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Thursday 3 January 2013

Christmas Eve, Eve.

Sitting in Offley churchyard. Warm for the time of year and rather windy. The trees are very noises. Shhh!

The 21st of December passed by uneven truly. The supposed prediction of the end of the world by the Mayans has not materialised. Has the dawn of a new age of consciousness arrived? Not sure. Judging by the normality of depressing items I doubt it. It seems as though people and the world never learn from the past.

Perhaps another age old prophecy of the end of time and the dawning of a new age will be heralded and we will all meekly want to follow it. Oh look, it's Christmas Day shortly. That reminds me of something...

Human construction or human destruction. The rhythm of the natural world goes on. Oblivious perhaps to the desperate need of mankind to find some kind of escape from the the deep consciousness of pain, suffering and mortality that it has become aware of. I saw no signs in nature that it was preparing itself for the end - just loads of varied belief systems that honestly seem to have gripped people's thoughts - aided and strengthened no doubt by the mass of pick-and-mix ideas off the Internet. The alienation of man from his environment is becoming extreme.

Here in the churchyard the burden I feel is lifted and I am surrounded by the elements that my ancestors lived with day and night. It may have been idyllic in some respects, but would I have really have want to live back then without the technology of today? What were prophecies for in those days? Hope, cultural survival, belief, control, wisdom? People saw things around them, were deeply aware of the landscape and their environment. Now we have amazing flat screens that bring the world to us. I am not sure what we are becoming, but in some ways we are becoming moulded into the technology that now surrounds us. Soon perhaps our neurons too will become directly wired to circuits and devices to heal us of illness, to entertain us and to find out the times of the train.

Yet the natural world goes on just as it has always done so. Adapting, changing, living. Is it going to change us I wonder, or are we changing it?

Is religious belief ultimately futile? Or do we need prophecy?

Where do I fit in?

1 comment:

Phil said...

You write very well Matthew. I wonder what you are on the eve of!