considering the ant

For some reason ants seem to get into the kettle.  Perhaps they are in search of moisture?  It has been unusually hot here over the last while so perhaps it makes sense.

As with many households in the western world every morning our kettle is switched on for morning tea and of late I have begun to notice that there are more often than not a few small, dead ants that get poured into the pot or tea cup along with the boiled water from the kettle.  Our electric kettle is mostly black and in reality it is difficult to see them inside and mostly I usually don’t even think that they will have crawled in overnight in search of water… why would I think that?

This morning I removed four little ants from my cup who had suffered a terrible fate.  I suddenly thought what must it have been like to unexpectedly feel the temperature rise rapidly around them and then, before anything could be done to avoid disaster a searing heat overcomes everything?  It was probably totally confusing for the poor ant and clearly any attempt to get out of the trouble had at least 50% chance of getting the ant into more hot water.

The ants were neither good nor bad.  They meant no harm.  They were just being ants and were, I can only presume, doing what they needed to do.  Doing what ants do.

The only wrong they committed was that they never seemed to know of or understand the context they were in.  They clearly had no knowledge that the place they were seeking moisture and relief from was an electrical appliance that was used to boil water and an impending threat of death to them… and yet at the same time a comforting convenience for humans upon waking each morning.

My mind suddenly meandered to the historical account of the devastation of Pompeii when Mount Vesuvius erupted and less than a decade ago to the boxing day Tsunami in Indonesia which caused so much loss of life.  I also thought of the trouble as a result of the recent earthquakes in Japan.

The earth wasn’t being evil.  It was just being itself.  It was doing what it had been doing since the very beginning.

And then I also thought about all of those people who happened to be born to Iraqi or Afghan parents and suddenly seeing American bombs raining down on them from the sky.  I thought of the two World Wars and all the ethnic violence that has filled our senses through the media over recent decades.  I also thought of those in many nations simply who happen to have been born to parents who were well below the breadline with little chance of ever changing their status because of the circumstances they were in economically, politically, culturally, geographically.

All these people, neither good nor bad.  The only wrong they committed was that they never seemed to know of or understand the context they were in.  They too were just being human, doing what humans do.

I suddenly felt strangely like God in my kitchen and the power both destructive and constructive I could unleash by simply flicking a switch.

I became alarmed at that which I was potentially a part of even without my knowledge or intent this way or that.   I was not being evil was I?  I was just making some tea.

And then I thought about my thoughts regarding all of this and the feelings that cascaded through my mind when I saw these four ants floating lifelessly in my boiling water.

I then began to wonder what God feels like in his kitchen?

 

 

trying to be honest

“So, here I sit, exhausted from trying always to be right I have rather opted towards just trying to be honest.” – me

The goal of life is surely not to be right. Considering all the evidence before me I have concluded for myself that this is clearly unattainable. After having disqualified ourselves so effectively as a species perhaps we should settle for a far less inflated target or rather perhaps one far more attainable and realistic?

The description used in the subtitle for my blog was originally birthed out of significant personal brokenness and not much intentional wisdom.  However, over time I have come to see how meaningful and appropriate it has become for me.

Pretty boy David Lee Roth (ex-front man for the rock band “Van Halen”) is reputed to have said, “It’s not whether you win or lose, … it’s how good you looked.” I find this hilarious but suggest that it could easily be hi-jacked for perhaps slightly more noble ends.  So, why not we re-landscape his hedonistic philosophy to – “It’s not whether you are right or wrong, … it’s how much honesty you can access.”

Although it might sound like it, this is not at all an easy task in the complex social order we have concocted over the millennia. We are so constantly bombarded with data of all types and from every angle that as a species we seem to suffer from a chronic identity crisis.  Most of us don’t know what we ourselves think or believe anymore.  We seem to be tossed around and swept by winds of pop fads and the deceptive whiles of the media and political spin doctors we have elevated to god status in our lives. What we do believe seems to be what we are told to believe through the seductive bombardment of media and cultural groupings.

On a more alarming front however, a thought that has come to me is that maybe we cannot but be honest. Perhaps it is the case that even when we are being intentionally devious or unethical, possibly displaying very little moral character or integrity we are displaying what we actually are?  Maybe honesty leaks out of us whether we know it or not?  We may think that we are being successful in our deviousness but could it be that in so doing we are clearly telegraphing our real condition?  One can polish an apple but the proof is in the eating and we cannot worm out of that one.  One does not need to have the medical reasons for food poisoning to register its presence in our bodies. Even if we are in denial sickness will reveal it’s symptoms and clearly we are manifesting symptoms of note in our world today.

So maybe all we can do is engage with life and do the best we can to deal with what comes out.

Social appropriateness doesn’t help. My view is that the most socially appropriate amongst us are the most scary – possibly even closer to ‘insane’ than the worst asylum inmate. Yet everything in our society seems to press us to conform.

Maybe the real solution is worthship – extending real worth to others, ourselves, and our surroundings, actively engaging and examining our actions and responses to the world with honesty and respect.

Nothing happens in isolation.  As big or as little as it may be it has a context and a history. To engage with this honestly is possibly our only hope.

So, in as much honesty as I can muster I’m still at it … in pursuit of the beautiful question…..

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“It’s just not fair!” …. . . . . . or is it?

“It’s just not fair!” – I hear this often. I hear others say it. I hear myself say it. I feel it. I feel myself feeling it. I see the situations of others, their suffering, and I think it for them. I think it about them, on their behalf. Sometimes I rage and seethe inside as I see some alleged oppressor seeming to triumph over some apparent victim. But is this not fair? Dare I even suggest this as a remote possibility?

Sometimes to hear someone say, “It’s fair!” is painful to my ears, almost offensive. Especially in the times we live in. If a person is apparently advantaged at the point of saying this it can easily seem arrogant and vulgar, conceited, even violent. If in calamity or suffering we hear someone say, “It’s fair!” our thoughts can easily tip towards thinking that that person is depressed, manic, or unnecessarily negative, especially about themselves.

For me fairness is a difficult thing to come to terms with. There’s so much happening all around us, so much suffering, so much apparently obvious unfairness. For one to say things are fair to me almost appears extremely insensitive, unfeeling, wilfully blind, even cruel.

I must confess that I have mostly avoided speaking of this. It’s too sensitive a topic. The issue of fairness brings up all manner of turbulent emotions in me. I am often overwhelmed by just thinking about thinking of it, let alone dealing with it.

However, I feel that there are some things we do need to tackle about this issue. There are some questions we do need to ask and perhaps not of others but of ourselves. There are some things we need to take into account and at least for me, none of these are easy.

One of the big and troubling issues for me is that perhaps we need to see our perspective in terms of the greater context we are in as best we can. I don’t claim to have it all sorted out in my life, but it is of major significance to me and it just doesn’t seem to go away.

As I see it (at least for now), everything we have around us from the universe, the earth, the economy, our country, global warming, conflict, ourselves, even our deepest opinions have all taken a very long time to get to where they are right now. Often we are taken by surprise when things happen locally and/or globally. But if we take a step back perhaps we need to acknowledge that we really don’t see totally new and unique things suddenly bursting out of nothing or out of nowhere. There is no real evidence to even suggest that new things are being ‘created’ out of nothing all the time or even at any time.

When we analyse things they often make sense in hindsight and we often wish we’d seen it more clearly before it happened. We do not see things very clearly from our perspective so it’s no wonder we are caught by surprise so often.

From our point of view it sometimes seems that things happen suddenly and out of nowhere but that is often because we can only see what’s in front of us and even then we don’t nearly see it all. To add to this limitation of perspective often the emotions or even wonder of the moment prevent us from shaking off subjectivity.

I think that we need to consider the possibility that it might be more reasonable to say that things happen because other things happened before them and still other things before that … . and so on. The universe around us seems to scream this out. As far back as we can imagine it seems logical that something happened and over vast expanses of time other things happened as a result of what had happened and this has resulted in what and where we are right now. Very little seems to have happened suddenly and out of the blue (or darkness) except for the very beginning which we can only speculate was quite explosive and instantaneous …. but only because we have no idea what happened even a trillionth of a nanosecond before whatever happened actually happened.

Suddenly’s therefore seem to be merely an illusion. Sometimes the things that contribute to a ‘suddenly’ event are so small that it takes a vast number of smalls to make a suddenly. Usually the build-up of the vast number of smalls can take extremely long and sometimes not so extremely long. Sometimes the suddenly seems so huge because an immense amount of smalls gathered substantial momentum and the suddenly was only the aftermath of the ‘tipping point’ that was reached.

Things may seem random or chaotic some of the time, and maybe even all the time because we often are not able to see the whole picture. But they are all as a result of a whole string of events leading up to it. All these apparently random and chaotic events are huge clusters of smalls working towards a state of ‘release,’ balance or equilibrium. At any given point it may seem totally inexplicable, but over time history always points to the present and the present points towards the future. The present also points towards the past. Our ability to reason and learn from history helps us to make sense of the events leading up to a suddenly but this is almost exclusively in hindsight.

As difficult as it is for me to come to terms with it also seems apparent to me that everything is therefore balanced or at least it is in a state of transition towards balance which to us may very well appear like turmoil until it reaches a state of balance (and even that can feel very much like turmoil).

In hindsight it all seems fair to me. It all seems in time, in order, and in process towards …. balance?

If we can agree with any of the logic of this can we apply it to ourselves and to the events that cause us such confusion, turbulence, pain? or joy? or frustration? loss, devastation? peace? … . . balance?

Is it possible therefore that as emotive as our situations and circumstances may be it is all indeed consistent, just … . . fair?

What of our pain? despair? suffering? triumph? success? …. . .

Some believe God is just. Some reject, even hate God or the concept of God because of the rampant injustice apparent in our world.

Is this fair?

Is all of this unfair?

Maybe it is neither … . .

perhaps it just is

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