FOREWORD

Some time ago one of our members asked us to write about the nature of divinity. I farmed the suggestion out to our regular contributors and their responses we include in this edition. There was general agreement that divinity resides deep within each of us and that much of our spiritual endeavour is directed towards making contact with it. Essie Wise suggests that the kind of 'waiting' that is associated with patience is one way, an approach that brought to mind John Milton's oft quoted line 'They also serve who only stand and wait' which in turn reminded us that this month marks the 400th anniversary of his birth. 'Inwarldiness' is an attempt to identify how we express our sense of the divine within us and 'Where Extremes Meet' tackles the very sensitive issue of the violence that arises when different systems of acknowledging the divine within us feel threatened by each other.

Bill Stephen (Editor)

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ON HIS BLINDNESS

By John Milton

(See page 10)

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INWARDLINESS

THE SOMETHING OF RELIGION

By Bill Stephen

There is a frustrating mismatch between the infinite reach of the human mind and the limitations of the human senses. As a consequence we feel beleaguered by baffling questions and insoluble mysteries. There is an equal mismatch between our ability to perceive these mysteries and our capacity to portray them.

These musings accompanied me on my stroll around the St. Mungo Museum of Religion in Glasgow, during my recent visit there. Here were galleries of well displayed and meticulously explained objects inspired by the religious impulse but falling short of revealing its mysterious nature and origins deep within the human mind. How do we express our spiritual longings in physical form? The Colossus of 20th. century philosophy, Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote "Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must remain silent." There are mysteries beyond definition but such is our need to communicate with ourselves as well as with each other, in order to engage with these mysteries that we persevere in trying to represent what we perceive to exist in the very depths of our being. As there are no words to describe impressions we discern in the profound recesses of our mind, we use approximations, metaphors, similes, parables, and symbols that stand in for that amorphous something. We call upon the written word, art, poetry, and music to convey our spiritual perceptions which are so difficult to fix because they slip away from us so easily. Above all, we give narrative form in the shape of mythologies to our spiritual experiences in an effort to bring them to the surface so that they may be part of our everyday life, that we may live in them, participate in them, feel involved in the unfolding drama of eternity and so feel that as individuals we have meaning and significance.

Many religious cultures give or gave shape to their beliefs by making images of their Gods. The ancient Hebrews were severely censured by Moses for creating in his absence, a Golden Calf as an object of worship. The ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans produced sculpted portraits of their gods, as do the Hindus today. Roman Catholic churches display statues and paintings of Jesus, the Virgin Mary and the Saints, as well as angels and even demons. Many protestant institutions which forbid other forms of divine representation, are not now averse to the portrayal of the various forms of the godhead in stained glass windows. The cross, of course, in its various forms is a universal Christian symbol. Worship ritual as a means of making spirituality explicit is essential to all religions and takes many forms. In many primitive cults, ritual was a means of influencing or even entering the spirit world or the supernatural realm of the gods. Moslems have to pray at specific times every day, while kneeling and facing towards Mecca. Christianity is based upon this practice of embodying the supernatural, as God, a spirit, enters human history by being born of a human mother, like any human child, living, acting and then dying as a human being. Jesus is God or spirit made flesh. The Roman Catholic Eucharist attempts to make what is spiritual a physical experience, by involving the senses. There is music, incense, bread and wine, the traditional choreography of the priests and altar boys, the gold and silver vessels used in the ceremony of the mass, and the appearance of God on the altar in the bread and wine which mysteriously possesses two natures the physical and the spiritual.

Jews, Moslems, Hindus, Buddhists all practise rituals of greater or lesser elaboration during their spiritual exercises.

Many religions also establish a physical dimension by imposing upon their devotees strict rules of behaviour, controlling almost every aspect of their physical lives, including how they may dress, what they may eat, with whom they may associate and so on. Clothing, or the way one cuts or dresses one's hair, or the personal ornaments one may wear are common ways of manifesting or publicising one's spiritual beliefs to oneself and to the world.

The gleaming glass cases in St. Mungo's museum, were full of such stand-in's, objects and devices that represent the metaphysical in physical terms. The objects themselves acquire a special significance derived from their sacramental function and they are identified by ritualistic names. A cup becomes a chalice, a wash basin 'a piscina', a bowl a 'font', the priest's clothes become vestments and each garment has its own name, such as alb, cope, stole, chasuble and so on. The danger is that the objects themselves, the ceremonial and the setting become more important than the true object of worship.

Like all the other developed religions of our time, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity relies upon the written word, Scripture, for its spiritual revelation and instruction. The Bible affords us traditional guidance about how we should live as members of a community, such as the Ten Commandments or the Sermon on the Mount for instance, but in the matter of personal spirituality it is less specific. There is general agreement that personal spirituality is wrapped in mystery and that understanding is to be found deep in our own heart, but there is little indication as to what that might be.

In Luke Chapter 8, explaining the parable of the sower to his disciples, Jesus says, 'Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God; but to others in parables; that seeing they might not see and hearing they might not understand.' These seems to suggest that there is spiritual knowledge that the disciples are aware of instinctively but of which other people are unaware and so must have it explained to them in words. This knowledge is conveyed in the word of God, which makes everything as clear as day.

Ecclesiasticus also suggests we should trust to our own instincts, 'Accept no man against thine own soul.. ..And in the counsel ofthine own heart stand.' Thomas a Kempis, the 15th century religious writer also acknowledges that spiritual truth is only available deep inside the mind: 'Blessed are those who listen to the truth teaching inwardly... ..Blessed are they that enter far into inward things and endeavour to prepare themselves for the receiving of heavenly secrets.' And 'Do thou speak, 0 Lord God,... Thou unlockest the meaning of sealed things.'

Writing in; the 20th century, Alfred North Whitehead, one of the greatest mathematicians of his age, finds spiritual truth elusive and beyond perception, 'Something that gives meaning to all that passes and yet eludes apprehension.'

What I gather from this, is that spiritual truth is purely subjective. That it is something that we may be aware of in ourselves, but difficult to pin down; of the nature of a feeling, but more of a conviction, a certainty, a perception, an understanding without any form of logical deduction or evidence, like knowing the answer to a mathematical problem without being able to show the working.

Emerson in his essay 'Intellect' is I think making the same point:' All our progress is an unfolding like the vegetable bud. You have first an instinct, then an opinion, then a knowledge,....Trust the instinct to the end, though you can render no reason. It is in vain to hurry it. By trusting it to the end, it shall ripen into truth and you shall know why you believe.......Each mind has its own method. For we cannot oversee each other's secret.'

Each of us then is responsible for our own spiritual knowledge, which will influence how we react to whatever happens to us in our daily lives and how we behave.

This spiritual urge is instinctive; it is not subject to our will; we may try to ignore it but we cannot switch it off. I think it is a coping mechanism to help us to survive in an indifferent universe. It has evolved to serve two related needs. We crave meaning and we crave acceptance.

It is a compulsion to seek out an answer to the riddle of being. What is existence and why are we here? In other words, no matter who we are, how self-confident, how talented, how powerful, we need to feel that there is something in our life that gives it meaning. Something at the deepest level of our mind reassures us, that comforts us that there is a unique essence that is us. We have a truth of our own. Strip away our hopes and fears, self-deception and fantasies, vanity, our public face, our education, material ambitions and desires, all the influences we have been subjected to, everything we have developed over a lifetime to function in our society, and at last we find that something which brings us peace. Intimately associated with this hunger for meaning, indeed it may be the same thing, is a basic longing for acceptance, to feel that we are part of and have a role to play in the on-going drama of the universe. Our intuition tells us that there is a unity in all creation, and we seek this metaphysically by means of religious practice, and this wholeness may be the something, the truth, that gives our life ultimate meaning.

Alfred North Whitehead refers to the paradoxical nature of this something. It is everywhere but cannot be perceived. It is immeasurably remote but intimately present in our very selves. It exists but defies definition. Above all, we all seek it but are fated never to achieve it. Our first response to this may be that he is describing the ultimate form of frustration, but in fact he is describing a compulsion that has nothing to do with reason. As Emerson says, 'Trust the instinct to the end, though you can render no reason.' In the same essay, again talking of the strength of intuition he says, 'What am I? What has my will done to make me what I am? Nothing. I have been floated into this thought, this hour, this connection of events, by might and mind sublime, and my ingenuity and wilfulness have not thwarted, have not aided to an appreciable degree.' We pursue this transcendent 'something', this aspiration, this truth because we cannot help ourselves. It is in our genes.

It is the pursuit of wholeness and as this is regarded by most religious traditions as the source of divinity and vital to our spiritual well being and by many as the source of our moral consciousness, enormous efforts are directed to making what is abstract, exclusively of the mind, as explicit as possible.

As I wandered around the St. Mungo museum, I was again reminded that Art came into being as the voice of religion, to enunciate those longings to feel at one with the universe, and to find meaning and purpose in our existence. Art creates a connection, but more than that, an intimacy between the inner and the outer worlds. The genuine work of art, be it music, poetry, painting, sculpture, embroidery is a record of the creator's struggle to make what is abstract, that which exists originally as a mental event, an idea, obvious to the senses and the conscious mind. Because art communicates initially with one or other of the senses, it is easy to regard many works of art, pretty pictures, catchy tunes, exciting or sentimental stories, for instance, as little more. than a pleasant sensual experience, but a work that emerges from the artist's attempt to recreate the truth of his/her subject, reveals its human creator grappling with the problem of how to express our compulsion to extract meaning from our Worship, I think, is an art form. Although Unitarian churches don't employ elaborate rituals, - lighting the chalice is a modest use of symbolism our selection of words, music and silence is an aesthetic process intended to reflect the infinite aspiration of the human mind and our common effort to express that hunger for meaning and wholeness, that generates our creative powers and justifies our claim to be regarded as a spiritual community.

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WAITING

By Essie Wise

For a short time, the customer at the checkout of Marks & Spencers would be greeted with "Thank you for waiting" by the assistant at the till, with as much sincerity as he or she could muster. They don't say it any longer, no doubt because their customers have informed them that by opening a few more tills there would be no need for their customers to wait nor for the store to apologise. The apology, however, was no doubt prompted by the perception that we have become a very impatient society and that waiting seriously upsets us. Waiting has even become a major political issue and the government has imposed maximum waiting times upon the N.H.S. and upon the judiciary and other of its administrative bodies.

Several factors have made us thus highly sensitive to the passage of time. Technology, first of all, has accelerated the pace of life by reducing the amount of time taken to complete routine tasks. The laser and barcode system, the swipe card, the Automatic Teller Machine at the Bank, the computerised bus pass, on line services, instant access to information on the internet, air travel, labour -saving domestic devices, mobile phones and instant communication, microwave ovens and instant cuisine, all encouraging our expectation of instant gratification. Then, financial priorities have put a price on waiting. Time is money. The cost of various services are measured by the clock, such as parking or the telephone, and so to avoid wasting money, we are obliged to avoid wasting time. Our obsession with status also impinges upon our attitude to waiting. We like to think we are living in an egalitarian society, where everyone waits in line and nobody jumps the queue. If, however, we think we have been kept waiting unjustifiably or discover some one has taken precedence over us, we feel slighted, under-valued and get very cross indeed. Queue rage is not an infrequent phenomenon in waiting rooms, supermarkets and at bus stations these days. Finally, waiting has a metaphysical aspect which unsettles us most of all.

There are two types of waiting just as there are two kinds of time. There is 'waiting for' and there is 'waiting with' or even just 'waiting', and these correspond to the two kinds of time, clock time and natural time. Clock-time is superimposed upon natural time and our spiritual problems arise when, in periods of 'waiting for' we become aware of the existence of natural time, and the experience of just waiting.

Our modern world is utterly dependent upon clock-time for its economic survival. All our operations are organised by time. Time-tables, schedules, chronologies, deadlines are the essential mechanisms that enable our closely integrated and highly co-ordinated global society to function. We rely on services to be available or provided at the time stated in the schedule. Time-tables predict the occurrence of a particular event, be it the arrival of a bus or a train, the departure of an aeroplane, the opening of a shop, the switching on of a light or a heating system or some other device, or the start of a TV or radio programme. In our world we prefer our events to be predetermined. Accurate time keeping is essential to our wellbeing" otherwise our carefully clock-organised life falls apart, our ability to predict and therefore control events is annulled and we fall prey to randomness, which we fear and abhor. Time-table hitches, protracted delays while waiting for something to happen, provoke a hierarchy of uncertainty, first making us impatient, then anxious, and eventually fearful as we foresee the whole meticulously planned fabric of our day, our week, year, life collapse around us. 'For the want of a nail, the war was lost!'

Natural time underpins clock-time and all other forms of timekeeping. It is creation's time. It is duration, the time it takes for anything to come into being, to flourish, to decline and so shed its individuality to be lost once more in the shapeless ocean of universal matter. Natural time is life-span, existence, being, and in the case of human beings, our period of consciousness. It is the life-span of galaxies, planets, oceans, volcanoes, thunderstorms, oak trees, whales, eagles, spiders and dragonflies.....and kings, presidents, pop-singers, shopkeepers and Unitarian congregations. The duration of things around us of everything that we perceive coincides with our duration and nothing has the power to add to the length of that durations and only human beings can shorten it This is the time we prefer to ignore because it reminds us of our mortality, but when clock-time is interrupted and we are compelled to kick our heels in idleness, then the awful truth is borne in upon us, that the time we are wasting is our life-time, the moment when waiting for becomes just waiting and we become aware of everything else around us that is just waiting out its time, its being, its uniqueness, proclaiming its meaning. Waiting we discover has a spiritual dimension. Waiting we discover is meaning.

How we react to waiting on the natural time-scale reveals a great deal about ourselves. Shakespeare, for instance, gives us privileged access to Macbeth's soul by making him aware of the passage of natural time, of his life time, as he anticipates the assault of his enemies upon his castle at Dunsinane.

"Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day to the last syllable of recorded time, and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Out, out brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing."

 Trapped, his time on earth about to end, he has a vision of human existence laid out before him. From first to last, it is a pointless repetition of days which have to be endured and no matter what is said or done, there is no way of avoiding the end. And all that effort, all that suffering, worrying, striving b,as been for nothing. His purpose in life had been to achieve and enjoy absolute power; everything had to be sacrificed to that end, love, honour, reputation, compassion, human decency and spiritual contentment Failure to achieve this aim renders his life totally meaningless. Life-span wasted upon an ill-advised and catastrophic project Viewing his own life alongside the on-going life of the universe, allows him to see at last what a tragic waste of opportunity his life has been.

The English poet, John Keats, also thought deeply about this complex relationship between waiting and the quality and purpose of human life. Keats is tormented by the shortness of life (an understandable obsession as he suffered from consumption and was dead before his 26th birthday). But he is nonetheless determined to get as much out of his brief existence as he can. He is excited by the experience of being alive; he is enthusiastic about the world around him; in particular, he is overwhelmed by the beauty which he sees in nature, in art, music, literature and mythology and in the form and bearing of young men and women and all living things. Life is so short, there is so much beauty in the world to be experienced, how can he enjoy as much of it as possible. The answer is to be found in waiting. Concentrate on the quality rather than on the quantity of time. Stop the passage of time, or at any rate give that impression, by losing oneself in a single beautiful experience so completely that one steps out of time altogether.

He demonstrates this approach in his poem, 'Ode on a Grecian Urn'. On the sides of this ancient, marble vessel an unknown sculptor has carved scenes depicting people enjoying life at its very best, their moment of unshadowed happiness. It is early springtime. The trees are coming into leaf. One young man is raising a flute to his lips. Another is about to kiss his girl friend. A crowd of villages, dressed for a festival are processing towards a holy shrine to celebrate the coming of Spring. The bright, sunny morning is ideal, the green, pastoral setting is ideal, and the people are happy and healthy and looking forward to their moment of fulfilment,......but it never happens, it is delayed indefinitely. They wait in an ecstasy of anticipation. The young man will never kiss his girl but will enjoy that tingling moment of expectation for ever. The flute player will never tire nor will his music ever grow stale. That first, sweet note will forever be suspended, unheard in the silent in the air. The leaves will never wither from the trees and the villagers' holiday will last for eternity. They are caught up in that exquisite moment when time seems to have dissolved away and so waiting and being become one in the sheer pleasure of the experience.

Keats, pursuing meaning in his own life, reflects upon the significance of the urn to the people who look at it. For more than two thousand years, the urn has coincided with the lives of many people who have encountered it and then moved on into oblivion and the process will continue as be says, 'When old age shall this generation waste Thou shalt remain in midst of other woe Than ours...' . 'Ode on a Grecian Urn' thus unites past, present and future into one timeless experience, exactly as the Urn does. The message transmitted down the ages by the nameless sculptor of the Urn and by the poem, in Keats's words, is 'Beauty is truth,. truth beauty'. Beauty is the truth that runs through all creation and no other justification or explanation is required for existence.

This beauty is the spiritual fulfilment. that we perceive when we free out-Selves of clock-time and keep pace with natural time which is the duration of the universe. This is waiting without purpose, existing, side by side with the rest of creation, losing ourselves in the wholeness of creation.

Christianity is a religion of waiting but it is waiting with a purpose. In St Luke's Gospel we read of the aged Simoon to whom the Holy Spirit made a promise that we would not die until he had seen the Messiah. That day came when Simeon recognised the baby Jesus as the Messiah when Mary and Joseph brought him to the Temple for purification. Simeon acknowledged the fulfilment of his waiting in the 'Nunc dimittis' hymn, "Now, Master, you can let your servant go in peace, as you promised". Simeon's story is symbolic of Christianity as a whole which still awaits the second coming. The earliest Christians expected Jesus to return to earth almost immediately. In the Dark Ages the year 1000, the millennium was confidently anticipated as the time of his reappearance. The Second Coming is still awaited by traditional Christian Churches and frequently claimed as being imminent by various fundamentalist group. Meanwhile, however, the whole eschatalogical apparatus of Christian doctrine - the Resurrection of the dead, the Day of Judgement, the establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth - is put on hold, This is the same as waiting in the Supermarket checkout, that leads to impatience, frustration, disillusionment and conflict All of Christendom waits and while it waits, its influence steadily melts away, and the strain of waiting erupts in ever more disputes and schisms. (Will there be gay bishops or women priests in the Kingdom of Heaven? )

Our consciousness of time is a mixed blessing. Defying the power of the clock is extraordinarily difficult, given the clock-dependent nature of our life style, but clearly we need to break out of the time-machine to enjoy the freedom of living in our own time, to appreciate the privilege of being part of a creation that is existing side by side with us. If we can replace 'Waiting for' which is the curse of clock-time with 'just waiting', or tarrying which is possible with natural time, the time to stand and stare, quality time, then we may be able to appreciate that in being, in existing, we have all we need to give our life meaning.

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JOHN MILTON

By Bill Stephen

This month marks the 400th. anniversary of the birth of John Milton, an important date for everyone concerned about the freedom of speech and thought, since he was one of the earliest and most committed champions of both. Author of 'Paradise Lost' and 'Samson Agonistes' two of the profoundest works in the English language, Milton was also a master of polemical prose, his 'Areopagitica' (a defence of free speech) and 'The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce' ( an argument for the liberalisation of divorce legislation) are models of sustained rational argument from which we may still learn today. He was an indefatigable opponent of Archbishop Laud's attempt to establish the Episcopal form of church government upon all religious institutions and the Church of England's Book of Common Prayer as the only legal service book. Against this form of totalitarianism, he wrote vituperatively and voluminously, not only because he himself was a committed Presbyterian and republican (he served as Oliver Cromwell's Latin secretary, with the specific task of justifying the execution of Charles 1st. to the rest of Europe) but because it outraged his belief in freedom of thought, an attitude that many commentators think he bequeathed to the character of Lucifer, in 'Paradise Lost'.

Milton worked within two contrasting and competing intellectual and spiritual contexts, the Humanist (Greek and Latin) and the Christian, finding his subjects in pagan as well as in biblical literature. Whatever his sources, however, the authenticity of his work depended upon its truth being subjected to the close scrutiny of his own experience and understanding. He accepted nothing at face value and was only persuaded by his own reasoning. This approach is clearly exemplified in miniature in the sonnet, 'On His Blindness'.

In early middle age, Milton's previous way of life was altered by the onset of blindness, compelling him not only to review his material arrangements but also to reconsider his relationship with God. How should he now serve God?

In addition to feelings of disappointment, frustration and despair, he feels anxious he may have broken a covenant with God. The Parable of the Talents concerns him deeply. His poetic gift was given by God to be exploited. It is his heart's desire to use it in the service of God. If he fails to do so he stands in the same jeopardy as the servant who, fearful lest he should lose his master's talent, buried it in the ground instead of investing it, and who, in consequence, suffered his master's severe rebuke. The Parable places Milton in the wrong, but he feels himself to be a victim of an injustice. God, having deprived him of his sight, cannot surely expect him to compose poetry in his praise?

He has reached a watershed. He seems to be on the point of rebellion, as there is no comfort to be had in this piece of scripture. He must look elsewhere, but extremely agitated, he feels the need for more objective counselling, so he withdraws from the discussion and hands the poem over to a third party, Patience, a personified virtue, which proposes a new view of humattkh1d's relationship with God. Being all powerful and all knowing, God requires nothing at all from human kind. People should make the best of whatever condition they find themselves in, because acceptance is the gateway to spiritual contentment. People may dash around doing what they consider to be God's bidding in order to feel acceptable to God and thus fulfilled, but a meaningful existence does not depend upon such busyness alone. All that is required is a loyal acknowledgement of God and the patience to stand and wait - a phrase which may imply a state of readiness, but is enigmatic.

His difficulty seems to have been resolved for the time being, but because the poem is left hanging on the word 'wait' , there is a suggestion that further spiritual enlightenment may lie in the future. His physical blindness he realises he must endure as patiently as he can; however, a clearer sight of his relationship with God may still be forthcoming. What the poem shows is that he accepts that the responsibility for his spiritual development is his and what he does with this knowledge will shape his life to come.

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WHERE EXTREMES MEET

By Terence Skene

At around 8.00am on 20th October a young woman, Gayle Williams, was murdered by two men on a motor cycle. One man jumped off the bike, approached Miss Williams fired several shots at her, remounted and was driven away, while on-lookers watched horrified and helpless to interfere. A Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Muhajid, declared that she had been executed because she was working for an organisation that was preaching Christianity in Afghanistan' where converting from Islam to Christianity or any other religion is a capital offence. Miss Williams had been in Afghanistan for two years working with severely handicapped children children who had lost limbs or been blinded as a result of standing on landmines. She was employed by Serve Afghanistan, a Christian organisation that had been helping to feed, shelter and provide medical care for refugees for more than twenty years, first of all in Pakistan and more recently in Afghanistan. It strongly denies any suggestion that it is engaged in conversion attempts. This assassination of an aid worker in Afghanistan follows the death of three other women engaged in humanitarian medical work two months previously at the hands of Taliban extremists. This latest death has been roundly condemned by Muslims as well as Christians. Writing in the 'Guardian' newspaper' the day after, Ziauddin Sardar commented, 'The murder of aid worker Gayle Williams is an atrocious act. The fact that it has been justified on religious grounds is an abomination. As a Muslim, I feel ashamed that such a barbarity has been perpetrated in the name of Islam.' Douglas Alexander, the International Development Secretary, said, 'Her killing was a callous and cowardly act by people who would take Afghanistan back to the dark days of Taliban tyranny which scarred the country for so long.' , The objective of the Taliban', explains Ziauddin Sardar, , is to institute an Islamic Utopia in . Afghanistan. This vision of Islam, like any Utopian project, must clear away imperfections, the unacceptable, the intolerable, the distracting and create a purified territory in which true righteousness can exist. All actions, however murderous and criminal are justified in the pursuit of this goal. They execute women who do not cover their hair without a qualm. They behead those who do not support an Islamic beard. So far this year they have killed 29 aid workers simply for being foreigners or Christian or different. Every act however barbaric is celebrated. The Taliban see themselves as heroes engaged in a life and death struggle to recreate the imagined Medina of the time of the prophet Mohammed. Their Islamic Utopia, like all Utopias, is a restrictive, totalitarian, nightmarish vision.'

People around the world of different faiths are shocked and confused that cruel and bloodthirsty deeds are justified in the name of religion. Violence in God's name is an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms, a perversion, that only the most cynical and hypocritical could propose and execute. However, appalling as it is, violence in God's name has a very long history stretching back to the very beginnings of certain religions and none of the principal world faiths can claim to be innocent of it.

Religion is a human concept and reflects human experience. We have come to recognise concepts of good and evil within ourselves, and have enshrined them in mythology and religious faiths. Love, compassion, generosity, nobility, forbearance and forgiveness we have identified as divine attributes, virtues we must aspire to, values we must live by.

Hatred, vengeance, selfishness, violence are devilish characteristics we try to outlaw in ourselves. As a result each of us is engaged in a perpetual struggle between our noble ambitions to excel spiritually and our basic instinct to survive in a highly competitive environment whichfrom time to time may make us aggressive, selfish, suspicious of the unfamiliar, territorial or proprietary. In each one of us are met the extremes of love and hate, generosity and selfishness, reconciliation and vengeance, and they strive for possession of our being. This same struggle is apparent in our religious faiths, not only in metaphysical or mythological terms but in actual and historical terms as well. There is an ambiguity in how the major world faiths approach the question of violence which gives rise to the destructive consequences that the people of the world have been experiencing for thousands of years.

The appeal of the self-defence justification for violence is deeply embedded in the human psyche and a difficult notion for any of us to ignore. Cicero, the great Roman jurist and orator, and of course a pagan, more than 2,000 years ago, promulgated the idea of 'the just war', and ever since then this concept has been used in the West by religious bodies and by politicians to justify armed conflict in the name of self defence or th~ defence of the weak. Pacifists whether religious or secular have not found this an easy concept to argue against; turning the other cheek has always seemed to be a downright unnatural response to an attack upon our person or property.

Of all the world religions, Buddhism is the one most dedicated to peace and to pacifism as a way of life. During the Vietnam War, for instance, the Venerable Thich Nhah Hanh said he would rather have peace under a communist regime, even if it meant the end of Buddhism altogether. He did not think that people should suffer and die to protect the Buddhist religion. In due time, he explained, Buddhism would always be reborn in the hearts of the people. However, the Mahayana Buddhist tradition argues that the Buddhist obligation to end suffering, to stop harm, foster compassion and to promote peace, paradoxically, requires violence if it is the only way that further harm may be prevented. Such use of force must be motivated by a deep sense of compassion for the weak and suffering and not by hatred or a desire for vengeance. Buddhist priests fought in the Korean War in the belief that they were killing to protect innocent people. The Dalai Lama, a few years ago, gave his personal blessing to Tibetan soldiers protecting Buddhists in Kashmir when they were being attacked by Islamic militants. In his book 'Ethics for the New Millennium', while advocating peaceful solutions to world problems, he agrees that fanatics and extremists will only be defeated by superior force of arms and suggests the creation of a global police force to overcome them.

Among Hindus, violence and nonviolence attitudes have co-existed uneasily for many centuries. Like Buddhism, Hinduism extols the divine qualities of compassion, forgiveness, the absence of anger and malice, peace and harmlessness, but at the same time allows the use Of violence to defend oneself and the world from evil and injustice. Good must confront evil even if doing so results in the deaths of many people. The soul is immortal and will survive whatever happens to the body; therefore, to kill in a just cause is acceptable as long as it is to aid the weak and the innocent and to protect the rites and traditions of Hinduism against the powers of evil. Mahatma Ghandi, the great pacifist and originator of non-violent direct action, was an exception to the Hindu practice of taking up arms to defend religion and homeland and because of this way of opposing British rule, was assassinated by a devout Hindu student.

The Jewish and Christian religions are likewise ambivalent and downright contradictory in their attitude to violence. God said thou shalt not kill but helped the Hebrews to conquer Palestine by the sword. Violence was used to protect the purity of the Jewish faith, in spite of the fact that the commandment against killing is absolute, admitting of no exceptions, not even when the killing is done in the name of God. The Jewish Messiah is conceived as a great warrior who will lead his people to battle against the might of pagan armies. As the second psalm says, 'You will rule them with a rod of iron; you will dash them to pieces like a potter's vessel.' There is no yielding to pacifism here. The Christian Messiah on the other hand, is emphatically against violence. Jesus tells us to love our neighbour; to turn the other cheek when attacked and warns us that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgement. When Peter attacks the servant of the high priest in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus says, 'Put your sword back in its sheath, for all that draw the sword will die by the sword.' Paul's letter to the Romans endorses Jesus pacifist principles, advising against taking revenge and expressing the ideal that evil should be overcome by good. (Romans 12:21). This message appears clear enough but then in Matthew 10;34 Jesus says, 'I have not come to bring peace but a sword'. In Luke (22:36) he says, 'If you don't have a sword sell your cloak and buy one.' Jesus is capable of violent action as well, when he drives the money changers from the Temple, upsetting their tables. (Matthew. 21:12) Worst of all is the vision of St. John in Revelation which describes how the four horsemen of the Apocalypse destroy one third of the human race.

The history of Christianity especially from 303 AD onwards when it became the state religion of the Roman Empire, has been a sorry tale of schism, cruelty, slaughter and destruction, each faction claiming a monopoly of divine truth and therefore justified in either imposing its beliefs upon its rivals by force or destroying them altogether. Ancient divisions persist and new divisions are created as intransigent die-hards squabble over the significance of ancient scriptures.

Islam is similarly ambivalent about violence. The Koran expresses the will of God for the whole of creation. The task of the human race is to establish and spread God's order, the Islamic, order over the whole earth. The Islamic order is a comprehensive system of belief that controls every aspect of life, that society and state as well as the individual's, creating harmony between the spiritual and material. The oneness of God, reflected in the wholeness of creation, demands one law and one ruler. The focus of a person's spiritual life is the 'jihad' the struggle between good and evil within the individual. However, this struggle also became a communal one as Mohammed and his disciples took to the sword to defeat their physical enemies as they tried to establish their new religious revelation. After Mohammed's death in 632, civil war broke out among his followers, as rivals strove to gain outright control of their movement. Eventually two major factions emerged, the Sunni and the Shia, whose mutual animosity still erupts into violence from time to time as we have seen in Iraq and in the Iraqi Iranian war of thirty years ago. The justification for warfare once again is the protection of the true faith, self-defence and the elimination of evil forces and influences. This is also the explanation offered by the extremists and the Taliban for their slaughterous activities.

Over the centuries, there has also been a persistent pacifist attitude that has advised that 'jihad' refers to the individual's private struggle to control the power of wickedness within himself. A 19th century teacher Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, declared,' How could a religion be from God, whose teachings needed the flash of the sword to get an entrance into the human heart? The sword, far from revealing the excellence and the beauties of truth, makes them dubious and throws them into the background..' He believed that Islam could easily establish its truth and superiority by sound intellectual arguments, heavenly signs or other reliable testimony and therefore did not need 'the sword to threaten men and force a confession of its truth from them'.

Because of this ambivalence, which many interpret as hypocrisy, millions of people, especially in the developed western nations, have abandoned religion altogether. There are sufficient causes of strife in the world they say without supporting institutions which over the centuries have been responsible for so much unnecessary suffering, destruction and death. Over the past few years many books have been published condemning religions as sources of human misery and bloodshed and anticipating with satisfaction their imminent demise.

If we emphasise the divine or transcendent aspect of religion this attitude is understandable. Rivalry and competition are endemic in most aspects of human life and in many even encouraged. We are addicted to all kinds of competitions. We require free competition in commercial dealings and in job appointments. Our political system is based upon opposition. Rivalry, contending, challenging, vying are all common features in human dealings, professional, business, commercial, political, social and communal. Competition is a fact of life. However, there is a general feeling that religion, since it claims divine associations, ought to be above competition and all the less desirable manifestations of human behaviour that it engenders, such as jealousy, resentment, frustration, hatred and conflict. Religion claims to be in the business of transforming people, helping them to aspire, providing opportunities to transcend, but say the critics, it seems to lack the will to transform itself, to shake itself free of the evil that it is clearly aware of.

What is to be done? All world religions are burdened by the baggage of their respective pasts when they fought each other to survive. Their past experiences created traditions which have become the mainstay of the identity of their believers, who are of the opinion that to deny the claims of these traditions is to undermine their own identity and independence. For many fundamentalists and extremists the independence of their faith and the proclamation of their identity are more important than the transcendental values of their faith, yet these values, love, compassion, generosity, kindness, peacefulness are common to all the major religions, and the earnest desire of all moderate and humane people throughout the earth who are heart weary of strife and killing. The values are common to all; it is the packaging, the branding, that is different, the Christian brand, or the Moslem brand or the Hindu or Buddhist brand. On September 11th. 1893, addressing the world Parliament of Religions, a disciple of the Hindu mystic, Ramakrishna, a delegate called Vivekananda said, 'Sectarianism, bigotry, and its horrible descendant, fanaticism, have long possessed this beautiful earth. They have filled the earth with violence, drenched it time and again with human blood, destroyed civilisation and sent whole nations to despair.' He was speaking for millions who realised that the battle among the religions for possession of the global soul would never be won by one single faith and that in attempting to do so would turn people against all religions. He advocated unity in diversity, a principle well known and understood by Unitarians and Universalists. He continued, 'The Christian is not to become a Hindu or a Moslem. The Hindu is not to become a Moslem or a Buddhist. The Buddhist is hot to become a Christian or a Moslem. But each religion must assimilate the spirit of the others and yet preserve its own individuality and grow according to its own laws of growth.' He is advocating tolerance, understanding, freedom of worship and patience.

Mature individuals know that they hold within themselves extremes of human behaviour. They have the potential to be saints or devils. They learn to restrain their instinctive aggression so that they can live in a well-ordered and secure community. They curtail selfish interests for the benefit of society. Sheer selfishness, pride, ambition and narcissism masquerading as God's truth is the cause of religious strife. It is high time religious leaders and activists took to heart their own higher ideals and discarded their pursuit of worldly motives and intentions. Consciousness of the extremes. the polarities of good and evil. is only useful if we do our utmost to overcome the power of evil that is so determined to destroy us.

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CHEQUER-BOARD ETHICS

by Bill Stephen

It is generally accepted that children learn a great deal about human nature from their encounters with their peers in the school playground, particularly the more feral aspects of youthful conduct, the aggression, the bullying, the rivalry, the spitefulness, and sheer cruelty. However, I think that our first lessons in the rudiments of moral philosophy come earlier, in the family circle from over hearing adult conversations.

My Grandmother had a wide acquaintanceship among ladies of an age and background similar to her own, and they met regularly to drink tea, eat cakes and comment upon the vicissitudes of life particularly as these affected the lives of people not present. As a very junior adjunct of these gatherings, by making what sense I could of the gossip I was over-hearing, I eventually concluded that a good person was one of which these ladies approved and a bad one was an individual who had somehow incurred their displeasure. I had to know their opinion' on any particular incident or situation before I could determine whether it were good or bad. They were my moral authority. Being prone to oversimplification and generalisations at that time, I concluded that morality was concerned with what it was in other people's behaviour that pleased or upset one.

Much of this tea-table chat, of course, made little impression upon me, but gradually by hearing them repeated over and over again, I began to recognise certain names, and would take a passing interest in the events associated with those names, because they clearly were a cause of concern to the wise old women at the table; and when the voices became hushed and confidential, and anxious glances were cast in my innocent direction, an indication that something particularly dramatic had happened, too shocking for me to hear, I would keep very still and listen more intently, trying to work out what it was in their conversation that would be so devastating for me to hear. Thus among tales of medical emergencies, impending births, marital crises and financial irregularities, each a crashing anti-climax, in my judgment unworthy of their conspiratorial attitude, I first became aware of the terrible injustice suffered by Mrs Morris, a close friend of my Grandmother and a frequent visitor to our house. Sitting on the fender stool with my colouring book, I knew right away from the intensity of their expression that this was a story of good and evil, such as I had never heard outside the pages of the Brothers Grimm. Although this history started several years before I was born it was referred to so frequently over the tea cups that I felt I had grown up with it. It became part of our family folklore and I was a teenager by the time I had received the definitive version of it.

Mrs Morris, I never heard her first name mentioned in all the talk about her, had been a primary school teacher, had married in her late thirties and been widowed early. She had a daughter, Chrissie, who had fallen victim to a rare viral disease when eight years old, and had remained an eight-year- old ever since. Ruined by the depression, her husband, an ex-merchant navy captain and principal shareholder of a small shipping line plying the coastal trade, had died suddenly, deeply indebted to his employees who had not been paid and to local ship repairers and the trades people who had supplied his little fleet. Guilt-ridden that people were suffering from the collapse of her husband's business, Mrs Morris sold everything they possessed to clear the debt, rendering herself homeless and penniless. Her brother, a banker, and her father, a retired banker, were appalled by her action, claiming the debts of the company were not her responsibility. She asserted that she could not walk the streets knowing the people she passed may very well have been damaged by her husband's misfortunes. Bereavemeut was a heavy enough burden to bear on its own; the burden of the undischarged debt as well would surely have destroyed her. Widowhood and penury promised a bleak future for her and her daughter, but she could endure it, knowing her conscience was clear and no man, woman or child could say that she walked the earth at their expense.

Angered by what he allegedly called her "sentimental attitude to business", her brother refused to help her in any way, but her father, a widower, eventually agreed to let her return to the family home which he occupied on his own, as long as she saw to the running of the house and contributed to the house-keeping. It was during this time that Chrissie fell ill and required constant attention. There was no question of Mrs Morris returning to teaching, even on the unlikely event of a post becoming available. She was, therefore, obliged to live, on what she earned as a church organist, a piano and organ teacher and a jobbing pianist. This highly variable income was barely sufficient for their needs, but she proudly asserted to her friends that she "owed not a penny to anyone and was making her own way in the world", a comment which from time to time would surface during the tea-table conversation and never without expressions of admiration and support from the ladies present. The general opinion was that she had as a "God-fearing; honest body" done the right thing, even if it bad cost her so dearly, while her brother was "a bard-hearted blackguard, who put pounds, shillings and pence before his own flesh and blood". His reputation plummeted further a few years later when her father died, leaving the family home and all his possessions to the brother.

He decided to keep the house in the family anticipating his own children might have need of it  one day, and allowed his sister to rent it at what he called a "fair commercial rate", which in the opinion of the wise women "may have been commercial but was never fair, not in a hundred years." There were also conditions; she could not teach her pupils as the neighbours were complaining about the noise and she could not take in lodgers, another scheme she had contemplated, as he refused to have" every stray dog in town living in his property". Her friends rallied to her aid. The Miss McCombies, who kept a sweet shop in the next street to ours and who hosted the tea-circle on a Wednesday afternoon (early closing), had a spare room and a piano which they offered her rent free so that she could continue her teaching. She insisted in paying a rent; however, the elder Miss McCombie shrewdly pointed out that as her pupils would have to enter through the sweet-shop, she and her sister would gain a great deal in improved custom, therefore, no rent was necessary. These negotiations completed over the scones and cakes of a February afternoon, were hailed as a perfect example of practical Christianity, of "One hand washing another" as our next-door neighbour was fond of repeating, "and all done," she would add, "without a paper being signed. Folk trusted een anither then." Some folk, perhaps, but not the brother. He trusted no-one, it seemed.

Mrs Morris had agreed, as an act of charity, to share her home with a relative of her husband, a widow with three young children, who had become homeless and destitute. The Brother descended upon them, claiming she had broken the terms of her lease by accommodating lodgers and that if they did not leave immediately, she would lose the tenancy "at the next term". She refused, explaining they were guests not lodgers as they were not expected to pay anything towards the house-hold expenses as they had no income. "She could not in common decency turn them out into the street."

The Brother claimed she had entered freely into a legal agreement which she had now broken, knowingly and wilfully, and thus had forfeited her right to the accommodation. The McCombies offered to take in the family, but she was adamant that she had not brought them to our town to become a burden to other people. They were her responsibility and she. would fight on. . The pros and cons of this decision were discussed in our circle for years afterwards. It had been a noble decision, there was no doubt of that. My great aunt would say, "She's too saft-hairted for her ain good". The debate went on and on. Had she been courageous or foolhardy in challenging her brother when it wasn't strictly necessary to do so; or was the moral responsibility absolutely hers as she had after all given her word to her husband's grand-niece to look after her and her family; had her compassion and sense of responsibility raised her above what might reasonably be expected of good neighbourliness to a level where self-sacrifice was inevitable; and more generally, does compassion always come at a price? The price this time was litigation. The Brother went to law and in due course he obtained the Sheriffs permission to have her evicted,' compassion being no match for a binding contract, freely entered into and duly signed. Years later she pointed to a picture accompanying an article in the local paper announcing the Sheriff's death and' said to me, with some bitterness, "That's the man who turned me out of my Father's house."

While, the grand-niece and. her family accepted the hospitality of the McCombies, Mrs Morris and Chrissie, went to live with my Grandmother who by this time had given up the grocery trade and acquired a boarding house. Such was the respect and admiration our circle had for her, by the time I was six years old, I had been made fully aware that when in her company, I was in the presence of a living saint and was informed more than once that if I grew up to be half as good a person as she, then my family would be proud of me.

I gradually imbibed the chequer-board ethics of the tea-circle, everybody and everything could be designated black or white, good. or bad, its clear cut precision leaving.. no space for doubt. It was easily comprehensible, required a minimum of thought as one simply consulted one's feelings and made the appropriate judgement. This worked satisfactorily for me for years, until I was ten when I encountered a situation which I found completely bewildering.

Mrs Morris was now in rented accommodation a couple of doors along the street from us. I had become one of her organ pupils, as much to contribute to her income as to further my musical education, I suspect, since I seemed to pay more and receive more tuition than anyone else. I was also a member of a concert party and from time to time we would perform for a local impresario who organised concerts, whist-drives and dances to raise money for various war-time charities. I knew him as Charley and he was a jolly, friendly guy, with a warm stage personality, an easy laid-back line in patter and a joke for every occasion that made him the most popular compere and M.C. in town. In February 1945, we were due to go on stage for one of Charley's concerts, when our accompanist fell ill during the dress rehearsal. "Right," says Charley, "I've no use for a comb (he was bald) .but I can provide a roll of paper." .

He looked at me. "You got a comb, Billy?" He ruffled. up my hair: "Obviously not." He grinned broadly; everyone laughed.

"I can get a pianist, Charley. My music teacher will play for us, Mrs Morris," I said. The grin fled from his face, as if I had slapped him. He glared at me briefly. Turned away awkwardly. "I'll accompany you thyself," he muttered and walked over to the piano.

After the rehearsal, our group leader took me aside and said, "Your Mrs Morris is Charley's sister. They don't get on. Something she did upset him very badly a long time ago. He never got over it. Better not mention her again."

I. was thunderstruck. Charley was the wicked brother. Evil incarnate. Nobody could appear less wicked than this smiling, friendly, cheerful ,figure. I could not take this in. Everybody liked Charley. I liked Charley. I thought he was a terrific guy. And then there was this suggestion that some people thought it was Mrs Morris who had been at fault. Suddenly the squares in the chequerboard started to jiggle about, changing places, black becoming white and white black. I felt totally disorientated. How was one to know what was right? The tea-circle ladies had appeared to be so certain their authority could not be denied. It had never occurred to me there could be another point of view. Yet here it was. I had been taught to admire Mrs Morris. I admired Charley of my own volition. Both of them had been good to me. How, could I choose between them? Clearly human relationships were much more complicated than I had thought and certainly were not consistent with the black and white model I had absorbed from over-hearing the tea-table gossip. How one could resolve such a conundrum, defeated me, but it did occur to me that one had to know a great deal more about a situation before forming a judgement about it.

Seven years later, the war was over, and Mrs Morris and Chrissie were now occupying an attic flat in a tall tenement overlooking the beach. It was an evening in late March. Mrs Morris and I were rehearsing. She had asked me to deputise for her at a church service. Her brother, Charley had just died and she thought it inappropriate for her to appear in public before the funeral. She said, "Although he appeared to treat me badly, I really pushed him to the limit. We lost our mother when we were young and he looked after me. But he wanted to live my life for me. He smothered me and I had to fight to assert my independence. He took after my father. Everything had to be cut and dried, set down in black and white, leaving no room for doubt or accidents. Everything worked out before hand, neat and tidy, and then stuck to, my whatever happened. I was like my mother. I liked my own way. I don't know why she married my father. They were never suited. He was all head and she was all heart like me, always taking in waifs and strays. I don't think they could have been very happy together. When Douglas died, Charles was very kind to me. He saw to all the arrangements and spent weeks trying to sort out the affairs of the company, so that Chrissie and I would be comfortably off. But I couldn't live with debt and he couldn't understand that.

He thought I was rejecting his advice and his love out of sheer perversity and pride. He said I was wilful and stubborn and wanted my own way at any cost, even jeopardising Chrissie/s welfare, which was a terrible thing to say.. We quarrelled and were both heart-broken, because we had always been close. But I couldn't let him dictate my life for me. I had to be free to make my own decisions as I saw fit. I know Chrissie and I have suffered as a result and people have criticised me but I had to follow my own conscience. I've also had a few very good friends, like your folk, who have always seen me through. You understand, don't you. No matter what people say or try to make you do or try to explain away, the final responsibility for what you do is yours. We all have to live with ourselves. Many a night I've lain awake worrying about Chrissie or where our next penny was coming from, but never because I had done what I thought was right."

A few years later, at University, as a commentary upon the Nuremburg trials I wrote an essay on the indivisible responsibility of the individual conscience, for which I was complimented by my Moral Philosophy Professor. I am still of that opinion, that the moral arbiter we must satisfy, if we wish to enjoy perfect peace of mind, is our own conscience, a judge, which try as we might, will not be fooled or flattered, but will only be satisfied by absolute honesty.

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