Proost Through Lent: History, Hope, and Humanity

This morning, up here in Scotland at least, the sun is shining, the sky is blue and the sea flat calm. If you had no connection to the world we are part of – if we were truly able to live in this moment alone – then it would be a day to truly glory in. In an age of smart phones and media feeds, many of us find this impossible. There is a background noise to our times that is oppressive. I will not list the reasons for this – you know already.

There is something that unites many people on all sides of the political spectrum just now – a sense that things are not right, that deep within our culture, our economics, our political systems, our ways of living life, something is not working.

Does this dichotomy remind anyone of anything? How about the beginning of 2020?

That was another glorious spring, with a different kind of oppressive background noise. It might be difficult sometimes to remember, this is not the first time that humans have lived like this. This is not the first epoch of injustice, of super-rich so-called-superheros, of wars and division making. Think about it.

So this morning I offer one of my own poems, written back in that 2020 springtime. It became part of a book illustrated by Si Smith.

Human Races, by Chris Goan

The upright ape ascends from knapped flint to
Silicon chip. He scratches sonnets in split slate and
Solves problems (almost) as fast as he makes them.
His alchemy promised gold, but instead just turned the
Lights on, lighting a road ahead called Progress.

There is nothing new under the sun; the circle is still
Unbroken. Empires rise whilst others fall; ours was
Not the first at all. It turns out that our times were never
Linear (just oscillation) and that for every page of
Knowledge gained, another is forgotten.

But what are we, if not whisps of the same Spirit?
We carry in us the same am-ness as all things that ever were,
Hidden under thin skin and hubris, waiting for those moments
Beneath stars or trees or tenderness when we remember;
It is all about connection.