tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7154359965221795553.post3502618350448404004..comments2024-03-01T14:27:35.794-08:00Comments on Albion Awakening: Can Albion Awaken?Bruce Charltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7154359965221795553.post-20561716427862849432018-06-30T03:55:31.509-07:002018-06-30T03:55:31.509-07:00DLD, in response to the question in your last para...DLD, in response to the question in your last paragraph, one can but hope! At the moment in both countries there is reaction but that is a long way from awakening.William Wildbloodhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13231219533755925897noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7154359965221795553.post-40170992367141184132018-06-29T22:49:48.738-07:002018-06-29T22:49:48.738-07:00Taking up Ruth Pitter's little poem (and think...Taking up Ruth Pitter's little poem (and thinking aloud) that called-for going on of "naked Pity" could be either going forth, or continuing in situ: the speaker, formed (in whatever way) to the evaluation of the situation, persevering as occasion permits. I think Macbeth, I.vii, the imagery of his opening soliloquy, comes into this - "pity, like a naked new-born babe, / striding the blast, or heaven's cherubim, hors'd [...]". There are two possibilities (not mutually exclusive): pity being born, moving from within, despite it's littleness and weakness, and an angel calling from 'outside'. Macbeth sees this, and acts destructively despite that! - destroying his society, his country, as well as himself - but his 'prophetic' insight is correct - rescue comes. <br /><br />That snowy imagery makes me think of Williams's poem, 'The Calling of Arthur', where, in a chaotically disordered, including, locally abusively ordered, island, Merlin calls Arthur to lead the common people and minor lords already stirring, and he does, effectively. That Merlin comes from without, as in a different way, does the vitally helpful, serviceable Taliessin. <br /><br />There is an interesting parallel, here, in Gandalf, especially in the Lord of the Rings, who really is an angel sent, but acting in humble appearance, to call hobbits for the sake of the Shire, and more - to aid Aragorn. <br /><br />Both Logres and the Empire in Williams are temporary, as is Gondor in Tolkien, and, presumably, the near-future Britain saved from NICE in Lewis - yet there are lasting good effects - and things have not (as in Narnia) gone so far as that the world is ended.<br /><br />In the past century, it was especially American that arrived from outside to the aid of Britain which had held out, and so (temporarily) largely to liberate and restore (much of) Europe - two times. <br /><br />Is American awakening enough to help similarly, again, like the England of Shakespeare's Macbeth? <br /><br />David Llewellyn DoddsAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7154359965221795553.post-55684220817975781892018-06-29T12:00:06.998-07:002018-06-29T12:00:06.998-07:00I feel that there is no question that we must go b...I feel that there is no question that we must go back a little ways at least, we must retreat from the century of modernism (and post-modernism) with its Marxist underpinnings before we can get back to anything like a foundation for real progress again.<br /><br />Part of that retreat will be <i>driven</i> by cruel necessities of survival...but, paradoxically, it shall also be <i>led</i> by the pure, sacrificial and thus sanctified, efforts of those who never lost their connection to the Christian foundation of Western Civilization.<br /><br />As I said of Kipling, his sentiments just don't <i>work</i> without that fundamentally Christian bedrock of morally sound tradition to stand on. Pressed to a desperate defense, a soldier <i>needs</i> defensible ground.Chiu ChunLinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03519192610708043962noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7154359965221795553.post-66975858191044266542018-06-29T04:37:44.945-07:002018-06-29T04:37:44.945-07:00CCL, I think you make a very good point that we ha...CCL, I think you make a very good point that we have forgotten the bad news and that's why we ignore the good news. Possibly the advances of technology have blinded us to the fact of the mercilessness of the universe as you put it.<br /><br />And yes, the example of Christ shows us that apparent catastrophic loss can actually contain the seeds of a more profound victory. After all, it's not as if what we are losing was that perfect anyway. We might lose Western civilisation but that was only ever a very imperfect approach to truth. To go forwards we may have to go backwards first and then when the falseness of the present day burns and crashes as it must we can start afresh and plant the seeds that remain from the good fruits of the past.<br />William Wildbloodhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13231219533755925897noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7154359965221795553.post-53618317961119795382018-06-28T14:27:15.541-07:002018-06-28T14:27:15.541-07:00While I think it is true that Kipling was not part...While I think it is true that Kipling was not particularly focused on Christianity, and Orwell was barely a Christian at all, to say that each was not a serious Christian has to hinge on different definitions of "serious Christian".<br /><br />Kipling took Christianity for granted, to anyone from the fully post-Christian era he would definitely be a Christian, and quite a serious one, but not one especially serious about Christianity as such.<br /><br />However, I'm far from a serious Christian, in that sense...and so is Christ.<br /><br />The Gospel is thus called because we start by taking something else much more seriously, and that something else is the <i>bad news</i> to which the Gospel is the divine response. Kipling, I think, took this bad news seriously, perhaps more so than I do. He does seem to have wondered whether there were any other response to this bad news than the Gospel of Christ, but I have no doubts that he relied on the Gospel of Christ as a suitable and providential answer.<br /><br />By and large, the problem with modern anti-christians (and the overwhelming majority of 'squishy' modern Christians), is that they have forgotten the bad news...indeed, in the current generation many of them have never realized it in the first place. They simply don't realize how utterly merciless the universe would be <i>without</i> God. Not that anyone can, it's hard enough for most people to comprehend how merciless the universe remains even <i>with</i> God. But they are positing a universe without a God while ignoring what this would really mean.<br /><br />I don't agree that tradition must be continuous or even particularly contiguous, but I do see that a wide and deep interruption in a tradition substantially undermines its power to keep people away from temptations. It takes a certain virtue to revive and reestablish a broken tradition, and our traditions are currently broken because of a lack of the pertinent virtues.<br /><br />But I think that Britain, at least, will not be destroyed. Threatened with destruction, yes. Terribly marred by the invasion, no doubt. But I believe there is still strength to fight and win, once it is fully roused.<br /><br />It may be considered a pyrrhic victory, but a victory all the same. It may be that much that some regard as essential to Christianity shall be among what is burned away in the coming conflagration of civil war, but not much that was really essential...or even <i>really</i> Christian at all, if you ask me.<br /><br />True Christianity thrives where the blood of martyrs is shed for their testimony of Christ.<br /><br />It always has, and Christ Himself is the great exemplar in this, as in all else.Chiu ChunLinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03519192610708043962noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7154359965221795553.post-6870994876864578872018-06-28T01:50:38.922-07:002018-06-28T01:50:38.922-07:00@CCL - Orwell distinguished Nationalism from Patri...@CCL - Orwell distinguished Nationalism from Patriotism (he being a patriot - ) - but the problem with Kipling and Orwell (both of whom I regard as first rate) is that neither was a serious Christian. <br /><br />The other problem is that none of the traditional ways of 'doing' will work, or are suitable, now (from where we are) - so very old ideas can-be/ should-be learned-from but cannot be applied. <br /><br />Tradition can be (has been) destroyed, but cannot be revived or re-established (even if people wanted to, which they don't) - because then it isn't tradition. <br /><br />The Big Problem is the ruling class of Britain - they are the actively-anti-Christian, active-anti-patriots who strategically engineered and sustain mass open-ended immigration - choosing especially those most hostile to Christ and Albion. <br /><br />But the ruling class are merely careerist, short-termist, selfish, bureuacratic cowards - and the Real Problem is that they *serve* (some of the important ones, serving heart and soul; possessed by) the forces of darkness - immortal demonic intelligences - who are responsible for the long termist plan and unwavering determination for subversion, destruction, and inversion of values. <br /><br />The mass of British people (the ruled, not the rulers) are unwilling and unable to do anything effectual, because they are almost entirely de facto atheist, hence flaccid and easily corruputed by leftism - because 'why not?'. <br /><br />I'm sure we would agree: destruction by invasion is therefore a consequence, not the cause. Bruce Charltonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7154359965221795553.post-61643626522079459902018-06-27T15:37:46.224-07:002018-06-27T15:37:46.224-07:00If England was what England seems
An' not th...<i>If England was what England seems<br /> An' not the England of our dreams,<br />But only putty, brass, an' paint,<br /> 'Ow quick we'd chuck 'er! But she ain't!</i><br /><br />I think that the required understanding of spiritual duty is not a new one but rather a very old one. And while it is not a duty specific to Christianity, it is still a Christian duty, more so than many of later invention.<br /><br />Kipling is deliberately 'common' in his language, I doubt whether he once gives in verse any special significance to "Albion" beyond it being a name for the white chalk cliffs which can be seen from the sea in some places (he clearly <i>knew</i> of other associations). Nor does he devote many lines to defining what Christianity is, for him it was more a bedrock assumption, and embedded firmly in the English cultural context such that peculiar English practices seem as essential as fundamental doctrines to understanding his allusions.<br /><br />Kipling was and remains a poet speaking to and in the vernacular of the fighting man, an ordinary grunt (he even often transliterates the manner of expression implied), and a champion of the raw physical expression of virtue rather than the literary description of it in refined language.<br /><br />But he was no nationalist.<br /><br />It's true that our dreams of the country of our origin are wrapped up with all the particular formative experiences of life in a given geographic and cultural context. But the center of that dream is not an earthly birthplace. It is a longing for our heavenly home.<br /><br />There are many roads to the grim gate at the border between life and eternity. After that gate, there are few paths to follow, and while the road chosen through the fields of mortal endeavor is not determinative of the path one must trod in eternity, the habits of the prior choice will definitely influence the latter one.<br /><br />One of those roads we should hesitate to trod without great need, but often must not decline. Can Albion awaken if it is actually, literally invaded by the declared enemies of Christ and of the British race and English language?<br /><br />Perhaps I should ask, could anything <i>else</i> really awaken the slumbering soul of a people so glutted on material satisfactions in the modern era?Chiu ChunLinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03519192610708043962noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7154359965221795553.post-45396643437535409232018-06-27T10:13:08.279-07:002018-06-27T10:13:08.279-07:00"The effect is to separate a people from its ..."The effect is to separate a people from its traditional culture. Then a new culture can be constructed but this is not an organic development of the old. Rather it is an ideologically enforced thing that is imposed from the top down instead of being a natural growth over many centuries."<br /><br />I have read the same applied, in more or less the same words, applied to changes in the Mass and practices of the Catholic church post Vatican II. It is quite true in both instances - and of the whole global post-60s cultural shift.Nathanielhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04531664498277638757noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7154359965221795553.post-70940647355048604882018-06-26T15:01:38.967-07:002018-06-26T15:01:38.967-07:00You're very generous, John. I have to say I of...You're very generous, John. I have to say I often take inspiration from pieces you and Bruce have written, and other writings too. <br /><br />Anyway, to answer your questions I don't know! But I approach these matters intuitively and from that perspective my feeling is that somehow both are true which is to say there is an independent guardian angel but that a group soul exists too. The former is a spiritual entity but the latter is more a psychic thing with a mixture of good and less good, reflecting the humans who have formed it. Maybe the angel also contributes to it so it really is a composite thing. I don't think the fate of the angel depends on us though that of the group soul does. The angel endures in the spiritual world which is the primary thing anyway. If he is said to sleep it is more that we have become unresponsive to him. But this is speculation though also based on intuition.William Wildbloodhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13231219533755925897noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7154359965221795553.post-86735884692014278342018-06-26T11:42:27.895-07:002018-06-26T11:42:27.895-07:00Searing stuff, William. A devastating exposition o...Searing stuff, William. A devastating exposition of he malaise enveloping our country. You're on a really high plane at the moment. If there's a better writer in Britain at the moment, I haven't read him or her. I am currently wrestling with similar themes in my next piece for this blog, due up around the end of the month.<br /><br />With regards to the Angel of this land. Do you take this to be an independent entity or a creation of the group soul that has been built up, as you say, over hundreds of years? And if a worst case scenario occurs and the people apostatise totally and Albion is forgotten, what happens to that Angel? Does he fade away and disappear due to a lack of the belief he needs to survive? Does he enter into dormitory, as it were, like Blake's Albion, waiting to be awoken by a future revival of interest? Does he go on being this country's Angel regardless of what goes on at ground level? Or is he given another job by God, Albion being therefore consigned to history?<br /><br />Thanks again and best wishes,<br /><br />John.John Fitzgeraldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13951246561259007162noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7154359965221795553.post-44588120521441410902018-06-26T11:27:33.313-07:002018-06-26T11:27:33.313-07:00Well, I agree with all that. It's rather like ...Well, I agree with all that. It's rather like someone (I think it was Jewel the unicorn) pointing out in The Last Battle that everything they had loved about the 'earthly' Narnia they had only done so because it reminded them about something in this heavenly Narnia. We should never get attached to earthly things whatever they are. They are only transitory.William Wildbloodhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13231219533755925897noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7154359965221795553.post-48108772007598476232018-06-26T10:08:53.198-07:002018-06-26T10:08:53.198-07:00William, I start with this, that the speaker of th...William, I start with this, that the speaker of the poem offers those words as what her mother might have said, had she lived to see the present day. The speaker finds consolation in "imagining" what her mother might have said, and I suppose that the mother is recalling that doctrine of Holy Church that is expressed in the Epistle to the Hebrews 13:14. <br /><br />(No civilization, culture, society, something of passing time and limited space, can be the ultimate home for which the soul longs; and, if a people were to regard their country as perfect, that would mean that any change could only be for the worse. That seems to be a view satirized by Peake in his conception of Gormenghast. People like Sourdust (if I remember rightly) make an idol of Gormenghast, and, of course, idols will demand sacrifices -- at the least, of the happiness of their mournful worshipers.)<br /><br />Conversely, though, each adult person has a vocation for love and service of others, first of all family and fellow communicants of the household of faith, but also of (other) neighbors, in space and time, as the Saviour taught and showed by example. Apart from such a way of life, I think the heavenly City becomes, for such a person, an unreal thing -- ultimately an idol of its own. This isn't something that Ruth Pitter takes up in this particular, elegiac poem. <br /><br />On the relationship of the heavenly City and our earthly cities, etc., I think Charles Williams would probably be a good writer to read. <br /><br />And one element of living the life of exchange that CW wrote about would be that of lamenting the loss of beauty -- so often, wantonly, unnecessarily. And another would be to try to prevent it, or at least to identify agencies that promote such loss.<br /><br />Maybe occasional visitor here David Llewellyn Dodds will comment on the Charles Williams aspect.<br /><br />Ruth Pitter was a poet of Albion, and one of the best of the 20th century, I expect. There is a new critical edition of her complete poems edited by Don King, who has written her life and edited her letters. When C. S. Lewis began to read her, his reaction was along the lines of: How could I note have heard of this poet? Why wasn't I told?<br /><br />Dale Nelson<br /><br />Wurmbrandhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17345523517796356674noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7154359965221795553.post-62178488999679106022018-06-26T08:26:08.300-07:002018-06-26T08:26:08.300-07:00I hadn't heard of Ruth Pitter so I looked her...I hadn't heard of Ruth Pitter so I looked her up. She sounds an interesting woman. Is she saying that our true home is heaven so we shouldn't worry about the trials and tribulations here below, the City being the Heavenly Jerusalem? She's right, of course, but I think we still have to point out evil and not just resign ourselves to it.William Wildbloodhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13231219533755925897noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7154359965221795553.post-10448980198588466512018-06-26T07:08:00.166-07:002018-06-26T07:08:00.166-07:00They Have Murdered My Village
They have murdered ...They Have Murdered My Village<br /><br />They have murdered my village,<br />My tree is cut down.<br />Over the tillage<br />Advances the town.<br />My father's gone cadging,<br />My mother is dead;<br />I try to imagine<br />What she would have said.<br /><br />"A cut tree can grow faster.<br />Towns come and go.<br />Both saver and waster<br />Get buried in snow.<br />Go on, naked Pity,<br />All bleeding and sore,<br />Till you come to the City<br />Where change is no more."<br /><br />Ruth Pitter, CBE, FRSL (1897-1992)<br /><br />Dale NelsonWurmbrandhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17345523517796356674noreply@blogger.com