Your Captivity Is Over
Why The Redemptive Matters
Come to the above! Mid June in London. My friend Tommy Tiernan will be there also, and all sorts of interesting folks. All the details here: Spiritual Ecology Festival
I’m keeping up the walking. Some days I even make two stretches round the lanes. I’ve even encountered one or two of you on your own peregrinations! Sun comes, then goes. I’m week five at the desk now, doing the inevitable yards that are the only way books get made.
I limit (not ignore) what I hear from the outside world as the stories seem so endlessly sour and broken and power mad. Furious people hopping from foot to foot. Thankfully those aren’t the stories I encounter on the lanes.
I’m pleased to report that the sun still seems to be rising in the east, there’s a magnificent blossom in the far field, the lambs are scampering, and The Bay Horse is still producing a magnificent pint of Jail Ale. Counterweight. Don’t forget the endless grace that’s waving across the fence. As Bachelard says, ‘The world seeks to be admired by you.’ This isn’t escapism, it’s balance. For God’s sake, let’s not praise the Devil with our lack of attention.
Grail (Jail) Ale, photograph lovingly curated by author
We need stories – sometimes subtle, gentle things – that restore in us a sense of goodness. Not just jagged bitterness frothing at the mouth or bonkers political hijacking of deep religious themes. I have lively and caring relationships with a small group of men and women and I’m pleased to say that is allowed to qualify for much of my bandwidth.
And A Story Came Forth
When I approach the monsters of the current moment I never gaze directly or risk losing my eyes, rather peer at their reflection on a shield that is also, of course, a story. A story that always speaks deeper truths than the so-called ‘facts of the matter’. The Devil loves nothing better than division and suspicion.
I’ve been back at the story of Joseph. I won’t tell the thing – I’m sure I did an embryonic version here a couple of years ago – but I will give us the prompt of a synopsis.