Children Of A Lesser God Indeed...

I'll say this much for Miss Lily - our local timber merchant and regional Witch-in-Charge - she runs a tight ship. With her you know just what you'll be getting (properly seasoned oak and naked but discreet midnight cavortings) and just what you won't (warped beams and blood ceremonials). Not much, of course, on which we do agree, but on this we both are firm: if there is one thing worse than organised religion it is disorganised religion. That way, indeed, do madness and terrible deeds lie.

Not that we have, as such, sat down and chewed the cud over the finer points of our respective and varying beliefs - rather lowering and pointless for both parties that would be - but I have heard enough of what is in and what is out of other world to know that Miss Lily will brook no truck with fly-by-night Sorcerer's Apprentices who, for example, would wish to use their 'powers' to summons the Dark One or - worse really - affect the outcome of the 3.30 at Chepstow. A gentle English natural paganism appears to be her thing and, perhaps, no great harm done possibly even some good.

I might even ever so slightly envy her the whole nookie angle; not, you must be assured, from any unrequited personal concupiscent spirit of mine, but rather you can't ignore the marketing pull of the thing. An hour of psalms and Benediction vs. a come-all-ye frolic - you can see how the one might have the edge when pitching to the undecided.

It is, though, less the effect on our respective followers that concerns me today and more the fall-out on innocent passers-by; collateral damage as it were. One reads of a gathering of travelling folk, allegedly a Christian revivalist affair. Very possibly so, but comes with it usual tales of sudden local spikes in thievery, chicanery and other knavery. Facts, of course, not mythical fictions matter here, but when one fact is mass depredations from shops by marauding children and another is windows being put in when the pub opts for the security of a lock-out, one begins to see a rather rum pattern emerging.

Heresy is, most often, an orthodoxy taken in isolation and gone thus utter bonkers. We read that the early Christian communities held all things in common. Perfectly splendid when a part of the whole package, but quite nuts when taken as carte blanche to helping yourself to anything, anytime, anyhow. Take the old monastic adage as your example: everything was 'ours' because nothing was 'mine', but that was not the occasion to be waltzing off with some other fellow's shaving foam if the fancy took one. Good heavens no, all hell would break loose if that were to happen and rightly so.

Came, some many years ago now, across a particularly unpleasant mob who took this and everything else to a most unpleasant, sinful extreme. 'Children of God' - remember them? Ghastly shower all round, much given to taking anything and anyone they wanted. Unwittingly, young Dean 'Drippy' Dewhurst and I - busking about the place as one did of a seminarian summer holiday - took a lift with a group of such once. Truck pulls over as we sauntered up the hot and dusty road. "Climb aboard," they jollily cried, "we're heading for [insert some long forgotten outdoor music fest where every second person you met thought they were the bass player with Hawkwind - lot of that about in those days] too."

So we did. First big mistake. Didn't take long for realisation to dawn. They were all American for starters. That doesn't come by accident let me tell you. There was clearly a purpose going on and it all too soon disclosed. "Have you let Jesus into your heart?" winsomely whispered this achingly beautiful young woman as we were but still settling ourselves into the back of the flatbed. A fair - if sudden and intrusive - question to ask one might suppose and one that, in the circs., might have been swiftly and easily answered in the affirmative.

Might have been, were it not for the bearded burly fellow by her side whose fearsome look quite said: "I've this stonking great bowie knife I carry with me at all times, and if I'm not satisfied with your answer I may just open up your chest to take a look for myself". Funny how much you can read into a look, but there you have it. 'Drippy' and I too, exchanging glances, were instantly as one in deciding the need for a good wholesome English counterblast. They let fly with their Jesus, we return the blow with our weather. "Awfully hot and muggy at present don't you find?" "Could do with a decent thunderstorm to clear the air wouldn't you say?" Not bad for a snatched strategy; you could tell they were pretty flummoxed by that one. 'Does not compute' said their startled gazes, which for a holding position was tolerably sufficient.

Awkward silences descending, we gripped tight our camping gear and ourselves, pondering whether a sudden leap off the side might be the lesser evil in the event of the renewed assault on our sensibilities and our souls that would surely soon come. Forestalling though that, the truck lurches to a stop and out pops the driver - head of the crew one instantly spotted - calling the troops down for a spot of impromptu depredation.

There we were by the sizeable front garden of a large and lonely house simply awash with fruit trees of many kinds. A pleasing prospect to behold from truck-side, though clearly the view from the house must have been quite opposite: a mob of hairy Americans about to pilfer and very possibly pillage the place. One very scared looking lady householder was indeed peering from her drawing-room window, giving just such a signal of alarm and outrage as she watched the hairy horde came steaming through her front gate.

"It's all free man," cried chappie. "The good Lord provides for his faithful. Come and help yourself." Rank, arrogant and abusive nonsense of course, a shameless and scandalous travesty of the Gospel. Putting that into rational and compelling discourse might have been the thing for another occasion. Here, however, more direct action was required. Dear 'Drippy' - never a sobriquet less deserved for a man so bold - at once directed what that action should be. "So we take what we want do we?" he yelled at chappie, as he slid into the vacated driver's seat. "Yeah man, do it for Jesus," replied chappie, as one who was fallen clean into the cunningly-laid trap.

"Well do this then fuckwit!" yelled 'Drippy' as he dropped the truck into gear and raced away down the road, leaving chappie and his motley crew amazed, outraged and truckless. There, of course, was I clinging on in the back of the flatbed as we bounced along simply grinning from ear to ear. "Terribly sorry old sport, don't know what came over me," said 'Drippy' after he finally pulled to a halt some five or so miles later. "Quite all right dear boy," I had to in truth reply. "I too might have used just such a rude word so provoked."

We pondered chucking the ignition key into the impenetrable roadside hedge before leaving all behind and sauntering on. Decided, on the whole, that would be just too knavish. Let them trudge the weary miles to reclaim their lawfully owned truck intact. Didn't seem entirely right, though, that they should be let scot-free to continue their godless ways unhindered. A couple of loosened spark-plugs was, therefore, our final homiletic message. Muscular Christianity of a kind. I would like to believe our Lord approved.

Miss Lily certainly did when I mentioned the matter over a shared pot of herbal infusion the other month, calling it 'sympathetic magic'. Nice phrase. Not sure I could use it in any sermon of mine, but I might just give it a go and see what happens. Could only but result in another rocket from Bish Tom. Never yet, I fear, found the right spell to keep that one at bay. Bound to be somewhere in one of those ancient tomes that so clutter the Rectory library. Could do with a proper indexing could the library. Might well set Curate Cuthbert about the task. Organised religion after all, that's the ticket for me. 

"Eat, Drink And Be Merry...

...for tomorrow you shall die."

Thus, more or less, both the venerable Prophet Isaiah and also my beloved surgeon Mac the Knife. Precisely put, the Prophet didn't exactly go overboard on the whole merriment angle, or indeed my Mac make much ado about the whole dying thing either. Perhaps, then, best not to delve too far into finer detail, the essence being that life shall end fast we, feast we; that being so a feast trumps a fast any day.

Not wanton, reckless hedonism then, but happy sluicing and slicing as befits a man glad to be alive yet aware it shall pass in due season. Mac the Knife's point was, though, even more nuanced than that. When a fellow has been dangled over the very valley of the shadow of death - quite viewed every nook and cranny of the fell place - only thence to be plucked back to safer ground, he not unnaturally wonders if there is anything he could and should be doing to avoid treading there once more sooner than he must.

There are many - and who can blame them? - would take this at a moral dimension. No one 'deserves' cancer as a punishment for sinful living, but when the 'Why me?' question arises, as it surely must, each cannot help but consider their crimes against humanity and ponder the whole justice, mercy combo. The atheist may have his karma and consequences over which to chew; the believer perhaps picturing all that might be striped down agin' him in St. Peter's infallible, inexorable record.

From that challenging examination of conscience - as the monks would have it for a nightly exercise - comes firm purpose of amendment. Firm as firm can be in this case - if a little tremulous in the voice - "Let's us off this one guvnor and I'll be good as gold from here on in". I would say try it if you don't believe me, but believe me you don't want to have to try it if you needn't.

But anyway no, this is not our theme. 'Tis not the decent Old Religion of the soul our discourse, but the decadent New Religion of the body. Craving the numinous, yet abandoning the sacred, what does modern man do but exalt the profane to the profound? St. Francis's 'Donkey' has become our Balaam's Ass. Our temple is no longer the place wherein to encounter the divine, but the very stones of our bones and the mortar of our flesh are become the Godhead itself. We no longer worship another, but ourselves.

Rank idolatry of course, with seriously silly consequences. Daily we are bombarded with the latest super-food or diet or herbal cure that will not only keep us young, slim, sexually irresistible and all-round physically healthy, but also will enrich our very souls, make our spirits soar with the eagles and reveal to us the ancient wisdom of the indigenous tribes. We buy it every time, because we crave eternity in a pill-bottle to be taken with water three times a day.

No wonder then, when faced with such fell assault as cancer on the very temple of our solipsistic Godhead - our body - we are all too prone to seek an sympathetic oblation, a suitable sacrifice to appease the angry deity. We are all Manicheans now: our flesh good, cancer bad (never mind it is flesh of our flesh) - so better send in the Tibetan moon-juice to slay the beast within. All palpable nonsense of course as dear John Diamond knew so sadly and said so well.

But let us assume that we have been sensible enough not to seek survival and salvation in a jar of distilled arse-wipe from a thousand Amazonian Queen bees. Let us rather - as we would - submit to the surgeon's blade, allow ourselves to be nuked and poisoned all in a good cause by the medical oncologists. Giving then thanks that we were sufficiently humble to be conventional in our medicine, even then the thought, the question, arises - what now, is there anything I could be doing or should not be doing to turn treatment into a cure?

At the very least this seems reasonably and sensibly grateful to our doctors. We have avoided the Pelagian heresy - we have not sought to do it by ourselves for ourselves - but we are perfectly willing to lend a hand at this later stage. A smoker with lung cancer may not quit smoking, but they will at the least wish they could. 'Tis, in fairness, only fair. That sort of thing.

Even if not so clearly an obvious connection between deed and consequences, one is bound to enquire if there is any possible environmental hazard now to be avoided. (Agent Orange in my case, funnily enough, there being sufficient positive correlation between exposure to the lethal chemical the Americans so liberally drenched Vietnam with - I was not there - and one of my little numbers. Not much call for it round these parts, not being a war zone mostly.) Or indeed - the obverse of the same coin - is there anything one should be doing to build walls and fences against further attack? (Bit silly that one on the whole - rather like asking the Trojan guards to keep an eye out for more horses.)

Back then to the intro and Mac the Knife's quoted nostrum. "Dear boy," said he in reply the necessary question, "there is simply nothing whatsoever you can do about it. Either it will come back and it's 'Goodnight Vienna' for you or it won't, and whether you nibble on raw tofu burgers or chew half a roasted cow for breakfast, drink purest mountain water or a flagon of finest Chablis, won't make a ha'peth of difference to the outcome. Do then what comes naturally. Can tell you're sybaritic sort of cove, so eat, drink and be merry..."

All very well of course and sound advice as far as it goes. Absolutely with him on the whole eating and drinking malarkey. But, come on now, I hear ancestral voices calling. Have you ever tried telling a Swede to be merry!