From Acorns to Oaks, conviviality and the future of Europe ........
Now the Woodland, the Spinney, has been surveyed.
Some trees now have a red bull's eye on them to indicate that they must be felled, damage, disease, decay has affected them and they can no longer hold their own.
So they are marked with the spot, not the mark of Cain or the Jim Hawkins black spot, just a red dot to say that their days are numbered.
But you cannot just fell trees, you have to think of the future and so like the Admiral in Simon Schama's book Landscape & Memory, I shall become the gatherer of Acorns and I will plant Oak Trees, not for myself or my family but for future generations so that this wood will continue to be an asset, adorning this area, a place of beauty, quiet and peaceful prayer.
Some years ago the indoor critic and I with our son William took a forest walk guided by a forester. At one point he stood by a great Oak Tree and said reflectively this is my favourite tree in the whole forest, it was planted a couple of hundred years ago by one of my predecessors soon it will have to be felled but I shall plant more trees, not for myself but for my successors, to ensure that the forest continues to flourish and be a special place for future generations.
Last weeks power cut, the result of a fallen Cypress which had split and which was brought down by the storm force winds bringing the power supply to the house with it, meant that the Lent Course had to be cancelled.
It is hard to imagine the moving scenes from The Greatest Showman being reproduced as charades by candlelight in the cold, so it didn't happen.
The theme of the Lent course, hope and redemption in the film The Greatest Showman is making me think about the ways in which hope is encouraged and reinforced and redemption achieved.
March 29th will soon be here and we will have left the European Economic Community with or without a deal. It is impossible to begin to imagine what the future will hold either for Great Britain or indeed Europe itself. All that we can hope for is that whatever the outcome, whatever happens Brexiters and Remainers will be able to be reconciled and that our political discourse will be normalised again.
There is a saying, that it is difficult sometimes to be so close to a subject, so caught up in an argument, that it is impossible to see the wood for the trees.
I think that after two years of debate, argumentation and counter argument I am at that stage with Europe. It is a grand enterprise, but it is a flawed enterprise. There may be no great need for European integration, a United States of Europe, but there is a need for European nations to continue to co-exist peacefully.
There is a need for trade links to be valued and respected.
There is a need for people to be able to move easily and freely from nation to nation.
As a people we should be flourishing, embracing opportunity and learning to live as neighbours.
Conviviality is key. As Ivan Illich wrote in his book Tools for Conviviality:
It is the professionalisation of so much of societies work, and that is true both of professional elites in Europe as within the UK, that has led, as Illich describes it, to a 'war on subsistence ... robbing societies of vital skills and knowhow'.
He describes how so much economic development results not in 'human flourishing' but 'modernised poverty'.
It is fascinating how, in the light of this understanding, the Prime Minister, herself a remainer, has been resistant to calling for another referendum to allow the British people to to review their earlier decision in the light of new information, new understanding and new insight into the complexities of modern life.
Whatever the future holds, like the Spinney, like the Forester, like Simon Schama's Admiral we need to remember that we are not just determining our own immediate future but the continuing well being of society for and into the future and for the generations that come after us.
Some trees now have a red bull's eye on them to indicate that they must be felled, damage, disease, decay has affected them and they can no longer hold their own.
So they are marked with the spot, not the mark of Cain or the Jim Hawkins black spot, just a red dot to say that their days are numbered.
But you cannot just fell trees, you have to think of the future and so like the Admiral in Simon Schama's book Landscape & Memory, I shall become the gatherer of Acorns and I will plant Oak Trees, not for myself or my family but for future generations so that this wood will continue to be an asset, adorning this area, a place of beauty, quiet and peaceful prayer.
Some years ago the indoor critic and I with our son William took a forest walk guided by a forester. At one point he stood by a great Oak Tree and said reflectively this is my favourite tree in the whole forest, it was planted a couple of hundred years ago by one of my predecessors soon it will have to be felled but I shall plant more trees, not for myself but for my successors, to ensure that the forest continues to flourish and be a special place for future generations.
Last weeks power cut, the result of a fallen Cypress which had split and which was brought down by the storm force winds bringing the power supply to the house with it, meant that the Lent Course had to be cancelled.
It is hard to imagine the moving scenes from The Greatest Showman being reproduced as charades by candlelight in the cold, so it didn't happen.
The theme of the Lent course, hope and redemption in the film The Greatest Showman is making me think about the ways in which hope is encouraged and reinforced and redemption achieved.
March 29th will soon be here and we will have left the European Economic Community with or without a deal. It is impossible to begin to imagine what the future will hold either for Great Britain or indeed Europe itself. All that we can hope for is that whatever the outcome, whatever happens Brexiters and Remainers will be able to be reconciled and that our political discourse will be normalised again.
There is a saying, that it is difficult sometimes to be so close to a subject, so caught up in an argument, that it is impossible to see the wood for the trees.
I think that after two years of debate, argumentation and counter argument I am at that stage with Europe. It is a grand enterprise, but it is a flawed enterprise. There may be no great need for European integration, a United States of Europe, but there is a need for European nations to continue to co-exist peacefully.
There is a need for trade links to be valued and respected.
There is a need for people to be able to move easily and freely from nation to nation.
As a people we should be flourishing, embracing opportunity and learning to live as neighbours.
Conviviality is key. As Ivan Illich wrote in his book Tools for Conviviality:
It is the professionalisation of so much of societies work, and that is true both of professional elites in Europe as within the UK, that has led, as Illich describes it, to a 'war on subsistence ... robbing societies of vital skills and knowhow'.
He describes how so much economic development results not in 'human flourishing' but 'modernised poverty'.
It is fascinating how, in the light of this understanding, the Prime Minister, herself a remainer, has been resistant to calling for another referendum to allow the British people to to review their earlier decision in the light of new information, new understanding and new insight into the complexities of modern life.
Whatever the future holds, like the Spinney, like the Forester, like Simon Schama's Admiral we need to remember that we are not just determining our own immediate future but the continuing well being of society for and into the future and for the generations that come after us.
Comments
Post a Comment