The Angel In The Machine
Demons Want To Be Needed
(Friends - I am really delighted to offer another glimpse of the Merrie collaboration with Natasha Kozaily and these musical reworkings from the Carmina Gadelica. We will be attempting some of these gems on our pilgrimage in Walsingham next weekend. Gorgeous fiddle by Tristan Kessell.)
The Jesus Rib
Remedies & Poisons
I begin scribing this from a cabin in Alabama. Like a fairy tale I have arrived here by way of three different vehicles due to the free-range intensities of the track. We began in an old-school open top Alpha Romeo, then switch to a truck, then switch to another, older truck when things get truly bumpy in the last few miles. The golden carriage becomes a peasant’s wagon becomes a donkey.
In front of me there’s a lake, a late afternoon sky of coppery yellow, a spacious porch and a coffee machine. Count your blessings Shaw. In a nearby town I’m soon to drive down and tell some Bronze Age Bible stories in the local art centre.
I’m alone here at the cabin for a few hours before pick-up by a man called Shannon. Lean as a whip, intelligent, rural and owner of the antique sports car. Shannon has not been domesticated. He once had a girlfriend also called Shannon. Shannon & Shannon. Comedy gold.
I’d had the real delight of meeting a few of you at Divine Liturgy at St Symeons in Birmingham – wow, what a choir – and it always tickles me no end when I realise I’m talking to a fellow Beast & Viner, especially thousands of miles from home. And of course, many I met in Chattanooga. Finally I behold the rarely spotted, bearded beast that is Matt Stein!
In conversation with Justin Brierley - thank you Dr Matt Burford and Tactical Faith.
Be A Tool For The Ancient Good
Not surprisingly, by this time on the trip I feel like a crumpled-up crisp packet. As some of you have gently mentioned, I’ve been on the road in one shape or another for eight weeks now, and by golly I feel like it. I’ve made a few significant re-workings of my schedule into next year to start to reclaim the solitude that has been pivotal to my work all these years. I had no idea at the time, but all the vigils and quests and living in tents were the fundament of quiet that has enabled me to do what I do now. But we must make sure we keep adding contemplative gold to the vault.
I end up in a conversation with an animated stranger, me stating that not all Muslims are radical or hateful or anything of the kind. That many have been my neighbours and allies with enormously subtle hearts. That we have found ways to talk to each other. Not everything is what you see when we get these news reports of England in flames with immigration and ghastly violence.
I don’t deny its reality but it’s by no means, not at all, the complete picture. Many people – not here – want political polemics of some kind from me, or just to keep stirring doom-porn about AI and Islamists wanting your head on a plate. Bugger off. Yes, you read that right. I will give that the attention it requires, when required, but not a second more.
The sins of the entire world get drowned in the sea of God’s love like a stone thrown into water. So, there can’t be any space for despondency, hopelessness, and despair!
Abbot Nikon Vorobiev
We get spun out and jittery when we just mainline all that something-is-terribly-wrong- energy. And worst of all, it’s addictive. I don’t say we bury our head in the sand but make that covenant with limit around how much of it we indulge. Some of that propaganda is robbers trying to steal the lushness of our own mind. Keeping us nervy and addicted. Christ says stop worrying, even amongst it all. My thought for the day is this:
Demons Want To Be Needed.
Don’t be a life coach for a Demon’s self-esteem issues.
If you want to disturb a Demon, A Machine, or a Monster, think about making a hand-made, human-sized life.
Sometimes things are simpler than we may think.
Find the Angel in the Machine, not just the Demon.
Be the Angel in the Machine if you can.
If God is everywhere, he’s going to be in the machine too. The Machine contains Pharmakon – the remedy and the poison.
The analysis of the poison is clear and well expressed, how are we are going to be a remedy?
We don’t get near that without God or without grace, but our choices certainly matter.
In fairy tales a handmade life infuriates the monsters and enchants the soul. That means human-sized, ecologically warmed choices made with discernment and care. It means resistance to trance states, it means being a kinsman (or woman) redeemer to what you think needs love and wilful protection. When I trade spiritual longing for immediate gratification I beckon a ghoul out of the shadows to come walk with me.
A handmade life defeats a ravenous serpent in the story of the Lindworm, it turns birds back to brothers in the story of the Six Swans, its music pulls us out of the Underworld in the Earth Gnome.
Myth has been talking about the Machine for thousands of years.
The handmade life requires quiet concentration. The kind of hush that brings the angels closer. Surely in such a time we should be especially attentive to them.
In my small way, I’m trying to court an angel when I write here every Sunday.
Addiction to stuff, screens and the like is everywhere, but every hour is a new chance to renegotiate those deadening claims on the vitality of your imagination. A handmade life is a grounded one. Reaching out to the place you find yourself in, remaining curious, re-familiarising ourselves to quiet, to gratitude, to service. Demons cannot stand this kind of thing. We’ve broken with the nasty old covenant when we do so. We’re meant to be – at this point in human progress – needy, self-absorbed, preening and ultimately scared.
We could try to deliver as much goodness, support and encouragement as we are capable of, with all the subversive activities of beauty we can muster while using this here Machine we are most likely reading this on. That doesn’t mean we sink into undisciplined, addicted screen time, but – as I’ve said before in Smoke Hole – we turn a temple back into a tool, and a tool that is working for the Ancient Good.
My way in to getting back to a sense of the handmade life is my work with The Merrie. It’s what the forthcoming book Liturgies of the Wild is all about.
The Merrie, as you likely know, focusses on four areas. I’ll comment on these to encourage you to think about, where could your redeeming work be? Yours may well be entirely different.