SHORT STORY - The Man Who Wished For Things To Be Different

Adam, was visibly a fully grown adult man, but nonetheless at heart was still a boy. Deep down he retained an unwarranted affection for that free spirited, impulsive, yet shy boy, he felt persisted within his psyche. The boy who would with unabashed confidence, wish for things to be different. Even though life as it had so far turned out, had not proved very receptive to the influence of such magical thinking.

As a child he'd wished for quite simple things. For it to be sunny so he could play out. For it to rain so heavily games period would be cancelled. For the bully boys not to be waiting for him on the way home. When he entered his teenage years, he dearly wished to be different to how he was. Less insular and withdrawn, more outgoing and extroverted. Better at sports than he was, more confident, with taughter muscles, luxuriating in chest hair, more vigorously masculine, braver, fitter, a better fighter, with long flowing hair like a heavy metal rock star. The list of traits he did not possess grew endless.

He knew what he was expected to be like, and in him, inevitably, there was this distinct short fall. And yet the wishing for himself or the situation to change, never appeared to translate into overt action. Passivity took charge of his life's direction, and over his body for that matter, which remained slightly flabby around the edges. To which going to a gym would be anathema as a solution.

Some things did, of course, change. Though he had a sense that this was more coincidence than any godlike ability he possesed to adjust reality, to make it conform to his will. He did, however, hide a special secret, that he was gay. Initially he hardly understood the full consequence of the word, but he never felt the need to wish for this to go away. He was really relaxed and OK with it. Everyone else was simply wrongheaded. 

The wishing would then refocus on imagined erotic encounters. With the boy next door, or the man who regularly walked up the side alley to the Working Men's Club, whoever the latest love interest, slash voyeuristic obsession, was with. And if he wasn't imagining being ravaged by a greasy car mechanic, he dwelt on the trickier question of who he wanted to be career wise, what to do with his life overall. The answers to which, infuriatingly, eluded Adam's imaginative reach. These all seemed frustratingly beyond wishing's remit.

In the midst of indecisiveness, he tended to settle for just getting by, without too much effort being exerted. He knew that this 'easy life' was a huge failure of ambition and initiative on his part. Yet in the quiet and undemonstrative private realm of his imagination, he continued to see himself as a writer, a poet, a pop star, an actor or artist, practically any creative pursuit you could think of. He tended to treat these as oracles. Ones he hadn't the foggiest idea how you could ever forge a career in. As he entered his twenties, wishing no longer felt like it had that necessary fizz anymore. That was never going to be enough. So what the fuck was he actually going to do? He couldn't be this naive day dreamer all his life, could he?

Adam allowed himself to drift, surrendering himself to an sea of possibilities of chance meetings or random events, to direct movement in his job prospects. These filled in the time until the big opportunity would turn up. Then there'd be no oracle to announce its arrival, though he'd have to be ready to act instantaneously, or risk missing dame fortune as she'd sweep imperiously by, like a drag diva.

Alongside all of this there was also finding 'the good man', the man he'd want to spend his life with. This was proving so much harder than he'd imagined. Though he placed much of his vision for the future upon it. Imaginatively pushing for this to happen, despite the spasmodic and disappointing dalliances, the casual pick ups and the all too short lived affairs. Surrounded, as these were, by rather too vast an ocean of celibacy. 'The good man', yeah, he'd waltz in, one day.

But as is often the way opportunities and 'good men' turn up when you're least expecting or are prepared for them. Adam was temping in a call centre, selling home insurance. This was already showing signs of being unlikely to last above a few weeks, before a rebellion would break out. It paid the rent, but provided little else. 

Today he was on the loo, smoking a cigarette, already wondering how much longer he could swing being away from the phones, with this really bad case of diarrhoea. When some one thumped loudly on his cubicle door. 

'How much longer are you gonna be mate? Yours is the only loo not already clogged with shit and paper. Unless, of course your...... blocking another one as we speak."

'Oh...sorry,....just finishing off ... be out in a... trice'

'Yeah, I bet you say that to all the guys'

And with a final perfunctory wipe, and making sure he was leaving the toilet in a respectable state, he gathered up his trousers, put on his jacket, wondering who the guy outside the cubicle was. Did he recognise that voice? Nope. Would he be young or old? Tall or short? Slim or pudgy? Hipster or nerd? With a sharp intake of breath, stealing himself with - lets hope for handsome and fit - like in a horror film he opened the creaking cubicle door.  This was when he first met Gideon.

FEATURE - The Hermeneutics of Suspicion

I've been trying to find a John Vervaeke video where he explains The Hermeneutucs* of Suspicion and here it is. He's responding to a question about Freedom and Free Will. He gives quite a full response, weaving in Berlin's Freedom From & Freedom To and a simple breakdown of The Hermeneutics of Suspicion and The Hermeneutics of Beauty.

The Hermeneutics of Suspicion was conceptualised originally by Paul Riceour. Emerging from analysing the work of people like Mark, Freud and Nietsche. Every thing has to be encountered with suspicion, and your purpose is to reveal the delusion or deception that underlies it.  It has become the default mode of most contemporary political analysis, journalism, social media and conspiracy theorists. A sign of how clever you are, you have spotted and revealed this deception.

Though this is not necessarily a bad thing, it is massively overused, and as Verveake states here, it should primarily be being applied to oneself, to root out ones own delusions and self deceptions. Not as it's  most commonly used to point the finger at the egregious faults or motives of others. 

In an interesting slant he explains that beneath The Hermeneutics of Suspicion is its real deeper purpose to discover the Truth in a situation via The Hermeneutics of Beauty.

* Hermeneutics is a word not in common use, it means the study and interpretation of how language is used.

SCREEN SHOT - Three Thousand Years Of Longing.

This film is an adaption based on an original story by A S Byatt. Three Thousand Years Of Longing, is richly embellished and a wonderfilled romp through love and its travails. 

Dr Alithea Binnie (Tilda Swinton, complete with impeccable Yorkshire accent ) is a storytelling expert, who is in Istanbul for a conference, where she is a star speaker. She lives and breaths the world of myths and the archetypal realms. To the extent that recently her imagination appears to be bringing them literally to life. During a talk an apparition attacks her and she passes out.

Whilst recuperating in the bazzar, she buys an attractive glass bottle. Arriving back in her hotel room, she opens it. A huge Jinn ( Idris Elba ) bursts forth  offering Alithea the statutory three wishes. But she knows all too well that these sort of wishes can be tricky, even deceptive, so refuses to make any. The Jinn regails her with his experiences of past wishes, and what their consequences have been for him. Often resulting in being trapped in a bottle for hundreds of years.

Set piece fantasy and dramatic magical effects add all the necessary background of Arabian Nights exoticism to this film. The chemistry between Swinton and Elba is good. Formed largely through witty and sharply written repartee. As the film progresses, Alithea and the Jinn's affection for each other grows ever closer. 

A major theme of the stories the Jinn tells is that we often do not know what we really need, and hence do not think carefully about the consequences of what we wish for. That the worst thing for us, sometimes, is to get exactly what we wish for. Such is the nature of our romantic delusions.

I was thoroughly enchanted by this film. The director George Miller injects great warmth and visual inventiveness that draws you in and holds your attention. Though it does tend strongly toward being  wordy, that is more than compensated for by the two central performances and the multifaceted nature of the flying carpet of tales it tells. A really enjoyable film.

CARROT REVIEW - 6/8

LISTENING TO - Everything Matters by Aurora & Pomme

 This song is just so delightfully enchanting, I listen to it pretty much every day since I found it.

LISTENING TO - Starvation by Aurora

I make no apologies here for featuring a second track from Aurora's recent album- What Happened To The Heart. For it too is a slow burner and I have the sense that Aurora is one of those artists that slowly grows on you.

Once again, here is the live version from this year's Glastonbury, where you definitely get the feeling she was quietly captivating her, largely unknowing, audience. For Starvation starts as a frank revelatory song that turns into a spaced out rave headbanger, almost by accident. Aurora, one gets the impression, likes to wrong foot and surprise her audience, by coming at her music from an eccentric angle.

MY OWN WALKING - Journal August 2024

The ground on which I currently stand has, shall we say, somewhat shifted in the last month. What once felt sure and firm, well, relatively sure and firm, has now been shaken and stirred a bit. By the heart attack obviously, and the moment when I almost lost consciousness and wondered if that were to happen, would I ever awaken from it? And if I did awaken, where would I be?  Was 'I' a term only an person still alive could use?

Ever since it's all been about trying to get me and my heart back into being simpatico. With the help of a diet, the NHS and several drugs I now take daily. I've even bought a pill box dispenser, just to be sure I don't forget. Because forgetting in my mind now, is synonymous with death. Perhaps not instant death, but deleterious death, through mental or physical neglect or decline. To die, is to forget about life, as it falls behind the descending safety curtain of what is 'unknown.'

I've not been noticeably more morbid nor saddened by my closer proximity with death. Though I've had these moments of panic, when my breathing relaxed too much, or when meditating my sense of slowed down being, was too much. Kicking off a frightened gasp of deep breathing, as though I'd just pulled myself out of the water, and yet again saved myself from drowning. These moments of fearfulness, appear now to have largely ceased. 

I believe some of the fruits of my Buddhist practice did kick in, and I am noticeably at greater ease with what happened.  Though I do instinctively mistrust any self diagnosed equanimity, that could so easily be emotional numbness, or alienated indifference, performing a masquerade. I might be more rattled deep down in my unconscious, than my psyche will allow me to experience. If so, I expect that will bubble to the surface in the fullness of time 

This morning I could sense something was emotionally nearer the surface than previously. I switched off my early morning TV distractions and started writing.  Writing I find can be a good way to focus ones listening, as you attempt to put into words suggestive feelings. I could feel this delicate underlying yet sharply frosty touch of my own grief. Grief for myself, but also for those I love. There is also the loss of certainty, at least imaginatively. That my once operational mode of life going on and on, cannot now be easily restored in the wake of my life so very nearly ceasing.

Yet there is my own unreadiness, my own unwillingness, to give up and die. I don't want to go just yet. Which implies there are things I feel I need to do. And that raises more than just my survival, but my surviving in order to do what? Whatever length of time I now can envisage my life stretching out to, has to be dreamed as provisional, in sepia not full colour.

What do I want to make of what is left of my life?  What is there yet to make of me? These are opening questions, with as yet, no sense of the direction of travel indicated. But then Hubby and I have both been so damned busy lately. One might be forgiven for thinking it was specifically designed to distract, were it not for it being planned many months ago. Though perhaps it was conveniently placed by the cosmos, to stop us dwelling too heavily on the import of any prognosis.

I now have a hefty ring bound book the hospital gave me - The Heart Manual. It reassures you that a heart attack is survivable, and any imagined sequence of progressively worsening heart incidents, is not an inevitable outcome. I met one indomitable old women the other day, who'd had a heart attack twenty five years ago, and with care and medication had had no further occurances. A heart attack doesn't have to be treated as the beginning of the end, even though ultimately it is part and parcel of the train journey we are on. And there are near or distant buffers that will be hit one day.

Life, if you let it, could so easily become one long drawn out preparation for death and departure. Our slightly wistful way of living as if death is nowhere near, is a strategy, and it does have its uses. I don't feel concerned about any legacy my existence might leave. What will carry on for a while, will be the memories of those who I've loved, in the friendships and acquaintances I leave behind. Until all recollection ceases, when they too pass away.

Anything more than that will be just the froth, the magnificent imaginings, of my ego. We all want our lives to matter to someone, but to history? that would be too self agrandising. Few of us ever matter to history, and even those that do go down in the annals of it. cannot control how or what they are remembered for. Many people are remembered for something they never actually said or did, for a memorable myth. And I imagine that must be annoyingly ironic.

A heart attack that you survive intact, however fortunate, is nonetheless a foreshadowing of the future, whether near or far. It does make each day feel that bit more precious. I find it harder to make broad ranging assumptions about what the future holds, and whether I'll still be around to take part in it. I file things now under - maybe.

Though I am feeling much more appreciative of what I do have. Grateful for what I can still do. However long the life I have left proves to be, it might as well be embraced and enjoyed.

LISTENING TO - When The Dark Dresses Lightly by Aurora

 

When The Dark Dresses Lightly is the stand out track from Aurora's current album What Happened To The Heart. As the video above demonstrates she is quite a presence when live on stage too. Aurora comes from a long line of Scandinavian female pop artists who mine darkly edged, folky tinged pop, which owe, as ever, a huge debt to our own Kate Bush. Aurora Asknes is a Norwegian singer-song writer and producer, who can turn her hand to writing a fabulously appealing pop tune whilst at the same time being entirely herself, with all the wacky bits on show. The song is apparently about two people in love working out how to find productive way of staying together whilst they work through difficulties that arise.

QUOTATION MARKS - Mahatma Gandhi

"Keep your thoughts positive,

because your thoughts become your words.

Keep your words positive,

because your words become your behaviour.

Keep your behaviour positive, 

because your behaviour becomes your habits.

Keep your habits positive,

because your habits become your values.

Keep your values positive,

because your values become your destiny."

MAHATMA GHANDHI

SHERINGHAM DIARY No 116 - Parking & Riding

On the top deck of a Park and Ride Bus travelling into Central Cambridge. There was a thirty something woman talking on her phone. At a guess, I would say she was either in HR or a Local Area Manager. She was engaged in a long conversation with another woman with regard to one male employees apparent errant behaviour. 

Now, the thing is, you shouldn't really be holding this sort of confidential conversation openly and audibly clear, whilst sitting on the top of a public bus. Also, she was meant to be gathering further information. Her neutral tone noticibly slipped at times. In constant danger of sounding like she was about to take her side. But here she was, and everyone on the top deck of that bus, could hear every single word of a one sided conversation.

' So, when I briefly talked to him yesterday he seemed pleasant enough.. and .. well, no...he wasn't aggressive as such, more.... yeah.... dominant...... yeah, he did all the talking... and for a very long time...... more talked at than with.....not sure if I could say he's a misogynist, actually.....I think he may just be more comfortable in all male conversational situations..... Myself I prefer, and get on well with my male colleagues..... though I know not all women do, I don't know about you, but I guess it's down to personality to an extent....How..... would you describe him? ......Prickly........Yeah.... I don't know how he is going to react to any initiative or way forward we may put to him. I'm going to need to talk at more length with him, to establish a better sense for how flexible and responsive he is able to be.....well.... lets...see first shall we.... before we make that judgement"

We were in Cambridge for the funeral of a good friend of ours Abhayakirti. It was a well organised service, that succeeded in capturing a true bit of the essence of the man. We found it moving and quite emotionally draining. So rather than hang around, we drove to Anglesey Abbey, about ten minutes out of town. We had lunch there, relaxed within its relative calm. briefly walking the grounds before setting off home. The round trip was ten hours, from setting off to arriving back in Upper Sheringham, so quite demanding.

July turned out to be a whole lot more full on than either of us expected. A family visit one week, my heart attack the next week, a funeral and prep for a three day craft fair the next week. Hubby hasn't really stopped all month, a lot of it has been emotionally tough too. Myself, obviously, I have been operating with my energy seriously under par for most of the month. This last week, the final week in July I'm just beginning to feel the glimmers of my old self returning. I don't tire quite so easily, my stamina is improving. I'm beginning to enjoy eating food. I know when to stop pushing myself. I've even been sleeping better. There are a lot of things we've had to park for now, till we get through this busy period. Rather than resist it, its best ride the wave of it, because at some point this will all settle down again.

FINISHED READING - Fully Alive by Elizabeth Oldfield

It's a brave individual who decides to structure their book around the Seven Deadly Sins. A term you would have thought so weighed down with religious baggage, that using the word sin would be off-putting enough. Admittedly Elizabeth Oldfield, utilises them all very lightly and with a good deal of playfulness and humour. And it is the warmth of her approach, and her portrayal of herself that carries you through. This is not someone who has ever been good at hiding her faults.

What remains very striking about Fully Alive - Tending to the Soul in Turbulent Times, is her frankness and unwavering desire to speak honestly about her perceived failings, as much as her aspirations. Because these are all very human tendencies to dream and then to 'fuck things up'. She has ideas a plenty to impart, but remains concerned she could sound preachy, self satisfied or righteous or forget she has been more fortunate than some or exercising a privilege. All the while aware that the climate crisis is all too real, the future is not looking good, for her own kids to be brought up into it. And she is more than a bit scared about what will follow.

For this is a book that can be a warning, a memoire, a spiritual journal, as well as an in depth exploration of the current deteriorating state of our culture. For those of you who are regular listeners of The Sacred, her podcast, much of the material expands upon themes that cropped up there. The recent series took Fully Alive as its starting point, and opened up by asking that weeks guest - what made them feel fully alive? 

In Oldfield's case its in a sense of connection, expanded out into a desire for community, encompassing the widest range of personalities and opinions. When she finds connection she feels fully alive. And her single minded devotion to forging connections with people who are NLM ( not like me) is both admirable and brave. For the worst thing in our increasingly polarised world is the bubbles we all form around us of PLM (people like me). So we rarely encounter people NLM and when we do we run a mile, or make instant prejudicial judgements.

Oldfield's dedication to fight back against her own tendency to distance and categorise, by cultivating interest and curiosity about what it is makes her guests tick. This curiosity fills the pages of this book, mostly questioning herself and her motives.

So the chapter subtitles give you a flavour for what the contents of this book are like:-

Wrath - From Polarisation to Peacemaking, 

Avarice - From Stuffocation to Gratitude and Generosity

Acedia - From Distraction to Attention

Envy- From Status Anxiety to Belovedness

Gluttony - From Numbing to Ecstasy

Lust- From Objectification to Sexual Humanism

Pride -From Individualism to Community

Each provoking thought and ways towards rather than away from the challenges we all face  

She concludes the book with a chapter on The G Bomb, about God and what difference living as if there is a God could do. But she knows this is also challenging, she's not called it The G Bomb for nothing. Recognising for some this could blow them right out of the water. And, I would say the nuance in her appraisal and honest exploration of the questions and issues, does keep you reading. You never feel like she is preaching at you, or trying to convert you, but uses her own rather mixed and often contradictory responses as a way to tease out issues and take us all a little step deeper.

This is not an earth shattering, mind changing book, but it does a brilliant job of churning up the mud in the bottom of a very stagnant pond. After all, we are in one hell of a murky mess.

CARROT REVIEW  - 6/8

QUOTATION MARKS - David Foster Wallace

" The compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship - be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles - is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive.

If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you."

David Foster Wallace

taken from This is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life.

Published - Little, Brown & Co - 2009

LISTENING TO - Monkey by Low

With Mimi Parker's demise from cancer last year, one of the most long running creative partnerships in American Indie music,was brought tragically to an end. Alan Sparhawk is just about to release a new album of material, the first on his own. In the interview I read, he is still grieving for his life partner, which was really sad to hear, as he was a man whose previously had struggles with depression. There was something about their musical relationship, that appeared to greatly transcended them, and their talents as individuals. Their thirty years of recording had its many peaks and troughs. Times when you wondered whether they'd run out of steam as a band. Only to find they'd break the mold with their next release.

So I was surprised when I got addicted anew, to this track from 2005 from The Great Destroyer album called Monkey. Its becoming quite an ear worm. From its punchy pounding drum rythym, like an American Indian pow wow circle dance, with raw jangling buzz saw guitar sound, over which Sparhawk and Parker harmonise as though they are angels bringing the word of God into the hell realms. Its one perfect little gem. 

SHERINGHAM DIARY No 115 - Post Arterial Infarction

I continue readjusting to what I can and cannot now do. I cannot for the moment, install the new decorative fence on our patio, that I'd been constructing over the last few weeks in my workshop. Its finished, and I was hoping to move it out, so I could set too tiding and reorganising the workshop. That fence is a cumbersome heftly thing, I'd defy a full gale force wind to shift it a millimetre. But I cannot move anything when I have a body, hands and arms that currently have weight limits placed upon them.

My neighbours are being very attentive and considerate. I'd gone out for a short ten minute walk, and not taken my phone with me. David couldn't get in touch. So he asked a neighbour if they'd go looking for me, which they did.  Between our two neighbours they have agreed that I'm not to put the bins out or take them in, for the time being. Making that very clear to me. I am very grateful for their kindness and consideration. 

My medications are heavy hitters on the blood pressure and cholesterol front I have to take a tablet just to protect the lining of my stomach. I'm often feeling bloated, heady or nauseous after taking them, eating isn't my favourite thing these days. But they are doing a job of work, that's helping keep me alive. Everyday is now punctuated with pill popping. As the days since the heart attack turn into weeks, I'm managing my pill taking by spacing them out better, so it's less of a drug mega dump first thing in the morning.

When you're discharged you return to wrestling anew with your usual habits, lifestyle and preferences. Loaded with leaflets and health apps, that are meant to guide you through the period of readjustment that follows any heart attack. I initially found this a bit overwhelming. So it took a day before I started making more than mental changes, with help from Hubby.The main thing is adjusting what I eat, to whatever is less artery clogging. I'm rapidly discovering how fat free can just mean -this will taste of very little at all - as though air were being given solid form. A line has to be drawn between what is heart healthy and yet remains still enjoyable to eat. There is only so far you can go with achieving your fat free and sugar fee ideal. To so impoverish your taste buds and your life as a consequence, you lose the will to live.

I come from the Lumb lineage where 'no meal was complete without a cake' and my thin tiny blocked Cx artery I consider is a fitting memorial to that legacy.  I find I have to cut things out cleanly and completely, lest vagueness allow too many exceptions to be made, eventually corroding the resolve. I'd already stopped eating cakes and confectionery in the New Year. There are two, and only two, things for which I'll make an exception -  Cornish Bakeries Raspberry and White Chocolate Pudding and the White Chocolate Peanut Butter Blondie from Stiffkey Stores. An encounter with either of these is now a rare delight. Made more enjoyable by that infrequency.

I'm getting accustomed to pacing myself. I can think my energy is improving, then I'll have a day where I feel drained to the core. Because I had the experience during my heart attack of my consciousness being swallowed up in my shallow breathing. I cannot, at the moment, stop myself from trying to consciously control my breathing. As soon as my breathing eases or looks like resting in a shallower state. I have this high alert response, really pro active jerk response. In meditation I have to keep letting go of this anxious tendency, and gently breath out the worry and flurry of it. Its not been helped by having caught a chest cold the moment I left hospital. So my chest is ruttling with mucus, my coughs are like dog barks, and my breathing hangs like the whisper of a wee timorous beasty.

There is nothing like a heart attack to put mortality back at the top of the agenda. Everyone operates on the basis that one's death is some way off yet. A heart attack says - It could be soon - how about right now? Having rationalised the chest tension that led to the heart attack. I am, if anything, a little too hyper sensitive to bodily signs of discomfort  Though I have to remind myself, that I'm a 67 year old man, I have many aches and pains that are simply to do with my body creaking with age. Not everything is a sign, or a portent of my heart being about to explode. 

IT'S A TESTAMENT OF SOMETHING - Post Scripts & Revelation

Reading the last third of the New Testament has been all about keeping openly engaged, whilst a state of disinterest overcame me in waves. Definitely had to apply a stoical mode to reading. Until the time for assessing what has been revealed or not, of what I have learnt or not, from this practice of New Testament reading.

How you relate to and conceive of God, is the primary issue. Throughout history there have been many godlike personas, in some cases a multiplicity of gods. And across that pantheon of forms, godlike behaviour was erratic and often petulant. One only has to look at the Greek Gods to see how vain and competitive they were frequently portrayed as being. Inconsistencies and individual suffering might be blamed on one errant god who was offended, or a bit pissed off that day.  Your misfortune had a divine source. What emerges with monotheism, is a very particular and culturally contingent deity,. 

The Judeo-Christian God of The Bible has a character with a broad yet sharp bifurcation. The Old Testament God has its wrathful form as well as the peaceful beatific form. The God of Jesus and the Gospels comes across perhaps as more benign, yet wants forcefully to yank the state of Israel back into line, through sending his 'only begotten'. The Roman occupation itself is seen as some sort of moral failing, a consequence of Israel straying from God's purpose for them. The God of the Apostles appears to use a level of threat, to punish or reward on the basis of whether you are a fully signed up believer in God. With a heavy preference towards those who are. There being no time to waste on disbelieving factions in God,'s own creation.

That Judeo-Christian God is a male creator God, an interventionist God, unpredictable, even at times petty and fickle. The contrary, and contradictory nature of this fails to impress. It cannot, to my mind, be satisfactorily be shrugged off with a - who are we to understand God's ways? If our whole conception of God describes a deity that behaves despicably, then I'm afraid you've lost me.

God may just be hardwired into the universe, not a thing, not an anthropomorphic being, with no prayers, supplications or party tricks required. Though I'd be the first to admit this is not without its own problems. I accept that all human concepts of the divine are inherently flawed. The whole New Testament and the emerging form of Christianity is built around a passive aggressive God figure. One I felt was attempting to grossly intimidate me into belief. This has rankled and rubbed me up the wrong way consistently, as I've read. 

The structure and historical formation of the New Testament Gospels I still find intriguing. Mark's Gospel appears to be the most direct and uncomplicated of the four gospels. It does not include a nativity backstory or an extensive resurrection. All the other three Gospels produce their own idiosyncratically laboured twists on these. Interestingly none of their Nativity or Resurrection stories agree 100% on the details, in fact they quite widely disagree. One viewpoint might say, this is because they came via differing streams of apocryphal storytelling. Another might colour them as largely inventions of the gospel writer, riffing perhaps extensively upon hearsay or half remembered tales. These are the stories founded on the need for symbolism and myth making. Factual accuracy was therefore never their primary purpose or forte. Reading The New Testament as a literal account, would be to misread it. Christianity's power is in the strength of its myth. Whether it happened or not is impossible to verify. You have to either take that it is true on faith, or walk away

Jews interpret The Messiah as a God appointed saviour king. And this is how Jesus initially primarily presents himself in the New Testament. Israel is in existential turmoil, their is an apocalyptic, end of days tone to Jesus's entire ministry. His desperate mission is to save Israel from itself and bring them to the kingdom of God, by declaring himself the Messiah, and becoming their King. So much emphasis is placed on that framework of him fulfilling biblical prophecy. Though he tends to substantially readjust the interpretation of prophecies in order to make them fit the man he is presenting them with. That Jesus is a better fit for the moment. What he claims is not universally accepted, even at the time.

Jesus actually fails to save Israel from itself. They're not listening. His ministry gets derailed by egregious circumstances, the Jewish authorities want him removed because he was declaring himself king of the Jews. Understandably the current king was a bit riled.  And with the crucifixion, then resurrection, this whole story line lurches off into an entirely new direction. There is a greater purpose to Jesus's death, he saves, not just Israel, but all humanity from itself. A little local difficulty in occupied Israel suddenly morphs and takes on this much larger universal religious mantle. One that requires quite a bit of retrofitting by the gospel writers to turn it into another prophesied outcome. This story on paper should not be believed, its preposterous. But something else is working through its mythology, that shelters under the term existential angst.

There are a lot of things that Jesus never says. He doesn't claim to be God, he adopts the generic ' Son of God' epithet. Yet this is wide open to interpretation as to what that actually means. Jesus is never seen being harshly judgemental, and regards any sinful or disapproved of minority or about sexual relationships, always with compassion. Often castigating his own disciples for their prejudicial judgements. Putting any debatable claims he made about who he was to one side, he appears an impressive man.

Those harshly worded moralistic condemnations we tend to negatively associate with orthodox Christianity, mostly finding their origins and justifications either from Old Testament prophets or the Apostle letters, not directly from the words of Jesus. He tends to step down to help the fallen, the sick, irrespective of whether they are God's Children or not. Judge not, lest you be judged. In Buddhism you are urged to resist fault finding. Self Righteousness it appears is the curse of any faith.

Jesus dies, so the Christianity we've inherited, the construction of its religious traditions and institutions, is left entirely to his Apostles and future disciples. And with increasing distance from its founder there was a inevitable hardening of Christianity's arteries. Religious hammers tending to seek out the abberant nails. Jesus wanted his disciples to be effective evangelists, to heal the human condition. Christianity has not always got the tone of its evangelism right..  

Christian leadership becomes predominantly male. Traditional Jewish cultural views on the role of women in society, become widely applied within Christianity. If women did once have a role as equal disciples of Jesus, this did not appear to survive for long in the post-resurrection fall out. The feminine viewpoint is either silenced, widely disparaged or mistrusted. That men took such complete control of Christianity, has been to its eternal detriment.

When reading the New Testament, the post Jesus texts I couldn't connect with, hardly at all. But then came the bat shit crazy epilogue, the book of Revelation. It's written by John, who is not the John of St John's Gospel. The Book of Revelation is writing entirely unique in character. Apparently at that time visionary revelation stories were quite prevalent. Its not clear why this one was chosen from such a large imaginative pool? As a genre, these are not teachings, but divine warnings from the angel hood to the netherworld. The Book of Revelation provides a large amount of the religious symbolism and imagery, not just for Christian apocalyptism, but most 20th Century fantasy and horror writing, that borrows tropes, the fantastic beasts and demons from The Book of Revelation. The lingua franca of fire and brimstone, hell and damnation all starts from here. It was always meant to scare the bejeezus out of you.

It's visual imagery is utterly bonkers and mind bogglingly complex. The landscapes and effects are similar to Buddhist Mahayana Sutras, the only stylistic comparison I know of. I found when reading The Book of Revelation I suddenly felt on relatively familiar teritory. All of which is an interesting pointer to what inspires me. I'm the sort of person that responds with passion and love to ornate imagery from Alchemy, Egyptian Bas Reliefs, Baroque Churches, Orthodox Icons etc. 

I understand this imagery on an instinctual level. So whatever the origins, mythology and iconography they are what connect with me, and Christianity is no different. Because for me when I apprehend Christianity through its beliefs and theology, I just feel its either awful or utterly ridiculous. When I absorb the beauty of its imaginative realm, this provides a much richer and more meaningful experience of being connected with something important.

Jesus's teachings seem to me to have an entirely different tone, to the institutions and theology that have sprung up around them. He is relatable and humane. Jesus's status as a teacher, appears to be intrinsically tied into, and dependent upon, the religious and secular conditions of his time. To simply explain and make him comprehensible. 

This started as a task, to see what the New Testament was actually like, as opposed to what I thought it was like. And what I found did occasionally surprise me, puzzle me, bemuse me, only rarely inspiring me. As a book, it is a messy mish mash of stuff somewhat badly thrown together. How Christianity ever became so hugely popular appears even more of a mystery now than before. That Jesus is supposed to save us through his crucifixion continues to baffle me. I see it as this unfathomable paradox, one I just constantly shake my head over in disbelief.

I've spent the last few months reading the New Testament. And though it certainly is about something, what that something is stands on a completely different side of the canyon, to where I'm standing. And reading the New Testament has not brought me significantly closer to it. If anything that canyon has grown substantially wider.