I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above:
Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love:
My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan's poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.
Sunday, 14 April 2013
Saturday, 13 April 2013
Freedom, The Acid Test - Sundays With John Ball
'It was for freedom that Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore and be not subject again to a yoke of slavery.'
The concept of freedom is at the heart of Christianity. We are counted righteous in God's eyes, through Christ. Christ paid the price of our Redemption. He is our Redeemer. He paid the price to set us free.
Redemption is the price that is paid to buy a slave out of bondage.
We were slaves, but now we are set free.
Free from what?
Free from hopelessness and despair; free from the fear of death free, from death both before and after physical death; free from the prison of selfishness we can look outward and upward; free from the slavery of sin (we will not be perfect in this life, but we are no more sin's helpless slave).
Free to do what?
Free to give, free to love. Free to live life to the full, because we know God's Law, but we are not condemned by it. God reveals Himself in His Law, and to follow it in deed and spirit is indeed freedom. The security of God's love, the security given by the framework of His Law, the knowledge that we will not be punished, that we are free from the carrot and stick allows us to break out and live to the full, to shrug off the weight of sin and despondency from our shoulders and walk tall, to walk with God, like a man, not like your Atheist's Monkey.
We can love freely, without compulsion. To love freely, unconditionally is childlike. Too love freely is Christlike.
Yes, the false prophets hate the word freedom, like they hate the word love.
The acid test, if you want to know the faithfulness of your preacher or prophet, see if he talks about love and freedom!
If he talks about obedience and punishment you know that he is a Servant of Satan.
The concept of freedom is at the heart of Christianity. We are counted righteous in God's eyes, through Christ. Christ paid the price of our Redemption. He is our Redeemer. He paid the price to set us free.
Redemption is the price that is paid to buy a slave out of bondage.
We were slaves, but now we are set free.
Free from what?
Free from hopelessness and despair; free from the fear of death free, from death both before and after physical death; free from the prison of selfishness we can look outward and upward; free from the slavery of sin (we will not be perfect in this life, but we are no more sin's helpless slave).
Free to do what?
Free to give, free to love. Free to live life to the full, because we know God's Law, but we are not condemned by it. God reveals Himself in His Law, and to follow it in deed and spirit is indeed freedom. The security of God's love, the security given by the framework of His Law, the knowledge that we will not be punished, that we are free from the carrot and stick allows us to break out and live to the full, to shrug off the weight of sin and despondency from our shoulders and walk tall, to walk with God, like a man, not like your Atheist's Monkey.
We can love freely, without compulsion. To love freely, unconditionally is childlike. Too love freely is Christlike.
Yes, the false prophets hate the word freedom, like they hate the word love.
The acid test, if you want to know the faithfulness of your preacher or prophet, see if he talks about love and freedom!
If he talks about obedience and punishment you know that he is a Servant of Satan.
Friday, 12 April 2013
Living on Welfare
From the Autobiography of Malcolm X.
'My mother began to receive two checks - a Welfare check and, I believe, a widow's pension. The checks helped. But they weren't enough, as many of us as there were. When they came, about the first of the month, one always was already owed in full, if not more, to the man at the grocery store. And, after that, the other one didn't last long.
We began to go swiftly downhill. the physical downhill wasn't as quick as the psychological. My mother was, above everything else, a proud woman, and it took its toll on her that she was accepting charity. And her feelings were communicated to us.
.........She would talk back sharply to the state Welfare people, telling them that she was a grown woman, able to raise her children, that it wasn't necessary for them to keep coming around so much, meddling in our lives. And they didn't like that.
But the monthly Welfare check was their pass. They acted as if they owned us, as if we were their private property. As much as my mother would have liked to, she couldn't keep them out. She would get particularly incensed when they began insisting on drawing us older children to one side, one at a time, out on the porch or somewhere, and asking us questions, or telling us things - against our mother and against each other.
We couldn't understand why, if the state was willing to give us packages of meat, sacks of potatoes and fruit, and cans of all kinds of things, our mother obviously hated to accept. We really couldn't understand. what I later understood was that my mother was making a desperate effort to preserve her pride - and ours.
Pride was just about all we had to preserve.........
And now we were among them. At school, the 'On Relief ' finger suddenly pointed at us, too, and sometimes it was said aloud.
'My mother began to receive two checks - a Welfare check and, I believe, a widow's pension. The checks helped. But they weren't enough, as many of us as there were. When they came, about the first of the month, one always was already owed in full, if not more, to the man at the grocery store. And, after that, the other one didn't last long.
We began to go swiftly downhill. the physical downhill wasn't as quick as the psychological. My mother was, above everything else, a proud woman, and it took its toll on her that she was accepting charity. And her feelings were communicated to us.
.........She would talk back sharply to the state Welfare people, telling them that she was a grown woman, able to raise her children, that it wasn't necessary for them to keep coming around so much, meddling in our lives. And they didn't like that.
But the monthly Welfare check was their pass. They acted as if they owned us, as if we were their private property. As much as my mother would have liked to, she couldn't keep them out. She would get particularly incensed when they began insisting on drawing us older children to one side, one at a time, out on the porch or somewhere, and asking us questions, or telling us things - against our mother and against each other.
We couldn't understand why, if the state was willing to give us packages of meat, sacks of potatoes and fruit, and cans of all kinds of things, our mother obviously hated to accept. We really couldn't understand. what I later understood was that my mother was making a desperate effort to preserve her pride - and ours.
Pride was just about all we had to preserve.........
And now we were among them. At school, the 'On Relief ' finger suddenly pointed at us, too, and sometimes it was said aloud.
Thursday, 11 April 2013
Let The Men Serve
Mary Malone writes;
In a world of parallel lines it is often forgotten that marriage is there for the sake of women.
Clearly, once men are allowed to shirk their responsibilities and get divorced, marriage is seriously undermined.
It is in women's nature to have children. Loving and nurturing the young is a matter of instinct. It is what most women do at some time of their lives.
Clearly, being pregnant, giving birth, feeding the young, educating the children are all exhausting and time consuming activities.
It is very difficult to bring up a child on your own.
There are a number of options. Often a woman can call on her mother, or other female friends. Or she can buy help by paying women who are strangers to help her, while she herself goes out to work.
She can maintain her dependency on her parents, or claim from the state, but whatever she does she depends on somebody.
Independence is an idea, dependency is the reality.
The reality is that we all need each other.
A woman can treat the biological father of her children as merely a sperm donor, but that seems a waste of a good strong man.
A man is somewhat removed from the immediate reality of the children. He does not carry the child in his body. What better way of tying him in, than giving him some interest in his children by marrying him and giving his name to the children.
Of course, a woman can go it alone, but why not enjoy the great adventure of bringing up your children with the father of your children?
Two heads are better than one, a problem shared is a problem halved, two bodies are warmer than one.
Sometimes girls like to go out hunting, and boys like to play with dolls, but our gender does have a huge role in who we are, and most girls become mothers.
Two parents are better than one. She cannot go hunting, however much she wants, when she has to feed the babies. Much better to tie in a man, much better to let him serve you.
For that is what marriage is, the service of man to woman.
It is in a woman's nature to have a child. It is in a man's nature to serve the woman.
Only a fool will spurn men and their gifts.
In a world of parallel lines it is often forgotten that marriage is there for the sake of women.
Clearly, once men are allowed to shirk their responsibilities and get divorced, marriage is seriously undermined.
It is in women's nature to have children. Loving and nurturing the young is a matter of instinct. It is what most women do at some time of their lives.
Clearly, being pregnant, giving birth, feeding the young, educating the children are all exhausting and time consuming activities.
It is very difficult to bring up a child on your own.
There are a number of options. Often a woman can call on her mother, or other female friends. Or she can buy help by paying women who are strangers to help her, while she herself goes out to work.
She can maintain her dependency on her parents, or claim from the state, but whatever she does she depends on somebody.
Independence is an idea, dependency is the reality.
The reality is that we all need each other.
A woman can treat the biological father of her children as merely a sperm donor, but that seems a waste of a good strong man.
A man is somewhat removed from the immediate reality of the children. He does not carry the child in his body. What better way of tying him in, than giving him some interest in his children by marrying him and giving his name to the children.
Of course, a woman can go it alone, but why not enjoy the great adventure of bringing up your children with the father of your children?
Two heads are better than one, a problem shared is a problem halved, two bodies are warmer than one.
Sometimes girls like to go out hunting, and boys like to play with dolls, but our gender does have a huge role in who we are, and most girls become mothers.
Two parents are better than one. She cannot go hunting, however much she wants, when she has to feed the babies. Much better to tie in a man, much better to let him serve you.
For that is what marriage is, the service of man to woman.
It is in a woman's nature to have a child. It is in a man's nature to serve the woman.
Only a fool will spurn men and their gifts.
Wednesday, 10 April 2013
Caged Bears
Looking at things from a sort of fourteenth century point of view I can see that you have lots of things. What is really amazing is that you don’t make any of them.
A lot of these things that you possess are made in far away lands. A few are made in these parts, but what is almost certain is that you don’t know the people who made your things.
Yes, how times have changed, and not always for the best!
Back then, a village was an almost self contained community. There are always some things you cannot make yourself, so we would swap with other folk, exchanging with coins or just with stuff, or just giving from our abundance.
For example, my friend Peter Piper would make me a new whistle sometimes. When he did I would go into the forest and get the wood for him, and I would bring back a couple of hares for his pot too.
But nobody does that sort of things these days. Everything is sort of 'removed'.
Here in the twenty first century I rarely see a hare. When I walk out in the woods all is empty and quiet.
In my day the woods were full of life. There weren’t any bears or wolves any more, so it was pretty safe to go out there any time. There were, of course, places that powerful people didn’t want you to go, but in our parts there was plenty of common land to go round.
Not only could we collect nuts and berries on the common land, but we could dig out coal, and collect wood, gather eggs, find herbs and medicines and feed our animals.
The forest was a great banquet the Lord had set before us.
And then there was the land around the village which we would farm.
Yes, in those days we slept in our huts, but we lived on the land.
Nowadays you live in your huts too, like caged bears!
You are kept away from the land. You walk on some of the land and look at it like you watch your screens, but you do not live on the land, with the land. You don’t eat it, drink it, smell it, taste it, surround yourself with it till it becomes a part of you.
Sometimes you view it as if you were looking at a picture, like on one of your screens, but you do not wear the land, clothe yourself with the earth.
When I look at you, I see you naked, landless, distanced from God’s creation.
A lot of these things that you possess are made in far away lands. A few are made in these parts, but what is almost certain is that you don’t know the people who made your things.
Yes, how times have changed, and not always for the best!
Back then, a village was an almost self contained community. There are always some things you cannot make yourself, so we would swap with other folk, exchanging with coins or just with stuff, or just giving from our abundance.
For example, my friend Peter Piper would make me a new whistle sometimes. When he did I would go into the forest and get the wood for him, and I would bring back a couple of hares for his pot too.
But nobody does that sort of things these days. Everything is sort of 'removed'.
Here in the twenty first century I rarely see a hare. When I walk out in the woods all is empty and quiet.
In my day the woods were full of life. There weren’t any bears or wolves any more, so it was pretty safe to go out there any time. There were, of course, places that powerful people didn’t want you to go, but in our parts there was plenty of common land to go round.
Not only could we collect nuts and berries on the common land, but we could dig out coal, and collect wood, gather eggs, find herbs and medicines and feed our animals.
The forest was a great banquet the Lord had set before us.
And then there was the land around the village which we would farm.
Yes, in those days we slept in our huts, but we lived on the land.
Nowadays you live in your huts too, like caged bears!
You are kept away from the land. You walk on some of the land and look at it like you watch your screens, but you do not live on the land, with the land. You don’t eat it, drink it, smell it, taste it, surround yourself with it till it becomes a part of you.
Sometimes you view it as if you were looking at a picture, like on one of your screens, but you do not wear the land, clothe yourself with the earth.
When I look at you, I see you naked, landless, distanced from God’s creation.
Tuesday, 9 April 2013
Self Servants
Most of the time, the abysmal ‘service’ we peasants receive from the Police and other Self Servants goes unremarked in the press. Only when the abuses are so gross they can no longer be covered up with threats of litigation, or when the case involves a public figure does the public hear about it. These abuses are presented as the exception rather than the rule.
Such is the case with Andrew Mitchell, the former government Chief Whip, previously the chief dispensing agent of government 'Aid' to neo colonial governments, who unusually, has been treated like a common person by the police force.
The police are currently investigating a number of their own officers, but when Mr. Mitchell first managed to demonstrate that the Police were stitching him up, Bernard Hogan-Howe, the police commissioner of the Metropolitan Police said:
“I don’t really think from what I’ve heard up to now that it’s really affected the original account of the officers at the scene……There’s nothing I have seen in this fresh information that causes me to doubt that original account.”
Similar statements are made by countless thousands of so-called public servants throughout the land.
I myself have heard similar words from government officials, when flying in the face of the obvious, they act in what they perceive to be the best interests of their institution and their career, and what is to my detriment.
(I'm sure we all have our tale to tell.)
The interests of their career are usually the best interests of the hierarchical gang that they work for.
Self-serving corrupt officials treat the average peasant as the enemy.
In Mr. Mitchell’s case, it always did seem unlikely that he called a policeman a pleb rather than a plod.
The state is a collection of vested interests that interfere in your every day existence. Government is hierarchically structured and based on violence and self interest. Good will, the gift economy, honesty, are the government's enemy. And so are you.
'There is no such thing as society,' Mrs. Thatcher once said. When government replaces society as the collectivity of people, then the people have been conquered, they are a subject people.
The government's business is power. It is inherently corrupt. Corruption is its nature. Corruption is its purpose.
Such is the case with Andrew Mitchell, the former government Chief Whip, previously the chief dispensing agent of government 'Aid' to neo colonial governments, who unusually, has been treated like a common person by the police force.
The police are currently investigating a number of their own officers, but when Mr. Mitchell first managed to demonstrate that the Police were stitching him up, Bernard Hogan-Howe, the police commissioner of the Metropolitan Police said:
“I don’t really think from what I’ve heard up to now that it’s really affected the original account of the officers at the scene……There’s nothing I have seen in this fresh information that causes me to doubt that original account.”
Similar statements are made by countless thousands of so-called public servants throughout the land.
I myself have heard similar words from government officials, when flying in the face of the obvious, they act in what they perceive to be the best interests of their institution and their career, and what is to my detriment.
(I'm sure we all have our tale to tell.)
The interests of their career are usually the best interests of the hierarchical gang that they work for.
Self-serving corrupt officials treat the average peasant as the enemy.
In Mr. Mitchell’s case, it always did seem unlikely that he called a policeman a pleb rather than a plod.
The state is a collection of vested interests that interfere in your every day existence. Government is hierarchically structured and based on violence and self interest. Good will, the gift economy, honesty, are the government's enemy. And so are you.
'There is no such thing as society,' Mrs. Thatcher once said. When government replaces society as the collectivity of people, then the people have been conquered, they are a subject people.
The government's business is power. It is inherently corrupt. Corruption is its nature. Corruption is its purpose.
Monday, 8 April 2013
Escape To Lonely Street
Millions of people take recreational drugs. Millions more take mind bending drugs on prescription from the doctor.
Thousands of children in this country, mostly boys, are given drugs because they don’t like to sit still in the day prison called school where they have been sent to learn obedience. Their healthy young limbs yearn to climb the trees and run in the fields, they yearn to learn the skills of living, but they are condemned to passivity and obedience.
If they don’t fit in with the system, if they fidget too much, they are drugged up, sent to the solitary confinement of their own private hell.
For Authority adults are a potential problem too. Cameras, surveillance, security guards, identity checks, are in place for our own safety. For all that, people sometimes manage to get together for a beer, though it is getting less frequent. Instead we are encouraged to bolt the door and settle down in safety in the company of a screen. Feel safe, be safe, as the local constabulary like to encourage us.
Drinking alone is the modern way.
But drinking alcohol has always been a social activity. Alcohol loosens the inhibitions. You talk too much, you say things you regret, you may end up punching someone, or having sex with someone who you normally wouldn’t look at twice, but at least when you drink you communicate.
On the other hand, drugs are terribly lonely.
Drugs alter your mind, and your trip is entirely private.
Drugs are a one way trip down Lonely Street.
Just switch on the television and see! According to the recent UK census a teenager is more likely to have a television in their bedroom than their own father in the house.
How did we get to be like this?
Children are reared in the values of self-loathing. Families are despised. Children are assumed to be sexually promiscuous. No more lovers, just fuck buddies. There is no ceremony to the sacred act of love.
Parents are just people you may happen to live with. You are educated by the screen and the teacher.
You have no role to play, no work to do.
Love is an appetite, a love affair is just a passing thrill, to be pasted into the scrap book of tired experiences, a sensation based on the lonely self, a pornographic relationship of mutual masturbation.
There is no notion of serving, no idea of giving. The person who gives is ingenuous, the person who trusts is a fool.
‘Above us only sky’. No God and no love and absolutely no meaning.
Just confusion and the grim inevitability of death.
Escapism is the only reality, the ever diminishing return of drugs and pornography.
Trapped in the hell of the self, medicated man goes insane.
Thousands of children in this country, mostly boys, are given drugs because they don’t like to sit still in the day prison called school where they have been sent to learn obedience. Their healthy young limbs yearn to climb the trees and run in the fields, they yearn to learn the skills of living, but they are condemned to passivity and obedience.
If they don’t fit in with the system, if they fidget too much, they are drugged up, sent to the solitary confinement of their own private hell.
For Authority adults are a potential problem too. Cameras, surveillance, security guards, identity checks, are in place for our own safety. For all that, people sometimes manage to get together for a beer, though it is getting less frequent. Instead we are encouraged to bolt the door and settle down in safety in the company of a screen. Feel safe, be safe, as the local constabulary like to encourage us.
Drinking alone is the modern way.
But drinking alcohol has always been a social activity. Alcohol loosens the inhibitions. You talk too much, you say things you regret, you may end up punching someone, or having sex with someone who you normally wouldn’t look at twice, but at least when you drink you communicate.
On the other hand, drugs are terribly lonely.
Drugs alter your mind, and your trip is entirely private.
Drugs are a one way trip down Lonely Street.
Just switch on the television and see! According to the recent UK census a teenager is more likely to have a television in their bedroom than their own father in the house.
How did we get to be like this?
Children are reared in the values of self-loathing. Families are despised. Children are assumed to be sexually promiscuous. No more lovers, just fuck buddies. There is no ceremony to the sacred act of love.
Parents are just people you may happen to live with. You are educated by the screen and the teacher.
You have no role to play, no work to do.
Love is an appetite, a love affair is just a passing thrill, to be pasted into the scrap book of tired experiences, a sensation based on the lonely self, a pornographic relationship of mutual masturbation.
There is no notion of serving, no idea of giving. The person who gives is ingenuous, the person who trusts is a fool.
‘Above us only sky’. No God and no love and absolutely no meaning.
Just confusion and the grim inevitability of death.
Escapism is the only reality, the ever diminishing return of drugs and pornography.
Trapped in the hell of the self, medicated man goes insane.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)