I will follow with great interest Dougald. I don’t have the exact quote but Martin Shaw said recently about the response to malevolent forces in your direction being to “lob a prayer back”. Such a simple turn of phrase has stuck with me due to its power. I think of Alastair McIntosh’s book Poacher’s Pilgrimage, his work on non-violence with military leaders and his references to Walter Wink’s Engaging the Powers book. I wouldn’t call myself a Christian or even attempt to label myself, pick n mix might be easiest if a bit glib. But I share in a Christocentric world view and whether reading Taoist, Buddhist or other spiritual teachings, I often find something pointing back to the power of the cross and that message of sacrifice. So-called peace brought about through violence is never a lasting peace. I remember the Scottish band Travis brought out a song called ‘Peace the f*** out’ as the clamour for war in Iraq began to crescendo nearly 20 years ago. That may not be universally acclaimed message, but there was real feeling in the UK back the against that ‘intervention’. Where does peace start from at an individual level through to a national and global level? Maybe Ivan Illich has a pointer in his definition of convivial society and the freedom that entails. All the best for 2023 and I’ll go for the more widely used, slightly trivialised yet still powerful sign off - Peace Out.
Thanks for this! Your mention of Illich reminded me of a talk he gave in Japan about the difference between "the peace of the centre" (peace-keeping, pax economicum) and "the peace of the edges" (the wish to be left in peace).
Regarding"I come not to bring peace, but to bring a sword" as stated by Jesus (as translated into English from Aramaic, 2000 years later):
Jesus made clear that "the sword of division" is necessary for any process of healing unity. Why? Because those who are unrepentantly for war and conflict as ways of life need to be revealed for what they really internally, believe in and stand for.
Otherwise, without honest exposure by self-revealing actions, the wolves can and do pass themselves off as the peace-desiring sheep. Once disguised as sheep inside the "fold", they wont hesitate to devour many an innocent mutton chop ..
In terms of Judaism, Jesus as the prince of peace and fulfillment of scriptural prophecy knew full well that certain Jewish priests- as lackeys of the Roman rulers- plotted violence against him.
If they truly desired the spiritual peace found only by being still, meditating to learn how to know God, they would have at least honored his controversial insights and saintly presence. Their jealousy over his and his disciples' healing gifts to the poorest of the poor Jews, couldn't be camouflaged.
Jesus desired no lip service. He rejected playing pattycake with those possessed by loathing for what he stood for.
What do you desire- believe in- secretly use as your practical life toolkit? Is it to secretly create division because of this or that excuse? Or is your desire to explore what peaceful power can do and be in your life- no matter what?
No peace is possible without first, self revelation.
Thank you for putting that line back in its context, Scott, and for unpacking it so powerfully. There's a paradoxical truth here that I think is what I was reaching for when I wrote about peace-making sometimes requiring trouble-making.
The suddenness and, more than that, the shallowness of debate surrounding Sweden's turnaround on NATO membership last year shocked me, even as someone who has only lived here a decade, and so did the apparent absence of any widespread sense that this was a huge and consequential decision.
Russtia doesn't want to police the world just be part of it. The USA wants to spread its militant rule and make the rules , through neocon think exceptionalism around the globe. The usa doesn"t listen...it dictates. Why can't europe see that. Most other places can. Kick the usa miliary and nato out of europe and your neck of the woods could be a safer place. Dough asks: where was the debate. Do do I.
Merkel disclosed that Minsk I/II was a stalling mechanism as NATO/USA geared up for the inevitable invassion by Russia as predicted by anyone in the know onRussia's red line. NATO got to go. USA military in: Europe and middle east. In Asai, in Japan, in Tiawan, need to be sent home. To all natipns of the world send usa troops home.
I think we'll end up with a much better understanding of the world after we excavate everything that was buried but not entirely destroyed beneath the surface of the world's major religions.
I read Malcolm's comment as coming from an enthusiasm for paganism rather than secularism, but I may be wrong. I do agree that sweeping statements about the destructive impact of the world's major religions generally deserve to be responded to with a gesture in the direction of the destructiveness of modern secular state projects and a raised eyebrow. All of this is stuff I hope to tangle with in later posts, so I hope you'll both stick around.
In the late 90s, I met a woman who had been a foreign correspondent in Bosnia. When she told me this, I suspect my eyes widened, and I asked something like, "What does it do to you, seeing all of that? What did you learn?" And she replied, with something close to disgust, "I learned how easy it is to die." (That encounter is where the opening lines of the Dark Mountain manifesto came from.) A few years later, I spent some time in Sarajevo and saw a little of the lasting damage, not so much to the city as to the people I met there.
I remember one night in 2011, watching the tweets scroll down my screen from progressive friends cheering on the uprisings in Egypt, Libya, Syria, and having this suspicion that I was witnessing my generation's version of the cheering crowds waving off the soldiers boarding trains to the Western Front in 1914, footage which had seemed so incomprehensible when we studied World War I in school. By 2014, I was sitting in Swedish For Immigrants classes alongside people who had fled for their lives from the civil war in Syria.
So if you ask me where my anti-war inclinations come from, it's those encounters. Yet the West doesn't strike me as an exemplar of peace, so much as an outsourcer of war, happy to unleash carnage elsewhere. (What's the phrase about the US being willing "to fight Russia to the last Ukrainean"?)
And in that, maybe our views are not so far apart. I didn't write that I wanted "Peace on Earth", but that I'm not sure what that would even mean. It breeds something ugly, to have societies that tell themselves they have outgrown war, while arming themselves and the rest of the world to the teeth. I'm thinking now of the ritualised forms of conflict that has been part of many human cultures and is found in many other animals, where a choreography of violence allows it to play out while limiting the amount of serious bodily harm that is done.
"I bring a sword " a phrase I've not heard before ??
I also reflect "Religions, belief systems. God's and Goddesses are the best we can do with the information of the time to explain what goes bump in the night "
IE, we are attempting to understand the universal forces we are swimming in
Thanks for asking, David. I will write more about what we're up to with this project soon. It's not a public event - but I will have news to share after the holidays of various public events in 2023.
That thought grabbed me as well. As did the traditional Finnish Christmas meal as my mother is Norwegian with the traditional foods made for Christmas. I think I’ll try my hand at making some potato box!
It fits with the contrast Robert Brečević points out between the radical secularisation resulting from Swedish social democracy in contrast to the failure of the rhetorical atheism of the pre-89 Eastern Bloc regimes to secularise their societies. There's a great book called 'Is the Swede Human?' by Lars Trägårdh and Henrik Berggren which goes deeper into some of the pre-20th century layers of how Swedish society ended up on such a distinctive path, though unfortunately I think the book is only available in Swedish.
I will follow with great interest Dougald. I don’t have the exact quote but Martin Shaw said recently about the response to malevolent forces in your direction being to “lob a prayer back”. Such a simple turn of phrase has stuck with me due to its power. I think of Alastair McIntosh’s book Poacher’s Pilgrimage, his work on non-violence with military leaders and his references to Walter Wink’s Engaging the Powers book. I wouldn’t call myself a Christian or even attempt to label myself, pick n mix might be easiest if a bit glib. But I share in a Christocentric world view and whether reading Taoist, Buddhist or other spiritual teachings, I often find something pointing back to the power of the cross and that message of sacrifice. So-called peace brought about through violence is never a lasting peace. I remember the Scottish band Travis brought out a song called ‘Peace the f*** out’ as the clamour for war in Iraq began to crescendo nearly 20 years ago. That may not be universally acclaimed message, but there was real feeling in the UK back the against that ‘intervention’. Where does peace start from at an individual level through to a national and global level? Maybe Ivan Illich has a pointer in his definition of convivial society and the freedom that entails. All the best for 2023 and I’ll go for the more widely used, slightly trivialised yet still powerful sign off - Peace Out.
Thanks for this! Your mention of Illich reminded me of a talk he gave in Japan about the difference between "the peace of the centre" (peace-keeping, pax economicum) and "the peace of the edges" (the wish to be left in peace).
Regarding"I come not to bring peace, but to bring a sword" as stated by Jesus (as translated into English from Aramaic, 2000 years later):
Jesus made clear that "the sword of division" is necessary for any process of healing unity. Why? Because those who are unrepentantly for war and conflict as ways of life need to be revealed for what they really internally, believe in and stand for.
Otherwise, without honest exposure by self-revealing actions, the wolves can and do pass themselves off as the peace-desiring sheep. Once disguised as sheep inside the "fold", they wont hesitate to devour many an innocent mutton chop ..
In terms of Judaism, Jesus as the prince of peace and fulfillment of scriptural prophecy knew full well that certain Jewish priests- as lackeys of the Roman rulers- plotted violence against him.
If they truly desired the spiritual peace found only by being still, meditating to learn how to know God, they would have at least honored his controversial insights and saintly presence. Their jealousy over his and his disciples' healing gifts to the poorest of the poor Jews, couldn't be camouflaged.
Jesus desired no lip service. He rejected playing pattycake with those possessed by loathing for what he stood for.
What do you desire- believe in- secretly use as your practical life toolkit? Is it to secretly create division because of this or that excuse? Or is your desire to explore what peaceful power can do and be in your life- no matter what?
No peace is possible without first, self revelation.
Thank you for putting that line back in its context, Scott, and for unpacking it so powerfully. There's a paradoxical truth here that I think is what I was reaching for when I wrote about peace-making sometimes requiring trouble-making.
Want peace?
Castrate usa
Don't join NATO
The suddenness and, more than that, the shallowness of debate surrounding Sweden's turnaround on NATO membership last year shocked me, even as someone who has only lived here a decade, and so did the apparent absence of any widespread sense that this was a huge and consequential decision.
Russtia doesn't want to police the world just be part of it. The USA wants to spread its militant rule and make the rules , through neocon think exceptionalism around the globe. The usa doesn"t listen...it dictates. Why can't europe see that. Most other places can. Kick the usa miliary and nato out of europe and your neck of the woods could be a safer place. Dough asks: where was the debate. Do do I.
Merkel disclosed that Minsk I/II was a stalling mechanism as NATO/USA geared up for the inevitable invassion by Russia as predicted by anyone in the know onRussia's red line. NATO got to go. USA military in: Europe and middle east. In Asai, in Japan, in Tiawan, need to be sent home. To all natipns of the world send usa troops home.
I think we'll end up with a much better understanding of the world after we excavate everything that was buried but not entirely destroyed beneath the surface of the world's major religions.
I read Malcolm's comment as coming from an enthusiasm for paganism rather than secularism, but I may be wrong. I do agree that sweeping statements about the destructive impact of the world's major religions generally deserve to be responded to with a gesture in the direction of the destructiveness of modern secular state projects and a raised eyebrow. All of this is stuff I hope to tangle with in later posts, so I hope you'll both stick around.
Interesting, but why do you want an end to all war? Without war man devolves into, well, I suppose what we are now in the West.
In the late 90s, I met a woman who had been a foreign correspondent in Bosnia. When she told me this, I suspect my eyes widened, and I asked something like, "What does it do to you, seeing all of that? What did you learn?" And she replied, with something close to disgust, "I learned how easy it is to die." (That encounter is where the opening lines of the Dark Mountain manifesto came from.) A few years later, I spent some time in Sarajevo and saw a little of the lasting damage, not so much to the city as to the people I met there.
I remember one night in 2011, watching the tweets scroll down my screen from progressive friends cheering on the uprisings in Egypt, Libya, Syria, and having this suspicion that I was witnessing my generation's version of the cheering crowds waving off the soldiers boarding trains to the Western Front in 1914, footage which had seemed so incomprehensible when we studied World War I in school. By 2014, I was sitting in Swedish For Immigrants classes alongside people who had fled for their lives from the civil war in Syria.
So if you ask me where my anti-war inclinations come from, it's those encounters. Yet the West doesn't strike me as an exemplar of peace, so much as an outsourcer of war, happy to unleash carnage elsewhere. (What's the phrase about the US being willing "to fight Russia to the last Ukrainean"?)
And in that, maybe our views are not so far apart. I didn't write that I wanted "Peace on Earth", but that I'm not sure what that would even mean. It breeds something ugly, to have societies that tell themselves they have outgrown war, while arming themselves and the rest of the world to the teeth. I'm thinking now of the ritualised forms of conflict that has been part of many human cultures and is found in many other animals, where a choreography of violence allows it to play out while limiting the amount of serious bodily harm that is done.
Thank you for the response. Yes, I also think we need ritual violence for the health of society. But it’s ofc very complex.
Indeed! And also this is probably why yesterday's post ended up being framed around Fight Club. ;-)
"I bring a sword " a phrase I've not heard before ??
I also reflect "Religions, belief systems. God's and Goddesses are the best we can do with the information of the time to explain what goes bump in the night "
IE, we are attempting to understand the universal forces we are swimming in
Peace and prosperity Through responsibilities
Thanks, Michael. The phrase comes from Matthew 10:34 and Scott Ufford wrote a helpful response elsewhere in the comments, putting it in its context.
Do tell more about Patmos, please. When, how, how much etc?
Thanks for asking, David. I will write more about what we're up to with this project soon. It's not a public event - but I will have news to share after the holidays of various public events in 2023.
A very thought provoking post about peace and what that really means, especially in these very un-peaceful times.
Thank you Dougald!
That thought grabbed me as well. As did the traditional Finnish Christmas meal as my mother is Norwegian with the traditional foods made for Christmas. I think I’ll try my hand at making some potato box!
Sounds delicious 😊
That's very much the argument made by Per Ewert of the Clapham Institute, if not in so many words, in the article linked in the first footnote:
https://claphaminstitutet.se/sekularisering/reformation-turning-secular-how-social-democracy-and-a-strong-lutheran-state-church-made-sweden-the-most-secular-nation-in-the-world/
It fits with the contrast Robert Brečević points out between the radical secularisation resulting from Swedish social democracy in contrast to the failure of the rhetorical atheism of the pre-89 Eastern Bloc regimes to secularise their societies. There's a great book called 'Is the Swede Human?' by Lars Trägårdh and Henrik Berggren which goes deeper into some of the pre-20th century layers of how Swedish society ended up on such a distinctive path, though unfortunately I think the book is only available in Swedish.
Thank you!