nuclear weapons

WMD

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WMD – we all know what that means. Those were the Weapons of Mass Destruction which Bush and Blair failed to find in Iraq. Around that time, I saw a sketch on Gaelic TV where two soldiers marched into a small shop in the Highlands and demanded that they hand over their WMD. The shopkeepers looked puzzled, and then one of them triumphantly lifted out a huge, black, bomb-shaped sausage and presented them with Willie’s Marag Dubh (Willie’s black pudding).

Nuclear defence

The UK has four nuclear submarines based in Scotland on the Firth of Clyde, in an area of great natural beauty. The base at Faslane is close to an inlet called Holy Loch, where St Munn, one of the first Irish saints, is meant to have landed in Scotland, and where the previous nuclear base was situated. A few days ago, British MP’s voted to renew Britain’s submarine-based nuclear defence system by a huge majority of 355. All but one of the Scottish MP’s voted against its renewal, but that’s another story.

Even though I have definite opinions on other recent issues, such as the Scottish independence referendum and the vote on leaving the European Union, I have tried to appreciate other peoples’ points of view. Well, I have often argued in a stubborn way, but afterwards, I have thought about what other people said, and have been able to understand why they have come to different conclusions from me. However, I simply cannot understand the argument for spending an unknown amount of money on weapons which could kill 100 000 people in one go.

If faith should affect all of my life rather than being compartmentalised into a wee box labelled ‘Open only on Sunday’, then it has to affect political opinions and decisions. I have wanted to keep politics out of this blog, but I feel that if I don’t find some way to say I am against nuclear defence, then I am quietly giving my assent.

Gerard W. Hughes was a Jesuit priest and writer who wrote a great deal about the split spirituality which has led to many Christians seeing nuclear weapons and ‘just’ war as a means to preserve peace. In the book ‘God in all things’, he said that if someone who supported nuclear defence, really allowed God into their prayer to make them aware of their actual thinking, it might go something like this:

Dear Lord, inspire our scientists that they may invent yet more lethal weaponry (so that our deterrent may prove even more effective). Protect us from any unfortunate accident in its testing (lest it destroy us and our own cities rather than our enemies). Bless our economy that we may put these weapons into plentiful production (otherwise we cannot deter). Have a special care of the hungry, the homeless, the sick, and the aged of our own land and of other lands until such time as our defence commitments allow us to contribute a little more to these worthy purposes. Strengthen our leaders in a strong defence policy. Drive out from our midst any who by thought, word or deed undermine our national security, and grant us the protection of nuclear weaponry now and forever.

Letting go of my own defences

It’s strong stuff, a bit like a modern version of Robert Burn’s ‘Holy Willie’s Prayer’ where Holy Willie, an elder in the kirk, praises his own holiness, skirts over his sins, and asks God to blast his enemy’s cabbage and potatoes!  However, lest I become complacent and congratulate myself for being against nuclear defence, I should consider what Gerard W. Hughes says a little later in the same book:

It would be wonderful if we could overcome the dangers of pollution and global warming and if all nuclear weapons could be destroyed…. But we would not be secure until we had tackled and eradicated the roots of our own violence, hatred and aggression. Holiness is about this eradication. Holiness is like a light that uncovers our pretence and our hypocrisy.

I might not be able to do much about the decision to build a new nuclear defence system. However, I can ask God for help to bring peace into my own little patch. I can ask God to show me my own hypocrisy, and the areas in my life where I am aggressive or prejudiced. True peace is painful, because it involves letting go of fear, becoming vulnerable and being open to others. Before we are ready to get rid of our huge systems of nuclear deterrence, we might have to build peace one person at a time.

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The writing of this blog has been interrupted by nit-eradication schemes. Don’t worry. It’s under control and you can’t catch them off the internet.

I’ve decided to be honest in this blog. That doesn’t mean that I’ll tell everything, but it means that if I’m finding things difficult as far as faith is concerned, I won’t pretend that everything is fine.

Recently I’ve hit a difficult stage. I’m picturing the spiritual journey as being like an excavation to the core of my being or to borrow a phrase from Cyprian Smith’s book ‘The Path of Paradox’, the ‘ground of the soul’. There are different layers of soil and rock, some easy to dig through and some requiring a pick-axe. In the last week or so, I’ve hit a hard rocky layer. I feel as if I can’t trust God. God seems very distant and it’s hard for me to believe in a merciful God who actually cares about what happens to me.

I was brought up with a very literal sort of faith and when I got older and doubts hit, I had no way to accommodate them. I felt like a failure for not accepting Christianity without questions and came to the conclusion that I wasn’t cut out for religion.

I now see doubt as an inevitable part of spiritual growth rather than as some kind of treachery. Right now I feel as if my doubts have taken me backwards rather than forwards, but I’ll stick to the image of the excavation and believe that I’m still going forward, slowly and painfully, working through a layer of myself which was always there, but which I’ve just become aware of.

I am reading Fr. Gerard W. Hughes’ last book, ‘Cry of Wonder’. It is in three sections, Unity, Peace and Holiness. The section on Unity has triggered a lot of thoughts which I’ll write about another time. I started reading Peace earlier this week. Recently, just by chance, while on my way to catch a train, my path crossed a Bairns not Bombs march. Bairns is Scots for children and the march was about getting rid of nuclear weapons. I felt joy that people actually cared enough to come out and make a stand.

I liked these nice feelings of joy and perhaps also the smug feeling that in supporting nuclear disarmament, I am on the side with the moral high ground. I thought that I had nothing to fear from reading about Peace. Here is what Fr. Hughes has to say about Peace in his preface:

Peace, within an individual, includes a ‘divine restlessness’, a profound discontent with what we discover around and, above all, within ourselves. Peace, in spite of our protestations of being dedicated to it, is a state against which we defend ourselves with verbal smokescreens and subtle reasoning, so subtle that we deceive ourselves, preferring violence and calling it ‘Peace’.

It wasn’t very reassuring. The next day I had one of my least peaceful days in a long time. When you live with children and an animal (I’m referring to the family pet, not my husband), you have to accept a background level of chaos and lack of outward peace in your circumstances. Usually I manage to maintain a certain amount of calmness in the face of continual mini crises, such as spilt cereal, and lost school clothes. However, the day after starting to read about peace, I reacted with anger, all day, to the usual minor irritations and frustrations, including one child bursting a plastic toy that had been filled with flour, a few minutes before we were due to leave for school. I snapped at the children and mentally cursed the designer of that particular toy as I tried to remove flour from clothes and floor.

Gerard Hughes has a point. I’ve discovered the lack of peace within myself. It’s like finding head lice in my soul. I wish that the solution was as simple as applying Hedrin.