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Theme Talk (20th August 2018 at Hucklow Summer School)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Part One: \u2018We\u2019re All Going to Die\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n The theme of this year\u2019s summer school poses just about the biggest question we humans can ask ourselves: \u2018How, then, shall we live?\u2019<\/em> I take this question to have several questions implicitly wrapped up in it: \u2018How shall we live knowing that – sooner or later – we are all going to die?\u2019; \u2018What constitutes a good life anyway, in this troubled and chaotic world?\u2019; \u2018What are we meant to be doing in our all-too-brief span?\u2019; and \u2018What\u2019s the point?\u2019\u2026 Now, I can\u2019t say I feel especially<\/em> well-equipped to answer these questions\u2026 but then, who is? So I\u2019ll give it a go. Seeing as I\u2019m here. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n I thought it might be wise to bring a companion along with me this morning, though, to help in my exploration of these vexing questions that accompany us all in life. The person I\u2019m bringing with me this morning is someone known only as Qoheleth. I know some of you \u2013 those Biblical scholars out there \u2013 have already met him. He is credited with writing the Book of Ecclesiastes, one of the Wisdom texts in the Old Testament, and he was wrestling with these questions \u2013 the same ones we\u2019re considering this week \u2013 about 2,500 years ago. Qoheleth isn\u2019t really his name, by the way, it\u2019s a pseudonym meaning something like \u2018preacher\u2019 or \u2018teacher\u2019 or \u2018gatherer\u2019. <\/p>\n An evangelical friend of mine first nudged me to read Ecclesiastes about twenty years ago, just before I\u2019d discovered Unitarianism, when I was still what you might call a freelance agnostic (and I suspect his then-minister might have coached him into doing it, in hope of converting me, because I hear it\u2019s supposed to be \u2018the book of the Bible that speaks to atheists\u2019). As I understand it (and \u2013 don\u2019t get your hopes up \u2013 I\u2019m no great Biblical scholar) the Book of Ecclesiastes only just made the cut into the Bible. It\u2019s a book for outsiders. When the authorities sat down to decide what texts were included in the official canon it sounds like it was just a quirk of local politics that kept Ecclesiastes in despite the odds. It sticks out a bit and a lot of people still seem to regard it as something of an oddity. <\/p>\n In this short book, Qoheleth, who\u2019s described as a king, a powerful man, reflects on his life. He\u2019s seen and done it all. He\u2019s amassed wealth, and lived it up along the way\u2026 and now what? Let me share these famous words with you, from the opening of the Book of Ecclesiastes:<\/p>\n The Book of Ecclesiastes (NRSV), chapter 1, verses 2-11<\/p>\n Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity. I suppose, at first glance, Qoheleth comes across as a glass-half-empty kind of person\u2026<\/p>\n \u2018Vanity of vanities! All is vanity.\u2019 <\/em> This word \u2013 \u2018hebel\u2019<\/em> \u2013 that is famously translated as \u2018vanity\u2019 \u2013 it runs through the whole of the book. But apparently it\u2019s a tricky one to translate. Taken literally, \u2018hebel\u2019 might be translated as something like \u2018breath\u2019 or \u2018vapour\u2019. Alternative renderings of the word include \u2018absurd\u2019, \u2018pointless\u2019, \u2018meaningless\u2019, \u2018mysterious\u2019, \u2018ephemeral\u2019, \u2018contradictory\u2019, \u2018incomprehensible\u2019 and \u2018empty\u2019. \u2018Life is utterly absurd!\u2019<\/em> he\u2019s saying. \u2018It\u2019s pointless. What do we even have to show for all the work we put in, all the suffering we endure, during our brief life here on earth? We\u2019re here, and then we\u2019re gone, and all too soon we are forgotten, just like everybody else.\u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n Qoheleth is someone who has done well in life. He\u2019s looking back over his achievements. He has applied his mind to gain great knowledge and wisdom (practical, worldly know-how). He has taken pleasure in food and drink and all the delights of the flesh (nudge nudge). He\u2019s built houses, planted vineyards, and made great works, and made a name for himself. But over time he has come to realise that none of it will last, and one day he too will be gone. It\u2019s the lot of everyone who lives, and everyone who has ever lived, throughout the generations, though most of us avoid thinking about it too hard on a day-to-day basis. Understandably so. Qoheleth says: \u2018It is an unhappy business that God has given to human beings to be busy with\u2026 For in much wisdom is much vexation, and those who increase knowledge increase sorrow.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n Now at this point some of you may be thinking that Qoheleth is an insufferable miseryguts. But I reckon we can take some important guidance from him. Qoheleth\u2019s first lesson for us is this: We need to live with our eyes open \u2013 and our wits engaged \u2013 to face reality as it really is. There is something to be said for having a clear-eyed awareness of our predicament. The human condition. The way things really are, warts and all. And life really can seem quite warty sometimes. <\/p>\n Of course that\u2019s not the whole story. In most lives we can identify things to be thankful for. Even in the worst of situations people have been known to find moments of goodness and beauty (and it\u2019s quite a good strategy to try and make a practice of noticing the good in our lives). There\u2019s no need to catastrophise or make out things are worse than they really are. But all the same it\u2019s no good going into denial about the very real suffering that exists, and which can cast a shadow, even over lives that seem to be brimming with good things.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not just Qoheleth. \u2018All is dukkha\u2019, as the Buddhists say, the first of their Four Noble Truths. That too \u2013 like hebel in Ecclesiastes \u2013 has many and varied translations and connotations. \u2018All is suffering, all is pain, all is hard, all is struggle\u2026 all is impermanent, nothing lasts\u2019. <\/em><\/p>\n I don\u2019t know about the rest of you but when I find myself struggling \u2013 for much of my life I\u2019ve struggled with periods of depression and high anxiety, sometimes connected to particular life circumstances, sometimes more free-floating, arising for no apparent reason but incapacitating me, to some degree, for weeks or months on end \u2013 and when I\u2019m struggling like that I don\u2019t find it particularly helpful to hear from cheerful people. At least not in the first instance. When I\u2019m really struggling I find it more consoling, strangely, to hear from someone like old Qoheleth who seems to say: \u2018You\u2019re right. This sucks. I too have struggled to get out of bed in the morning to face another day.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n Something else has to follow this, if we\u2019re going to pick ourselves up, but I find that an honest acknowledgment of how things are for us \u2013 that\u2019s both us being willing to name it, and others being willing to hear it with kindness and compassion, without brushing it aside and changing the subject, without suggesting we take up a gratitude practice, or otherwise trying to fix us \u2013 such simple, honest acknowledgement of our pain may enable us to remain authentically connected to others \u2013 to the world \u2013 at a time when we most feel like disconnecting and shutting ourselves away. Such authentic connection might be the lifeline that helps us find our way into a better place, to find a way to cope with life as it is, even if our material circumstances are unlikely to change. <\/p>\n . . .<\/p>\n Maria Popova, curator of the excellent Brain Pickings blog, recently shared the story of a young neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi, who at the height of his powers was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. He died within two years of his diagnosis, aged just 37, in 2015. Maria Popova introduced her telling of Kalanithi\u2019s life and death with these words: \u2018All life is lived in the shadow of its own finitude, of which we are always aware \u2013 an awareness we systematically blunt through the daily distraction of living… [Kalanithi\u2019s memoir] is a sobering revelation of how much our sense of self is tied up with our sense of potential and possibility \u2014 the selves we would like to become, those we work tirelessly toward becoming… [His reflections] illuminate the only thing we have in common \u2014 our mortality \u2014 and how it spurs all of us, in ways both minute and monumental, to pursue a life of meaning.\u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n In the same piece, Maria Popova used a phrase which so succinctly names our predicament. Paul and his wife Lucy had a child, a daughter, during the time of his illness. Popova referred to her as \u2018this brand new being, blessed and burdened with her own infinite potential for an inherently finite life.\u2019<\/em> Isn\u2019t that perfectly put? And aren\u2019t we all? Each of us, blessed and burdened, with our own infinite potential for an inherently finite life. And as the years pass \u2013 consciously or unconsciously \u2013 this paradox will likely loom larger for us. <\/p>\n . . .<\/p>\n Some years ago, in my day job at Essex Church, in Notting Hill Gate, I was working on a project to liven up the old \u2018wayside pulpit\u2019 \u2013 the noticeboard outside the church where we can display inspirational quotations about life in the hope that they\u2019ll provide a sort of drive-by ministry to the people going past on buses or waiting at the stop just outside the church (and maybe, just maybe, entice someone to come in, one day). I\u2019d picked out a bunch that appealed to me from a long list \u2013 pages and pages \u2013 of Unitarian-friendly quotations I\u2019d found somewhere on the UUA website. One of the quotes I got printed up was attributed to George Eliot: \u2018It is never too late to be what you might have been.\u2019<\/em> I was in my early 30s and had just made the leap to chuck in my old job \u2013 which was making me miserable \u2013 and to try and make a new life for myself working on something that I cared about, with people who treated me with dignity. The quotation seemed to affirm my own choice to start afresh and follow a new dream. I found it encouraging, and hopeful, and I thought the world could do with an uplifting message. <\/p>\n But when I went to put the poster up, Sarah, our minister, vetoed it. She laughed when she saw it and pointed out, not unreasonably, that it\u2019s one of those quotes that sounds lovely but it isn\u2019t really true. And it sounds less and less true the more years you\u2019ve spent on the planet. If we could wind the clock back \u2013 there are all sorts of things I \u2018might have been\u2019 \u2013 I might have been a medical physicist \u2013 that\u2019s the most plausible \u2018other life\u2019 for me which never came to pass \u2013 but in theory I might have been an artist, an astrologer, a gardener, a bus driver. As a teenager my (modest) ambition was to play guitar in a band that topped the indie charts. As a child I don\u2019t really remember having any thoughts of my life as a grown-up\u2026 though I briefly entertained thoughts of being an Olympic triple-jumper \u2013 and this was before women were even allowed to compete in the triple jump \u2013 I was ahead of my time, I tell you!… All of these might-have-been-s of my early life are clearly now going to stay that way. Whatever window of opportunity I might have had to pursue them has now closed. And I imagine that near enough everyone in this room has their own set of might-have-been-s. <\/p>\n I\u2019m not just thinking of the top-level choices \u2013 about relationships, careers, and so forth \u2013 all those lists of \u2018a hundred films to watch before you die\u2019 \u2013 no chance. I\u2019m too far behind. I picture in my mind\u2019s eye the walls and walls of shelves and stacks of books that cover every surface in my house and realise even now, aged 43, I\u2019m never going to read them all \u2013 of course I don\u2019t suppose that will stop me stockpiling further. I\u2019m a lost cause on that front. <\/p>\n As we go through life, though, \u2018way leads on to way\u2019<\/em>, as Robert Frost once said. Each time we come to a fork in the road, a decision point, however seemingly small or insignificant, we make our choice, and of course new possibilities emerge and open up to us as a result, but other possibilities, other turnings, are left behind each time, gone \u2013 perhaps \u2013 forever. Sometimes, it is too late. There are some might-have-been-s that surely now will never<\/em> be.<\/p>\n . . . <\/p>\n There\u2019s a particular metaphor for life that really appeals to me \u2013 it comes from a reflection by the UU minister Gordon McKeeman \u2013 and it\u2019s called \u2018Leftovers\u2019. He speaks of going to the fridge, rummaging around to see what\u2019s there, surveying the decidedly mixed bag of leftover ingredients it contains, and asking \u2018what can I make of it?\u2019 We might just as well open the door of our past \u2013 our life so far \u2013 survey the scene, and ask ourselves the same question. As McKeeman says: \u2018In making a life, we\u2019re all cooking with leftovers from childhood… The longer we\u2019re at it, the more leftovers there are\u2026 Each day you open the door, and you are faced with the question, \u201cWhat can I make of it?\u201d\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n In all of our lives, by the time we are old enough to start shaping our own destiny in any significant way, all sorts of external influences will already have acted upon us, shaping our sense of what\u2019s possible, beginning to form our outlook, our identity, setting down those deeply-rooted habits of thought and behaviour which sometimes serve us well\u2026 and sometimes not so well.<\/p>\n Many things which we never had a part in choosing have a huge impact – for good or ill – on the way we have turned out: At the most basic level, the random shuffle of genetic inheritance deals us a certain hand, a collection of physical attributes and dispositions. Then, the virtues, vices, and peculiar quirks we picked up from our families and caregivers in early life will, to some degree, influence the way we operate later on(not to mention the effect of any stories they might have told us about ourselves while we grew up \u2013 stories we might still be carrying with us).<\/p>\n And the times we were born into \u2013 the political climate and prevailing social attitudes that surrounded us in our formative years (and the environment in which we find ourselves now) \u2013 these will have affected not just our opinions and world-view but also our life opportunities. We may have experienced this influence in a positive way or a negative way \u2013 at times each of us may have benefitted from the prevailing systems of privilege \u2013 at times we may have found ourselves being discriminated against and disadvantaged; We may at times have been swept along with the majority view and conformed with it \u2013 or we may have reacted against it and defined ourselves in opposition to the masses. Either way the larger political and social tides will have played a part in shaping who we are. Every time my own tendency for perfectionism kicks in, and I\u2019m tempted to beat myself up over some imagined shortcoming or another, I try to remind myself that these accidental factors, internal and external \u2013 which \u2018aren\u2019t my fault\u2019 \u2013 are to some extent already tying my hands. And I try to remember that, and show a bit of compassion and solidarity, when I think about other people\u2019s lives and limitations as well. <\/p>\n So when we attempt to answer the question \u2013 \u2018how, then, shall we live?\u2019 \u2013 we should perhaps begin by bearing in mind the serious constraints that each of us operating under. Before we are in a position to even ask ourselves the question\u2026 our life is already well underway. Choices that we\u2019ve made already, or that have been made for us, by family or society, and elements of chance, have formed us, to some extent, and limited or expanded our opportunities. But even if we were extremely fortunate, and dealt a great hand by life\u2026 the clock is still ticking. <\/p>\n And if we think back to Qoheleth for a minute \u2013 it\u2019s worth bearing in mind that his insights are coming from a highly privileged position \u2013 he was supposed to be a king, after all \u2013 so he wasn\u2019t even subject to the sort of hardship and oppression that so many ordinary people have had to overcome (or endure) throughout most of human history. But still, he suffered, because nobody is exempt from disappointment, impermanence, loss \u2013 eventually loss of self \u2013 because in the end we are all mortal. Such is the human condition. Death is our companion \u2013 as it was for the duck in our story earlier (\u2018Duck, Death and the Tulip\u2019 by Wolf Erlbruch) \u2013 with us wherever we go.<\/p>\n Each of us is blessed, and burdened, with our own infinite potential for an inherently finite life.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Part Two: What\u2019s a \u2018Good Life\u2019 Anyway? <\/strong><\/p>\n What does it mean to live a \u2018Good Life\u2019? Especially considering its finitude, and all the other constraints and limitations I\u2019ve just been talking about. That\u2019s the central question of ethics, one that\u2019s kept philosophers busy for millennia, so I hope you won\u2019t be to disappointed to hear that I\u2019m not going to give you a comprehensive answer to that question in the next half hour. It\u2019s a bit big<\/em> for a theme talk. But I\u2019ll say this: There\u2019s no way I know of that you can work out how to live from first principles, completely neutrally, as if the recipe for a Good Life could be determined quasi-scientifically. If you look at any ethical system closely you will find it rests on some basic assumptions which can best be described as ethical \u2018intuitions\u2019. It\u2019s a bit like \u2018leftovers\u2019 all over again. Everyone, even the great philosophers, is born into a particular culture and inherits its values. As we get older we can choose to consciously accept, reject, or refine what we\u2019ve inherited. Even if you don\u2019t consciously base your way of life on a set of commandments writ in stone you will at some level have picked up your sense of right and wrong from your elders and forebears.<\/p>\n In recent years my way of thinking about the \u2018Good Life\u2019 has been shaped by Aristotle, and a string of philosophers who have followed his lead more recently, on the path of Virtue. Unlike some of the other major ethical theories that are out there, the ones which seem to require complex moral calculus and cost-benefit analysis in every situation we meet, Virtue Ethics (as the tradition inspired by Aristotle is known) has quite a different approach. On the path of virtue you don\u2019t ask \u2018what should I do?\u2019<\/em> Instead you ask \u2018who should I be?\u2019<\/em> According to Aristotle, the point or purpose of life is human flourishing. Our own and others\u2019. By \u2018flourishing\u2019 I think he means something like a combination of basic material well-being, and something more, like fulfilment of at least some of that infinite potential we are born with. Think of Maslow\u2019s hierarchy of needs, if that\u2019s something you\u2019re familiar with, where we all have the most basic needs for physical nourishment and safety, then needs for relatedness and connection, then dignity and achievement, and eventually self-actualisation. A Good Life, according to Aristotle, and also according to me, centres on this sort of flourishing. And as we flourish, we support the flourishing of others. It\u2019s a non-negotiable part of the package. It is, for each of us, a life\u2019s work to consciously develop ourselves in virtue and practical wisdom.<\/p>\n One of the things I like most about virtue ethics is that it acknowledges from the off that the world is complicated and contradictory (as are the variously flawed humans that live in it). In contrast to other ethical systems it doesn\u2019t collapse what matters in life to a single variable: \u2018benefit\u2019 or \u2018duty\u2019. It acknowledges there are a whole range of human values that matter to us. Kindness. Honesty. Courage. Generosity. Sensitivity. Enthusiasm. Reliability. The list is long. And we might each have different key virtues that we value more highly (or that we embody). But the idea is that these are all qualities that we humans generally consider to be worthwhile. And over the course of a lifetime, we should aim to consciously develop these traits, these virtues, perhaps by attempting to emulate \u2018moral heroes\u2019, the people we most trust and admire. It\u2019s about striving towards excellence as a person (without giving ourselves a hard time). It\u2019s taken for granted, in virtue ethics, that we\u2019re always learning \u2013 and that we have a responsibility to keep learning, and working on ourselves \u2013 but it\u2019s \u2018progress not perfection\u2019. This notion of human flourishing is both an ongoing process and an ideal to draw us onward. <\/p>\n Something to note about the path of virtue \u2013 and I think this is a feature and not a bug \u2013 is that virtues can be in conflict with each other. They can seem to pull in opposite directions. For example: there are occasions where honesty might prompt you to say \u2018no, that haircut looks absolutely ridiculous, and I really wouldn\u2019t recommend you go out like that\u2019 whereas kindness might lead you to say \u2018well it\u2019s very\u2026 provocative\u2019 (or perhaps better say nothing at all). But that\u2019s how life is! There\u2019s a time and place where both of those responses are alright. There\u2019s not<\/em> always a clear-cut, universal, right answer, no one-size-fits all. The \u2018right thing\u2019 to do at one time might be, on balance, very much the \u2018wrong thing\u2019 to do at another. I really like the fact that the path of virtue acknowledges that apparently contradictory things can both be simultaneously good and true and valuable. It\u2019s a very Both\/And approach. Speaking of which. It\u2019s time to bring in my mate Qoheleth again. Let me read you his greatest hit. <\/p>\n The Book of Ecclesiastes (NRSV), chapter 3, verses 1 to 8 <\/p>\n For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:<\/p>\n a time to be born, and a time to die; The paradoxical nature of life is right at the heart of what Qoheleth has to teach us. <\/p>\n Do you remember the idea that did the rounds a few years back, popularised by Malcolm Gladwell, that to truly master a skill you have to put in 10,000 hours of deliberate practice? Whether it\u2019s playing a musical instrument, programming computers, playing a sport, etc? Well, you could say something similar about the path of virtue. You\u2019ve got to stick at it. There is one virtue that stands above all others, according to Aristotle, and his followers \u2013 the master virtue, the one that governs all the others \u2013 and that is practical wisdom. Practical wisdom is what enables you to decide which of the virtues take precedence when two or more seem to be pulling you in different directions. It takes a certain sensitivity. And it\u2019s the sort of knowhow that only slowly emerges over a lifetime of dedication, if you are care about, and are committed to, reflecting on your place in the world. You will know when it is a time to break down, and when it is a time to build up. And the more you develop in practical wisdom, the more you can trust your moral intuition. <\/p>\n It strikes me that developing, strengthening, deepening this moral intuition is particularly important right now \u2013 in the world we\u2019re living in \u2013 I want to say \u2018this wicked world\u2019. In a world where wilful misinformation, propaganda, and bias seem to be rife; where the most basic of shared human values now seem to be up for debate; and there sometimes seems to be little solid moral ground on which we can stand; it seems every more important for us to hold firm to an inner sense of the Good \u2013 to strengthen our moral compass, you might say, develop our own moral sturdiness \u2013 so that we are not too easily bamboozled or led astray by people acting in Bad faith; by people who have no interest in mutual flourishing, or the common good, but are just looking out for their own regardless of the cost to others. This inner sense of the Good \u2013 which is the primary way in which I experience God \u2013 I reckon it needs to be tuned in to, cultivated, and nurtured, made a priority in life, perhaps through prayer, or journaling, or whatever other means we have at our disposal. Who knows? Perhaps by meeting together, and making our churches places of mutual flourishing.<\/p>\n We live in such a complex web of interdependence that every action we take (or fail to take) is likely to have effects which ripple out far beyond what is obvious and immediate to us. \u2018How, then, shall we live?\u2019 Well, perhaps another aspect of the answer is that we should strive to develop in virtue, and in practical wisdom\u2026 that this may lead to mutual flourishing. But we should also expect to live in creative tension, in a world of paradox, in the \u2018Both\/And\u2019. Martin Luther King, Jr, once observed: \u2018life at its best is a creative synthesis of opposites in fruitful harmony\u2026 It is pretty difficult to imagine a single person having, simultaneously, the characteristics of the serpent and the dove, but this is what Jesus expects. We must combine the toughness of the serpent and the softness of the dove, a tough mind and a tender heart.\u2019<\/em> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Part Three: Discovering Our Cosmic Calling<\/strong><\/p>\n The American writer and journalist Roy Scranton recently published a book entitled: \u2018We\u2019re Doomed. Now What?\u2019 And I was tempted to nick that for the title of this talk. There are signs of doom at almost every scale of our lives if we\u2019re so minded to see it. We\u2019ve already talked about the most fundamental form of doom, in a way: mortality. Subjective doom, the end of us as an individual thinking, feeling, being, our non-existence. And I\u2019m setting aside thoughts of an afterlife (at least, an individuated afterlife) for now. Not in a dismissive way. It\u2019s just the ultimate unknowable, for me. And I like to be pragmatic. Then there\u2019s community-level doom \u2013 seeing as we\u2019re a bunch of Unitarians here today \u2013 we could think about the struggle to thrive (to flourish!) as a denomination \u2013 the awareness that many congregations are shrinking, some closing, and that shifts in religious and spiritual expression are making a positive future ever harder to imagine. Depending on your position in relation to Brexit you may feel we\u2019re facing doom at a national level. And international politics \u2013 particularly across the pond \u2013 is looking undeniably doom-y for anyone of a progressive bent. World events of the past few years have been shocking \u2013 especially for those of us in the west who have arguably led quite sheltered lives for a while. It\u2019s harder than it ever was, I reckon, to wholeheartedly believe in the myth of progress \u2013 \u2018onward and upward forever\u2019 \u2013 which used to be central to the Unitarian approach.<\/p>\n Roy Scranton, the author of \u2018We\u2019re Doomed. Now What?\u2019 has in his recent work been considering perhaps the doomiest of all the dooms: Human-made climate change. He\u2019s writing from the perspective that climate change has already gone too far \u2013 we\u2019ve already done the damage \u2013 and there\u2019s no sign of humanity changing its ways (but it\u2019s too late anyway). He says: \u2018The middle and later decades of the 21st century \u2014 my daughter\u2019s adult life \u2014 promise a global catastrophe whose full implications any reasonable person must turn away from in horror.\u2019<\/em> If we accept this as true \u2013 we\u2019re not just talking about our own non-existence, but potentially the non-existence of our species, as the planet progressively becomes uninhabitable. And we\u2019ll likely take a bunch of other species and habitats down with us when we go. <\/p>\n What if all this doom-mongering is spot on? Or even close? If this is what we\u2019ve got coming? The planet has had it. Humanity is on its way out sooner rather than later. And the death-throes are going to be painful in all manner of ways. Our church is on its way out. Our nation is going to go through huge upheaval. Ultimately, we and everyone we know will no longer exist (we know that bit is definitely true). As Roy Scranton so succinctly puts it: \u2018We\u2019re Doomed. Now What?\u2019 <\/p>\n . . .<\/p>\n You know that moment in the story where the Duck wakes up and says \u2018I\u2019m not dead!\u2019<\/em> (with a hint of surprise) and then gets on with doing her duck-ly business? Occasionally when I\u2019m feeling particularly low, preoccupied with bleak thoughts, I\u2019ll wake up \u2013 sad \u2013 and I\u2019ll lie there in bed thinking: \u2018Well, I\u2019m still here.\u2019<\/em> And then I\u2019ll often follow that with a short but heartfelt prayer, something like: \u2018God, help me face the day I\u2019ve got coming, and help me do whatever I\u2019m meant to do.\u2019<\/em> <\/p>\n Let\u2019s turn to Qoheleth one last time for guidance that\u2019s more uplifting than you might expect: <\/p>\n The Book of Ecclesiastes (NRSV), chapter 9, verses 4-10<\/p>\n Whoever is joined with all the living has hope, Go, eat your bread with enjoyment, and drink your wine Qoheleth reminds us that we should enjoy ourselves while we still can. It\u2019s later than we think. We\u2019re still allowed \u2013 encouraged \u2013 to take pleasure in life\u2026 even if it means we\u2019re dancing to the music of a band that\u2019s playing on as the ship goes down. To start with, he seems to be saying something like: \u2018where there\u2019s life, there\u2019s hope\u2019<\/em>. But by the end it shifts to something more like \u2018where there\u2019s life, there\u2019s still something to be done.\u2019<\/em> If you\u2019ve woken up again this morning, there\u2019s still a job to do, even if it\u2019s only to try and make one little corner of the world a little bit more liveable for ourselves and others. \u2018Whatever your hand finds to do, do with [all] your might]\u2019<\/em> as Qoheleth says. <\/p>\n In an essay entitled \u2018Raising My Child in a Doomed World\u2019, Roy Scranton says this (this is quite a long quotation but I think it\u2019s rather perfectly put so I want to share it): <\/p>\n \u2018Living ethically means understanding that our actions have consequences, taking responsibility for how those consequences ripple out across the web of life in which each of us is irrevocably enmeshed and working every day to ease what suffering we can. Living ethically means limiting our desires, respecting the deep interdependence of all things in nature and honouring the fact that our existence on this planet is a gift that comes from nowhere and may be taken back at any time. I can\u2019t protect my daughter from the future and I can\u2019t even promise her a better life. All I can do is teach her: teach her how to care, how to be kind and how to live within the limits of nature\u2019s grace. I can teach her to be tough but resilient, adaptable and prudent, because she\u2019s going to have to struggle for what she needs. But I also need to teach her to fight for what\u2019s right, because none of us is in this alone. I need to teach her that all things die, even her and me and her mother and the world we know, but that coming to terms with this difficult truth is the beginning of wisdom.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n Words by Roy Scranton, from his essay, \u2018Raising My Child in a Doomed World\u2019. <\/p>\n . . .<\/p>\n There are very many different ways of imagining our place in the great scheme of things. Many different cosmologies and theologies, metaphors and stories, to help us understand. Here\u2019s one that works for me, that rings true, that doesn\u2019t promise too much, but helps me to live. See what you make of it. It might be one that appeals to you too. There\u2019s a potential inherent in all that exists. All matter and energy. A potential for becoming. Joining and combining. Evolving and co-creating. Maybe it\u2019s related to what we think of as consciousness. Maybe what we call \u2018soul\u2019. Perhaps it\u2019s what we euphemistically call \u2018sparks of the divine\u2019. I like to call it God. God is within and without everything that is, and ever has been: quarks, leptons, and bosons; rocks, rain, and mud; trees, bees, buffaloes, bacteria. Human beings. Including us. And all our relations \u2013 animate and (apparently) inanimate. God experiences Godself \u2013 simultaneously subject and object \u2013 as the universe unfolds. Everywhere in the universe all at once is a point of consciousness, of soul, of God. <\/p>\n There\u2019s not \u2013 in my understanding \u2013 a single coherent mind directing the show. Not an all-powerful super-being that\u2019s existed, fully-formed, for eternity. But I reckon there is a collective, connected, consciousness emerging from it all as we go. All forms are impermanent \u2013 the potential within is continually recycled and rearranged \u2013 but each and everything that exists or has ever existed is part of the unfolding oneness. As individuals, as communities, as nations, as species \u2013 we come and go \u2013 but we are part of something bigger that\u2019s too vast to fully comprehend. <\/p>\n And I believe there\u2019s an orientation to the universe that points us \u2013 calls us \u2013 towards Goodness. That\u2019s how we\u2019re most likely to experience God, I\u2019d say. Through encountering Goodness in all-that-is \u2013 and recognising it \u2013 whilst living \u2018towards the Good\u2019 ourselves \u2013 in the knowledge that we too are particles of God. That\u2019s my working hypothesis. The cosmology, the theology, the story that helps me to live. To slightly mis-quote some words attributed to Saint Teresa of Avila: \u2018God has no body now but ours. No hands, no feet on earth but ours. Ours are the eyes through which God looks compassion on the world. Ours are the feet with which God walks to do Good. Ours are the hands through which God blesses all the world.\u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n A couple of lines from a poem by Mary Karr called \u2018Wisdom: The Voice of God\u2019 have been rolling round my mind while preparing for today. She writes: \u2018The voice [of God] never panders, offers no five-year plan, no long-term solution, no edicts from a cloudy white beard hooked over ears. It is small and fond and local.\u2019 <\/em> The voice of God\u2026 is small, and fond, and local. Perhaps that\u2019s our final hint as to how we should live: with the intent to find our calling \u2013 small, fond, and local, as it may be \u2013 our unique contribution to the unfolding of Good in the universe. To make meaning despite the predicament of finitude in which we find ourselves, by discerning how we are called to do God\u2019s work in the very place where are \u2013 to claim our purpose as God\u2019s hands, feet, ears, eyes, and voice \u2013 to relieve suffering, create beauty, overturn oppression, to bless one another and, as Qoheleth says, \u2018whatever our hand finds to do, do it with all our might\u2019. <\/em><\/p>\n Talk by Jane Blackall<\/strong><\/p>\n An audio recording of this talk is available:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n
\nWhat do people gain from all the toil at which they toil under the sun?
\nA generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever.
\nThe sun rises and the sun goes down, and hurries to the place where it rises.
\nThe wind blows to the south, and goes around to the north;
\nround and round goes the wind, and on its circuits the wind returns.
\nAll streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full;
\nto the place where the streams flow, there they continue to flow.
\nAll things are wearisome; more than one can express;
\nthe eye is not satisfied with seeing, or the ear filled with hearing.
\nWhat has been is what will be, and what has been done
\nis what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun.
\nIs there a thing of which it is said, \u201cSee, this is new\u201d?
\nIt has already been, in the ages before us.
\nThe people of long ago are not remembered, nor will there be any
\nremembrance of people yet to come by those who come after them.<\/em><\/p>\n
\na time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
\na time to kill, and a time to heal;
\na time to break down, and a time to build up;
\na time to weep, and a time to laugh;
\na time to mourn, and a time to dance;
\na time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
\na time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
\na time to seek, and a time to lose;
\na time to keep, and a time to throw away;
\na time to tear, and a time to sew;
\na time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
\na time to love, and a time to hate;
\na time for war, and a time for peace.<\/em><\/p>\n
\nfor a living dog is better than a dead lion.
\nThe living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing;
\nthey have no more reward, and even the memory of them is lost.
\nTheir love and their hate and their envy have already perished;
\nnever again will they have any share in all that happens under the sun. <\/p>\n
\nwith a merry heart; for God has long ago approved what you do.
\nLet your garments always be white; do not let oil be lacking on your head.
\nEnjoy life with the wife whom you love,
\nall the days of your vain life that are given you under the sun,
\nbecause that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun.
\nWhatever your hand finds to do, do with your might;
\nfor there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going.<\/em><\/p>\n