Feeling somewhat pagan we lit some candles by our vegetable patch and discussed what we’d like to grow this year. Consensus was carrots, lettuce, onions, spinach, beans and rocket. We also have raspberry bushes and several apple and pear trees. The kids have been instructed to turn a spade in the newly composted soil when they get home from school tomorrow.

Life got in the way of doing Twelfth Night justice yesterday, although I was fortunate to attend and speak at an Epiphany service at Worcester Cathedral. We did hold off until yesterday to take down our Christmas decorations — it’s a shame that Christmas now seems to peter out at New Year. Becky made us some traditional “Lamb’s Wool,” a warm, wassail-like drink where the apple pulp is supposed to look a little like wool. Here’s M. enjoying her cup:

I don’t have the data, but my sense is that we have less bonfires today. My dad tells me it’s because a public bonfire requires liability insurance. Whether that’s true or not, the spectre of health and safety is enough to put off people like the Scouts from exercising their pyromania for the public benefit. There are still public bonfires, but they usually cost quite a few bob to enjoy (presumably to pay for the insurance?).

Our neighbours had a bonfire in their garden, the ash from which covers my car today (grrrrrr). And there were plenty of fireworks shooting off from back gardens (including ours to the right to suitably entertain the kids. But it’s precisely the retreat to privacy that bothers me. Bonfire Night celebrates all that is a bit barmy about England and we are in danger of losing it, especially with that stupid Americanised Halloween that comes a week earlier.

I wanted to be loved because I was great; a big man. I’m nothing. Look at the glory around us; trees, birds. I lived in shame. I dishonored it all, and didn’t notice the glory. I’m a foolish man.

- Mr. O’Brien (Tree of Life)

Let us not get carried away here: Cnicht (from the old English for knight) is a small hill some 3800m (!) smaller than the Matterhorn and can be conquered in a little less than 1 1/2 hours up and down if you motor it. But we British have long appreciated that bigger is not always better and Cnicht’s steep final ascent and wild hinterland serve as a perfect introduction to the joys of the Welsh hills.

Start at Croesor (SH6344) and follow the well-signposted path up the mountain. Clear skies will mean views north to Snowdon and south  to the Irish Sea and the Lleyn peninsula. The ruined slate quarry in the adjacent valley will have you practising your Elvish as you search for the entrance to the Mines of Moria: “Pedo mellon a minno!” Prepare to fight the balrog on the way out.

3 miles, 1800 ft ascent.

(Some great pictures.)

A reading from Zechariah 8:16-17

These are the things that you shall do: Speak the truth to one another, render in your gates judgements that are true and make for peace, do not devise evil in your hearts against one another, and love no false oath; for all these are things that I hate, says the Lord.

A reading from Philippians 4:8-9

Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.

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It cannot have escaped your attention, unless you do truly spend all of your time playing Football Manager doing homework, that a popular revolution has just swept Egypt, ousting the president and laying the foundation, we hope, for democratic elections later in the year. Mobilised through Facebook and Twitter, the youth of Egypt have inspired us all and struck fear in the hearts of despots throughout the region.

I love the Middle East and would like to tell you something of my own travels in Syria. A few months after we married in 1999, and with son one safely deposited in utero, my wife and I travelled around Syria. We visited museums in Damascus and Aleppo, archaeological sites on the banks of the Euphrates, and crusader fortresses high up in the anti-Lebanon mountains. The worst thing that happened was a severe case of Hammurabi’s revenge gained from eating dodgy bedouin food in the desert near Palmyra. The good things are too innumerable to list. Here are a couple:

Somewhere outside of Homs, just as we entered the Syrian desert, our rental car overheated. The rental had not come with Syrian RAC, so we sat there grimly wondering what the hell we would do. A local guy on his moped pulled up and offered to help. We ended up riding around various desert villages looking for parts which he then duly used to fix the car, offering us dinner at his home in the meantime. He refused payment.

Syrian hospitality also informs the second story. Rebecca flew home from Damascus a week before I did. One afternoon I was strolling back from reading newspapers at the British Council when a Syrian man approached me and invited me for coffee. He was a lawyer and wanted to speak English. We chatted for a while and he eventually brought me to his home to meet the family. He lived in the mountains outside Damascus where we spent the evening eating, laughing, and watching CNN. His whole extended family came to the home to meet me and I ended up staying the night in their guest room.

To this day, I remain deeply impressed by the friendliness and hospitality of Syrians. I could tell other stories — like the one where I ate dinner with a work crew at Damascus airport (my flight left at 3am) — but these will suffice. I have had similar experiences in Egypt, Turkey, and Israel. I remember arriving back in Heathrow and feeling deflated by the busyness and isolation of my own culture. There is no way in hell that I would eat and drink with some random stranger who approached me on a London street, let alone sleep in their home. And yet in Syria it felt perfectly natural and utterly safe. You would have to have been there to fully understand.

Most people thought we were insane to spend any time in Syria. Vague ideas about Arab/Muslim violence, Syria’s support of Hezbollah, and the Assad dictatorship, translate in many people’s minds to a country where westerners would be lucky to retain their heads. This notion will only have increased since 2001. It is, of course, utter nonsense, completely opposite to my own experience and that of many others who have enjoyed Syria.

We have a tendency to judge things by the worst in them. For Syria, we condemn a whole people because of their government and the sins committed by a few of their Muslim brethren. We fail to recognise that we would fall by the same sword. I like to think that my lawyer friend remembers me as a friendly Englishman who enjoyed an evening of shared humanity with him, and not as the caricature (deserved or not) of an empire-hungry, Muslim-hating, morally decadent crusader that is a popular Arab view of the generic westerner.

We so often take the worst and judge the whole. Roman Catholicism is defamed because of the sins of medieval popes; the Church of England is brushed aside because of Henry VIII’s foibles; Mormons are mocked because of Joseph Smith’s polygamy;  Jews have suffered centuries of abuse because of what was perceived to be the crimes of a handful of their leaders two millennia ago.

The admonition of Paul asks us to instead seek out the best in people, in cultures, in religions, and in philosophies; to seek out the true, the honourable, the just, the pure, the pleasing, the commendable, the excellent, the praiseworthy.

In Egypt, Muslims and Christians did exactly that. Rather than dwell on the theological and cultural differences that divide them, important though they are, they instead worked to promote a common good for all Egypt. A month or so ago, after a Coptic Christian church was bombed by Islamist extremists, many Muslims attended Coptic services to act as human shields. During the Tahrir square protests, Christians similarly protected Muslims from the police during prayers.

I do not wish to be naive. Christian/Muslim relationships are often poor and I suspect this will continue, alas. The revolution in Egypt also remains a fragile thing. However, it seems to me that when we seek the best in each other, good things, remarkable things can happen.

It took me some time to take to Brecht. I always liked the Three Penny Opera but had trouble with Mother Courage. Growing up at the iron curtain, I wanted to support the state and the armed forces that protected us from communist tyranny.

Mother Courage depicts how war grinds up human beings regardless of their efforts. After the oldest son Eiliff gets impressed, he is so efficient in killing peasants and their cattle that the general acknowledges Eiliff’s service, only to execute the boy later for killing peasants and their cattle. Trying to save his regiment’s pay box, Swiss Cheese, the second son, gets tortured and killed by the victorious enemies who want the money.

His mother cannot acknowledge her son’s corpse for fear of sharing the same fate and has to witness the disposal of the body in a ditch. Mother Courage’s last child Kattie is shot to death by the invaders when she heroically warns the townsfolk of a nightly attack.

Even Mother Courage has kept her head down, by the end of the war, she is childless and destitute.

The lesson of Mother Courage is that no matter what you do and no matter what you choose, war will chew you up. War’s virtues, obedience, loyalty, and bravery, will not save you either. War will impoverish you, disfigure you, dishonor you, and kill you like Eiliff, Swiss Cheese, and Kattie. And if you survive, you will be destitute and deprived of your loved ones like Mother Courage.

As human agency has become meaningless, life becomes a matter of fate. War crushes everyone’s humanity.

Berthold Brecht wrote Mother Courage presumably in response of Hitler’s invasion of Poland. As an opponent of the regime, he had to go into exile, which would eventually take him to America. While his composer Kurt Weill was a great success, Brecht did not like it in the United States. In part, that must have been due to the trauma of exile. In part, neither Hollywood nor Broadway were be hospitable to an author Brecht’s caliber.

Eventually, Brecht returned to Germany where the communists wooed and celebrated him. He settled in the Soviet zone to do his part in building a new world according to Marxist ideals. When Soviet troops bloodily suppressed worker unrest on June 17, 1953, Brecht expressed solidarity with the communist regime while counseling better treatment of the workers.

The dictators, of course, only published a censored version of his letter that redacted Brecht’s argument in favor of German workers and emphasized his support for the regime, which “discredited Brecht with lasting effect.”

I can only imagine what Brecht must have felt like when his dream of a better world became a nightmare. It is tragic that a man whose plays embraced the brutality of life so courageously did not recognize the Stalinist illusion and put himself into a situation where he became a tool in the service of others.

But speaking of illusions, during the cold war, I did not muster the courage to acknowledge the brutal nature of war. Berthold Brecht was right. Rendering our choices futile, war is the end of humanity.

One of the eye opening moments for me was when I learned the British sailors who defeated Spain’s grand armada had to remain on board of the ships where almost all of them perished from disease and malnutrition while the rest of the country thanked God for the victory.

Although, veterans’ treatment today does not compare to anything like that, the politics of taking care of soldiers properly remains intractable and we still have not figured out how to provide for veterans properly and reliably.

It took us over 15 years after the end of the Vietnam War before we reliably provided treatment for veterans who suffered from agent orange poisoning. In the current war, we did not fully fund the Veterans Administration and soldiers’ health care until the 2007 budget, over five years into the war. And we refused comprehensive health care to members of the national guard and their families even if they served full time in Iraq or Afghanistan. And some of those fighters who did receive health care have had to house among rats and other vermin.

No matter how noble the cause, we use and abuse those who fight for it.

Patriots need to remember that when they contemplate matters of war and peace.

The best way to honor our veterans is to go to war as seldom as possible. Because once the war is underway, we do not get to choose anymore. Our troops will suffer and we don’t have the where with all to properly take care of them.

That was an extraordinary thing to say in 1986, especially to a perfect stranger. Clearly, the gentleman had been a supporter of the Nazi regime and yet I couldn’t hold the sentiment against him. He was so sincere, full of awe, hope, and humility.

I knew right away that he must have been associated with the Nazis because he was an Austrian and yet so devoted to Germany and his words had paid special tribute to Nuremberg, the city of the Nazi conventions. His words also betrayed that he had not shed his old loyalties completely.

I asked him if he had visited Nuremberg before the war, perhaps, for the Reichsparteitag. He said yes, then and on other occasions.

At the time, I was a Mormon missionary. Perhaps, the gentleman felt encouraged to share confidences because I wore a suit and tie. Perhaps, he sensed some kinship because, having grown up in the armed forces, I carried myself with military bearing.

Whatever might have been the case, the need to share his feelings, to give a testimonial had overwhelmed him.

The old man was extraordinary, too. He was unusually open and had the ability to connect with strangers immediately. Today, we might refer to him as a natural community organizer. In his time, that skill set was associated with the more ominous label of leader, a man who reaches out to others and gets them to contribute to a cause greater than themselves, in his case, of course, a cause that would destroy not only Europe but Germany, the cause he loved.

I doubt if that gentleman ever recognized all the sins of National Socialism but his words conveyed a sense of regret.

That’s why he needed to talk to me. Experiencing the sunlight flooding the rebuild train station and witnessing beautiful Nuremberg that had only been a pile of rubble in 1945 left him with a quiet sense of awe. In many important ways, the consequences of failure and defeat had been reversed and that left him with a sense of peace.

1986 was only three years before the wall would fall. But back then, German unification was only a dream that seemed to be out of reach. Most of my friends shared the belief that Germany would not be united during our life time. Nobody could predict that Gorbachev would fumble the reforms of the Soviet Union.

I do not know if the Austrian gentleman was still alive on November 9, 1989 when the wall fell and on October 3, 1990 when Germany became one country again. Perhaps, Willy Brandt spoke best for this generation: “Now grows together, what belongs together.”

Unlike my Austrian acquaintance, Willy Brandt had fought the Nazis, first in the labor movement then in the Norwegian army. Later, Brandt became not only the first Social Democratic chancellor of Germany but he won a Nobel peace price for his efforts to reconcile Germany with her eastern neighbors. He had been mayor of Berlin when the Soviets raised the wall and was the city’s voice appealing to the world’s conscience.

Although Willy Brandt had always been an outspoken patriot, the German right, be they conservatives or extremists, had always been uncomfortable with him.

The moment the wall fell and the German border dissolved, was the moment when Willy Brandt spoke for all Germans. Despite the rise of xenophobia and Nazi misbehavior on the fringes of society, German patriotism would be transformed.

Mainstream lefties are no longer ashamed of Germany. Mainstream conservatives are no longer defiantly asserting their patriotism. Instead we all don clown costumes in black, red, and gold for national football games.

That is the synthesis that Willy Brandt’s and the Austrian gentleman’s generation have bequeathed us twenty years after German reunification.

As for myself, having unwittingly served causes that turned out to be less than honorable, I have become a lot less judgmental of my grandparents’ generation. I have found some solace in the advice of the Scottish enlightenment philosophers Adam Smith and David Hume who emphasized the importance of pursuing our self-interest instead of losing ourselves in one cause or another.

Perhaps, nobody analyzed the plight of that generation better than Adam Smith who observed: “Virtue is more to be feared than vice for its excesses are not subject to the regulation by the conscience.”

It is probably no accident that Britain’s greatest contributions to the enlightenment did not evolve at the centers of power in London, Cambridge and Oxford but in Glasgow, Scottland where money mattered a lot and jingoism mattered little. It is certainly no accident that neither French nor Germans have taken well to the philosophy of self-interest. Exposed to the ravages continental power politics, solidarity was too important to let individualism and self-interest flower.

Thanks to the European Union, that plague is no longer with us. Just as Germans could come together with each other, today, we can be friends with all our neighbors. It will be the measure of European unity when Germans appreciate Poland as much as France.

In light of David Hume’s and Adam Smith’s lessons, I take pleasure in the displays of patriotic clowneries on German streets these days. It sure beats goose stepping and might just do the trick if you have to live in the heart of Europe. But most importantly, Germans can finally celebrate together undisturbed by geographic and ideological borders.

I want to take this idea further. Listen to this strange tale from the New Testament (Luke 24: 13-16):

Now that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; but they were kept from recognizing him.

For Christians, the resurrection of Jesus is a foundational story. But there is something disturbing in the story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus. If Jesus was raised from the dead, why did he no longer look like Jesus? Why did the disciples not recognise him? (The idea that they were prevented from recognising him looks like a rather awkward attempt to gloss over the problem.) The account leaves Christianity open to a most worrying accusation: maybe the man didn’t look like Jesus because he wasn’t Jesus. Maybe he was a decoy and the resurrection is a fraud.

If any of you grow up to be New Testament scholars you will learn the term “Criterion of Embarrassment.” Simply put, it is used to suggest that the more a story runs counter to the message of the narrative, the more likely it is to be true. If you were inventing the story of Jesus’ resurrection, you would not want to subvert your efforts by including difficult, embarrassing details. Thus the tale of Jesus’ changed appearance is likely to be true because you wouldn’t include it otherwise.

Now, if Jesus had the power to raise himself from the dead, surely he had the power to choose the appearance of his resurrected body. Why, then, did he look different? (Different enough that Mary Magdalene also didn’t recognise him.) The answer may lie in an earlier parable in which Jesus teaches that if we are to serve him we must treat others as if they were him. Jesus deliberately disguises himself as the Everyman so that we learn that he is every man, or could be.

It’s even more radical than that: Jesus is the executed criminal and thus equally the murderer, the thief, the terrorist. If you can love them as you love Jesus — and you cannot tell from their appearance that they are not, in fact Jesus — then you become what Jesus wants you to become:  changed. If you’re a Christian, try it. If not, then swap Jesus with someone else you love and admire and would never dream of treating shoddily and apply it to both your friends and enemies. Even the guy who steals your toothpaste.

This video (at 6:20, especially from 8:20) demonstrates what I mean:

http://youtu.be/kSQiFL8NVjw
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Given at boarders’ chapel at Loughborough Grammar School on 22.ix.10

Football fans among you may have noticed that West Ham’s Jewish manager, Avram Grant, was absent from the game on Saturday. Yom Kippur is too holy, even for football.

For historians, the words Yom Kippur are forever associated with the Arab-Israeli conflict. In 1973, and taking advantage of Israel’s observance of Yom Kippur, Egypt and Syria attacked Israel. The conflict lasted less than a month, but by threatening to suck the United States and the Soviet Union into the fray, it focussed international attention on finding a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. That was in 1973.

I am loathe to associate war with Yom Kippur as it perpetuates the notion that Judaism — and indeed, Islam — are hopelessly wedded to conflict and suffering. This is certainly not the case, Judaism being a religion that has sacralised joy and rejoicing. Nevertheless, with Israel and the Palestinians currently engaged in a new round of talks, it is worth seeing if we can learn anything from this seemingly intractable conflict.

I lived for a time in Israel in 2004. It was at the back end of the last Palestinian uprising or intifada and tensions were high. A bomb went off at a bus stop during my stay and the cafeteria at the university at which I was studying had been bombed just two years earlier. One morning, my street was evacuated as a remote-controlled robot was sent to inspect a suspicious bag. Such is life in Israel. Even McDonalds has a metal detector at the door.

It is easy to see the grievances on both side. Israelis want to live without fear of their children being blown up at Pizza Hut and without rockets landing on their playgrounds. Palestinians want an end to the Israeli occupation and a state of their own. The solution — compromise — seems obvious but depressingly elusive.

In a bid to prevent suicide bombers from entering into Israel, the Israeli government has constructed a massive 8m-high security wall around its border with the Palestinian West Bank. The Israeli rationale is obvious: keep out suicide bombers. The Palestinian response is equally obvious: Israel has made us prisoners in our own country. In the face of such an intractable problem, it is easy to become weary and apathetic. After all, how are we to bring about peace in the Middle East?

One example from Israel shows how we do have the power to bring about change. A group of Israeli grandmothers were concerned about the treatment of some Palestinians as they queued to cross the border through the wall into Israel. They knew they could not do anything about the wall itself, but inspired by a passage in the Bible, they saw no reason why Palestinians should be mistreated. The verses are from Leviticus (19: 33-34): “The alien who resides among you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were alien in the land of Egypt; I am the Lord your God.” The grandmothers decided they would simply go to the checkpoints and watch, their presence encouraging the young Israeli soldiers to act kindly. Where they have been active, and drawing upon Jewish respect for one’s elders, it has had some success.

At Yom Kippur we remember our sins. Let us not commit the sin of believing that we do not have the power to make peace in our own small worlds.

A Jewish prayer (from Isaiah 2:3-4):

Come let us go up the mountain of
the Lord, that we may walk the
paths of the Most High.
And we shall beat our swords into ploughshares,
and our spears into pruning hooks.
Nation shall not lift up sword against nation–
neither shall they learn war any more.
And none shall be afraid, for the mouth of the
Lord of Hosts has spoken.

_____

An assembly given at Loughborough Grammar School, 21.ix.10.