It was a long journey, within the context of Christianity, that I began thinking about “what about everyone else in the world?”.  Indeed, what if the apparent exclusivity of “Christianity” was actually contrary to its own teachings?

I did become a baptised Catholic, as an adult and from no particular religious background (other than living in the UK and having had a “Christian” upbringing at school with some dreadful arguments in the home between parents who were directly opposed to each other’s beliefs), in the 1990’s after a personal journey of discovery through psychoanalysis whose foundation is based on Christian teachings and Jong’s development.  I was in a crisis of self development, with various neuroses and my world was not behaving.

It is nice to belong to a Church and find acceptance and a set of rules and teachings to abide by or aspire to.  In my own mind to be a “Christian” or a “Catholic” is not a given on being baptised.  It is a journey of discovery whilst using the teachings as a discipline of seeking.  Certainly, I hold the view still, that being a Catholic or an adherent to any faith is not one of exclusivity whatever might be claimed in the institutionalised world and its politics.  The word “Catholic” means “universal” and, if this is the case, then it includes everyone.  My neighbour is the Samaritan, whether or not s/he has my faith and whether or not I acknowledge her/him.

Of course, within the Church that I first joined in Nottingham, I found terms like “cradle Catholics” which included those from birth and not people like myself, who having chosen to take this step, were in some way secondary, but kindly treated like a raging sinner being saved from her folly! As if it were an end in itself.  My own seeking and annoying analytical approach led me into conflicts quite early on, in fact the priest was overtly against my joining, but as my character seems to include controversiality and confrontation (not necessarily blessings nor aspects which allow me to be politically correct), I couldn’t stop posing questions as to exclusivity, as to the Christian message being one of inclusivity but not necessarily being practised in that way.  Aside from inter-faith groupings (which is a laudable endeavour practised in various ways in society but more of a political approach than a fundamentally given approach, but better than nothing) the world shows us sects and rules thereof and we choose to be within one area.  Then we might spend the rest of our lives defending “it” as the “true” teaching, to the hilt.  It can be a lifetime’s work in itself because if we are busy defending a certain set of rules – irrespective of the fundamental teachings – we can take our religious life to be one of defence of it.  Then there is no room for self-reflection, questioning and taking a look around.  Then we can dismiss all other groups in the world and determine that they are yet to be saved. Ah, war.

It doesn’t make sense.  I do love the Jesuit part of the Catholic Church in that they are allowed to be the radicals within the fold;  and they do challenge so much.  They do accept all other teachings, using the central discipline of Catholicism to guide them through;  the central discipline does guide you through and it does include reincarnation, Buddhism, Islam, etc.  – some great works from Anthony de Mello (Jesuit writer and psychoanalyst) touch on all aspects and invite you to question your own set of prejudices about the world.  His psychoanalytical background (Jong based) led him to write many books and deliver many workshops in the UK, India and other places.  One of the sayings I constantly retain from one of his compilation books is this:

“Faith is about seeking the truth.  So it doesn’t matter if you lose all of your beliefs”.

This is my guiding principle.  Seemingly contradictory at face value, but extremely holistic in fact.

Briefly, the background to the Jesuits is wonderfully radical being started by St. Ignatius of Loyola, who was famously impolitic and so founded the “naughty” part of the Catholic family whose originally intended derisory name from the upper echelons of the Church “Jesuits” (as opposed to Society of Jesus) has stuck.  Within the context of the Catholic Church’s family, they are integral, if radical and outsiders – but the Catholic Church on earth has many roles and many facets – like any family – and its political as well as spiritual life seems to come into conflict with many people who take a rather narrow and uneducated view of it.  It, the Church, invites much criticism and bashing and I have had many experiences of finding that people tell me one thing or another about what the Catholics have done, shouldn’t do or ought to do, but when I enquire further of their argument, often find that their knowledge is limited to what is grasped from history, horrid nuns in a school (or worse Catholic institutions that locked people up for years, Catholic priests who did dreadful things to children) thrown around the press, society or what a secular view of the institution at face value, is.  This is not an essay on Catholicism – and I have done stuff about this elsewhere if you are interested, and I shall belt up on it right now – but I was touching on this facet here only to introduce the concepts of “universality” and “holism” and “being holistic” within my own journey.  It merely serves here to introduce “my baby in the bathwater”, I promise.

Belief then (as opposed to faith) is a difficult taskmaster because if our beliefs have been instilled through upbringing, conditioning and givens, it makes it difficult to disentangle what our unprejudiced views might be.  Indeed, to confront our own prejudices and to challenge within our own family or group might well mean being cast out. And we might not like ourselves. And that is a frightening prospect.  And fear is the debilitator so we can seek to avoid it at all costs, and just adhere to what we know and then we will be fine.

Except, we are not fine and that isn’t what it is about.  “It” being our life’s journey.  Our reason for being.  And if I am coming over to you as being “holier than thou” I can assure you that facing myself is the hugest ongoing difficulty that I have in my contrary, arrogant and utterly selfish world.  So when I read Chad Varah’s autobiography entitled “Before I die again”, in my little world of believing that this is it and there is no such thing as reincarnation, it threw me into perplexity.  That he was a priest – a Christian – and he was putting forward this as a fact, a given, something that he knew deeply and without even defending his approach, only compounded my exclamation.  So began my ongoing search to open up to other things, other views of the world.  And I found and find that I don’t have to throw the baby out with the bathwater;  that in opening up to the multitude of cultures and religions doesn’t preclude throwing away a discipline.  In fact, it supports the discipline of learning and seeking.  “Seek and ye shall find, knock and the door will be opened, ask and it shall be given” is holistic.  It invites us to go forward, not to stand still, not to defend something for the hell of it, but to stop defending and to start learning.

So embracing Buddhism, Islam, Yoga, the Bhagavad Gita, energy work (with people like Barbara Brennan) and much more is not against the Will of God, the Source, the All Embracing Love – whatever term suits – they provide insights and a very good evolutionary and historical context to what is.  Secularism and its disregarding of institutionalised religion incorporates a human kind approach with “kind” being a key word.  So I do not have to subscribe to any particular view, belief or prejudice, I can open up in an holistic manner to include and discern.  Every person is on his or her journey so I can learn from them, whatever background has formed their way.

“Holism” is a word I first encountered when studying “Systems Philosophy” because a key fellow called Count Von Bertanlanffy, in its development (as a management science) once pointed out that “systems” was the wrong word to use, that it had been a huge mistake to adopt it because whereas “systems” is exclusive and on a straight line basis (as in information systems and computers), the philosophy was not thus.  It was a way of approaching the multitude of facets in organisational contexts in an holistic manner. So that Holistic Philosopy, which was correct, unfortunately got mislaid.  That is, to say that looking at the way things work requires an approach to include the soft facets (holisms) of life including culture, and not narrowly defined which “system” tends to imply.  Still, it is the word “systems” which has remained and indeed means that the academic institutions have shoved this philosophy below the Information Engineering heading and therefore subjected it to the ego of the hard, engineering orientated world approach of defined narrowness.  The world’s ego can get rid of uncomfortable openings by subjecting all to a more narrow methodology that sells systems and makes companies rich and viable.  And fits us into square or round holes from where we can fire arrows at each other.

Of course “holy”, “whole” and “hole” lead me to “holistic” and “holism” and I find no discrepancy of bridging between them all.  “Holy” implies to me to “become whole” or aspire to becoming whole, complete.  Falling down our “holes” may help us towards becoming “whole”.

“Holistic” is not a brand, it is an approach which is all inclusive and wide, requiring an open mind and an open heart.  So then, is being “holy”.

Gandhi once replied when he was asked if he was “Hindu”, words to the effect of “Yes, and I am Christian, and Muslim…” because he had realised that the source was the same;  he also pointed out that when we find some ritualistic pronouncement within any apparent “teaching” at odds with the overall search, then it is to be discerned, with intelligence, and discarded if it implies exclusivity because it is not right and an interpretation loaded with the prejudice of a narrow approach.  As in anything else in life, we use our own discernment to determine what is what.  And we can be mistaken, change our approach over and over, and so we can learn from our mistakes as an ongoing fundamental search.  Flexibility, not rigidity, then.

Healing and spirituality lead us into many avenues that might put us at odds with our original conditioning or views, whether secular or religious.  Then so be it – spirituality and becoming aware of the other dimensions around us, the process of healing as an ongoing journey to becoming whole – requires us to challenge ourselves.  The world of angels, ascending masters, quantum physics even, opens us up to more of the dimensions in the universe, the realisation that karma and sin might be one and the same and are not for ever damning.  That the balance of karma and sin (think of Michael the Archangel with his scales) is the same message perhaps.  To feel uncomfortable in the context of “holisms” and to move forward in an “holistic” manner is good.  Outside of our comfort zone is where we actually learn;  inside it we are protected by our prejudices (to pre judge) and conditionings.  We can argue until Kingdom come that this one way is right and that one, that one over there is wrong, because we believe it to be so.  And that takes all of our life and effort and, whilst keeping us comfortable and argumentative, wears us out with narrowness and division.

If we consider the time context of Buddha and Christ and Islam (to name but three for now) there is no conflict either in history or in truth.  If we choose to see the divisions, then we are choosing to subscribe to the illusion.  If we choose to see the compatibilities, then we are choosing to throw away the illusion just for long enough to see some light.  If you are happy with “Jagadamba”, “Queen of the Universe” or “Mary the Mother of God” or “Maternal Love”, or none of the above then so am I, why waste valuable learning time shouting the odds of what our objects – as in names which are so inadequate in defining what we might allude to – mean to us?  Objects define the undefinable, just to give us a way of expressing the inexpressible.

Like most of us, there have been keenly difficult times in my life, when my perspective has been shifted radically.  Times, when we question what it is all about.  When we are thrown off our pedestals, when chronic misfortune comes knocking on our doors challenging all that we hold dear, whilst wanting to run back inside and hide away, it offers us a way forward.

Having angels or spirits or guides and holism in our lives is not an easy way.  This wise poem from an ancient, Persian, Islam, Sufi in the 13^th Century, called Rumi says it all:

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

A Joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture,

still, treat each guest honourably.

He may be clearing you out for some new delight.

(Rumi’s importance is considered to transcend national and ethnic borders – from Wikipedia)

So being “holistic” is not having found the beginning and the end, it is about having found my way forward.  And my ways forward have come usually through some crisis, often through pondering upon (as opposed to “thinking about”) spiritual ideas, mistakes, grievances, behaviour, politics, anecdotes, humour, the devil, the demon, the sacraments, icons (visual prayer as opposed to verbal prayer), meditation, the angst of life’s joys and sorrows, my own disgust with my prejudices and those of others, or sheer bloody-mindedness.  It isn’t about being “nice” it is about challenging the status quo and suffering exclusion, being cast out and learning to be alone whilst never being alone. Crisis and joy are great teachers and being holistic in our approach leads us forward.  My allegiance towards being told what to do and what to think, within the Catholic faith and by someone who knows better than I, has gone; but to listen to what is being told by anyone, at an inclusive level and with an open heart, might teach me something and help aid my journey.

A friend that I met on a past life regression course in America told me the following story about a friend of hers who’d gone to a Buddha Master in India for enlightenment. After a long while waiting in the queue, he approached the Master in sombre and serious mode, and sat in front of the closed-eyed Master waiting for his sublime message, with due reverence and a deep crease in his brow.  Eventually, the Master looked directly at him, and swiftly poked his finger into his forehead saying “Lighten up, asshole!”.

(© 2011 Eileen Baker)

To take the stance on contraception, it seems that we can blame the Church for the over-population we perceive, resulting in poverty and misery for want of a simple answer:  contraception. But this assumes a logical process of thought whereby everything has a direct answer. In political and poverty terms it is argued that contraception is the answer. Seems simplistic does that.

The Church has a wider role than merely reacting to issues on a simplistic basis. The issue of “allowing” a ruling according to the needs of the political aspects on earth is not about the Church responding to the world view of the problem. It is about the wider issues of life in relation to the greater journey. If it were so simple as to get the Church to directly react to a world problem on the political stage, then its position as a wider body of contemplation in line with higher aspirations in the world spiritual sphere would change intrinsically. If the Church decreed that contraception was the answer to solving or containing world poverty, then that would imply that it was the proper answer for now and always complete in itself. If enlightenment and world peace are subject to simple decrees, then the Church merely becomes a tool for application of the perceived world answer to a perceived world problem.

Whether we agree or disagree with a stance is irrelevant; it is whether we can appreciate a wider view. The Church has a political role on earth as it is looked to to offer guidance in the way we live in relation to political governance. It could easily conform or change to whichever political views preside in any age. But its purpose is to provide a balance and to rise above narrow world political notions of what is right or wrong.

What if we perceive the argument to be more related to the way we treat each other, the level of respect we hold for each other in terms of equality of respect – do we really respect others as we respect ourselves? Then education and development is the answer, not a mechanical response to the symptom – which is what absolute promotion of contraception against poverty assumes.

Within any organisation, be it political or Church orientated, there will be corruption and narrow perceptions based on personal, national or international drivers. Where the Church has been found lacking in suppressing its own ills, as in the dreadful cases of abuse of children, it should be made known and exposed for what it is. This goes in inside as well as outside of the Church, as it might in any institution. And all corruption when it is exposed shows a successful development of being enlightened and facing the truth. If that happens within the Church then it shows that the Church is continuing to develop, that it is now enabled to expose the truth as it should – as within so without in the world. We can liken it to our own individual journeys whereby we come to terms with facets of ourselves instead of continuing to deny them, pretending that we are already totally good and in no need of development.

To view an entire institution and its ideals against all of the problems in the world, and how it affects them within the narrow confines of given decrees and without knowing anything else about its reason for being, is not appropriate. Within the Church, as within any family or organisation, there is conflict, disagreement, politics and strife; it is human and has failings. Its ideals will remain to be striven for and its conscience and understanding will continue to develop and evolve. The Church provides us with vehicles of attaining learning, discipleship and developing – ultimately to take responsibility for ourselves and to consider issues with pity, rather than follow an absolute rule book. Whatever we gain from a Church will be based on our own intent and seeking.

As an individual member of a Church, you might choose to agree or disagree with certain facets, according to your own point of view and your own development. You might choose for contraception at a personal level, which is allowed in your life according to your conscience and according to the freedoms you might enjoy in society, but it shouldn’t preclude you from being part of a Church whose ultimate stance on contraception appears to be directly against your choice. In a relatively developed society which embraces many facets outside of church thinking, we have many more choices than those where rules have to be adhered to for the sake of the rules. The development of societies is based on wider thinking and wider freedoms of choice, usually afforded us when the society is rich enough economically to support wider education and knowledge.

(© 2010 Eileen Baker)

I was in some desperation;  my son’s illness had come back again.

So, I asked him “What do I have to do?”  I was desperate for instructions.

And I startlingly got an answer.  From somewhere inside – but they weren’t mine – came these words:

“Eileen, it is not what you must do, it is what you must be”.

That was a bit of a shock. My name was spoken, it was a direct response to my question.  It made me wonder what on earth it meant.  But, I had asked and I had got an answer.

Quite startled that these words came up inside of me, I was left dumbfounded.  So away I went and pondered for a long time on this message.  What did it mean?  I mean, living is about doing isn’t it?  Isn’t it about what we do?  Blah, blah etc. etc.  but I began to realise that there is a very clear distinction between doing and being.  Easy to confuse are they and I hadn’t really discerned the difference between the two verbs before.

Eventually, during the same year some months later on I was back at the abbey and I went to the shrine and I said this:  “Ok, then, I have pondered the differences between doing and being, so what must I be?”  And this answer came back:

“Be still.  Listen.  Be a vessel.”

Dumbfounded, off I went again and just pondered upon this message for a long, long time and I remain pondering on both messages to this day.  But, gradually, it came through to me that by being still and listening I was actually becoming a vessel for presence.  This means that without interfering and “doing something” about something, I was just becoming aware and being there without thought, without judging the situation and without providing a solution.  Just being there and being aware.

Part of the changes in my life included taking positive steps towards keeping in contact with people that I had hitherto dismissed;  that is doing but it is directed from the source, the spirit, the real being of who you are and when this facet directs your actions, it is different and not judging, not trying to persuade someone to do something different, but just by being in contact, listening and speaking of things of common interest.  No, if and then, just being.

Similarly, with the whole situation around my son, I began to detatch from the situation insofar as not giving opinionated thoughts and judgements, I just was fully there in the present and lived each moment thus whilst being aware that I was following the discipline, the messages which came via that shrine.

So there I had it.  A fundamental shift in my ‘being’.

God speaks to us;  we just have to listen.

This occurrence was so baffling, so new to me that I have pondered it ever since.  But I know that it happened and I know also that I could not have come up with either response.

Miracles are not necessarily with divine lights and seeing images and witnessing a change from the normal order of things around us. They are subtle, gentle avenues to changes in our perception.  Mine began to change after I’d desperately sought an answer.  but I had thought it would be an answer of “do this, that and the other”.  And it wasn’t.  It was a call to reflect inwardly, to ponder, to be.

The miracle remains.  I am changing in a way that having read such a thing in a book might not have “spoken” to me.  But in the way that I have been encouraged to look further within at my own being, at my own witnessing and at my own presence being a conduit to the sublime, as opposed to blocking it by my “doings”.

To be; to recognise oneself as being without doing.  To come from the being and not from the doing, elicits ultimate enlightened doing instead of thought-directed doing;  as in cause, effect.  If I do this then that.   It is about learning to be still within instead of trying to control through action and doing.  So the quotation from Descartes “I think, therefore I am” is challenged and overcome.  ”I am” is about the being, and “I think” is about the doing.  Thinking is of itself the beginning of the problem, the process of thought as in philosophy leads us down to sorrow and depression.  Being takes us to the place of quietness, stillness, the place without doing or thinking.

It is a hard lesson and one which continues; I often fail, but I keep trying and I have those words within my heart  for ever now.

Thanks be to God.

(© 2010 Eileen Baker)

I am with the sinners. Straight up, might as well face it. That is, to be aware of being a sinner and that being saved has nothing to do with how good we judge that we are, or can become. In the gospels: MAT 10, 9-13 MRK 3, 15-17 LUKE 5, 27-32 Matthew (also known as Levi) the tax collector was an outcast in his own community and he frequented with other outcasts (sinners). He knew that he did not live in the ways of God; neither do I.

But it is not something that you can gain overnight, it takes time and discipleship and, anyway, there will be the element of not having that completeness – we remain  imperfect – even if we spend all of our lives trying; if we ever judge ourselves to be what Christ asked us to be, then we have already failed because we do not have the God given right to judge ourselves or anyone else on earth. And that means anyone from any family, village, city, race, nation or religion.

Matthew felt that he was an outcast because he had done wrong in the eyes of other Jews and they judged him to be a sinner; I feel this way but I also am guilty of judging others. And Matthew did that too. The others – who judged him -were sinners too but they didn’t judge themselves that way, yet they judged Matthew and his crowd. At a behavioural level we judge people and let ourselves off the hook with our comparisons. Christ saw Matthew’s self-honesty.

Herein lies the truth then. It is in becoming knowledgeable that we are living without  God in our Spirit , we are aware of some of our flaws, so we can begin not to judge others. This truth is liberating to ourself and to others. To put it into practice though takes time and patience with oneself. Yet, herein is the path, the way.

There is absolutely no religion, including Christianity, that requires anyone to “defend” it. By forcing views or forcing arms we pretend it is our defence of something Holy, but it isn’t. All we have to do is live it out. Live it. Instead of telling everyone else what to “do”, we become our own best teacher and pupil and save everyone else from hearing our boring views of the world including our damning judgements.

By doing this, we become aware of our own block to God  and thereby are given a lifeline and a life time to heal the disconnections. That’s it. We do not need to turn into the Christ or even into a Saint, or into even an orthodox Holy person. We simply are required to look within, to try hard to be honest with ourselves and to allow the honesty and its truth to work within. There is no need to judge anyone else according to our behaviours and our opinions – upon whose prejudices indeed, do we base our opinions? Picking out the plank in our own eye, is preferable indeed to seeking to pick out the splinters in others eyes.  We have more than enough for a lifetime’s work in attending to ourselves.

So Saint Matthew gives all of us the hope of personal honesty, truth and the beginning of becoming non-judgemental. To judge is to sin and yet we do it all the time and make our excuses. But still, when we become aware of what we are doing , then we are becoming honest with ourselves. That is a great act of the beginning of healing and wholeness. Even though we may still fall a thousand times a day by finding ourselves judging again, but that we are aware that we do this, is part of the healing process. To be aware. To be honest with ourselves and not to pretend that we are good or Holier than thou or him or her.

In this then, I feel a unity with Saint Matthew; I can be a right mess; highly misguided; fallen; in denial; pretending to try to be “good” in my own judgement; defending my behaviour by comparing it with others. But still enabled to find my way, however many times I might make another right mess of it. Just being aware is an enlightenment. A small flicker of light that might now be enabled to grow.

So I’m with the sinners.  On fear of death?  No.  On accepting life as it is. Yes, and a right bloody mess I am too!

(© 2009 Eileen Baker)

(© 2009 Eileen Baker)

There is the greatest of difficulties for me to understand myself.

I am full of contradictions.

My Mother said once that I was “…so contrary” when I was a small child.

I never forgot this even though I did not then understand.

Now I know that she is right and it has taken me most of my life to figure this one out.

I am a person of extremes.

All or nothing.

Nothing in between.

No indifference to passionate witness even if I can now be indifferent to where my path leads.

I believe in heady beauty, caring, soulfulness, journeying, seeking and casting out the blockages on the way.

I have found much in myself over the years of human-based limitations including selfishness, vanity, pride, derision of others to increase my self-esteem, seeking self-aggrandisement, money, career (didn’t do very well anyway as they shoot away from me like animated beings), hastily seeking elevation at the cost of others and because I thought that life was too short and that we had to have everything in our thirties, narrow-minded prejudices or beliefs, arrogance and much more so it is no wonder that I was deeply unhappy. Awareness of this state leads me through, but recognition of my inadequacies leaves me desperately sad as I realise that it is no good pointing out the shortcomings of others without facing oneself and one’s own disabilities (which is what they are) full on.

Awareness of another side of me recalls even now that the most beautiful moments have been selfless ones whose vibrations have remained with me as a comfort and pricked my conscience during the full on war of my psyche (our deluder the ego) rushing to save its own life through its human limitations. Such painful awareness.

But that awareness is also liberating and enlightening and it is always a joy and an unfathomable wonder that I am brought to tears by the sight of a bird busily enjoying the contents of a camellia’s bloom (right now out of my window) and by seeing things through a spiritual eye.

Like the wisteria’s main stem and shoulders on the terrace’s structure – it looks like Christ on the cross.

Like the mandarin oranges with stalks and leaves in the tubular steel’s skeletal fruit bowl, whose shadow casts Christ’s crown of thorns.

Like the beautiful shell which I put into a glass vessel in its vertical length and becomes quite miraculously an image of Mary with Christ on her lap when I light the candle beneath it.

Like the object across the road through a window from my flat some years’ ago whose dark evening shape reminded me so much of Mary looking towards me and not letting me go even whilst I pursued something entirely selfish; eventually I realised that it was a fire extinguisher on someone’s wall and hoped that they hadn’t seen me straining to work it out!

And then again, the highly witty and sarcastic comedy programmes on the television are those which I thrive on too, like “Have I got news for you” and “Black Adder” and “Father Ted” (to name but a few) – that direct, no beating about the bush humour on the truth of a political matter.  Is that contrary?  Possibly, but I wouldn’t want to lose that type of humour which allows fun to be poked at The Establishment and myself – who take themselves too seriously anyway.  It requires facing the truth of a matter, its substance and the greatest of humour is that which takes you into its darkness, its shadows of the reality on life.

Like so many shadows cast across the pathways, the roads, the gardens, the seaside; shadows of light and of dark showing me other insights, other dimensions and knowing that all of these are the whispering and teasing of the Spirit calling you back, calling you to come, to live for ever to come back to forever and for everything and everyone and not for yourself.

And the wonder and pain of recognising that one has been a complete fool for so long (and still is one) that it hardly bears thinking about, unless I can laugh about it and have my wine and my cigarette!

If I judge myself under my own, careful, highly analytical scrutiny, I shall surely be guilty and lost and my conditional ongoing life would be a huge burden. In fact, it is a huge burden.

But God is not so hard, forgiving you without condition. The Christ took everything upon himself including the humiliation, the mockery, the violence, the scheming, the politics, the degradation, the pain (everything that we give to each other on earth for our own narrow ends) and ultimately this ego-linked human state was crushed and only wide eyed clear seeing love was left. That was the sacrifice, to redeem our human, ego-directed narrowness and its ultimate evil of self-deceit.  And leaving us with a sense of humour to handle our own inadequacies, at least enables us to see the funny side of ourselves and others, at the same time.  Is this irreverent? To hold sorrow, joy, hypocrisy, betrayal, inadequacy, false witness, misjudgement and huge sacrifice alongside great humour and self-awareness, is it really possible to face our own self? To see the truth of the matter?

Is the act of facing God the act of facing ourself?  Do we avoid our own judgement on our own true state?

I am unable to understand myself at all.

Physical, outward, behavioural manifestations of my own internal conflict is that I believe passionately in good, healthy food and good, healthy exercise and yet I love to smoke and drink, deeply, the beautiful red wine to a heady, enjoyable state. It these are not contradictions then I do not know what is! I live within such deeply divided boundaries that it is often a constant wrangle with myself. I can argue with myself and provide every, single reasoning from both sides and make no absolute decision for longer than a day. I can ignore my own advice and be liberal in advising others what to do, so that I have to stand back at my utter hypocrisy. I believe in goodness and peace and not in war and yet my very living actions are not contributing to this state however much I might seek to pretend that they are not. Pretence is a good companion and allows your ego to walk forward, head held high whilst deep within you know that it is not a true external presentation of yourself to the world. It is false but it helps me function in the world. “Contrary” is the very word and I marvel still how my Mother fathomed that one at such a very, very young age.

I didn’t work it out myself until relatively recently and am now wrestling with it but at least I am aware. Perhaps that will lead me forwards. . . .honesty develops and liberates you (and hones your sense of humour) but equally it makes you a huge outsider because you cannot function any more in cliques or in clichés -, always feeling the narrowness, the group demands, the restrictive codes. And often putting your foot in it by offending sensibilities and not doing what is “expected” or “socially acceptable” because you are not seeking approval any more. Does it really matter that you are “liked”? Or “accepted” on certain conditions? Is living a life where we seek approval and admiration from others a life worth living for those ends?  Don’t ask me, I am too busy struggling with myself.

To walk a long road with few local companions. Is that preferable to a cackling crowd?

Perhaps the other side of my nature, the pleasurable one of drinking and smoking gives me some respite, like they are my crutches in life. Yes I am as disabled as anyone who is crippled. But sometimes I soar to the heights of laughter and resonating with the good earth, its land, its yield, the air, the sea – I can be heady with the joy of living of high hope and utterly devoid of the darkness.

These two extremes then am I.

(© 2009 Eileen Baker)

It can’t ever be about the truth because where ever you have two people pursuing political aims, you have the beginning of the deceit; where you have three, you have the beginning of siding with the one most able to press your own buttons. The truth gets lost in the interests of self-interest.

If there is a politician who is capable of standing up impartially for the truth, then their party will get rid of them as they are of no use to party-interests and narrow national interests.

So those who are left are the ones who will act in self-interest, party-interest and national interest, in that order.

There are always people looking for a podium upon which to place their particular inadequacy or “chip on their shoulder”, so that they can ‘become’ “something important”. Clubs with members and political parties are good places to do this as you can practise on all kinds of people, press buttons, get alliances, build walls (or bridges) and generally give yourself a reason to live. Which means that they are sad people; politicians who get ‘somewhere’ in national politics are the cream of the notoriously inadequate with good suits on and expense accounts.

Don’t be deceived by their education, intelligence or presentational skills.  But then perhaps we do get the governments we deserve and, if that is so, there is more to this than just determining that politicians are a sad, bad bunch.   The other side to this has to be considered and shall be as in do we really determine the type of people who become our politicians because our own desires and truths are other than those that we profess to hold?  If that is so then there is a whole different story to this and it shall come as the counterbalance to this one.  Pondering as ever. . .(© 2008 Eileen Baker)

Happily, I really do not think that it is necessary to feel inadequate or incapable when life’s material presence intervenes and drags us back down again; when we feel like we have totally missed the point so we might as well give up.

There are many saints who have grappled with the struggle between what I want and what God wants or what we think God wants. Those normal, everyday feelings when we feel anger, bitterness, jealousy, desire, selfishness (and witness these things from others and actually enjoy them) and plain can’t be bothered will keep intervening because it is normal and human. Our addictions to whatever substances, our cravings for certain circumstances for a bit of a jolly, a bit of respite are part of who we are. Whether ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ in whoever’s perspective they are part of who we are. And most saints were not aware that they were saints, remember; this title was given many years after their death, after deep consideration of their lives by other people, many years beyond their life.

I really do find the company of people with acknowledged and embraced shortcomings and vices far more comfortable and even elevating than the company of people who seem to have no vices at all. The reason for this is that they are more likely to accept you as you are, with your vice or shortcoming. To be with someone who seems to have conquered all desire, all attachments to this world whilst you struggle on can be daunting. I am not saying it can’t be elevating and create aspirations but after a good read through a chapter of The Power of Now, I would still like to pour out some wine and have a cigarette to reflect on it. Well, I haven’t got very far with letting go then have I?

Probably not.

But I do believe that a very practical way of moving forward at all, is to live from where we are right now. We cannot possibly start from anywhere else can we? As the Irish man said to you when you asked the way from here to there: “well, if you want to go there, I wouldn’t start from here!”. But where else can we start from? Indeed, do we want to go anywhere at all?

Realisation over the years of times of grace, enlightenment, some visions, signs, dreams, ponderings and changing perspectives within the context of the very hard reality of every day life and how I fall short most times, including creating very difficult circumstances within that context, actually helps me just try to be content with who I am right now, in the present reality including what I think it is, which might, indeed, be wrong. But it is all I have. And I shall start from here even if I get stuck.

Like any multi-faceted stone, a diamond, some facets are highly polished and some are very rough and dull but they each make up the whole. We are like a diamond; there is a desire to live through the highly polished facets and appear to be all that way. But outsiders will see those other facets too, even if we refuse to and that is arrogance. I know all about arrogance, selfishness, cowardice, haughtiness, lack of compassion as I have them all in huge measure. That’s a lot to come to terms with but maybe whilst I am doing that, I will leave other people’s shortcomings alone. Perhaps by trying to address the huge plank in my own eye, I shall not endeavour to take out the splinter in someone else’s. And a diamond is for ever, remember.

It’s a start anyway. The power of being not quite there is quite substantial, in itself.

(© 2008 Eileen Baker)