A few months ago I was feeling pretty good about the situation in which we humans had found ourselves. We had developed the technical abilities to feed and clothe and house all of us. There were of course obstacles: the fearful; the politicians who traffic in that fear; and the theologians who claim that fear is the beginning of wisdom. But we live in a very complex system, and although I knew that sometimes very small things that have very large effects, I wasn't really expecting it.
Then Voldemort returned. Overnight, aces high became aces low. Politicians who are first said there was nothing to fear now are saying that it is such a catastrophe that only they can help us. It's hard to tell if we are as fearful as we are told to be, but we are still listen to the newest information or misinformation. The theologians are either quiet or asking for money to buy miracles.
I have been pondering the return of Voldemort to a soundtrack of my favourite Canadian theologian, Leonard Cohen, the Psalmist who sang of love and death and god and the sacred game of poker. It would be easy to listen to his last album, 'You want it Darker'. and find it the description of this time:
'If you are the dealer, then I'm out of the game . . . .'
But that brilliant album was made as Cohen was dying. I am of course also dying, but I ain't dead yet. (You too, gentle reader, are dying, as you were before Voldemort returned, and if you don't believe me, then I recommend that you listen to Lord Krishna's speech in The Bhagavad Gita before you finish reading this little essay.)
I am dying, but there is no reason to think that humanity is dying as well. We are reacting in all the crazy ways we do: 'stars' have made a recording of John Lennon's most pretentious song, 'Imagine',;people are putting up Christmas decorations; and we seem to be in a contest to see if we can spend more money for toilet paper or for guns. As Cohen said,
'And those who dance begin to dance
And those who weep begin . . .'
I confess that I am a dancer. In each night's darkness I listen to Cohen's lyrics and dance, and remember that mankind has been dancing along for thousands of years and has survived. I listen to the expected statistics of the death from covid19 and remember that the expected survival rate for the first wave of troops on D Day was one in four.
What fools these [we] mortals be. We look at photographs of Paris with the streets empty of people and forget what real disaster in the streets looks like.
Ah the hubris we folks do have. If we do the killing it is glorious and we do it to make the world safe for whatever ideology claims victory. If some part of 'the environment' that some of us claim to want to save kills us, it's a crisis. The environment is a very complex system. (There have even been some of us foolish mortals who are celebrating the outbreak of the virus because it lowers carbon dioxide emissions.)
Of course the return of Voldemort is a catastrophe, but it will almost certainly be a temporary catastrophe. We have better tools to find a vaccine and cures than we have ever had before. It won't be an instant gratification, but it will happen. And unlike the catastrophes that we follow our politicians and theologians to visit upon each other, the houses and shops and factories will still be standing, ready to go back to work to feed and clothe and house us again. The Italians who are singing a new national anthem have it right. (Ironic, innit, that Turandot is set in China?) We will win.
If I were one who prays, I would leave you these words of Cohen:
If it be thy will
If there is a choice
Let the rivers fill
Let the hills rejoice
Let your mercy spill
On these burning hearts in hell
. . .
And draw us near
And bind us tight
All your children here
In their rags of light
In our rags of light
All drssed to kill
And end this night
If it be your will
But I am one who dances, and so I leave you these words of Cohen:
Oh my love, oh my love
Take this waltz, take this waltz
It's yours now, it's all that there is
Wow...just wow...
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