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So Sad

I’m sorry to have to say this but I have turned all blog comments off.

The sad fact is that I am inundated with spam and trivia, ranging from indecipherable foreign language (usually it seems Russian script) to advertisements for drugs, especially viagra, and of course the inevitable porn rubbish.

Up to now I have tried to go through all comments and identify any that are of relevance, and there have been quite a few, but this means I have to spend ages sifting through appalling rubbish. Believe it or not but today there were well over 1,200 comments!!!

If however you really did want to contact me then please use my email feedback@poemsforpilgrims.com which I do try to check every few days.

wishing you every blessing, in His love,

Martin

The Biggest Question

Some years back I wrote a poem called: Who do We Belong To? At the core of this poem is what my old philosophy lecturer emphasised to us students: it’s the questions that really matter in life. In other words, find the right questions and learn to live within them, more than always pressing for and demanding answers – answers which may actually mislead and disappoint. That said, if we are ever to come close to getting authentic answers, then it will largely depend on whether we have asked / are asking the right questions.

In this regard, what then is perhaps the biggest question of all? What is the most important question that any human being can ask? Remembering that we are not so much concerned with the answers, perhaps many folk would suggest that the key life question is: “Who am I?” Possibly closely followed by: “Where did I come from?” and “Where is my life going?” Another key and troubling question is: “What will happen when I die – is there an afterlife or is death the end?”

For me, and this might be a personal opinion, the core question of all follows on from what we can say is the reality of being human: we are a social species. Note that this assertion is not based on any religious faith perspective but rather on an empirical observation of life. Human beings are naturally sociable, so much so that loneliness can be a killer. Perhaps the worst torture of all is solitary confinement – which can cause people to lose their sanity completely. “Solitary” by Albert Woodfox is a grim account of this, and hugely worth reading.

What then is my ‘biggest question’ of all? Who do we belong to?

You will note that I haven’t written: “Who do I belong to?”, because that misses the point of our true human nature. Who do we belong to, seems to me to be the better question, and it is for me the best and biggest question that we should try to ask. Note also, the key word – belong – this suggests relationship which again is at the very heart of what it means to be human.

I suppose I should now refrain from suggesting any answers! However, let me suggest some possible responses.

Some folk would answer my question by saying: “It’s obvious! I belong to myself. Nobody else has any right to tell me what to do or think.” Perhaps this might be the commonest response in our largely secular society today? In this response, people maintain that, for example, their body is their own property. If they want to smoke and risk cancer or an early death – well, that’s their right. If they want to get tattooed all over – again, it’s their right. This common but – to me – selfish response clearly negates the ‘we’ aspect of my question.

Another common response to my question might be: “I belong to my family or ethnic group.” While this surely posits a wider and more outgoing vision, it surely allows for such things as war and competition for scarce resources. After all, my tribe is everything. Hitler presumably loved his German people and was prepared to commit genocide to give them ‘room for life’. Attitudes such as “Make America great again” and “England for the English” are – I think – sad and narrow minded nationalisms which automatically exclude other societies, even to the point of justifying such evils as racism and slavery. I suspect that if most people were honest, this attitude would really be their modus operandi in life.

Some folk might respond: “We belong to humanity”. This, it seems to me, is a much more socially responsible attitude which encompasses all peoples and avoids the errors of nationalism and tribal conflicts. Nowadays, many would adjust this position to: “We belong to creation” – allowing all creatures some value and right to their own existence. People who own this life stance can be very loving and inclusive in their behaviours, having respect for diversity and our precious natural world. You also don’t need to be in any way religious to hold this belief.

Another response might be: “We belong to God.” Hmm.

What do you think? Is there a bigger question than my suggestion, and if so, what? Maybe that’s the question???

Martin

We are All going to Die

When I joined the monastery as a novice back in the 1970s it was the custom to get up at 5am when the local clergy came on retreat. We had to be up and have finished our prayers and our own breakfast in time to be able to serve at table for the clergy’s breakfast. Part of our early morning routine was a period of meditation in the main chapel and it was the custom that one of the novices would read a passage from a spiritual book as a source of material for the meditation.

There is a story told, and as far as I know it is a true story, about a young novice who, struggling to get up, had to rush down to the church and forgot to pick up the book which it was his turn to read to the entire community – priests, brothers and novices. When he realised the book was outside in the passageway and there was no way he could now get up and fetch it he was terrified of being told off. When the superior asked for the meditation passage to be read out somehow the young novice had a moment of inspiration and he blurted out: “We are all going to die!”

When you think about it, that’s not a bad thought to contemplate on.

It’s been said that the trouble with most people is not that we think we are mortal, which of course we are, but rather that we at least live as if we’re immortal (which again, from a faith perspective we are!). The point of that observation on human nature is simply that most people rarely think about their own death, if indeed they think about death at all.

And yet, death is coming to us all. The prospect of death, our own death, lurks somewhere in the back of our mind, and frankly most people, even religious people, try not to think about it.

For folk who don’t believe in an afterlife, death is quite simply the end. Maybe the way of dying is fearful but death itself is the big full stop.

For folk who do believe in an afterlife, the way of dying may still hold terrors, but it would also be simplistic to say that all these spiritual people are at peace with the prospect of their own death. What I mean by that is that for many of us we have been indoctrinated to believe in alternative states after death: eternal bliss for the good and eternal desolation for the bad. And many good and decent folk still worry as to which destination they – and their loved ones – will end up.

So, perhaps the most honest thing to say is that death, the thought of our own death in particular, is fraught with worry and uncertainty. Some believe it is the end, others believe that it isn’t the end but nonetheless that its quality is at the behest of God, and for many people they have been brought up with a scary notion of God who may well condemn them to everlasting torment. I was to some degree brought up in that frame of mind but thankfully I have grown to understand a very different and more loving and merciful God.

When all is said and done, I think it is still a sobering exercise to spend some time – certainly not being obsessed all the time – but some time just being aware that one day, sooner or later, we will cease to breathe.

Imagine, if you’re still reading this, that you have a single day left to live in this world, or even perhaps a single hour. Cripes! What would you do? Would you go and hide in a dark corner and sweat tears of fear? Would you perhaps rage about and smash things up? Would you desperately try and sort your affairs, write that will, send those long intended emails, etc?

Perhaps you might try and pray, even to an unknown God?

I believe it to be true that in the midst of battle when certain soldiers who profess to be atheist are wounded and dying, they call out to God. It’s as if our deepest soul knows who it belongs to, and at that awful liminal moment, our professed beliefs amount to very little and our god-given nature takes over. Death of course is called the great leveller – no time for sham or pretence. As Kierkegaard said, all people adopt a stance. And at the moment of death that stance can be ripped away.

I’m going to try and practice what I preach and spend some time in quiet reflection, meditating on my own death. I invite you to do likewise, and see what you observe and feel, without stressing too much on rational thought or negativity.

But nonetheless, please don’t obsess about this!

Some people may look forward to their own death, for various reasons, some of faith, some even of relief from painful and terminal illnesses, but for most us, death still remains a fearful and unsettling thought. But perhaps, just now and then, we should be unsettled from our comfortable and taken-for-granted lives?

In Him who we come from and to whom we will one day return,

Martin

Holy Ground

It’s well over thirty years since I left the active ministry of the Catholic priesthood, and if someone asked me what if anything I missed the most from that ministry I would have no hesitation to say: hearing confessions. I don’t regard myself as having been a great priest but I do think I had a certain gift when it came to the Sacrament of Reconciliation as confession is properly called in the Catholic Church.

The normative form of the sacrament is individual ‘auricular’ confession whereby a single penitent and a single priest celebrate the sacrament together in privacy and with confidentiality assured. This sacrament was always for me what I would call ‘holy ground’. By that I mean it was a sacred and precious event where penitent and priest were joined by the presence of Christ the Redeemer who manifested His wonderful forgiveness for sins committed and healing grace to do better for the future.

In particular, I had a technique, a simple question, which gently, without any probing or pressure, encouraged the penitent to do more than just ream off a list of sins which sadly was all too common. This rote listing of sins was often an ingrained habit of the penitent and effectively meant little to them and had precious little effect in the way of personal transformation – which is the real core purpose of the sacrament – indeed of every sacrament. This ‘going through the motions’ of confessing a virtually meaningless list of sins was not really the penitent’s fault – rather it was so often due to the pathetic lack of any proper instruction and encouragement to use the sacrament as it should be celebrated. I think for many priests celebrating confession was a case of “quick in, quick out”. Unfortunately this lack lustre attitude tended to be the norm in so much of the Church practice of my youth, and certainly before the reforms of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s.

My approach to the sacrament gently encouraged the penitent to – only if they wanted to – open up about what was really bothering them. This could actually be anything but their sin – often more a case of where other people had wounded or were wounding them. As such it may have veered somewhat away from the central purpose but became for them and me a very special and intimate counselling session, often producing a healing moment. That encounter had tremendous value in itself.

But even when it was entirely to do with their sin – but again I would have to qualify that as saying ‘what they thought of as their sin’ – it was wonderfully special. I don’t mean that in any voyeuristic sense: most folks’ sins are fairly banal when all is said and done. Why do I say wonderful – after all, we’re talking about sin: doing bad things and failing to do good things?

The simple truth is that the very act of coming to confession implied that the individual was sincere in wanting forgiveness. At the very least they were well intentioned, and that is most acceptable to God. They may well have had a poor notion of what exactly was sin in their life: sometimes exaggerating and sometimes minimising, and often missing the real fault, but their desire for forgiveness was almost always sincere. Otherwise why were they doing something that was accepted as difficult: shedding light on their ‘soggy mess’ and the humiliation that came with it?

The incredible thing was – and this may be hard to properly explain if you haven’t experienced it – in opening their hearts and trying their best to articulate their failings, they were most lovable in their honesty and vulnerability. This honesty and vulnerability entailed a real humility on their part – again, so acceptable to God. And a vulnerability that also placed a very sacred trust on me, which I hope I never abused.

The sacrament of confession, meaningfully celebrated, is a wonderful thing, and I know that many people left my confessional with lighter hearts and that in itself was a moment of grace. I know that God may well hate the sin but without doubt He truly loves the sinner.

The sacrament was therefore often for me a graced moment and I’m not exaggerating when I call it holy ground: a precious and intimate meeting of two souls, both sinners, and a profound encounter with our merciful God. I pray that all priests realise the great duty and the great privilege they have in being able to offer people such a wonderful encounter.

Please pray for priests!

Martin

An Argument for the Existence of God

This blog is essentially a revision of some previous blogs.

I would contend that there is no proof for the existence of God. But neither is there any proof that God does not exist. In fact, all of us live by faith – even atheists. We all subjectively evaluate our life and our world by our experiences and biases, often inherited from the significant adults in our circle. As such we all construct a position in regard to reality and many never change that stance throughout the ups and downs of life. Indeed we also from our earliest years create a relative identity for ourselves – a persona that others may often see through! For many, there is no reasoned basis for their stance – emotion and memory can frequently command how we react and behave. No one, no one, can honestly claim a fundamental and incontrovertible validation for their life stance. Me included.

If there is no absolute proof of the existence of God, what, if any, proposition can we make for such a belief, particularly when – let’s be honest – there is no visible evidence of any supernatural realm or entities?

I think we have to go inwards. By that I mean we have to make the effort to quieten down and take time to try to discern what is most fundamental to our human nature. I do think it is a given that what is most core to the individual is also most universal – common to all people. Among our core needs and desires there are obviously the need for food, shelter, and fellowship. But perhaps even more fundamental than these are two key drives:

~ the desire to be happy;

~ the desire to be happy for as long as possible.

If you yourself make that effort to humbly look into your heart and soul, and try and discern what is most central to your being I think you will recognise this universal truth.

It follows then that there are two possible scenarios arising from this universal human yearning for lasting happiness:

~ realising these needs, humans have made up a belief system in a loving God who meets their desires – God is therefore a human construct, literally ‘pie in the sky’;

~ these needs exist because they were put there by the architect – God Himself.

It should then follow that, taking the two extremes of unbelief and belief, there are two basic attitudes to life:

~ the non-existence of God tends to challenge one to make the most of this short life because it is really all we have: while some settle for apathy and even fatalism, nonetheless others do live a life of love and selfless service;

~ many God-believers, but by no means all, go through life with hope of something after death and even some vision of a greater life, with the possibility that eternal happiness and fulfilment may await them.

What this boils down to is that the only real prospect for the satisfying of our need for lasting happiness is belief in a divine being who can and wants to give us eternal fulfilment. No other belief or life stance can hold out this prospect. The reality of death confirms this for us. ‘No God’ equals no possibility of ultimate fulfilment. A God, and that needs to be a loving God, does hold out the possibility of lasting happiness, even beyond natural death.

The proposition I put before you then is that, deep in the human heart there are profound desires that only a loving father God can ever satisfy. While in no way being proof, this human reality indicates and resonates with the existence of such a God. The good news of the Gospel of Jesus is that we do indeed have such a God. We were made by love, made for love, and will find our true fulfilment in love. And that love is everlasting.

Remember – we cannot deal in absolute proofs one way or the other, but faith in the God of Jesus gives meaning and strength for real daily life and holds out the thrilling prospect that our deepest desires will find fulfilment in the eternal Kingdom of Love.

I know which life stance I choose, and in faith humbly try to follow Jesus,

peace to you,

Martin