The Prisoner

Patrick McGoohan commented that 'The series was posing the question, "has one the right to tell a man what to think, how to behave, to coerce others? Has one the right to be an individual?"

A nameless man resigns from a highly confidential job, which subsequently leads to him being abducted and taken to a place know only as 'The Village'. He is a Prisoner. The chief administrators are known as Number 2s and our man is given the number 'six' which he refuses to accept. Everyone is known only by number, Number 6 is told that 'No names are used here'.

Every episode deals with an issue such as freedom of the individual, education and democracy. They also follow the efforts of Number 6 to escape and of the methods employed by his captors to extract the secret of why Number 6 resigned.

When told he is now "Number 6", he reacts against being placed in a pigeon hole:

"I will not be pushed, stamped, filed, indexed, briefed, de-briefed or numbered. My life is my own."

Perfect!

---

Observer: You're a wicked man.
Number 6: Wicked?
Observer: You have no values.
Number 6: Different values!
Observer: You won't be helped.
Number 6: Destroyed!
Observer: You want to spoil things.
Number 6: I won't be a goldfish in a bowl!

Hell's teeth: Notes on Hell

"Any group or individual that arouses guilt to an uncomfortable level should be carefully checked out and probably avoided

This is very reminiscent of something my mother (having been raised catholic) used to say about the catholic church!

I'd quite agree. It is interesting that I've come across fundamentalist evangelistic groups which use feelings of guilt to manipulate and cooerce people to "make a decision for Jesus" (strange, as the paradigm in the Old and New Testaments is that of "call" or "being called" - more akin to the idea of "vocation" - than the idea of "decision", which is very modern post-enlightenment individualism). Nigel Mullane (who is at St Brelade's) grew up in Catholicism, and he finds the notion of "Catholic guilt", along with hell-fire and fear mongering very prevalent there. I would say that post-Vatican II, this has largely gone from Catholicism, certainly in England, where the liberal Catholics definitely made major changes, but it is still present in some of the literature / For example, the Catholic Catechism says:

To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God's merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called "hell." ....The teaching of the Church affirms the existence of hell and its eternity. Immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell, where they suffer the punishments of hell, "eternal fire." The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God, in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs.

I wonder how many Catholics would believe that now. An article in the Tablet in 2001, shows how times have changed. For instance, on "mortal sin" in the sentence above, the writer notes:

Each week, they engaged in a sin cycle – confession, communion, sin, confession, communion, and so on. The Church no longer insists on such regular confession – though it is forbidden for anyone to receive Holy Communion who has committed a mortal sin and not confessed it. Most ordinary Mass-goers would be hard-pressed to define a mortal sin, and I, for one, have never heard the definition explained from the pulpit.

Modern theologians have moved away from that picture of hell, mainly because they do not see it substantiated by the New Testament. NT Wright comments critically that that:

"I think part of our difficulty here is that we are still firmly plugged in to a medieval picture of heaven and hell, such as you find in Michelangelo's painting of the Cistine Chapel, such as you find in Dante's Inferno in Paradiso. We Protestants miss out the middle bit, the purgatory bit, but you've still got a medieval picture which is not a New Testament picture of people after death going either to the one place or to the other."

And Marcus Borg says that:

"A vision of the Christian life that takes Jesus seriously would not be very much concerned with the afterlife. Jesus' message was not about how to get to heaven. The widespread impression that it was grew, to a large extent, out of a misunderstanding of two phrases in the gospels: the Jesus of Matthew's gospel regularly speaks about 'the kingdom of heaven,' and the Jesus of John's gospel often speaks of 'eternal life.'"

Personally, if I came across anyone using guilt or fear to manipulate people, I would be inclined to savage them intellectually, as I am normally mild, but think any kind of practice like that is wholly unethical.

Islam also has a burning fire hell, usually seen very literally, for all the infidels (that's you and me!) and I'd like to discuss how Seb. sees this when he and Kate are next over, especially since Sufi belief is more nuanced than the rest of Islam.

Curiously Hinduism also has a concept of hell, or to be more exact, many hells, but as strange physical worlds, stages in the cycles of rebirth: (http://www.experiencefestival.com/a/Hinduismand_Death/id/54141); although all physical worlds are, for the Hindu, illusion.

"Hinduism believes in the existence of not one hell and one heaven but in the existence of many sun filled worlds and many dark and demonic worlds. Apart from these, each of the Trinity of gods has his own world, which is attained by their followers after their death. Vaikunth is the world of Vishnu, Kailash is the world of Siva and Brahmalok is the world of Brahman. Indralok is the standard heaven to which those who please the gods through their activities upon the earth go. The standard hell is Yamalok, which is also ruled by a god called Lord Yama, who is also the ruler of the southern quarter. He is assisted by an attendant who is know as Chitragupt, who is some kind of a chronicler, who keeps an account of the deeds of all human beings on earth and reads them out as the jivas stand infront of Yama in his court and await his verdict. The purpose of heavens and hell: In the ultimate sense, the purpose of these worlds is neither to punish or reward the souls, but to remind them of the true purpose of their existence. In finally analysis, the difference between heaven and hell is immaterial because both are a part of the great illusion that characterizes the whole creation. The difference is very much like the difference between a good dream and a bad dream. In the end it does not matter whether a soul has gone to the heaven or to some hell, because in both cases it learns important lessons and goes back to earth to continue its play. "

The Angels

The Angels 

Should you hear them singing among stars or whispering secrets of a wiser world, do not imagine ardent, fledgling children; 

they are intelligences old as sunrise that never learnt right from left, 

before from after, knowing but one direction, into God, but one duration, now. 

Their melody strides not from bar to bar, but, like a painting, hangs there entire, one chord of limitless communication. You have heard it in the rhythms of the hills, the spiralling turn of a dance, the fall of words, the touch of fingers at the rare, right moment, and these were holy, holy. -- John V Taylor

Medieval Note - Mental Handicap

This is possible one of the earliest and most sympathetic mentions in literature. It is interesting in that there is none of the distinction which existed elsewhere in legal documents of the 13th century between the "natural fool" and the "witless lunatic".

---

Piers Plowman, c. 1377

But there are other beggars, healthy in appearance,

130

Who want their wits--men and women also.
They are lunatic lollers and leapers about the country,
And are mad as the moons grow more or less.
They are careless of winter and careless of summer;
They move with the moon, and are moneyless travellers,
With a good will, but witless, through many wide countries.
So Peter and Paul travelled, except that these preach not
And are no makers of miracles. And many times they happen
To prophesy to the people, in sport, one may imagine.

But to my sight it seems that since God is able

140

To make each one whole, and witty and wealthy,
And suffers such wanderers--it seems to my conscience
That such people are as his apostles, or as his privy disciples;
For he has sent them forth silverless, in a summer garment,
Without bag or bread, as the Book tells us:
Quando misi vos sine pane et pera.
They are barefoot and breadless, and beg of no man;
And though one meets with the mayor in the midst of the city,
He renders him no reverence, no more than to another.

Neminem salutaveris per viam.

150

Such manner of men, Saint Matthew tells us,
We should have in our houses, and help on their journey:
Et egenos vagosque induc in domum tuam.
For they are men of merry mouths, minstrels of heaven,
God's servants and God's jesters, as the Scripture teaches:
Si quis videtur sapiens, fiet stultus ut sit sapiens.

---

But they're feeble-minded, men and women both,
Who are lunatic lollers and wandering tramps,
And grow more or less mad in phase with the moon.
They don't care about cold nor take account of heat

And are moving after the moon; moneyless they walk,

110

With good will, but witless, through many wide countries,
Just as Peter and Paul did, except they don't preach
Nor make any miracles but many times they happen
To prophesy about the people, playing, as it were.

And in our view, as it seems, since God has the might

115

To give each being intelligence, wealth, and health
And suffers such to go this way, it seems, in my judgment
They're like his apostles, such people, or his secret disciples
For he sent them forth silverless in a summer garment

Without bag and bread, as the book tells:

120

When I sent you without bread and bag. °
Barefoot and breadless, they beg from no man.
And though they meet the mayor in the middle of the street,
They don't revere him at all, no sooner than another.
Salute no man by the way. °
Such manner of men, Matthew teaches us,

We should bring home and help when they come.

125

And bring the needy and the harborless into thy house. °
For they are merry-mouthed men, minstrels of heaven,
And God's boys and jesters, as the book tells.
If any man among you seem to be wise, let him become a fool that he
may be wise.°

Mathematics - Quote by Dick Tahta

If certain choices about the use of the word 'same' lie at the heart of mathematical activity then mathematics starts in the cradle, for a sense of one's own identity from one moment to the next is one of the first lessons to be learnt. Mummy is quickly felt to be the same person when she comes and goes; it takes much longer for Daddy to acquire the same invariance. The rattle is seen from different positions and felt in different ways. Each perception is different but as it is explored helps to build up the idea of something permanent, something that is always the same. Later on it becomes more and more difficult to recapture the differences between our perceptions. We very rarely see a circle when we look at a penny, but that is the shape we say that we see when we are asked. In an agreed sense, a circle remains the same wherever we perceive it from; in another agreed sense it does not. In one case a circle and an ellipse are the same but in the other they are different.

Mathematics has inevitably commenced when it is decided how things are to be treated as the same. Among other issues, this raises the matter of how many different things there are. Equivalence is a choice at our disposal; but when a choice is made, counting must yield a unique answer. Here is the essence of the activity. We are free to choose bounds and may then explore the inexorable implications of our choice. But the activity must include the choice as well as the exploration.

- Dick Tahta

Slavery and Past Crimes

It is nearly the 200th anniversary of the abolition of slavery in 1807.

A news report comments:

British Prime Minister Tony Blair expressed “deep sorrow” last week over Britain’s role in the African slave trade two centuries ago, a move that fell short of a full apology, but will still likely reignite debate in the United States about whether the U.S. government should issue its own a slavery apology. Blair said the upcoming 200th anniversary of legislation that abolished slavery in Britain gives his country “a chance not just to say how profoundly shameful the slave trade was -- how we condemn its existence utterly and praise those who fought for its abolition -- but also to express our deep sorrow that it ever could have happened and rejoice at the better times we live in today.”

http://news.ncmonline.com/news/view_article.html?article_id=ab45b15f5689e5ba3dbed76e60243efe

Earlier this year the Church of England issued its own apology:The Church of England has voted to apologise to the descendants of victims of the slave trade.

An amendment "recognising the damage done" to those enslaved was backed overwhelmingly by the General Synod. Debating the motion, Rev Simon Bessant, from Pleckgate, Blackburn, described the Church's involvement in the trade, saying: "We were at the heart of it." The amendment was supported by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and Archbishop of York John Sentamu. Dr Williams said the apology was "necessary". He said: "The body of Christ is not just a body that exists at any one time, it exists across history and we therefore share the shame and the sinfulness of our predecessors and part of what we can do, with them and for them in the body of Christ, is prayer for acknowledgement of the failure that is part of us not just of some distant 'them'."

During an emotional meeting of the Church's governing body in London, Rev Blessant explained the involvement of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts in the slave trade. The organisation owned the Codrington Plantation in Barbados, where slaves had the word "society" branded on their backs with a red-hot iron, he said. He added that when the ancipation of slaves took place in 1833, compensation was paid not to the slaves but to their owners. In one case, he said the Bishop of Exeter and three colleagues were paid nearly £13,000 in compensation for 665 slaves. He said: "We were directly responsible for what happened. In the sense of inheriting our history, we can say we owned slaves, we branded slaves, that is why I believe we must actually recognise our history and offer an apology."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4694896.stm

I think this may be appropriate, as long as it is also respected that it was from within the Church and Churchmen such as Shaftsbury, that the impetus also came to end the slave trade. That side of the coin must not be forgotten, else the picture is too one-sided.

Darwin was strong against slavery even back then:

Those who look tenderly at the slave-owner and with cold heart at the slave, never seem to put themselves into the position of the latter; - what a cheerless prospect, with not even a hope of change! Picture to yourself the chance, ever hanging over you, of your wife and your little children - those objects which nature urges even the slave to call his own - being torn from you and sold like beast to the first bidder! And these deeds are done and palliated by men, who profess to love their neighbours as themselves, who believe in God, and pray that his Will be done on earth! It makes one’s blood boil, yet heart tremble, to think that we Englishmen and our American descendants, with their boastful cry of liberty, have been and are so guilty.

But how far does one go in apologies for the past? Must the Germans of today be forever condemned to apologies for the atrocities of the Nazis? How much are today's people responsible for the actions of their ancestors? (and did those ancestors even have a say in the matter? - in most cases probably not?).

Clearly, the blatant refusal to acknowledge the crimes of the past, and whitewash it, is not good either historically or morally. The Turkish government still refuses to acknowledge the Amenian genocide, and that cannot be right, for if the past can be glossed over in such a cavalier fashion, what will be their record on human rights today? Those people who deny the holocaust ever existed have to distort history to suit their ideology. While all history is enfolded in interpretation, it is still true that some events either happened or did not.

England's past is often violent and bloody, but not all Englishmen had a say; indeed many were on the receiving end of injustice. Many had no say in how they were governed; indeed to say "the nation (alias the government)", or "the church" had a say in slavery ignores the fact that until recently, with reforms in governance, neither body has been answerable to much degree to its members, and certainly was not at the time of the slave trade. The average person did not vote, and had no representation in Synod or the running of the Church's affairs. How can they be held responsible? Why should they apologise?

And what of those crimes which have no clear anniversary? When did the persecution and wanton torture and judicial murder of witches end? What about the transportation of convicts and vagrants (including children) to the colonies? What about the social workers who fantasised about satanic cults and child abuse, and split families with dawn raids, and interrogation that would not have been out of place in the 17th century witch trials? What about the persecution of non-conformists and Catholics? What about judicial hanging, especially when the innocent were (as has happened on a number of occasions) been hung? Who gives apology for this? Where do we draw the line?

I ask these questions, not to give answers, but because I think that the whole issue of apology for the past is very emotive, but has not been considered thoroughly enough; instead, we have a trend, not unlike that following the death of Princess Diana, when the nation was gripped by a kind of hysteria, which swept the land.

If there is going to be any apology for slavery, then I think it should also be a focus for a strong anti-slavery drive, which names and shames those types of people who still enslave others, and those nations which still permit slavery today.

The Royal Gazette, in Bermuda, is highlighting this, and telling people to sign the online petition at Anti-Slavery International

http://www.antislavery.org/

But there is nothing much in the British press about that at all; most is about the abolition of the slave trade, and attitudes towards that in the past.

http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/story.asp?j=166725640&p=y667z6zzx

Yet just look at this breaking news:

Europe's leading human rights watchdog has criticised Ireland for failing to sign and ratify an international treaty tackling modern-day slavery. The 46-nation Council of Europe approved the new convention in May 2005 to strengthen the campaign against human trafficking. It need to be ratified by at least eight member states to come into force, but the council said today that only three countries had already done so. It needed to be ratified by at least eight member states to come into force, but the council said today that only three countries had already done so.

I checked up and these are:

These are Austria, Moldova and Romania. NOT BRITAIN!

http://www.coe.int/t/DG2/TRAFFICKING/campaign/default_en.asp

The site notes:

Trafficking in human beings is the modern form of the old worldwide slave trade. It treats human beings as a commodity to be bought and sold. The victims are put to forced labour, usually in the sex industry but also, for example, in the agricultural sector or in sweatshops, for a pittance or nothing at all. Trafficking in human beings directly undermines the values on which the Council of Europe is based.

Surely it is sheer hypocrisy for Tony Blair to apologies for the slave trade, yet for Britain to fail to ratify the convention?

The Thing

Strong gales, sometimes severe, rain flooding out of the sky. A wild day, and a wilder night. It reminded me of Chesteron's "The Thing", where he comments, in the course of a comment on self-government:

The wind awoke last night with so noble a violence that it was like the
war in heaven; and I thought for a moment that the Thing had broken free.
For wind never seems like empty air. Wind always sounds full and
physical, like the big body of something; and I fancied that the Thing
itself was walking gigantic along the great roads between the forests of
beech.

The wind sang and split the sky like thunder all the night through; in
scraps of sleep it filled my dreams with the divine discordances of
martyrdom and revolt; I heard the horn of Roland and the drums of Napoleon
and all the tongues of terror with which the Thing has gone forth: the
spirit of our race alive. But when I came down in the morning only a
branch or two was broken off the tree in my garden; and none of the great
country houses in the neighbourhood were blown down, as would have
happened if the Thing had really been abroad.

I can imagine "The Thing", large, gigantic, uprooting trees, roots, houses, breaking down
the walls.

Extinction

Stephen Jay Gould wrote on man's extinction by Nuclear War in his "The Flamingo's Smile", written back in the early 1980s, when that was still a spectre hanging over us. But global warming is the new catastrophe, by which we might destroy the whole earth. His words still stand good here about life on earth, and the threat we bring:

I cannot imagine anything more vulgar, more hateful, than the prospect that a tiny twig with one peculiar power might decimate a majestic and ancient tree, whose continuity stretches back to the dawn of earth's time and whose trunk and branches house so many thousand prerequisites to the twig's existence.

The Alevis

It is a shame that more is not heard about the Alevis. These are a few extracts from
http://www.angelfire.com/az/rescon/ALEVI.html

I have highlighted some significant ecumentical points.

---

The Alevi constitute the second largest religious community in Turkey (following the Sunnis), and number some 25% (15 million) of the total population (Alevis claim 30%-40%!). Most Alevis are ethnic and linguistic Turks, mainly of Turkmen descent from Central and Eastern Anatolia. Some 20% of Alevis are Kurds (though most Kurds are Sunnis), and some 25% of Kurds in Turkey are Alevi (Kurmanji and Zaza speakers).

Some of the differences that mark Alevis from Sunnis are the use of wine for religious ceremonial functions; non-observance of the five daily prayers and prostrations (they only bow twice in the presence of their spiritual leader), Ramadan, and the Haj (they consider the pilgrimage to Mecca an external pretense, the real pilgrimage being internal in one's heart); and non-attendance of mosques.

The central ritual of Alevi religious life is the ayn-i cem (cem for short) celebration that is a replay of Muhammad's legendary heavenly journey (mirac) with the assembly of forty (kirklar meclisi), combined with a memorial to the suffering of the Twelve Imams. A sacrificial meal (lokma), a ritual alcoholic drink, nefes hymns accompanied by music on the saz, dance (sema), and the ritual lighting and extinguishing of candles, are elements of the celebration. The ayn-i cem takes place only when distruted outsiders are not present, and is held at night under great secrecy - a fact that opened it to Sunni speculations of immorality. Once a year this ritual is held under the leadership of a dede assisted by a rehber in a private house or a communal building (cemevi) attended by women on almost equal footing with men.

For Alevis, the ayn-i cem is as important as Kurban Bayram (Abraham's Sacrifice) to the Sunnis. This ceremony cannot take place unless all are at peace with each other, a condition attained by the questioning (sorgu, bas okutma) of all initiates to ensure reconciliation in the community. The dede is the chairman but all can take part in the judicial procedures whose aim is reconciliation, not punishment. Punishments include fines, corporal punishment, and excommunication.

After the questioning the real ritual starts: the initiation (nasip alma) of the new generation ssymbolises their progres from Seriat to Tarikat and is likened to a new birth. They enter a master-disciple relationship with a dede and vow (ikrar) to follow the Alevi path (yol). Then comes the ceremony of the twelve services (oniki hizmet) led by the dede, rehbar and elders.

Members of the community approach the dede in pairs, hand in hand, kneeling down and walking on all fours like lambs to kiss the hem of his coat. Sema music is performed and the men and women dance, some dancers going into a trance. Alevi mystical poetry commemorating the martyrs of the Alevi community is recited. The rite culminates with the "putting out of candles", when water is thrown on 12 burning candles to extinguish them in front of officiating elders. People moan, weep, and curse those responsible for the death of Ali and the martyrs.

A characteristic of Alevi society are the ideals of equality, justice, and respect for all, which give Alevi women a more respected status than that of Sunni women. Alevi women do not need to be veiled and are not as segregated, nor fear polygamy or one-sided divorce. They also partake equally in the religious life of the community.

A prayer by John V. Taylor

A prayer by John V. Taylor

If the time has come to make the break then help me not to cling, even though it feels like death. Give me the inward strength of my redeemer, Jesus Christ, to lay down this bit of life and let go, so that I and others may be free to take up whatever new and fuller life you have prepared for us, now and hereafter. Amen

A Short Story: The Watchers in the Window

The watchers in the window

(A Fable in the Style of T.F. Powys)

In the church of St Martin‑in‑the‑Field at Little Madder, three figures kept their silent vigil in stained glass: St Agnes, holding her lamb as though it were a secret, St Martin, mid‑gesture with his cloak and 
a small round‑cheeked angel, painted with such innocence that the villagers called her Little Blessing.

They had watched vicars come and go for centuries, and they knew the moods of the parish better than any living soul.

When the new vicar arrived, the Reverend Crispin Hale, tall, brisk, and bright‑eyed, the window‑figures leaned into their coloured stillness and observed him with the wary interest of creatures who have seen too much to be easily impressed.

“He walks like a man who fears being overtaken by his own shadow,” murmured St Agnes.

Little Blessing nodded, for she sensed the same.

The first unsettling

The first change came at Harvest Thanksgiving. Little Madder had always offered rustic seasonal prayers,  old words shaped by plough and weather, spoken in the slow cadence of the soil. But Reverend Hale declared them “out of date” and replaced them with tidy, clipped sentences that sounded as though they had been written in a room with no windows.

The villagers obeyed, though uneasily. 

In the window, St Martin whispered, “He has cut the cord between the land and the altar. The earth will notice.”

 
The brightening of the holy night

At All Souls, the church was lit as fiercely as a dairy at milking time. The villagers, accustomed to the soft half‑dark where candles glowed like patient spirits, blinked under the glare. Their candles flickered weakly, unable to compete with the electric blaze.

“The dead do not care for such brightness,” said Little Blessing. “They prefer the shadows where memory breathes.”

St Agnes sighed, for she remembered gentler nights.

 
The gardener’s quiet departure

Old Mr. Lark, who had tended the churchyard for forty years and prepared daffodils for Mothering Sunday, was told his services were no longer required. He left without complaint, though the daffodils that spring bloomed in confused clumps, as though they missed the hand that once coaxed them into beauty.

“A man who knows the soil is worth ten who know the rules,” St Martin muttered.

The unbowed altar

The villagers soon noticed that Reverend Hale never bowed before the altar. He blessed them with words alone, his hands stiff at his sides, as though gesture might betray him. The window‑figures watched this with growing concern.

“A man who will not bend,” said St Agnes, “will soon expect others to bend for him.”

 
The closed Vicarage

The final sign came when the villagers realised that Reverend Hale never invited anyone into the Vicarage. “It is my home,” he said firmly, and so all meetings were held in a cold room in the church hall, where the stackable chairs stood like mute witnesses.

Some parishioners drifted away to the Methodist chapel, where the minister still bowed before the altar and still welcomed folk into his kitchen for tea.

The window’s verdict

One evening, as dusk settled purple over the yews, the stained‑glass watchers held their quiet council.

“He has made the church bright,” said Little Blessing, “but brightness is not the same as light.”

 
“He has tidied the worship,” said St Agnes, “but tidiness is not the same as holiness.”

 
“He has closed his house,” said St Martin, “and a closed house makes a closed heart.”

The watchers in the window were seeing what the villagers were only beginning to understand, that a church can lose its soul not through wickedness, but through a brightness that leaves no room for the shadows where grace likes to dwell.