my visit to the cswg made me aware of my anglican roots
I read William of Glasshampton the anglican cistercian.

This all relates rather remarkably with the history of Wales and also with the rather cynical history of Celtic Christianity (more spin than truth?) that I have been reading.
This also made me suddenly aware of the way in which the Catholic Church has more or less been parachuted into modern British history out of the Roman colleges.  
My initial reaction at this realisation was surprise.

What was it about Roman Catholicism that so attracted me? Was it, above all, loyalty to Father Edward and Worth? 
I owe them both a great deal. 
But something much more fundamental too. How can there ever be more than one church? and also, how can a national church be compatible with the gospel? 
So I would still have to convert - even now.
WIliliam of Glasshampton was surely inspired by our Anglo-Saxon heritage of Cuthbert and Bede. As am I.
I've said it before, Henry VIII has a great deal to answer for.

the beautiful iconoclasm of ezekiel:
gleaming sword.

today the psalms rang true:
echoing across ages.
words which condemn and save all at once.

it occurred to me again:
when we speak of you in the third person
arent we are already on the wrong path?

it's tempting to say that the blanket fog continues but I know that this is not actually true.
you speak in ways that I havent heard before and find it hard to recognise.
the need to tune into a different wave length.
psalms continue very hard: as though the words had been scrambled.
from somewhere (surely you?) a new determination but I have no idea why.

continuing with ezekiel.
vehement iconoclasm.
isnt this where my prayer is also?
shattering concepts

a little politics

why I cannot vote labour:
over-use of spin.
bullying political tactics.
the failure of blair's well-meaning policy of 'topdown':
look after the businesses and the money will flow downwards.
it worked to an extent in that, for a while, everyone was working though many on tiny wages which  were taxed disproportionately. fairness of a very strange kind.
an obsession with statistics and targetting - for purely political ends.
tax credits : a patronising, bureaucratic, highly confusing way of maintaining government control: encouraging poorer workers to doff cap in gratitude at hand-outs and therefore to vote labour again.
above all: labour's insatiable hunger for control at any price.
right-wing seepage, labour and conservative now sing from the same hymn-sheet particularly over benefits, justice, immigration and probably europe as well.
[jack straw played the innocent in questiontime this week over the question of immigration but labour have got steadily tougher to appease the right wing.
so labour aim to keep power by appeasing right wingers on the one hand and business on the other.
there is an urgent need for a viable alternative.

why I cannot vote conservative:
a year ago I was considering voting conservative just to oust brown but every time I hear the moderate conservatism of cameron I see his rightwingers lurking behind him to push an already extremely right wing country even further. he may prevent this from happening but the balance already needs redressing.

something has to be done to stop the erosion of parliamentary democracy and a hung parliament might actually help to do this.
a period of political volatility might help to focus us better towards a different kind of future, although, granted, there are risks.
both cameron and brown desire strong government but we've had two periods of overwhelmingly strong government under thatcher and blair. both did their utmost to limit the power of commons, lords and cabinet alike.
a hung parliament gives lib dems an opportunity to represent their voters in a way not possible for decades (ever?); an opportunity to upset the status quo and lead us potentially towards a new way of doing things.
three party politics might break a deadlock.
what do we have to lose?

I do agree with cameron that never again should an unelected prime minister be allowed to hold power for more than a few months.
I see no advantage in a democratic house of lords. the unelected lords are essential to counterbalance violent swings of public opinion. heaven help us if they ever become a way of rubber stamping shoddy and hurried government policy.
wasn't it the power of the lords which prevented both thatcher and blair from becoming irrepressible tyrants?

my time at caldey:
disorentiating.
no 'crisis of belonging' as in the past
but a different kind of focus lost.
this soon became a blanket fog.
I couldnt discern whether this was because of caldey or merely coincidental.
but on my final day, attending the early office became a focus in itself:
my way of giving.
so what I was seeking was to be found in my own response.
an act of will I suppose,
a phrase I've never understood before.

robert said: "it's the office that holds everything and everyone together".
(or words to that effect.)
opus dei.

my return yesterday, unlike other returns.
spiritual independence?
or perhaps something to do with 'creativity' again?
or just being me, over and against you?
its really hard to tell.
but certainly the strange sense of being lost continues
and again I feel myself fighting against an incoming tide.

all creativity is rooted in you.
but is it once you have been encountered 'at source' that any creativity which doesn't lead back to you seems somehow superfluous:
more hindrance than help?

overlapping languages might be the clue:
musical;
spiritual;
and the language of the everyday.

there is a way of singing the psalms which includes you
and a way that doesnt.

when I was playing well, there was also a way of playing that was somehow 'performance' rather than 'practice'.
(beyond me now).
the link between:
your presence in any creative act?

very vague again but persistent:
looking at jesus on the cross
I cannot say that I see God in jesus
but I can see God in the actions of jesus.
from there on isn't it just semantics?
questions of action and being.
lots more overlap

easter day:
a packed church,
silly happy music,
plenty of shuffling about.
joy

God of calamities

the easter liturgy: a wasteland

a few things today: including elephants again.

If I wrote a book today it would be called the heresy of science.
my little story wouldnt really fill a book though:
the scientist kills the butterfly in order to dissect it. If he then believes that he has come close to understanding the butterfly he is wrong because understanding and knowledge are not the same.
Man might eventually think that he understands almost everything. He will be more miserable and alone than ever because in truth he will have understood nothing at all.
I then wondered what that meaning of the word 'understanding' actually consisted of and it led me back to the old testament line:
'You gave him dominion over all the earth'
Understanding as dominion?
Except dominion in that sense has to do with domesticating the cow and the sheep rather more than splitting the atom or colliding particles.
It's fine to split atoms and collide particles. It's an essential part of who we are but, once the particles have been collided and the atoms split, the scientist must still head home to cook the dinner and look after his children.
the elephant thing:
Who could possibly imagine what an elephant looks like [even if someone described it very carefully to him] unless he has actually seen one.
If its so difficult with an elephant how much harder must it be with God?

In prayer, you eventually sweep away every preconception that we have.
For example, I once had this notion that prayer would make me a 'better person'. How bitter the pill to find out this is actually not true! Much later on, after some considerable apostasy, I realised that it wasn't that prayer wouldn't make me a better person, it's just that I had a totally false idea about what being a 'better person' actually meant.

Another thing: how could I write a book for someone I did not know? Wouldnt it be like writing a letter to a friend I didn't have? I know people do, it's just that I'm not sure how.

Another thing: I decided today that that symphony (B flat) was the last thing I needed to write and the questions it answered werent at all the questions that I thought I was asking. It was a relief to realise this.

Another thing which has been brewing for ages: the Anglo-saxon thing.
Bede and now Patrick. Then of course there is Cuthbert [and then there is the music. Why is it possible to relate the anglo-saxon thing to my music?
Not that it's essential to know. It really isn't. The link remains none the less. Its relevant to me right now because of my approaching visit to CWSG. Anglican hermits? Anglican in what sense?
What does anglican really mean? How deep is my Catholicism rooted? The link into catholicism was always more to do with a recognition of the inadequacy of my own anglican understanding coupled with my rejection of the notion of a nationalist church. There was also a strong artistic reason at the time which now alludes me completely bearing in mind the appalling state of specifically catholic art.
It wasn't about that of course as I know even now. It was more to do with an historical context.