Epiblog for the Feast of St Gregory Thaumaturgis

It has been a busy week in the Holme Valley. Busy in a way even I had forgotten it could be, but more of that later.  I haven’t really noticed the weather though, so I can’t really tell you what it’s been like. Dull, cold, wet, occasional pale sunshine, pretty much about par for November, I guess, with dead leaves everywhere.  While it’s good of the Almighty to provide us with free mulch (or at least the ingredients) for the garden, the task of gathering them all up and putting them in a bin bag is a cold and boring chore.  There are some manual jobs that are actually quite meditative – you sort of get “in the zone” and your mind drifts away. Sadly, gathering leaves isn’t one of them – not for me, at least.

Nor is there much news to report on the animal front. Matilda has been spending increasing amounts of time in the kitchen with us, and now sleeps overnight on the settee next to the stove, as you might expect from a cat. If not actually sleeping on the settee, she can usually be found inhabiting a ratty old threadbare fleece that I deliberately leave on the foot of my bed for her to sleep on/burrow down into when it’s cold.  She’s no fan of the cold weather. I think that, like me, she would prefer it to be warm and sunny all the year round.  She’s also still not entirely mastered the idea of the cat flap unless it is held open with a chock of wood, which Debbie puts in place specifically for that purpose.  Having the cat flap permanently wedged open doesn’t exactly help in the temperature stakes, either.  

One day during the week, I forget exactly which one, Misty must’ve gone through into Colin’s side of the house and stuck her head out of the cat flap (or at least her snout, her whole head won’t fit) dislodging the chock of wood and closing the flap, effectively shutting Matilda out in the garden, since her lack of basic feline intelligence prevented her from getting back through it in the normal way. Thus it was that, when I went out down my ramp some time afterwards, to take out the recycling, I was accosted by a very stroppy cat who gave me an angry mouthful of yowling then scuttled past me and back into the warmth of the kitchen.

Misty remains oblivious of the chaos she causes, by and large, though she is still majorly troubled by yet more idiots letting off yet more fireworks.  She was obviously more traumatised by the experience two weeks ago than we thought.  She’s taken to going and hiding behind the settee at the slightest sound of a pop or explosion in the dark outside.  Occasionally, she even pokes the bifold doors open with her nose and skedaddles next door on to the settee where Matilda sometimes sleeps, under Colin’s front bay window. (Pausing briefly en route to hoover up any remaining cat food).

Every time she does this, of course, it lets all of the heat out of the kitchen, so in an attempt to stop her doing this, Debbie put three or four rubber bands around the two doorknobs to hold the doors closed. Needless to say, Misty proved to be too strong for this arrangement and the end result was that the doorknob came flying off and rolled under the settee. Well it’s been a while in this blog since we had a doorknob fall off, so it’s nice to be able to rehearse the meme once again. The old order changeth, and giveth way to the new. Or, as Bob Dylan sang:

“Yes, I received your letter
About the day that the doorknob broke
When you asked how I was doing
Was that some kind of joke?”

Because I don’t like to think of Misty feeling stressed about the fireworks, I sent off for, and received during the week, two phials of “pet relaxant” spray, containing Valerian and other natural ingredients, that works by mimicking the neurological processes associated with feelings of well-being and safety in the animal’s brain.  I gleefully sprayed it around the place. I have to say it worked, but not quite how I intended. I fell asleep in my wheelchair for 45 minutes. Matilda came in, sniffed the carpet at the spot where I’d sprayed some of the stuff, squeaked in pleasure and rolled over on it, and waved all her legs in different directions at once, asking for a tumjack furfle.  Misty looked on with a rather pitying expression.  So there we are. We may not have ended up any calmer, but I did get 45 minutes extra sleep, and the cat is now on drugs.

Debbie’s week of teaching ground on at a glacial pace, but at least with the arrival of her new watch from Ebay she now knows what time it is again. She was admiring it and saying that she thought it was a Swiss Army watch. I told her that she was probably confusing it with a penknife, and in any case it was more likely to be a Swiss Navy watch.

“I didn’t know that they did them. Or that they even had a Navy.”

“Oh, yes. It’s based in several ports, along the Swiss coastline.”

The latter half of the week, for me, was dominated by the lead-up to BBC Children In Need, and Gez Walsh’s idea of producing a kids’ poetry book within a single day, with the help of the students of Elland Church of England Junior School.  It was a laudable aim, and, although I have my own misgivings about Children in Need for all sorts of reasons, which I have gone into at length before, I could not help being impressed by his enthusiasm, the school’s enthusiasm, and even the printer’s enthusiasm.  So, I supposed, I had better heave myself wearily into the saddle of Rocinante once more, and try and fulfil my small part in the battle.

The day itself went well, and the objective was achieved, and next week, the kids at the school will have a book to sell to raise funds.  This was despite some fairly major obstacles working against us, such as Gez being stuck in traffic when he should have been being interviewed by BBC Radio Leeds, and me needing to give them his mobile number so they could contact him, then promptly dropping my phone, which contained it, and watching it skid under the bed out of reach. Fortunately there was a long piece of the old IKEA kitchen unit propped up next door which I was able to use to fish it out, in a sort of bizarre game-show-type beat-the-clock challenge, just in time to phone them and give them the number.

Other than Children in Need, my own contact with the media this week has been exclusively one way, growing more irritated than ever at the BBC’s news priorities. They have chosen not to report the continued protests of the group Anonymous, against the austerity agenda, including not reporting a protest which was actually taking place outside the BBC TV centre while the Graham Norton show was on air.  It seems that the BBC, along with the Labour Party, has decided to take a compliant and unquestioning stance when it comes to the Junta’s propaganda. Thus we have it being reported this week that unemployment is down, without any mention of the fact that there are currently 1.46 million people in part-time jobs.  If you actually factor that into the mix, suddenly the “recovery” doesn’t look so cheery.

We may not be able to say so for long, however. In addition to the “Gagging Law” (which seeks to restrict the amount of lobbying which can be carried out against the Junta’s policies by campaigning organisations and charities) the Blight Brigade are also enacting the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill, which grants power to police, local authorities, and even private security firms to criminalize any nuisance deemed to have a “detrimental effect on the quality of life of those in the locality.”  Since what constitutes a “locality” remains at present undefined, you could end up being barred from the entire country, just for being a nuisance to the government.

While, in one sense, it shows that organisations such as 38 Degrees and the Occupy movement have got under the Junta’s skin to the extent that they are now being specifically targeted by this type of legislation, it does have worrying implications for everyone’s civil liberties, and the right to peaceful political process in the UK. Especially the way it is being sneaked through Parliament in a back door, hole-and-corner way, with hardly any public attention being shown it by the BBC, for instance.  There is a mass of anti-libertarian legislation now on the statute book, much of it enacted since 2001 under the pretext of controlling “terror”. The police already have the power to control marches and demonstrations, and have shown that they are not above “pre-emptive arrests” of people who might cause trouble at high profile national events such as the Royal Wedding, the Olympics, and state visits by heads of foreign powers with a penchant for invading helpless neighbours and an appalling human rights record (yes, China, I am talking about you.) When you start to add in the powers proposed in the two pieces of legislation mentioned above, the outlook does start to become distinctly Orwellian.

Almost as Orwellian, in fact, as the Tories’ decision to try and block internet access to the archives of all their speeches prior to 2010, as these are chock-full of potentially embarrassing statements such as “there will be no top-down reorganisation of the NHS” and “we have no plans to increase VAT to 20 per cent”. How dumb do they think we are?
When it comes to the “recovery” (and wherever it’s taking place, it doesn’t seem to involve people buying books, sadly) there is a fairly sound theory that whatever is happening is happening not because of George Osborne’s actions, but because he’s stopped actively doing what caused the economy to plunge nose-first into recession and reverse the growth he inherited in the first quarter of 2010. Not that this will stop him trying to claim the credit for it, of course.  I am no economist, but Jonathan Portes, former treasury advisor, has written a very convincing piece in his blog which makes the point that the time for austerity was after a recovery had taken hold, not before, and what Osborne has done actually postponed a recovery rather than hastening it.

Inflation is 2.2 per cent, apparently, and the Bank of England are already talking about raising interest rates, a decision I personally find baffling. If I was trying to raise some frail, tender, green shoots, a stiff dose of Paraquat would be the last thing I would have thought they needed. But the issue that possibly made me the most angry this week is the failure of anyone in the media to ask a simple question of the energy companies.  The justification advanced from the energy companies is that part of the price rise is to cover the cost of various green levies imposed by this and past governments. And my question, which no one seems to have asked, let alone answered, is “why is there an automatic presumption that the costs of any green levy should be automatically passed on – either in whole or in part – to consumers?” And for a bonus point, “why can’t the energy companies just take it out of their profits?”

Another gross injustice this week has been largely unreported – almost completely unreported, in fact, by any mainstream media that I have seen. I myself only stumbled on it by accident.

Miriam Harley Miller, an Australian living in the UK, has had her visa revoked and has been given 28 days to leave the country, with no explanation or right of appeal. As I looked into the matter further, it became clear to me that there was only one possible explanation for this bizarre decision, which stands out as a landmark of lunacy in a landscape of inexplicable decisions on immigration and deportation, under this government and the previous one.  I have come to the conclusion that this unjust and stupid action by the agents of the Junta, was politically motivated.  As she herself wrote on her Facebook page, she had been posting lots of articles and links to blogs about immigration:

You see, as an Australian living in the UK, I am an immigrant. In recent times, I have seen how there has been an increasing political campaign by a particular party which very much scapegoats immigrants for what is going on n this country. Sadly, the other parties, afraid of losing votes, have followed suit.

I have been in this country for 9 years. In the whole of that time I have worked for the NHS, in the Child and Adolescent Mental Health sector, helping young people of this country through sometimes quite severe mental health problems… I have also contributed in taxes that whole time. I have never been unemployed, I don't have children and I don't have a disability. In other words, I have paid my taxes but have never required, thankfully, to draw on benefits for anything. Ever. I am considered as "highly skilled". Without going into my CV, suffice to say, I have two Masters degrees and various lesser qualifications. I own my own property. I do not have a criminal record.

Ironically, I am no longer entitled to health care. The very same health care that I have contributed to in terms of work and taxes.  In fact, as of Friday, I have no rights in the UK whatsoever, despite owning properties and my years of contribution here.
I wanted to tell you all this because I want you to know, as UK citizens, what the REALITY of the immigration situation is. So when you read in the papers or hear in the media that the government has reduced the number of immigrants in this country, think of me and say to yourself "now I know how they do it!"

It is a long extract, but I think it’s an important one. I’ve said for many years that immigration is a mess, and will continue to be a mess, as long as we are part of the EU and thus have no, or little control over our own borders. Unfortunately, the only other people saying this are goose-stepping closet fascists such as UKIP, because neither of the two major parties has the political courage to grasp the nettle and say that we want our borders back. Then, and only then, can we have a sensible discussion, uncluttered by white van man anecdotes about plasma TVs and free council houses, about who can and can’t come here to live and work.  Don’t be kidded into thinking this is also what UKIP wants, though, they simply want to see fewer brown faces in the high street.  Anyway, if, like me, you think that the Junta should not be allowed to target people for deportation because they might disagree with their immigration policy, there is a petition you can sign to allow Miriam Harley Miller to stay in the UK.

By a strange coincidence – of the sort that often happens in serendipity-inspired web surfing – I discovered this week, online, the entire text of Clement Attlee’s speech to the Labour Party conference at Scarborough in 1951, launching their manifesto for that coming election.  The entire speech is worthy of commendation, not only for the fact that it’s the sort of thing that politicians just don’t do any more, and also that it is full of interesting historical nuggets for anyone interested in the development of the Labour movement. But the section that stuck our for me, that leapt out of the screen, was the part where Attlee delivers his summing up, his rallying call. It’s another long extract, but bear with me and indulge an old fogey:

The crucial question of this Election, on which every elector must make up his or her mind, is this: What kind of society do you want? We know the kind of society we want. We want a society of free men and women - free from poverty, free from fear, able to develop to the full their faculties in co-operation with their fellows, everyone giving and having the opportunity to give service to the community, everyone regarding his own private interest in the light of the interest of others, and of the community; a society bound together by rights and obligations, rights bringing obligations, obligations fulfilled bringing rights; a society free from gross inequalities and yet not regimented nor uniform.

Our opponents, on the other hand, regard the economic process primarily as the giving an opportunity to the individual to advance his own interests; community interests, national interests, are regarded as a hypothetical by-product. Their motto is: ‘The world is my oyster; each one for himself.’ The result of that policy can be seen by all. There was the army of the poor; there were the slums; there was beautiful Britain defiled for gain; there were derelict

areas. The fruits of our policy can be seen in the new fine generation that is growing up, in the new houses - because we have done a great work in housing. You hear only of the people who are not satisfied. The people who are snug in a Council house do not write to you about it. The fact is that a very remarkable job has been done under great difficulties. You see our new towns, you see our smiling countryside. I am proud of our achievement. There is an immense amount more to do. Remember that we are a great crusading body, armed with a fervent spirit for the reign of righteousness on earth. Let us go forward in this fight in the spirit of William Blake:

I will not cease from mental strife,

Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand

Till we have built Jerusalem

In England’s green and pleasant land.

Ed Miliband, please note, read, learn, mark and inwardly digest.

And so we came to Sunday, two weeks after Misty was scared stiff by the fireworks and ran off, and idiots are still causing bangs outside as I write, so much so that Deb had to curtail her walk at teatime and bring Misty back because the poor dog was rooted to the spot, petrified, in Beaumont Park.  Fortunately, this time, Misty was on the lead.  Otherwise she would have been off again, over the hills and far away. I cannot begin to express my hatred and contempt for people who frighten my dog with fireworks, but I hope they can feel the fierce heat of my malevolent intentions towards them, burning the back of their stupid necks.

Today is the feast of St Gregory Thaumaturgus, who is one of many saints whose feast day is celebrated on November 17^th but who stood out a mile from the others because of his extremely silly name.  He is the patron saint against earthquakes and floods, and desperate, lost, or impossible causes, which I have to say I thought was St Jude’s bag, but I guess St Gregory helps out when they are busy. 

He lived from 213 to 270AD, and the latinized Greek epithet “Thaumaturgus”  appended to his name means “wonder worker”.  He is also known as Gregory of Neocaesarea or Gregory the Wonder Worker, which sounds a bit like a rather twee Marvel Comics super-hero.  He wasn’t always a thaumaturge (great word, that) and nor was he always a Christian. In fact, he wasn’t always even Gregory, because his birth name was Theodore and he was born a pagan. In later years, apparently to attract the people to the festivals in honour of the martyrs, Gregory organized profane amusements intended to appeal to pagans, who were more used to religious ceremonies that combined solemnity with pleasure and merrymaking.

About 233, he and his brother, Athenodorus, accompanied his sister, who was joining her husband in Caesarea, Palestine, while they continued on to Beirut to continue their law studies. They met Origen and instead of going to Beirut, entered his school at Caesarea, studied theology, were converted to Christianity by Origen, and became his disciples. Gregory returned to Neocaesarea about 238AD, intending to practise law, but was elected bishop instead, by the seventeen Christians of the city. It soon became apparent that he was gifted with remarkable powers. He preached eloquently, made so many converts he was able to build a church, and soon was so renowned for his miracles that he was surnamed Thaumaturgus (the wonderworker). 

As with many of the early saints, little is known about him with any certainty, sources conflict, and some of the writings traditionally attributed to him were undoubtedly really done by other hands. Situation normal, in other words.  Among his many miracles were stopping a flood in its tracks and moving a mountain. He is also supposed to have had the first recorded vision of the apparition of the Virgin Mary. By the time he died, allegedly there were only 17 unbelievers left in Neocaesarea!

Origen, St Gregory’s teacher, is in many ways much more interesting. He had some fairly wacky theological ideas (well, wacky for the time, these days no-one would bat an eyelid) believing in concepts such as the pre-existence of souls as a way of explaining the unfairness of the world, which has led to some people describing him as a Christian advocate of reincarnation. He also believed in the final reconciliation of all beings, the indivisibility of God and the idea of the logos, and the subordination of the Son of God to God the Father, all of which meant that he ended up being declared anathema for a thousand years or so, and never made it to sainthood himself, despite being so holy that, by one account, he is said to have deliberately castrated himself. Ouch.

As I’ve often observed, in the febrile atmosphere and the melting pot of the early ears of the Mediterranean church, the categorisation of saints, and the qualifications for sainthood, were obviously a lot more lax than they are today.  Who knows whether St Gregory really stemmed a flood or moved a mountain, or whether some smaller, nore natural, less supernatural, incident was embroidered in the telling until it became a miracle despite itself.  Or maybe St Gregory did have sufficient willpower to produce an improbable change in what those around him perceived as reality, who knows. Personally, I can’t really draw any lessons for myself from the life of St Gregory Thaumaturgus, other than, I suppose, that there’s always hope, even in a seemingly impossible situation.

Such as the aftermath of the Philippines typhoon, for instance. Inevitably, whenever something like this happens, people say things like “where was God in all this?” and, having just read about St Gregory Thaumaturgis, you might be forgiven for thinking it’s a pity he wasn’t around, to stop the Tsunami in its tracks.  Strangely, the Collect for today includes the reference to Luke 21 9:19 where Jesus is exhorting his followers to stay strong in the difficult times and including these verses:

But when ye shall hear of wars and commotions, be not terrified: for these things must first come to pass; but the end is not by and by. Then said he unto them, Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.

I’ve said before – many times now – that any attempt to attribute human ideas of fairness and justice to what you might call God in such natural disasters is futile. Who can know the mind of God? If there is a God who is capable of taking upon himself the sins of the world and who exists forever outside of time for all eternity, how the hell can we hope, through a glass darkly, to even have an inkling of what its thought processes and decisions must be like?  But that is no consolation particularly to the victims squatting in the ruins, with no food or water, at risk of disease, having just lost their homes, their livelihoods and probably some or all of their families. In fact, such a God would seem (although may not be) a cold, impersonal, unfeeling entity who took no heed of the welfare of the world he had allegedly created.

Philip Yancey, author of Where is God When It Hurts and The Question That Never Goes Away, wrote in the latter book, about the school shootings at Sandy Hook, Connecticut:

At Christmas time we sing O Little Town of Bethlehem, which includes this phrase: “Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting Light; the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.” Though evil and death still reign on this soiled and violent planet, the event commemorated around the world shortly after the Sandy Hook shootings represents our best, true hope. Jesus entered this world in desperate, calamitous times in order to show a way to the other side. The last book in the Bible spells out what that will look like: “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. . . . I am making everything new!”

And that, I am afraid, is all we have. That, and the indomitable nature of the human spirit, and the kindness of strangers. The same urge to help that led complete strangers to leave their warm firesides two weeks ago tonight and go looking for Misty, missing on Castle Hill, is the urge that has led people to up sticks and fly planeloads of aid out to the disaster area, or to pick up the phone and donate, in these times of austerity at home. And in every victim fed and comforted, in every orphaned child saved and wrapped in a blanket, in the soup kitchens, the field hospitals, and the temporary shelters, and the years of patient rebuilding ahead, that is where, if anywhere, God is in this disaster. Why the typhoon happened may not be a mystery – several scientists have already pointed a finger at global warming, but why Big G allowed it to happen is, and remains a complete mystery to me.  And that’s the choice we have at times like this. We either think “sod it, it’s all bollocks”, or we close ranks, carry on, and try and help wherever we are able.

As for us, back here in the relatively safe, relatively comfortable UK, facing our first potential “snow event” of the year, in the run up to Christmas, well we have a choice as well, like I said above.  We can either let things go on the way they are, or we can make such a racket that they even hear us inside the cocooned bubble of politics, before it’s too late, and making a racket becomes illegal.  Our greatest enemy is complacency. As a far better essayist than me once said, in a passage I have often quoted, at the end of Homage to Catalonia:

And then England--southern England, probably the sleekest landscape in the world. It is difficult when you pass that way, especially when you are peacefully recovering from sea-sickness with the plush cushions of a boat-train carriage under your bum, to believe that anything is really happening anywhere. Earthquakes in Japan, famines in China, revolutions in Mexico? Don't worry, the milk will be on the doorstep tomorrow morning, the New Statesman will come out on Friday. The industrial towns were far away, a smudge of smoke and misery hidden by the curve of the earth's surface. Down here it was still the England I had known in my childhood: the railway-cuttings smothered in wild flowers, the deep meadows where the great shining horses browse and meditate, the slow-moving streams bordered by willows, the green bosoms of the elms, the larkspurs in the cottage gardens; and then the huge peaceful wilderness of outer London, the barges on the miry river, the familiar streets, the posters telling of cricket matches and Royal weddings, the men in bowler hats, the pigeons in Trafalgar Square, the red buses, the blue policemen-all sleeping the deep, deep sleep of England, from which I sometimes fear that we shall never wake till we are jerked out of it by the roar of bombs.

Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. In the meantime, darkness has fallen completely while I have been writing this, and even if I wanted to go and put the leaves that have fallen off the trees today into a bin-bag, there isn’t enough light to see by, so I think instead I will put some soup on. It’s a soup sort of evening.  And I thank God, or what passes for it, that I can have my soup in a bowl by the fire, rather than out of a mug under the railway arches. The stove is ticking away, the dog is curled up in her chair with her nose in her tail, the cat is curled up on, or in, my ratty old fleece on the bed next door, and tomorrow is another day.  If it does snow, at least College will be closed and Debbie will be able legitimately to catch up with some sleep.  It’s an ill wind that blows absolutely everybody no good, if I got that right.  The winter evening settles down, said T S Eliot, to which I add, with smells of soup in passageways.  There is not one problem in the world that cannot be solved by the regular and judicious application of a bowl of soup. Hard times, come again no more.