2018

Why no! I never thought other than
That God is that great absence
In our lives, the empty silence
Within, the place where we go
Seeking, not in hope to
Arrive or find. He keeps the interstices
In our knowledge, the darkness
Between stars. His are the echoes
We follow, the footprints he has just
Left. We put our hands in
His side hoping to find
It warm. We look at people
And places as though he had looked
At them, too; but miss the reflection.


We carry on as we always have: clueless, bewildered..stumbling through the dark days, imagining things can carry on like this forever...

At this age it is only natural, I suppose, to think that things are falling apart. When life is on an upward trajectory, or when you're young, or when your body is still resilient I doubt anyone gives too much thought to ' endings', failures, missed chances..how a seemingly simple life can go pear shaped...what need is there for reflection when there is life, pure and simple, when there is so much space and time in front of you ( or apparently so)?

At this time of the year there's the annual ritual of naming ' books of the year'. How comforted we are by lists! And schedules, I might add. Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without the Radio Times, for example. But what is it? The pretence of being wel, read? So much of one's life flitted away in attention to fictional lives, or semi- philosophical reflection ( of which you cannot remember a single word). For example, you're sure you read most of Bernard Williams's Ethics and the limits of philosophy but if anyone asked you to say something about it they'd be met with a deafening silence.

So, the accumulation game continues but the suspicion that we've darkened our minds with books and thoughts for too long only grows with each passing year. Is this really just a higher form of entertainment? A diversion from any really serious engagement with more pressing questions? Of course some novels are serious, but serious about what?

There are an infinite number of books. Don't follow false infinities. Hugh of St. Victor wrote, more or less, nearly 800? years ago. I can read ecstatic get reviews of  ' All for Nothing' but if I do pick anything up it is likely to be something that realises the limits of fiction ( perhaps Rachel Cusk or David Szalay's new book).

There are no more storytellers. Well,  part of you wants to say: Good! Get on with your own story...

Non- fiction fares only slightly better ( for me) since it's also part of culture - machine, the endless expansion of " productivity" and " ideas" that can never be assimilated into one's life; the life of the mind, that much vaunted and slightly ridiculous phrase, is not life ( lest one forget). Not saying that as a disgruntled academic. I'm not really an academic anyway. Besides, there's no time for that...

I don't know what has moved me this year. Nick Cave's Skeleton Tree for sure. Pond was a quirky, original voice. Like her writing but ' moved'? Not so sure. Anyway, not really a year for reading since most of it was preoccupied with writing your own book. And by other things..illnesses of loved ones. Although I still laugh a lot, I think underneath it all there's almost a permanent sadness. God, Tessa Jowell, was right, " The most precious thing is time". There's no two ways about it.

" What gives a life meaning is not only how it is lived, but how it draws to a close."
--- Tessa Jowell.

I know nothing about her politics but I don't need to. What does it matter?

The only book I'm on the lookout for is T.J. Clark's one on Breugel. Someone mentioned Sam Shepard..spy something. Wim Wenders, now that I think of it. Some poetry, perhaps, ' Supernatural Love'. Let's see. Might not venture out. It's impossible not to think: How many lives have you lived? Or, more accurately, how many half lives have you?

The light is mellow today and it actually feels quite warm. A dear uncle dropped in for 5 minutes. So fond of him and his old- world charm. Dementia has set in and so he forgets words regularly now. Soon, I fear, it will be whole sentences. Then what? Faces? Doesn't bear thinking about. Not sure when I'll see him again. Jesus.


Man, I really should try and find my R.S. Thomas. Via negativa. The dark way, the unsaid.

Might pluck up the courage and see Charles ( the famous Jack Robinson). Not sure what I'd say to him anyway. Leslie Chamberlain once asked me to her book launch and I stood frozen like Rita in Educating Rita ( if you know what I mean).

A strange thing this autumn..the apple tree in the park didn't bear any fruit. Waited and waited but there it was, just a small, gnarled tree near the Roding. Everything seems a bit off key these days. Even the lovely Gillian Welch sounded as if she was singing another song under the one she was actually singing.

The weight of beauty in my life; I wanted to escape from all that. Why should my soul be broken by an ideal? Why this pattern of a life and not another? Why one thing above the others?

How to begin? There are so many beginnings. You can look at that how you like, positively or otherwise. I was caught up in its dark energy, the momentum of the image- machine. Right now the dark rain is sweeping in, from way out there. It takes a long time to reach its destination but when it arrives it does so with great haste. You know what I mean?

There's a reckoning about. Whether it comes to fruition or not..who knows? Look inward, anyway. Not trembling, not yet, but a rattling...yeah, that's it. What price do we pay for the choices we make? A fair price? Only a saint could think so.

I wanted to help people but really I wanted to only help myself. And this is where it got me. Detached from myself and from reality. I'm less interested in beauty now. It's damaging and brittle. I grew into a picture and didn't like what I saw. There are too many images in our society. I can't make my mind like my body. To think of the whole person means thinking in a different direction, at an angle to all we've been led to believe. Or else it's a lie. I think there's another way. You don't have to control yourself...and who could anyway! But accept it anyway..there's no perfection here.

I don't know the way forward any more but I know it isn't this. Let's see. Everything takes time. Grace, if it arrives, does so unannounced.

( Some of these words are Grace Woodward's; most of them are mine. i.e. Made up)

You prepare for the hours of silence with scrambled eggs and, uniquely, a square paratha. As luck would have it, I switch with someone and move to the back. Always been the quintessential backbencher, the kind of person no one would remember in 20 years. " yeah, what did happen to K...?"

There is on inflight entertainment; most of the lights don't work. I roam around and eventually find one that, miraculously, does. I love this low key way of traveling. Find the time to read the first chapter of Macintyre's fantastic new book. Read this chapter three times already ( dense, or what!). But this idea that one can always understand things has to be given up. Take what you can. Let it go, it's okay.

A life that goes wrong because, amongst other things, our desires are frustrated, confused, or because they seek the wrong objects, cannot be ordered, be made coherent. What pattern of a life is this? Don't ask me what you already know.

~~~

You land and float through customs and passport control without talking to a single person. On the sombre train, more silence, but this time bitter, cold. There's a terrible harshness to the faces. Why is that? Time of the year? The ravages of materialism? What warmth and light there is is inside.

The old tree, bare and stark, a single dark letter in my life. The next day you see the light has failed here. Up above you see a plane flying wonderfully into its own beams of light. Human life, from a distance, is mysterious. I feel sad for the strangers, for no reason whatsoever. As it passes me I eventually hear it roar.

I stand in reverence, trying to make sense of my life in this brief moment. So much time has passed, R. Do you know what I mean?

~~~

Wellmon is a verbose writer. His book is full of too many details. What can be remembered now?

~~~

It is dark here early. Time is about to turn. You find yourself unprepared for the hours of silence...

Five Years

Kevin Anderson writes really clearly on carbon budgets and the level of mitigation that is required if we're to have a good (more than 66%) chance of avoiding +2 C. 

Here's a graph from the recent Global Carbon Budget (available online). The kind of mitigation in emissions (9% p.a.) are roughly what Anderson concludes as well. That's global reductions, mind you! As of now, I think that's only been 'achieved' during major economic slowdowns (Russia in the 1990s?). 

So, here's the dope. Emissions increased by 2.7% this year. That's despite technological improvements (carbon efficiency). It seems clear that technology is not improving at the necessary speed (that statement is based on the last 100 years of data, not just the last year). Of course, it could be that there's going to be this one spectacular breakthrough that makes a nonsense of the average figures but that's really just like placing a bet on an unlikely event (and what are the stakes here!).

Can we expect more deforestation over the next few years? I think so (given what's just happened in Brazil). Deforestation rates in Brazil were at their highest in a decade (8,000 sq. km lost last year).

The basic point: with urbanization, increases in population, and the growth in income there's a lot of momentum leading us to disaster. Factor in the investments made into extraction (which are unlikely to be reversed) and the political climate (right-wing climate deniers) then it's hard to see how this is going to be slowed down (let alone reversed).

My own view?

After the Camps there wasn't much left to say about humans anyway. That is not to say that the end of our time here is a good thing but just to acknowledge that we have sown destruction on this beautiful planet of ours and that things are coming to a head. No wonder people are obsessed by post-humanity and artificial intelligence/robots.

I think we need to buckle down. A storm is going to come, and things are going to slide.    

I tumble through the season like a second-rate acrobat. Nerves all a-jangling; the inner wrist of certainty; time on your hands. Stand outside and read with an espresso, kit-kat. Christian Imagination, if you must. George Herbert.

And now I am here.

Hold the thin book up in one hand, to the faltering light. The sun retreats behind a cloud and darkness and stillness falls all around me. Gather what strength you can for the final lecture and then let it go, sail away. Don't dwell on anything for Christ's sake. Nothing to tie together or reflect upon. And now, a moment. Preparation. Lights. Trembling: In-action! The circus goes on.. 

~~~

Now I am here, what thou wilt do with me 

None of my books will show; 

I read, and sigh, and wish I were a tree, 

For sure then I should grow 

To fruit or shade: at least some bird would trust 

Her household to me, and I should be just. 

Yet, though thou troublest me, I must be meek; 

In weakness must be stout; 

Well, I will change the service, and go seek 

Some other master out. 

Ah my dear God! though I am clean forgot, 

Let me not love thee, if I love thee not. 

I grew up in a dark country, originally, sort of. Wales, my whore, with your old-time piers and last breath, made up of old forms and forgotten words. You arrived after so many detours and brief stints in old cities, hurtling to a stop in a second-hand maroon Anglia that cost 15 pounds back in the day. And witnessed, for what it was worth, the last remnants of a way of living that was about to disappear before everyone's weary eyes, a life whose key and timbre would enter no history book or official record. File under: 'Without Title' or 'Missing Persons'.

No-one arrived (or at least no-one left). Objectively speaking it was run down from day one and all the people seemed to be permanently tired. Borrowed time. The thriving port now a distant memory. Sunday roast and the obligatory ritual of boredom thereafter. Piece it all together and it doesn't amount to much, but what does? A few sharp memories, the dread of first days, but much else has sunk into oblivion. Wandering tribes have such fantastic features, Bellow wrote. Perhaps.

The familiarity of being a stranger to oneself, to the life you're living. First seeds sown in the dark right then. 

All cities look the same at dusk. Your hands stained with ink. Some of it smudges on the tightly arranged words in Anglican Identities. Perhaps that should be angular. Tyndale sounds like a wahabi. There must be patience, dry spells, an acceptance of absence- Lord help us. Nothing finds perfection; that's just the way it is. Speak, even though there's silence in your words, the silence that recalls other times.      

There is darkness in the morning. I don't know why. My books are scattered on the floor, on the desk. Why even bother with 'my'? The window is open. I hear birds chirping, a few stray notes from a guitar, distant but also close up if you know... I hear the silence of my own life and record it here, for you, as if you could tell it or you could hear it. 

There is darkness at eleven o'clock and I don't know why any more. The coffee was too bitter. Danish blue and walnuts. A quiet hour spent noting the thoughts of Finnis's Natural Law. Copy the words down in your hand until they're real. Old ways staying down below the lights keep the song of the world going, no matter how faint.

Eight hundred years of thought and commentaries, almost unbroken. The sky is older by a couple of billion. But the thought and not the theoretical formulation is older still. There is no time. 

The door to this phase of the year is closing. You'd take stock but all you got is a blank page and a blunt pencil. Why expend any effort. The birds are chirping in this mysterious darkening and there is laughter far away. Things roll by. Same as it ever.      

  

Galbraith anticipated the evolution of today’s capitalism. Rather than conceive of it as operating on the same “ market-force” principles as a medieval fair or Middle Eastern souk, where buyers and sellers interact to find prices that reflect preferences and scarcities, he thought of markets as cockpits for the interplay of concentrations of private corporate power. Prices would, of course, be manipulated; consumers and governments would be hoodwinked; employees could expect a raw deal.

What keeps executives, owners and politicians honest are embedded and strong institutions representing other forces – unions, strong consumer groups, independent regulators, checks and balances within companies and effective political parties as alternative governments-in-waiting.

Galbraith would not have been surprised at the degeneration of corporate culture worldwide: too much indulgence of greed as a market “incentive” and too much indulgence of market power dressed up as “wealth generation”. Investment banking (witness the latest fraud allegations against Goldman Sachs) is a particular cesspit. The institutions of countervailing power have been dismantled to allow “market forces” better to operate