One Fine Day … in January

We had some lovely weather where I live in Ireland this weekend.

Saturday in particular was beautiful. The sun shone. It was wonderfully warm. The birds were singing as though it were spring.

Unfortunately it isn’t spring – or at least it shouldn’t be.

This morning, my wife recalled a kind woman we had once known, who seemed to us to take materialistic excess and opulence to a vulgar degree. What my wife could not understand was that this woman also struck her as a puritanical Christian. Her children would not see Harry Potter, and I imagine her sexual ethics were very strict. But my wife couldn’t understand her nonchalance towards wealth.

Now my wife grew up in Europe, whereas I was raised in America. In essence, I said to her this morning: it’s easier to understand than you think. In America in particular, there is this species of Christianity that is very literal.

The Bible prohibits magic and fornication. That is clear.

Despite Our Lord’s call to simplicity in so many *parables* and *metaphors*, nowhere does it explicitly, EXACTLY say: ‘Though shalt not be a devouring capitalist, devoted to consumer durables and economic growth above all’.

To this mindset then, George Walker Bush is a fine example of Christian ethics.

In the wake of Lovelock's message, I find myself thinking a great deal about **collective** simplicity. Which (if it is to be achieved, as it must be - now more than ever) I suspect cannot be achieved from anything other than INSPIRATION.

A literalistic Christianity succeeded in enforcing many ‘shalt nots’. At least for a certain period of time - in certain cultures at any rate.

But a Christianity of Mystery and Metaphor that INSPIRES is necessary, it seems to me.

It also seems to me that in spite of shadows, contradictions and yes, cruelties, that Ireland nonetheless also had, and to some extent still has, a Christianity that INSPIRED people to a truly beautiful collective aspiration … which resulted in a simpler life …

And despite the many, many fine achievements of the environmental movement over the last decades – it seems to me that this movement by itself, is only capable of inspiring a small segment of folk.To put it crudely in a contemporary idiom: it just ain’t sexy enough to inspire masses to ‘go green’ …

But it seems to me that the Christian Mystery has inspired masses to a devoted life of simplicity, over the centuries. Where the Christian Mystery is present that is, rather than legalism.

In saying this, I do not wish to discount religious Mystery operating in other faiths, attracting, inspiring, drawing, gripping … Creating an interior richness, where external riches are no longer so necessary.

Nor on the other hand, do I wish to discount the fact that the cosmos changed at Calvary, and that Our Lord, though present in all religions and all areas of humane, loving activity, daily vivifies his church, and offers his flesh and blood …