Mssr. Pageau mentions Matthew 10:16 “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves."
I recently saw a documentary called Canada's Arctic Wolves: The Ghosts of the Arctic. It is absolutely brutal. It is literally dog eat dog. The competition between packs is ruthless. Survival is tenuous in winter and in summer. And we are sent out into this like sheep! Yikes. Let's not kid ourselves. The Way of Nature is not all moonbeams and chickadees. It's also like this:
What does it mean to be shrewd as a serpent? I am no ophiologist (I had to look that up) but snakes tend to hide in out of the way places. In tall grass, for example. Yet we are also to be as harmless/innocent as doves. Which probably means we don't get to use our hiding places to strike out against those who would harm us, i.e the wolves
I love the discussion that goes on at this substack. I think it is an important one. Yet, as Paul once put it we are up against a monster that grows in deserts (the desert of the real). The choice draws closer to find the real desert and live there or not. A time to find our caves and hermitages and monasteries in the mountains, forests and deserts. Where we might be able to live true lives according to the Way. If we do, maybe someday a new generation of Desert Fathers and Mothers will arise. That would be worth it.
Again I think of my favorite Robinson Jeffers poem that struck me as essential 30 years ago:
The Soul's Desert -- Robinson Jeffers
August 30, 1939
They are warming up the old horrors; and all that they say is echoes of echoes.
Beware of taking sides; only watch.
These are not criminals, nor hucksters and little journalists, but the governments
Of the great nations; men favorably
Representative of massed humanity. Observe them. Wrath and laughter
Are quite irrelevant. Clearly it is time
To become disillusioned, each person to enter his own soul's desert
I hate to quibble with Yeats, but I think there's a flaw in his thinking here that may shine a light on why societies experience these episodes of collapse (even though these episodes may be as inevitable and unchangeable as episodes of creation and flourishing).
Here's my quibble:
"The best lack all conviction..." But if someone is really "the best" they can't possibly lack all conviction, as there is simply no way to be "the best" in any field in any way while "lack[ing] all conviction." (In all the great spiritual traditions, whether Buddhist, Taoist, Stoic, Confucianist, etc, being "the best" and having strong convictions are pretty much synonymous.)
Yeats had convictions (even if some were pretty wacky, or even if the conviction is simply believing in the right to pursue thought, art and imagination wherever they may lead), every great artist and writer and thinker you've ever heard of had convictions, Paul Kingsnorth has convictions, etc.
When "the best lack all conviction" it means they have given in to the pressures of the moment, to the pressure to conform or face social and career consequences, to the pressures of their peer group who are all marching in lockstep and demanding others do the same--and if you can't stand up to these pressures and publicly profess and fight for the convictions that got you to be "the best" in the first place, then you have forfeited your right to be considered any kind of "best."
Wonderful conversation with Jonathan. Was grateful to hear you mention Illich alongside salient worthies like Berry and Ellul. I'm hoping to see David Cayley pop up to discuss his book on Illich in a few more venues, one of them being Pageau's, and I hope your comment might move the needle on that a bit.
The whole discussion of the individual and the state, anarchy and tyranny is very resonant with an essay by Saint Maria Skobtsova which I read the other night, in which she calls us away from the trap of even the pious anarchic individual (https://www.orthodoxchattanooga.com/news/2020/7/20/5vatpc3kun65b272il769qsuime4l0). From the opening to "The Second Gospel Commandment":
"It appears to me that now, too, this tendency is beginning to show itself very strongly, producing a strange picture of the world: on one side all the diverse forces of evil, united and affirming the power of the collective, of the masses, and the worthlessness and insignificance of each separate human soul; and on the other side -- dispersed and disunited Christian souls, affirming themselves in this dispersion and disunity, for whom the world becomes a sort of evil phantom, and the only reality is God and my solitary soul trembling before Him. It seems to me that this state of mind is definitely a temptation, is definitely as terrible for each person as it is for the destiny of the Church of Christ, and I would like to rise against it with all my strength and call people to each other, to stand together before God, to suffer sorrows together, to resist temptations together..."
To whom it may concern or interest, here are some photos from that wonderful evening and the following day in magical Benburb: https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjzKpU3
A magnificent added bonus to the Abbey of Misrule is encountering a bunch of pretty great, often fascinating souls. Gale, her fella David, Mark who hosted the talk, Peter who lives in Wales, & then Paul's wife & children were really wonderful company. Benburb itself was well worth the trek. That 24 hours or so was the best time I've had in years, and I live a really charmed life, even in the time of the Apocalypse.
I really enjoyed both of these talks. Which version of Black Elk’s prayer did you read? I have found multiple versions that aren’t quite like the one you shared.
Paul, I can’t recall if you have quoted from T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets in your essays, but I thought I’d mention this bit from The Dry Salvages (part I) which I recently came across while going through the poem. It includes some vivid references to nature and the machine:
I do not know much about gods; but I think that the river
Is a strong brown god--sullen, untamed and intractable,
Patient to some degree, at first recognised as a frontier;
Useful, untrustworthy, as a conveyor of commerce;
Then only a problem confronting the builder of bridges.
The problem once solved, the brown god is almost forgotten
By the dwellers in cities—ever, however, implacable.
Keeping his seasons and rages, destroyer, reminder
Of what men choose to forget. Unhonoured, unpropitiated
By worshippers of the machine, but waiting, watching and waiting…
Paul, Ohiyesa, or Charles Eastman, is it Dakota. He grewup with his Grandparents as a traditional Dakota in the woods of central Minnesota. He married a white woman and they spent a lot of effort to help save Native tribes. They divorced because she wanted to save the Indians as whitemen and he wanted to save the Indians as Indians.
He is a very interesting person.
Black Elk is Lakota, a related but different tribal group.
I absolutely loved your talk - so rich and moving. Will you make the talk available in written form so we can go over it and study for further thought?
Wonderful talk. I had just read a letter from my now deceased father that he wrote me while I was on retreat, that at times we oddly need to retreat in order to advance, a thought that you expressed in a similar language near the end of this talk. My lovely dad grew up the in the west of Ireland and where he showed me the holy well behind the church and I felt the the power of that ancient consecrated place, so I also understand what you are saying about how you can't just wipe away the holiness much as the Irish are attempting to join the "modern" world. Wherever a lot of prayer has taken place has an energy that stays and combined with the recognition of the transcendent energy in God's creation and you are touching upon what it means to walk on holy ground.
I also utilize DBH's New Testament along with a few other more standard translations when I write for school. That plus looking at the Greek itself makes me wonder about how these committee translations make their choices. For instance, the replace Paul's choice of the word "walk" with the word "live" in some of St. Paul's letters which erases the sense of journey we are on. Oh well, as my husband says "Not too witty, not too pretty, this translation was written by a committee."
Now can you please set straight your fellow Orthodox brother Rod Dreher who is making far too comfy a pact with worldly power and celebrating Orban's victory. Cozying up to worldly power is going to backfire. In the meantime, for the rest of Lent I will see how I can detach just a little bit more. I have a ways to go.
One last dissenting comment before I leave this forum with some relief: I found your talk really disturbing, and the strangely diffident-arrogant way in which you gave it even more so. My sense is that if there’s any god speaking through you Paul it’s the god of great fear and confusion, who is leading you down a deep rabbit hole of muddled polarisation - not helpful at all in my experience. May you emerge from that maze speedily, and not take too many people down with you, because this kind of thinking is divisive and stirs up hatred - enough of that to go around in the world as it is, let’s please not add any more to the mix in the name of self-righteous religion…
Hi Paul, thank you for sharing this recording, which I enjoyed watching, and indeed for all your thoughtful and engaging writing. You spoke much about Christian hermits and so I thought I would offer a thought of my own on that. I recently read the Book of Joy by the Dalai Lama and the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Both wonderful men they offer their life experiences and explain how they they achieved a state of joy and closeness to God (or the Divine - you'll know more about Buddhism than me) through much prayer and medidation but particularly through doggedly giving love and compassion to others always; essentially living the commandment to 'love your neighbour as yourself'. Hearing you speak about hermits reminded me of something I read (I think in the Book of Silence by Sara Maitland) about a Bishop in the early Church despairing about so many of his young priests and trainees going off to the desert to be hermits and saying to them 'whose feet will you wash' (hidden away in a cave on your own).
Although Jesus tells us 'not to be of this world' I don't take this to mean we should abandon our brothers and sisters and live in 'splendid isolation'. I think his messsage is not to focus on material things but we should very much give our time and hearts to others (of coursse, much easier said than done and I fail terribly in this). Prayer and meditation are crucial (and a period alone maybe, as you recounted of St. Patrick) but ultimately the path to God and true joy must lie in loving others indiscriminately.
Oh and I forgot to add that The Dalia Lama would seem to agree with you about the Machine. He says: 'Our whole society has a materialistic culture. In a materialsitic way of live, there's no concept of friendship, no concept of love, just work, twenty four hours a day, like a machine. So in modern society, we eventually also become part of the large moving machine' (page 127 of the hardback)
This was a very interesting talk Paul and I have been pondering it for the past few days (pondering that has lead me to utter confusion and back again!). However it has been a process that I think has brought me a step closer to understanding, albeit abstractly, what God is (as a former Buddhist this is a rather large revelation for me).
Some thoughts I've been having are in regards to you comment on sin and how the activity of humans while 'in' the Machine align with the worst of them (my children have been studying sin for their homework recently so perhaps this is why it stood out to me!). Is it too simplistic to view The Machine as the physical manifestation of human sin? After all it is leading to a sort of hell on Earth, with climate change and environmental degradation. Are we stuck in a trap where our sins created The Machine and The Machine perpetuates our sins?
I must say I've never been too fond of the concept of sin though, may be more the idea of original sin, as it seems to black out the light that shines from within us. Our potential for love becomes shrouded by our potential for sin perhaps? Also I see in my children that if you focus love on this light the desire to shine dispels the shadows lingering on the periphery. Where as the guilt of sin makes the flame gutter.
I don't know how comfortable I am with my children doing their first confession right now! But I do see how the love of God can see them right!
Thanks for the talk which I found refreshing as a rather stodgy Anglican. You use diverse literary and philosophical sources which is an eye opener. I can understand the angst about avoiding the machine/mark of the Beast and struggle with this, too. To go back to the Stone Age would be a mistake because there are some technologies beneficial to humanity such as emergency medicine (not Big Pharma) and we need to pay for that to prevent avoidable suffering. The way forward might be through practicing art. Stories say more than experiments and tell truths on a human scale. Cop out perhaps ? Not sure
Mssr. Pageau mentions Matthew 10:16 “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves."
I recently saw a documentary called Canada's Arctic Wolves: The Ghosts of the Arctic. It is absolutely brutal. It is literally dog eat dog. The competition between packs is ruthless. Survival is tenuous in winter and in summer. And we are sent out into this like sheep! Yikes. Let's not kid ourselves. The Way of Nature is not all moonbeams and chickadees. It's also like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0QFE-hxgI8&ab_channel=RealWild
What does it mean to be shrewd as a serpent? I am no ophiologist (I had to look that up) but snakes tend to hide in out of the way places. In tall grass, for example. Yet we are also to be as harmless/innocent as doves. Which probably means we don't get to use our hiding places to strike out against those who would harm us, i.e the wolves
I love the discussion that goes on at this substack. I think it is an important one. Yet, as Paul once put it we are up against a monster that grows in deserts (the desert of the real). The choice draws closer to find the real desert and live there or not. A time to find our caves and hermitages and monasteries in the mountains, forests and deserts. Where we might be able to live true lives according to the Way. If we do, maybe someday a new generation of Desert Fathers and Mothers will arise. That would be worth it.
Again I think of my favorite Robinson Jeffers poem that struck me as essential 30 years ago:
The Soul's Desert -- Robinson Jeffers
August 30, 1939
They are warming up the old horrors; and all that they say is echoes of echoes.
Beware of taking sides; only watch.
These are not criminals, nor hucksters and little journalists, but the governments
Of the great nations; men favorably
Representative of massed humanity. Observe them. Wrath and laughter
Are quite irrelevant. Clearly it is time
To become disillusioned, each person to enter his own soul's desert
And look for God--having seen man.
I hate to quibble with Yeats, but I think there's a flaw in his thinking here that may shine a light on why societies experience these episodes of collapse (even though these episodes may be as inevitable and unchangeable as episodes of creation and flourishing).
Here's my quibble:
"The best lack all conviction..." But if someone is really "the best" they can't possibly lack all conviction, as there is simply no way to be "the best" in any field in any way while "lack[ing] all conviction." (In all the great spiritual traditions, whether Buddhist, Taoist, Stoic, Confucianist, etc, being "the best" and having strong convictions are pretty much synonymous.)
Yeats had convictions (even if some were pretty wacky, or even if the conviction is simply believing in the right to pursue thought, art and imagination wherever they may lead), every great artist and writer and thinker you've ever heard of had convictions, Paul Kingsnorth has convictions, etc.
When "the best lack all conviction" it means they have given in to the pressures of the moment, to the pressure to conform or face social and career consequences, to the pressures of their peer group who are all marching in lockstep and demanding others do the same--and if you can't stand up to these pressures and publicly profess and fight for the convictions that got you to be "the best" in the first place, then you have forfeited your right to be considered any kind of "best."
But, hey, it's a poem not a treatise!
Wonderful conversation with Jonathan. Was grateful to hear you mention Illich alongside salient worthies like Berry and Ellul. I'm hoping to see David Cayley pop up to discuss his book on Illich in a few more venues, one of them being Pageau's, and I hope your comment might move the needle on that a bit.
The whole discussion of the individual and the state, anarchy and tyranny is very resonant with an essay by Saint Maria Skobtsova which I read the other night, in which she calls us away from the trap of even the pious anarchic individual (https://www.orthodoxchattanooga.com/news/2020/7/20/5vatpc3kun65b272il769qsuime4l0). From the opening to "The Second Gospel Commandment":
"It appears to me that now, too, this tendency is beginning to show itself very strongly, producing a strange picture of the world: on one side all the diverse forces of evil, united and affirming the power of the collective, of the masses, and the worthlessness and insignificance of each separate human soul; and on the other side -- dispersed and disunited Christian souls, affirming themselves in this dispersion and disunity, for whom the world becomes a sort of evil phantom, and the only reality is God and my solitary soul trembling before Him. It seems to me that this state of mind is definitely a temptation, is definitely as terrible for each person as it is for the destiny of the Church of Christ, and I would like to rise against it with all my strength and call people to each other, to stand together before God, to suffer sorrows together, to resist temptations together..."
It is well worth reading. God bless all of you.
To whom it may concern or interest, here are some photos from that wonderful evening and the following day in magical Benburb: https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjzKpU3
A magnificent added bonus to the Abbey of Misrule is encountering a bunch of pretty great, often fascinating souls. Gale, her fella David, Mark who hosted the talk, Peter who lives in Wales, & then Paul's wife & children were really wonderful company. Benburb itself was well worth the trek. That 24 hours or so was the best time I've had in years, and I live a really charmed life, even in the time of the Apocalypse.
I really enjoyed both of these talks. Which version of Black Elk’s prayer did you read? I have found multiple versions that aren’t quite like the one you shared.
Paul, I can’t recall if you have quoted from T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets in your essays, but I thought I’d mention this bit from The Dry Salvages (part I) which I recently came across while going through the poem. It includes some vivid references to nature and the machine:
I do not know much about gods; but I think that the river
Is a strong brown god--sullen, untamed and intractable,
Patient to some degree, at first recognised as a frontier;
Useful, untrustworthy, as a conveyor of commerce;
Then only a problem confronting the builder of bridges.
The problem once solved, the brown god is almost forgotten
By the dwellers in cities—ever, however, implacable.
Keeping his seasons and rages, destroyer, reminder
Of what men choose to forget. Unhonoured, unpropitiated
By worshippers of the machine, but waiting, watching and waiting…
Paul, Ohiyesa, or Charles Eastman, is it Dakota. He grewup with his Grandparents as a traditional Dakota in the woods of central Minnesota. He married a white woman and they spent a lot of effort to help save Native tribes. They divorced because she wanted to save the Indians as whitemen and he wanted to save the Indians as Indians.
He is a very interesting person.
Black Elk is Lakota, a related but different tribal group.
I absolutely loved your talk - so rich and moving. Will you make the talk available in written form so we can go over it and study for further thought?
Loved your talk. A soulful reminder that the middle path between asceticism and materialism is not easy. Wish I could’ve been there.
Wonderful talk. I had just read a letter from my now deceased father that he wrote me while I was on retreat, that at times we oddly need to retreat in order to advance, a thought that you expressed in a similar language near the end of this talk. My lovely dad grew up the in the west of Ireland and where he showed me the holy well behind the church and I felt the the power of that ancient consecrated place, so I also understand what you are saying about how you can't just wipe away the holiness much as the Irish are attempting to join the "modern" world. Wherever a lot of prayer has taken place has an energy that stays and combined with the recognition of the transcendent energy in God's creation and you are touching upon what it means to walk on holy ground.
I also utilize DBH's New Testament along with a few other more standard translations when I write for school. That plus looking at the Greek itself makes me wonder about how these committee translations make their choices. For instance, the replace Paul's choice of the word "walk" with the word "live" in some of St. Paul's letters which erases the sense of journey we are on. Oh well, as my husband says "Not too witty, not too pretty, this translation was written by a committee."
Now can you please set straight your fellow Orthodox brother Rod Dreher who is making far too comfy a pact with worldly power and celebrating Orban's victory. Cozying up to worldly power is going to backfire. In the meantime, for the rest of Lent I will see how I can detach just a little bit more. I have a ways to go.
One last dissenting comment before I leave this forum with some relief: I found your talk really disturbing, and the strangely diffident-arrogant way in which you gave it even more so. My sense is that if there’s any god speaking through you Paul it’s the god of great fear and confusion, who is leading you down a deep rabbit hole of muddled polarisation - not helpful at all in my experience. May you emerge from that maze speedily, and not take too many people down with you, because this kind of thinking is divisive and stirs up hatred - enough of that to go around in the world as it is, let’s please not add any more to the mix in the name of self-righteous religion…
Hi Paul, thank you for sharing this recording, which I enjoyed watching, and indeed for all your thoughtful and engaging writing. You spoke much about Christian hermits and so I thought I would offer a thought of my own on that. I recently read the Book of Joy by the Dalai Lama and the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Both wonderful men they offer their life experiences and explain how they they achieved a state of joy and closeness to God (or the Divine - you'll know more about Buddhism than me) through much prayer and medidation but particularly through doggedly giving love and compassion to others always; essentially living the commandment to 'love your neighbour as yourself'. Hearing you speak about hermits reminded me of something I read (I think in the Book of Silence by Sara Maitland) about a Bishop in the early Church despairing about so many of his young priests and trainees going off to the desert to be hermits and saying to them 'whose feet will you wash' (hidden away in a cave on your own).
Although Jesus tells us 'not to be of this world' I don't take this to mean we should abandon our brothers and sisters and live in 'splendid isolation'. I think his messsage is not to focus on material things but we should very much give our time and hearts to others (of coursse, much easier said than done and I fail terribly in this). Prayer and meditation are crucial (and a period alone maybe, as you recounted of St. Patrick) but ultimately the path to God and true joy must lie in loving others indiscriminately.
Oh and I forgot to add that The Dalia Lama would seem to agree with you about the Machine. He says: 'Our whole society has a materialistic culture. In a materialsitic way of live, there's no concept of friendship, no concept of love, just work, twenty four hours a day, like a machine. So in modern society, we eventually also become part of the large moving machine' (page 127 of the hardback)
This was a very interesting talk Paul and I have been pondering it for the past few days (pondering that has lead me to utter confusion and back again!). However it has been a process that I think has brought me a step closer to understanding, albeit abstractly, what God is (as a former Buddhist this is a rather large revelation for me).
Some thoughts I've been having are in regards to you comment on sin and how the activity of humans while 'in' the Machine align with the worst of them (my children have been studying sin for their homework recently so perhaps this is why it stood out to me!). Is it too simplistic to view The Machine as the physical manifestation of human sin? After all it is leading to a sort of hell on Earth, with climate change and environmental degradation. Are we stuck in a trap where our sins created The Machine and The Machine perpetuates our sins?
I must say I've never been too fond of the concept of sin though, may be more the idea of original sin, as it seems to black out the light that shines from within us. Our potential for love becomes shrouded by our potential for sin perhaps? Also I see in my children that if you focus love on this light the desire to shine dispels the shadows lingering on the periphery. Where as the guilt of sin makes the flame gutter.
I don't know how comfortable I am with my children doing their first confession right now! But I do see how the love of God can see them right!
Thanks for the talk which I found refreshing as a rather stodgy Anglican. You use diverse literary and philosophical sources which is an eye opener. I can understand the angst about avoiding the machine/mark of the Beast and struggle with this, too. To go back to the Stone Age would be a mistake because there are some technologies beneficial to humanity such as emergency medicine (not Big Pharma) and we need to pay for that to prevent avoidable suffering. The way forward might be through practicing art. Stories say more than experiments and tell truths on a human scale. Cop out perhaps ? Not sure