Tag Archives: Christianity

The Bumps in the Road

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Jack’s guest post slips in the back door, hoping no-one notices he’s late –

I’ve been thinking about the things that lift us up or drag us down.

Wendy and I have both had a few downs recently – sicknesses, work pressures, unexpected slap-downs and news of the deaths of friends. It’s easy to let that stuff get to you – too easy.

But then something good happens and lifts you up again.

Someone you hardly know intervenes in an ugly confrontation to calm things down, a sickness departs and you feel great, and an old friend gets back in touch and reminds you of great memories.

So this is really all about that thing that makes us feel suddenly ‘up’! It is, in my experience, quite a sudden feeling but doesn’t actually have to be all that dramatic.

Is it just chemicals in the brain? Or is it the much wider network of subtle interactions between people who share a set of basic needs and common values?

Just last Saturday I had helped organize a live radio show to celebrate ten years of Celtic Clanjamphry (my weekly program on WETS.fm}. In the run up I was heavily in ‘down’ territory and had enormous worries that it just wouldn’t work. In the event, all twelve participants had worked their socks off to make sure it did. So, in the space of an hour I went from a serious down to an extreme up.

There are much more serious things in the world than an obscure Celtic music show in the depths of Appalachia, but I still think that everything that drags us down has to work slowly and hard, whereas the things that lift us up seem to be much more instant.

So – the ups have it!

“Where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light – – -“

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Jack’s Wednesday guest post –

The great Scottish novelist Robert Louis Stevenson  was a product of the European ‘Enlightenment’ led by thinkers and scientists based in Edinburgh. The word ‘enlightenment’, of course, plays to my Quaker beliefs as it suggests shining light into the darkness. That movement was very much about lining up rational thought and empirical evidence against superstition and ignorance.

Stevenson expressed his understanding of the battle between these forces wonderfully in ‘The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’, where darkness and light are taken to extremes within the same body.

Like many others of the Quaker persuasion, I have a very questioning  faith that probably comes down at bottom to this: we each have the capability for extreme evil and extreme good within us. There’s a continual battle going on between our Jekyll and Hyde and we aren’t in complete control of that battle. Paul said something like that in the Bible in Romans: ‘we hate what we do and know what we should do, but still do the wrong things’.

What I’m getting to, loyal readers is, Charlottesville and everything surrounding it. Like you didn’t see that coming?

Most of us believe that we want to strive toward good, but sometimes  when the stars align (so much for the enlightenment)  our bad side gets a severe nudge. That’s usually powered by feelings of insecurity (think of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs).

There are large segments of the population in the US (and England) that feel very insecure right now because they see their standard of living threatened and need to blame someone for that. They also feel they need to retreat back to a more comfortable set of circumstances. Hence – ‘Make America great again’ and Brexit (Make England great again).

The enemy, therefore (and as usual) becomes anyone not like we who have the power. The difference can be nationality, color, religion, denomination – anything convenient.

So back to my beliefs and faith – My faith is that light will ultimately prevail, as it’s a living thing and is at the beginning of everything. But the darkness is also powerful and we are the ones who feed it.

Finally – Quakers believe in non-violence and the peaceful challenging of violent behavior. I have absolutely no doubt there were many Quakers in Charlottesville and I’ve no doubt which side they were on – the side of the Light. It may become increasingly confusing to decide who gets to say what is light and what darkness. But it can never be said that genuine seekers of God’s guidance don’t find it. I am holding you, and all of us, in the Light.