog of dementia. It is a heartbreaking experience common to many homes. A few days ago I shared a story inspired by an unexpected encounter during one of these trips as I will often make time to visit some of my favourite places—bookstores and cafes where I will do a great deal of my drafting. I have been to visit mother twice since that little reflection to do with the seminary posted only a few days ago. I am back home wanting to share another moment with you which left an indelible mark on me. It deals with one of my favourite words and the charism found in those beautiful souls we encounter along the way—that is, compassion (to “suffer with”). I do know, I refer to this most important of charities too often. Yet, for some good reason, I am compelled to speak on it. We may not all be capable of sacrificial love, which Jesus might ask of us (1 Jn 3:16), but compassion is always within our reach.

Compassion asks us to go where it hurts, to enter into the places of pain, to share in brokenness, fear, confusion, and anguish. Compassion challenges us to cry out with those in misery, to mourn with those who are lonely, to weep with those in tears. Compassion requires us to be weak with the weak, vulnerable with the vulnerable, and powerless with the powerless. Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human. (Henri J. M. Nouwen, You are the Beloved: Daily Meditations for Spiritual Living)

When we look at the world and observe many of the unspeakable horrors constantly rerun before us in various media platforms, it is not difficult to agree with Charles Bukowski that “people are not good to each other” (The Crunch). And, yes, to be truthful, he is not entirely wrong. Bukowski is one of my favourite poets, and though he is much underrated by the academe for a number of reasons, he has left behind confronting insights on the human condition. On this point, however, to do with people, I cannot agree with him without some strong qualification. There are many more good people in the world, who are “good to each other” than the other way round. If good people, those anonymous heroes, everyday saints I would call them, who go about their daily jobs to make sure we are not left without the essentials and that we are kept safe—where to begin and where to end—doctors; aid workers; nurses; hospice staff; plumbers; sanitary engineers; truck drivers; first responders; farmers; industrial workers; teachers; volunteers; and even our barbers who we trust to not cut our throats, were to suddenly stop delivering their grace, things would very quickly collapse around us. We do not often hear about these persons for we take such souls for granted until we need them. So it is the warmongers and the violence, for instance, which fuels our news broadcasts to fill us with our ‘daily dread’. And to be sure, they inflict untold and horrendous damage, but such saturation of evil makes it even easier to accept this darkness as normative and to sweep aside the majority, that is, the just and decent, who are, indeed, good to each other.

What brought this particular reflection into my heart these past few days? It was the deeply moving and selfless compassion of one young man quietly going about his everyday business. For the moment, lest I embarrass him, let us call him Zayan. I will do my best to explain below—and why I started on another private study on the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Lk. 10:29-37). There is a little corner shop not far up the road from where mother lives. I find it important to support these small family businesses and not only for the reason I grew up in such a shop. The young man behind the counter who was still observing Ramadan, was very polite and helped me locate the necessary things for my mother’s dietary requirements. I  complimented him on his courtesy and efficiency and asked him if was studying or working in the business fulltime. This is when my admiration for this young man moved to an enormous respect. He was indeed studying in a Sydney tertiary institution. He told me he was in his second year of a sports physiotherapy degree and was doing well. I suggested to him his career choice given the ubiquity of sport in our lives looked very positive and that he could even open up his own practice one day. Acknowledging these opportunities, he proceeded to share with me that this was not why he had enrolled in this degree.

Zayan went on to tell me the sole purpose of enrolling in this course of studies was to offer his services to those in need—and more especially to help his beloved older brother who suffers from cerebral palsy. These are the meaningful moments in life. The hours when you come face to face with the greatness of the human spirit and our capacity for God. I walked back to my car and never ashamed to admit, I wept. I shed tears for things which I could feel in my heart but could not put rightly into words. For those who are students of the Johannine corpus or have read Blaise Pascal you will get a more proximate sense of what I am grappling with here. Indeed in both instances the appeal would be to a coherent love from the one to the other—both in its original act in the first place and then afterwards in its communication.

When people are good to each other something wonderful will always happen. The goodness received is invariably paid forward. An Athonite monk I once knew called this paying forward a “communicable disease”.  It was hard to forget this striking analogy. Our old friend Charles Bukowski was not entirely wrong when he spoke on the human condition but at times he could overshoot the mark.

This is why ‘the Machine’ concerns me

“Cannot you see, cannot all you lecturers see, that it is we that are dying, and that down here the only thing that really lives is the Machine? We created the Machine, to do our will, but we cannot make it do our will now. It has robbed us of the sense of space and of the sense of touch, it has blurred every human relation and narrowed down love to a carnal act, it has paralysed our bodies and our wills, and now it compels us to worship it. The Machine develops - but not on our lies. The Machine proceeds - but not to our goal. We only exist as the blood corpuscles that course through its arteries, and if it could work without us, it would let us die.” (E. M. Forster, The Machine Stops, 1909)

“Technique has penetrated the deepest recesses of the human being. The machine tends not only to create a new human environment, but also to modify man's very essence. The milieu in which he lives is no longer his. He must adapt himself, as though the world were new, to a universe for which he was not created. He was made to go six kilometres an hour, and he goes a thousand. He was made to eat when he was hungry and to sleep when he was sleepy; instead, he obeys a clock. He was made to have contact with living things, and he lives in a world of stone. He was created with a certain essential unity, and he is fragmented by all the forces of the modern world.” (Jacques Ellul, The Technological Society, 1954)

“Those who cannot forgive others break the bridge over which they themselves must pass.” (Confucius)

“Sorry, a machine can’t forgive your mistakes.” (Anon.)

“Books don’t need batteries.” (Nadine Gordimer)

"Now, a machine however subtle does not feel love, does not pray, does not have a sense of the sacred, a sense of awe and wonder. To me these are human qualities that no machine, however elaborate, would be able to reproduce. You may love your computer but your computer does not love you." (Kallistos Ware)

Source: https://twitter.com/nasahistory/status/951861340557234177

This is why ‘the Machine’ concerns me. Not that it might one day determine what I might eat or drink, or whether I can drink or eat at all, but that it will not hear my cries. That it will know nothing of physical thirst or of gut-wrenching despair. How can ‘they’ not understand this? It will have no comprehension of forgiveness. It will never wipe the slate clean. There is no delete. No such thing as absolution. It will deny to give me a fresh start [another more terrible dimension to DoS attack]. Mercy does not run through its microcircuitry. Don’t rush to embrace it too soon, this Trojan Horse which comes as a peace offering to the gods. The Creator has mercy for us, “[t]hough your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool” (Is. 1:18). The ‘Machine’ which is ‘spirited’ by power to apply force and control, is unmoved to our petitions, “Dave, this conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye” (2001: A Space Odyssey). This is the elephant in the living room. Something holds us back, a foreboding, a premonition perhaps, that keeps us from directly addressing this subject.

It really is difficult to see people broken, humiliated, and in some instances to have their lives taken away from them because of something they might have said five, ten, twenty or more years previously. For someone, for whatever reason, to dredge up ‘sins’ of the past in order to hurt, or more concisely, to cause irreparable damage to the other. Who among us hasn’t said something which they haven’t later regretted, or where our words and sentiments can be elicited to carry a meaning or an attitude not originally intended? These can be errors of speech, peer group pressure, or the result of youth and immaturity. Yet it is there, it has been recorded. It is ‘played back’ oblivious to the context. Context is that which “throws light on meaning”.[1] We all make stupid mistakes. It takes time for wisdom and life experience to meld. And in other instances we get to a certain age and become anachronistic dinosaurs. The ‘Machine’ [input-process-output] is calculating and efficient. To ‘terminate’ these people is to simultaneously terminate ourselves. It is to do to another, that which can be done back to us. The ‘Machine’ defines us by our mistakes. It groups us in categories and dumps us in information silos. Is this the fate of the human spirit, to be “born into this?”[2] Imprisoned inside the “big iron” mainframes… like Ted Hughes’ proud Jaguar in “prison darkness” in its cage?

To forgive is an expression of one of our highest elevations as human beings. It is nobler than our finest literature, our greatest art, our most beautiful music. It is greater than all these when practised with a true heart for it takes us into the realms of the deepest mysteries of our combined representations of the Divine. In our religious experience we do not awe at the Creator’s ability with the harp or the writing of celestial sonnets, but rather we are amazed at the expression of God’s mercy and forgiveness. To the extent that we ourselves do the same with our fellow human, that is, to extend our grace towards those who we perceive to have wronged us, we are in the “image and likeness” of the Creator (Gen. 1:26).  We forgive that we could enter more genuinely into the space of compassion, that we might go on loving. The root of “forgive” is the Latin word “perdonare,” meaning “to give completely, without “reservation.” (“perdonare” is also the source of our English “pardon”).  We give up the desire or the power to punish.[3] The ‘Machine’ knows nothing of compassion. It will not forgive because it cannot love. Algorithms don’t have soul; they are devoid of incorporeal essence:

“You can’t forgive without loving. And I don’t mean sentimentality. I don’t mean mush.” (Maya Angelou)

In life not all acts of fellowship are received well or reciprocated. When the grace we give is not accepted and is returned it can be brutal. It is a place of heavy tears. We are living increasingly in a world which keeps us isolated one from the other, and where we might be called-out or cancelled as swiftly as the swatting of an irritating fly. This is not because people are wicked, on the contrary, most people are generous and kind-hearted. We are all fragile vessels on an oftentimes bumpy journey. We can crack. And this is the tragedy, the irony, that this very fragility draws us into systems and networks and ‘mobs’ where we do things so that we, ourselves, might not be hurt. It is increasingly becoming a survival technique. The online world especially has hurt and devastated people by its millions, either by their own hand [addictive behaviours] or cyber-attacks [bullying, misinformation]. “As rapidly as technology advanced,” writes Joseph Carvalko in his prescient novel Death by Internet, “goodness declined…”. Communication technologies are not exempt. They are the voice of ‘the Machine’. The apparatus has no spiritual knowledge of humility and so it cannot practise repentance. Computational empathy or affective computing, is mimicry at worst, and simulation at best. The ‘Machine’ possesses no natural ontology, knowledge representation and reasoning, does not automatically equate to higher consciousness. It cannot possess “human memory”. And therefore it does not know what it is like to be human. I dread to think, if the present-day capabilities of our 21st century technology were available to past totalitarian regimes [especially Advanced LBS and monitoring systems], how enormously more multiplied and innovative their crimes would have been.[4]

To meet likeminded spirits along the way means so very much. It could make all the difference in the world, to have the strength, to hold onto the courage, to keep pushing apart that impalpable space between the light and the darkness. How good to have a friend who is real and co-substantial. To receive an encouraging message to remind you of your humanity, to have sympathy for you precisely because of your flesh and blood. To be accepted for all your faults and list of misdemeanours. And if need be, as it sometimes will be, for one or the other to say “I am sorry”, and to hear those marvellous words in reply, “All is good, I understand.” Not just a graphical control element, or a voice on the other side of an interface, or a recorded message with push button instructions. A machine could be programmed to ‘speak’ all the good things in the realm of metaphysics, but we will always have the perspicacity, that penetrating discernment, that it is artificial, and synthetic. Those words, the programming languages [even if they should ever become distinctly compositional], will never, cannot ever come from the heart [“the blood-beat” of the poets], the place of will and intention. Technology, of course, in and of itself, is not the problem, but our connection to it needs to be kept under constant vigilance, that is, we must keep awake as to how it infiltrates and attempts to redefine our very existence as human beings. When we are in need of some light and succour all the artificial intelligence and interconnectivity in the world will mean nothing. It is like being trapped in a vault of bullion of an unlimited value with no means of escape or communication. What then the benefit of all that precious metal? What good if we are building towards this terrible prediction:

“If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever.” (George Orwell)

We give our technology compelling names and dress it up with the most dazzling colours and logos. Many of these technologies, ultimately the most potentially dangerous, we make anthropomorphic. We dress up for example, and give large adorable eyes to the robots. We make-believe that we are understood and can even be loved by ‘the Machine’, that its cold intelligence will keep us warm at night. ‘It’ will seek those divine attributes which we ordinarily attribute to Deity: omnipresence, omniscience, omnipotence, and omnificence. But being created in the image and likeness of the creation itself it cannot by definition ever achieve them. And so it will incrementally grow to become commensurately desirous and aggressive. The monster built by Victor Frankenstein eventually turns on his creator in murderous rage for making him hideous and incapable of fulfilling its integrated dynamism [5] . The singularity will not breathe new life into us to make us immortal. It could one day make you the ‘undead’, but never immortal. We would do good, as well, to not quickly forget the lesson of the story of the Tower of Babel (Gen. 11:1-9). Technology gone awry on account of the hubris of the builders and the resultant breakdown of communication.

We know ourselves better than those who might be wanting to hurt us and much better than ‘the Machine’ which wants to imprison us in its central repositories and data warehouses. Their efforts to cause us pain, to potentially bring us to some humiliation, pale in comparison to our own battles, the fight against our compulsions, and those myriad fetishes within. We know much better than our real-life adversaries and the ‘electronic eye’ of the darkness fighting, assailing our souls, as we try to limit its impact on our lives and on the lives of others. If only they [both the adversaries and the ‘comptrollers’] knew the whole truth, had some insight of the context, they would be ashamed and terrified at the same time. Big Brother and uberveillance as much they might try to get inside the head, to get to the “whole truth” with their own particular strains of watching techniques, can only endlessly fall short of the mark. Our life is a mystery infinitely inexhaustible. We are so much more, much more than our search history and CCTV captures. It is weight enough to grasp what those words below from Miłosz mean for each one of us, before even ‘the Machine’ goes after our self-discovery to take away that private space where away from prying eyes we do our living and our dying: 

“To believe you are magnificent. And gradually to discover that you are not magnificent. Enough labour for one human life.” (Czesław Miłosz)

[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/context

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQJengH58ow

[3] https://www.etymonline.com/word/forgive

[4] https://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1716&context=infopapers

[5] https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/frankenstein

The Bushfires and the Great Australian Spirit

Gerringong, NSW

Credit: Sam Markham took this photo approximately 20 minutes after a firestorm tore through his family's home. (Instagram / sam_markham_)

Bushfires in Australia when “tree stumps are kilns” and the land is covered with “red-black wounds” (Les Murray, Late Summer Fires) are certainly not new. They have been elemental to living in this land Down Under for timeless generations. They are an “ever-present part of life.”[1] We have almost become used to them, if that could ever be possible, and we might sometimes speak a little too casually of the ‘bushfire season’. Different parts of the continent given the vastness of our country experience this fiery season both in winter (dry) and in summer (hot) conditions. But it has become increasingly ferocious, where perhaps a more descriptive word for these huge fast-moving firestorms would be mega-blaze. We have had the real bad ones like the Tasmanian Black Tuesday Bushfires (1967), the South Australian and Victorian Ash Wednesday Bushfires (1983), and more recently one of our worst natural disasters the 2009 Victorian Black Saturday Bushfires. Not surprising then, that we have become more acutely sensitive to both the short- and long-term consequences of these “late summer fires”.[2] And yet, these ones we are currently living through, described by many in the middle of these infernos “as hell on earth”, are like no others we have seen.[3] Australian records for its highest-ever temperatures have been consistently topped together with a number of towns during these months identified as the hottest places on Earth. These fires have not surprisingly caught the attention of the world and it has rightly asked questions as to our preparedness. But how does one prepare for something as terrible as this, for the unprecedented. The inferno, this ‘mega-blaze’, we are living through, even as I write [from the South Coast itself], has even shocked hardened firefighter veterans with flames in some instances reaching heights of over 40 metres.[4] As a scholar of the Apocalypse of John, I can say, that the apocalyptic imagery that has been used by many of the first responders, and by those brave souls in the thick of the bushfires and the ‘devilishly twisted’ pyrocumulus clouds, is not an exaggeration. Where within minutes day turns to pitch black and the sun to blood red. Desolation, an awful word which denotes emptiness and destruction, utterly describes the blackened and ashen landscape. To date we have lost over 10 million hectares compared with the correspondingly calamitous Siberian fires of 2019 where 2.7 million hectares were lost. This gives some idea of the far-reaching catastrophe. As a dear friend from Europe also wrote to me only last night, these are indeed, "apocalyptic realities".

These few paragraphs, primarily written for my colleagues and friends overseas, are not a discussion on climate change.[5] This is not the time for such a discussion however urgent it surely is. This time will come over the next weeks and months when people are safely back into their homes, when the injured have been healed, and when our dead very sadly, have been laid to rest by their loved ones.[6] Rather, I wish to speak and share some thoughts on the ANZAC spirit of Australians (endurance, courage, initiative, discipline, mateship) born in the battlefields of Gallipoli, a legacy of one of the bloodiest World War One engagements.[7] This Aussie spirit, as “tough as goat’s knees” it is said, is also evidenced in peacetimes during periods of natural disasters of which our country is no stranger. Not only ravaging fires but also catastrophic cyclones. Older Australians would no doubt still remember the devastation of the tropical storm, Cyclone Tracy, which smashed into the city of Darwin in the Northern Territory on Christmas Eve of 1974. Australians all over the country responded with incredible speed.[8] Much of this benevolence quiet and anonymous. It is true we are not to be ultimately defined by what we possess, but by what we are able to give. Nothing is insignificant, all things touch upon the eternal.

This same spirit of ‘mateship’, the Anzac ‘attitude’ if I might call it, is being displayed in abundance during these terrifying hours. Volunteer firefighters [and certainly many other essential services volunteers] together with their professional workmates threw the timetable out the window and laboured through darkened days and spectral nights to not only save the lives of their neighbours but also their homes and properties.[9] A number of these firefighters having already suffered personal tragedy of their own. Our own Rural Fire Services (RFS) Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons who has been a bastion of support and of clear reason throughout these many days, had lost his own firefighting father in a hazard-reduction burn which turned wrong years earlier. Neighbours with no fire experience fighting spot fires on each other’s homes and properties, people opening up their homes to feed and to quench the homeless, truckies driving many, many hours to drop off food supplies and water to the little towns cut off from distribution routes, local communities and clubs opening their doors to those who were in need of shelter and comfort, people putting together essential survival parcels. Here too, I must mention the many reporters who risked their own lives to update us from the front line. These are all people from different walks of life testifying to good deeds of bravery, courage, and compassion.[10] Faith-communities as well have engaged in special prayer services and supported those in need of spiritual succour. Many gifts, too, have come from overseas and for these gifts we thank you. They are very important. Typical of this generosity is Pink’s five-hundred-thousand-dollar donation which made headlines here in Oz and inspired many others from both the entertainment and sports communities to get on board.

Credit: Jimboomba Police

Of course, we cannot forget the dreadful plight of our animals. A large group of this wildlife unique to this continent. A video of troops of kangaroos escaping the fires says much more than I could justly describe.[11] A rough estimate is around 480 million animal life lost. [12] Including large populations of our beloved kangaroos and koalas. Who can forget those extraordinary images of distressed koalas in dire need of water approaching people.[13] This great number of animal loss does not include “insects, bats or frogs.” It is estimated that in all likelihood even this huge total is an underestimation. The implications of all this to ecosystems, our biological community, is another subject altogether.

These marvellous acts of humanity, sweet-scented as they are, with such heroic mettle and backbone of steel, are of course not only common to my fellow Australians. Other countries face their own devastations and have suffered and conquered through similar tribulations. People are much nobler than what we might normally give them credit for. There are far more ‘angels’ in the world than the opposite which the popular media would normally lead us to believe. Good deeds which move the heart, even “that someone lay down his life for his friends” (Jn.15:13) or deep expressions of compassion [lit. ‘to suffer with’] from ordinary people doing extraordinary things, will rarely make the headlines. It takes such devastations for the greatness of the human spirit to warrant attention. Even now, acts of love and charity move and abound daily about us. Otherwise it would not take too long for our world to ground to a complete halt.

We will ‘regenerate’, it is what we do best. It is what this inimitable land, this “sunburnt country”, with all its natural beauty and untreated harshness, has taught us. To regenerate, is to restore. This enduring is also the ageless story of our indigenous Australians and we have much to learn from them when it comes to the wisdom of land management. That is, putting our ear to the ground and ‘deep listening to the earth’. New and vigorous life, like the uniquely Australian grass trees [the Xanthorrhoea], will return to our burnt places. Our spirits will revive and rekindle. And what is ashen now will once more turn to forest green.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/interactive/2013/dec/01/history-bushfires-australia-interactive

[2] http://www.lesmurray.org/pm_lsf.htm

[3] https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/bushfire-refugees-and-injured-wildlife-escape-mallacoota-armageddon-20200103-p53ojo.html

[4] https://www.9news.com.au/national/nsw-bushfires-south-coast-man-forced-to-defend-family-home-from-inside-firestorm/16cdd92e-3508-4990-bf20-53170fec72a8

[5] https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/

[6] https://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/what-we-know-so-far-on-the-nsw-and-victorian-bushfires/news-story/9e0268f8b13102c57370df951a6d1483

[7] https://www.awm.gov.au/commemoration/anzac-day/traditions

[8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclone_Tracy

[9] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uavHvY7KPXw

[10] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ST_n0_L7dc

[11] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spUGvay_E4s

[12] https://sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2020/01/03/a-statement-about-the-480-million-animals-killed-in-nsw-bushfire.html

[13] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwf9yQhYVrA

On trying to become fully human

Tempe, Arizona

Photo by Shahan Khan on Unsplash

Something ‘powerful’ is holding us back. It keeps us from flight. At times it might feel like a dam holding back a great torrent of water. What is more, we feed this hold over us to the extent that years could pass and we remain grounded to its biggest lie. Whatever this obstacle might be, this ‘big lie’, it is known to our hearts alone. Often it is guilt over something we have done, or should not have done. Other times it is regret at an opportunity not taken to express our love, or to ask for forgiveness. This lie invariably tells us we are “not good” and that we do not deserve the “good fortune” incumbent upon others. Many of these instances which stop us from moving forward have to do with our despondency to set things ‘right’. Then the dreadful moment when suddenly confronted with the reality that it is too late. That is, the best of our intentions can no longer be realized. What then? Do we spend the remainder of our lives weltering in self-recrimination? Perhaps a higher providence has seen best for things to fall precisely as they have. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Is. 55:9). This was the only way. It was the only way for ‘self-recrimination’ to turn out to be self-revelation. To become fully human, that is, to the extent which such a thing is possible [the ‘unity between head and heart’ Jean Vanier], means to engage with these hard experiences and to live through them. The final destination is what matters. What is done is done. There is the next hour to be lived to its fullest.

Such unbridled joy it does bring to the heart when we happen to come across someone who we sense to be fully human, or at least striving for this end goal. This aspiration towards a human teleology is our spirit’s greatest work. We might discover such people in our everyday encounters “by the well”: our teacher, coach, doctor, grocer, pharmacist, gardener, postal clerk, or cashier worker. If we might borrow from Sufism these are men and women with divinity written on their hearts. Occupation and social status have nothing to do with this luminous heart which is set before us. It is a true humility which recognizes the potential in the other and which possesses a love which moves and breathes outside the margins. Such a human presence is not easily given to cynicism and is slow to judge.

Writing and receiving letters was one of the delights of the ‘bygone age’. Outside the pure enjoyment of the physical processes of pressing out the paper, writing the date on the top left hand corner, putting down the name of the receiver My dear or My dearest…, thinking carefully [‘playfulness’ not excluded] on what you write, and then the final endearments… truly I am yours. And all of it in your own unmistakable scrawl. The letter will often enough, too, carry the unique scent of the sender. What is more the joy of receiving a reply, or a surprise from someone who went to the trouble of looking up your address to then leave his or her ‘biometric’ on the top right hand corner of the envelope. Emails [together with their lifeless emojis] possess little or nothing of such special wonder. Haruki Murakami says it so simply in one of his novels: “How wonderful it is to be able to write someone a letter!”

Little can compare to giving a fellow human being renewed hope, to encourage them through trials, or to inspire in the pursuit of new goals. It is as restorative as saying “I love you”. For love itself, if it be true, takes its first step in the movement of compassion. How can we do this? That is to offer renewed hope to a hurting heart? There are as many ways as there are expressions of love itself. First, the benevolent act of forgiveness. To forgive someone is perhaps the most liberating act for both the giver and the receiver. There are also secret acts of charity where they might most be needed. “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares” (Heb. 13:2). A simple letter sent with kindness and genuine concern in a world where self-centeredness is becoming increasingly the norm can make all the difference. To begin with to offer someone hope means to accept them. And there is besides the constraining of the ego in allowing another in greater need to ‘appropriate’ some of our spotlight. Where there is selfishness, hope cannot deliver.

“It all goes too quick” we will from time to time say to ourselves. In the Old Testament in the Book of Job it is described thus: “For we were born only yesterday and know nothing, and our days on earth are but a shadow” (Job 8:9). The English writer Jenny Diski who endured much as a young person would afterward as an adult add her own addendum to this reality: “Everything passes, but nothing entirely goes away.” We are caught somewhere in the middle. We all know too well it will go quick, but in the meantime we experience profound emotions and our actions leave behind a legacy. The desert dwellers approach this mystery head-on by holding onto “the memory of death”. This contemplation on our brevity upon the earth is neither macabre nor defeatist. It is an act of true anarchism. They joyfully accept our transience looking beyond and live each day with such actual ‘meaningfulness’ as if it was their last hour like leaves of an olive tree which rotate to capture every tiny bit of moisture. So let us hasten to do some good while we can. It is later than we think, it has also been said.

In what ways might I make a difference in my day-to-day encounters with the ‘other’? There are many ways. There are an untold number of opportunities in our everyday exchanges with our neighbor that might not only bring a smile to a needful heart but could also save a life. Are you holding back from sending a message to a friend who might be in need of a word of encouragement? Can you anonymously send a gift to a charity? Delete an email sent to you by someone during a moment of their vulnerability? On your way to work is there a homeless person you might stop to say hello and buy a coffee for? Might you send a card to an ‘enemy’ wishing them a bright day? Could you surprise a loved one with a gift letting them know how precious they are to you? Is it too difficult to nod the head at the stranger who has cut you off at the traffic lights? Make an impromptu visit to a hospital and ask if there is anyone in need of a visitor?  It all goes too quick and yet there is much we can do. In Japanese the word for charity is jizen. The characters of the word beautifully illustrate that at the heart of charity is mercy and compassion. It is amazing too, is it not? That in helping others we are at the same time helping ourselves. And it is no mere coincidence then, that in the New Testament, Jesus Christ would connect the love of God with the love of our neighbor “like unto it” (Matt. 22:36-40).

Many of the world’s problems stem from ‘egoism’. This is the condition where “self-interest” is at the center of one’s morality. One nation considers itself better than the next and robs the other of its rights and resources. And one person thinks he or she is superior to their neighbor so diminishing and blunting their potential. The first can lead to wars and to the spread of famine. The second will lead to despair and to the lessening of our brother’s or our sister’s personality which are the qualities of their character. Both are cruel and will only ever result in suffering, if not to catastrophe, whether on a universal or personal scale.

Then there are those periods in our life

Tempe, Arizona

In Shellharbour, NSW, one afternoon in 2018 waiting at school for my children. Courtesy: Michael Family archives.

Then there are those periods in our life when it would seem are reserved for the darkest thunderstorms. And the heavy rains keep coming. Most of us can look back on our lives, especially as we move deeper into middle age and pinpoint three or four of the toughest times. If we could survive those trials then surely we can survive the present ones and those yet to come. It is critical if we should feel ourselves becoming overwhelmed that we look back on those testing weeks, and months and sometimes even years, to see how we pulled through and what lessons can be drawn. Life is indeed a series of ‘ups and downs’ with the ups ever fleeting while the downs have a tendency to linger. This is why I will often refer to one of my favorite maxims gleaned from the desert dwellers that our existence is one of “joyful sorrow”.[1] I have also through my own ups and downs found great comfort in the words of Saint Paul:

“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing to the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Rom. 8.18).

In recent months it has been one of those periods for me. They have been emotionally and physically difficult. I have had to navigate five deaths each one holding a specific significance in my life with three of these opening up an abyss of triggers affecting my mental well-being. Physically I was once more experiencing severe pain owing to a dental procedure to do with my jaw. We witnessed our eldest boy dealing bravely with having his boyhood dream taken away from him. Nepotism is such a terrible thing. A fortnight ago I also left my beloved UOW to go into possible retirement. A self-identity crisis [and I’ve had a few of these] are not good at any age. And in recent weeks I was preparing for my flight to the United States to catch up with the children and Katina. A trip I was greatly anticipating. Except I now have a fear of flying after almost dropping out of the sky and into the Caribbean on board a small Cessna a few years ago. All these things started to gradually overwhelm me. My blood pressure too rose dangerously which can give rise to other complications. I wept but these were not always the tears of prayer. If truth be told I was suffering in ways not dissimilar to earlier dark times, despite my being older and I would hope a little wiser.

The details behind these recent trials do not matter. They remain peripheral to this entry. For you can be certain that someone somewhere is battling with darkness more impenetrable than our own. Like my beloved Aunt Stella whose entire family was wiped out within the twinkling of an eye or Leo who everyday educated me mowed down riding his motorcycle by a drunkard who until he died one morning could only speak by flicking his eyelids. You try to reason through all of this? You either risk losing your faith or going mad. There are no shortcuts either. You cannot go round suffering. You confront it at the center and by sheer force you compel yourself forward. It can be brutal. It can be ugly. But it is the only way, and it is worth the struggle to get to the end of the race. It is the one true place where we discover our name. There is light on the other side and it is there waiting our entering. “I will fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me” (Ps. 23:4).

But I would like to share with you how this storm too was pushed through that I can now sit down and write these few paragraphs in the relative calm of our little apartment in Tempe, Arizona. I would like especially for the next few minutes to resonate with my younger readers. One of the deaths I spoke of above had in fact to do with the tragic loss of a beautiful young boy. And this is mourning beyond words. Together with the deaths of the bishop who had ordained me into the priesthood my first father confessor Archbishop Stylianos with whom after years of estrangement I had not reconciled and weeks later the sudden passing away of one of my dearest friends our national poet, Les Murray, brought mortality directly into my heart and it did wage war against me one more time. I was taunted amongst other doubts that my own life had been of little if any merit and that for the greater part my few talents had been wasted.

In dealing with the above experiences which came parceled in one hard fist and which not surprisingly released the ‘black dog’ together with an exacerbation of my OCD invariably following behind like a beast in pursuit of its prey, I went through a series of extreme emotions and temptations. And so it happened during these ‘visitations’ that a number of life’s sufferings and impulses arrived closed together: the raw impact of death, the specter of hopelessness, the unbearable thought of the loss of grace, lost opportunities at reconciliation, the weightiness of an overriding guilt, hurting through the unfair treatment meted out to my eldest son, the onset of a melancholia, frustration and anger, the crisis of identity, and strong physical pain. I had confronted such distresses in the same battlefield before but I was younger and more vigorous in spirit. The closest and the most terrifying yet, even more potentially devastating for me, the agonizing aftermath of my leaving the priesthood and the technical issues behind our multiple attempts of trying to save my doctorate which would at times quite literally delete line by line before our eyes. I do not wish for anyone to experience anything of this which was unremitting in its persistence and seemed to me an almost catastrophic situation that would not come to an end. During these times the soul does struggle in its efforts to pray. Do not be alarmed if this is happening to you. It is a natural phenomenon as the ideal situation for prayer is peace, and tribulation is not a peaceful condition. Christ Himself labored in prayer during His most difficult hours on earth: The Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane (Lk. 22:43f.). It is vital to persevere in our own ‘garden of the soul’.

So how can one deal with these multiple attacks? If there is a general formula I would like to know. There is no such thing and we each walk into these green fires on our own, and one way or another, we emerge different beings to what we were the hour before. There is no ‘general formula’ except for tears and the disquisition of whether to live or die. You can choose to live or die in a multitude of ways. This is because each one of us carries single life experiences into the ‘fire’: a present informed by a different past; a different set of values and beliefs even though we might belong to similar faith communities; we are of different ages and significantly of varying degree of resilience. In the extreme, and there are those amongst us who have been to this frightful place, suicidal ideation infiltrates our waking moments right through to our sleepless nights.[2] Yet, there is common ground, even if by virtue of our shared elements of flesh and blood. There is a ‘soft’ intersection of experiences where the crux of the human condition is at its most visible and sensible. It could be that place which Frankl has memorably called ‘man’s search for meaning’[3] or “the will to life” described by Schopenhauer as the fight for self-preservation.[4] For those who move and breathe within a belief-based community both these great pillars of hope and action can be summed up for example by Saint James’ connection of faith to perseverance through trials (Jas. 1:2f.) or to Buddhism’s teaching of Virya Paramita the perfection of perseverance through courage.[5]

Irrespective of our background or philosophical perspectives what these and other deeply felt insights borne from the observation of humans striving to survive are saying: there is meaning to your life, so will yourself to live.

It is possible, others many before us, have gone through these green fires and have come out alive the stronger and the more compassionate. They practice forgiveness of themselves and towards others. Suffering which never lies can do this to us. Adversity can be our most trusted friend. Blessed are they who mourn. It has been done before, and if we should persevere but another day, this too, it will pass.

Postscript Yesterday morning after I dropped off Eleni at summer school classes, I took my long walk down Southern Ave., Tempe. The heat would be unbearable if not for the fact it doesn’t ‘burn’ you like the summer scorchers back home in Australia. The forecast for today is 110 ℉! My ritual has been to take an initial short break at the Back East Bagels for a light morning breakfast. Then the much longer trek retracing my steps back past the school left into Rural Rd., to spend the next three hours at Tempe Public Library. I love spending time in libraries. Cicero well compared libraries to gardens. This evening George is leaving with his Arizona rugby teammates for Denver, Colorado, to contest the Regional Cup Tournament (RCT). Tomorrow morning Eleni and I will be flying out to join him to catch some of the round games.

And yet this impromptu postscript had another reason. On my way to the library yesterday turning left into Rural in the corner of the road my eyes caught sight of a little bird lying motionless in a ditch. It could have been a House Finch. I am not sure. It was dead still. It faced upwards its wings folded around its brown breast like a cloak. Eyes and mouth closed. It might have died for the lack of water. I don’t know. We can never know the whole truth. Not even about ourselves. I wept like a child. Is this normal? Do these things happen to you as well? I thought of the thousands of men and women and children who would on that day likewise die anonymously in the world whether of thirst or famine, homeless somewhere on a city street, or by themselves in a hospital bed. Anonymously and alone like this little bird which, too, had a history and stories to tell.

[1] https://pittsburghoratory.blogspot.com/2012/05/joyful-sorrow-compunction-and-gift-of.html

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CIq4mtiamY

[3] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hide-and-seek/201205/mans-search-meaning

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_to_live

[5] https://www.learnreligions.com/virya-paramita-perfection-of-energy-449709