Faithful future...

I sometimes wonder if the Roman Catholic Church, with its moving back into it's medieval enclave and rolling back of the detente that Vatican 2 allowed, has actually thought this through. It cannot have escaped the notice of those in the pews that the last fifteen or so years of John Paul II's reign saw the unchecked rise into key posts of the most hardline organisations and their spokesmen. Benedict XVI was, without doubt, something of an eminence grise behind the Papal throne and while I do not agree with the hysterical lobby in the UK who seek to make him personally responsible for the abuse of children, I do take leave to doubt that his reign will either advance Christian unity or be good for his own Church.

One thing that has always troubled me about the Roman claim to exclusive validity of spiritual authority and exclusive possession of the 'true' Gospel is what this says about the faith of those who share the same creed, the same Bible and the same faith - except the bit about the Pope being the legitimate successor of St Peter and having the 'authority' given to Peter by Christ. It is simply this - their position to exclusive faith implies that anyone not within their Church wastes their time praying or worshipping. If Rome alone has the spiritual authority, then anyone else's prayers are pointless, since they will not be heard in heaven and no matter how good a life any non-Roman leads, they have no hope at all of Salvation.

To me, that is patently false. It is a complete misrepresentation of the Gospel and, interestingly, is founded not in the Gospels, though they constantly quote passages to support this claim, but in the medieval power struggles for control of the Church. Rome's claims were rejected outright by the Orthodox Church in the 10th Century after they first emerged in the 8th Century. Almost all the writings that are now quoted to support the claim of succession were written between the 8th and the 11th Centuries and are patently efforts to justify the Bishop of Rome's claims. Close examination of the list of Pope's reveals some interesting anomalies, not least the fact that at least one of them was a follower of the Arian Heresy (Modern Shia Islam is founded on this heresy) and others of the 3rd and 4th Century are equally dubious.

As I said at the outset, I have no reason to wish to see the Roman Catholic Church continue to be under attack from secularists, humanists and atheists, because it damages all of Christianity. I do hope and pray though, that Rome can be brought to the realisation that a retreat into the medieval practices and enclaves is not going to serve any Christian well and it certainly will not aid the spread or the teaching to the Gospel.

Chile's exercise in Faith

I cannot help but wonder at the effect of faith on the way in which the trapped miners coped with being incarcerated for almost three months below ground. Or the effect of knowing that their wives, sweethearts and friends on the surface were praying for their safe return. There can be no doubt that it affected to determination of those operating the massive drill which sank the rescue shaft. Nor can there be any doubt that the entire Chilean population joined in the call to pray.

A post by the Gorse Fox got me wondering, especially now that we have seen the rescued miners and heard fro their own accounts, that they had no doubt they were being "watched over" and would be saved, as to how our leading secularists and anti-faith celebrities would have responded or coped.

I somehow feel that packing something like thirty-three people with the mental attitudes of Richard Dawkins or the mental make-up and religious views of Stephen Fry, Polly Toynbee or any of the other articulate anti-Christian and anti-faith lobbyists currently publishing adverts saying things like "There is probably no God ...", would produce a very different response. I don't think any of these people would be able to deal with the uncertainty and the threat of imminent death. Of course, you could rightly point out, that none of these people would be down a mine anyway, and you'd be right. But you may also be certain that they are only able to exercise their supposed "intellectual freedom" and pursue their totally narcissistic lifestyles because there are people like the Chilean miners who do hold to faith and who are willing to work in these dangerous conditions to generate the wealth the likes of Dawkins, Fry and others enjoy.

No doubt Dawkins et al would tell you they have no connection with the miners, but they'd be wrong. The investments that pay Professor Dawkins generous annual stipend and fund his research is intricately bound up in commercial investments, some of them definitely linked to mining somewhere. Stephen Fry earns his living 'entertaining' and thus, is dependent on the wealth of others who can afford to go to the theatre, and they earn their money in ... Likewise the lady author who started the campaign of adverts on busses and in the Underground and Ms Toynbee's family wealth is founded on slavery, sweated labour and some pretty dodgy 'business' dating back to the 18th Century.

I have no doubt at all that the prayers, Masses and faith of the Chilean miners, their families and friends and even of their fellow countrymen has had an effect upon their survival and the health they are displaying now they are safe. I cannot escape the feeling that a bunch of faithless atheists placed in the same position and without the outpouring of faith and prayer, would not have done half as well and would, as of now, by in 'Counselling' and 'recovering from Traumatic Stress Disorder.' It cannot be a coincidence that the explosion of the need for 'stress counselling' and treatments for 'Traumatic Stress Disorder' has accompanied the determined assault on Christian Faith and the constant mantra from the Humanist Society that there is no God but man ...

Autumn rolling in...

The temperatures are definitely falling now and today it is cold - under 10*C and damp, with mist a light rain. So much for the weather forecast...

That said, this is a nice time of the year, lots of amazing colours in the forests, Red Squirels collecting nuts and goodies to store up, birds building nests and, as Mausi has pointed out, the geese and the storks migrating south. The Siberian Swan population moves south at this season as well, though not as far as the geese, just to the relative warmth of a European winter...

Madam Paddy has expanded and built up a thick undercoat of furand is scoping out the warm spots in the house where she can stay out of the drafts - there aren't many, but she's making sure - and keep comfortable between meal breaks, snack attacks and toilet visits...

I begin to suspect a cold winter ahead.

Language lessons...

Are taking up quite a bit of my day at present, probably not helped by trying to figure out what the Exercises actually want me to do! Still, progress, though slow, is being made...

Speaking of languages, I'm going through the Galley Proofs for a new book, Their Lordships Request and finding that the little gremlin built into Word for Mac or Microslosh Word has been a busy little beastie. It removes spaces between words and at the end of sentences on a completely random basis when you transfer a Word for Mac file (Office for Mac 2008) to a Word equivalent on a PC. It is random and so, when the publisher inserted my Word files into a Word Pagemaker program - guess what. Now I have to comb the whole document and mark up all the little gaps that have gone missing...

Oh what fun it is to be struggling to learn a new language and to have to deal with a difference in "computer languages" which messes up the format in such a subtle manner.

Zahnartztag....

That's Dentist Day to the rest of us. Me, to the dentist for some dental checking and cleaning up. Urgh, I'd rather go fight a fire in an oil refinery.

Mind you, the dentist is nice, wants to sell me some more caps for what's left of my teeth and certainly knows what he's doing. So now all I have to do is psyche myself up for the visit at 10.30....

Preparing for winter

The forest has turned gold and brown, with occssional shades of red. The migratory birds left some time ago, but the other animals are busy growing their winter coats and the horses around us are munching grass and enjoying the sunshine while we have it. Our local Red Kites are apparently making the most of the stripped fields and thinning leaves and can be seen - alongside the Merlins and kestrels - hunting and feasting busily.

This afternoon, after yesterday's efforts to clear our drainage ditch and cut back our hedge, we took a long walk in the forest. It was cool, but refreshing. A Jay landed near us as we walked, unconcerned until Mausi tried to take a photo. It immediately vanished. But one encounter in our garden has surprised us - Lady Birds (Bugs to the US reader!) were busy on a bush near our front door.

The skies have been beautifully clear for the last two days, which means, of course, wonderful starscapes at night, but a distinct chill as well. Any day now the wild geese and swans will pass over on their way south. For us though, we have isolated the outside tap and drained the pipes. The hose is put away and so is the BBQ, the cushion box for our patio recliners has come indoors and we are almost ready for the winter. Only the car tyres need to be swopped over to our snow tyres at the end of the month and we're ready.

It's going to be interesting to see the change of season to winter now.

Book Fairs

I spent Thursday and Friday on a stand at the Frankfurt Book Fair. This is held annually at the Messe Centre in Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany and is the world's largest Book Fair. Believe me, it is huge. It occupies eight large Halls and six of these are multistorey. The site itself is so large it has moving walkways and a bus service.

These Fairs are really bunfights for the publishers and the insiders of the industry, authors are, one gets the distinct impression, an unfortunate necessity. As at the London Book Fair, the publishers don't want to talk to you if you are not accompanied by an agent or are one of their "best sellers." The agents for their part don't want to talk to you unless you've made an appointment at least six months in advance and even then it depends on whether they are actually interested in anything you have written. It is all about selling the books they have already got in production and not about finding any new talent or products.

This Fair was very interesting because I met several other authors like myself, in that interesting limbo of trying to sell their work and being already published in various fields. Why were we there at all? Quite simply because we were all on the books of a company that is trying to sell the publishing 'rights' to our work into countries and languages that we are not currently sold to. In that regard we may well - at least some of us - have been lucky. Certainly there were several enquiries from Indian Publishers for my work and that of a couple of others.

It was useful as well, because I learned a great deal and got several leads to follow up, so while it isn't about authors, it is certainly a useful experience. Now I'd better get back t selling my work the hard way...