Yes, and if it goes ahead it will be a contrast to the last attended.
For this is again an inter-faith gathering in which the dear Buddhists
have taken the initiative. Doreen and I would dearly love to have been
coming. We’d agreed to speak on behalf of the Christian contingent!, but
very sadly repairs on the line centred round Milton Keynes has resulted
in the latter part of our journey being by a bus shuttle service,
resulting in a five and a half hour journey each way from North Wales!
This would have resulted in having to book three nights in Oxford and
our finances just do not allow for it.
I sense that if we were like Cancer Research or the British Heart
Foundation – possibly like some prominent animal caring charities! – we
would have put out loads of collectiom boxes by now as well as held a
weekly stall outside super markets. This way, we could quite easily
attend almost every worthwhile Demo. Yes, while booking in at a top
hotel for the nights preceding and following! Indeed, I actually know of
at least two who travel in affluence via top media charities mostly
financed by genteel ladies rattling their collection tins, and you may
well know of countless others also. It’s certainly a cheap way of seeing
the world under the pretence of being charitable. Yes, as charitable as
the grocer who used the proceeds of his box for the blind with which to
procure a new one!. As for Doreen and I, we simply string along on a
shoestring, while some kind readers reward us with an annual generous
donation.
Well, our hearts will be with those of you who can turn up again at
Oxford. That Hell of an animal torture complex must not be allowed to
blacken the image of Oxford. As an ex scholar myself, I see more than
blue when I read of those present students who are being used as no more
than stooges to bolster a decaying and most macabre pseudo-science.
However, one thing is sure: if Aberdeen university’s Marishal college –
the largest granite building in Europe! - can become totally defunct of
animal experimentation then so can the proposed ‘animal torture’ edifice
planned for Oxford.
Should my saffron robed colleagues still go ahead demonstrating on
Saturday afternoon of the 1st of April, then my prayers will be with
them. Regrettable indeed, however, that even these kind, compassionate
and caring folk should be refused permission to the actual site; and
that outside the zone they are only allowed to hold such a respectable
vigil for no more than 30 minutes! Yes, if we could have made it – and
we dearly wanted to! – I would only have been delegated 5 minutes in
which to speak as a representative of the state church ‘by law
established’. Well that’s a joke under this Blairite regime if ever
there were one. It’s methods are beginning to come out of its cracks in
the same way as are the fruits and folly of the vivisection labs. Enough
said!
Well, thank God for the laws of Karma! How true that in dishing out
cruelty we are inviting it to come back to ourselves! And to the
argument that certain drugs are on the market, and wouldn’t be there
except for animal experimentation! Yes, perfectly true, but then how
appallingly short sighted. This immoral practice of vivisection has
severely hindered the use of discovering and researching humane
medications. Incidentally, medically acknowledged deaths in the UK
resulting from prescription drugs have risen from 648 in 2001 to 1,013
in 2005 – a 50 percent increase in just five years! One wonders how many
more unacknowledged deaths there have been! If such statistics do not
ring alarm bells, what will? Only a short sighted civilisation will be
blind to the fact that the cruelty it sows it will reap..
Admittedly, Christianity may bring in Christ as a scapegoat and
substitute for all our transgressions and moral inadequacies; but even
then: though Divine reconciliation may be the outcome, and God no longer
turns His face away from us, a refined concept of Purgatorial cleansing
is, quite probably, far more to the point than self centered’ clap
happies or morbid intercessors ‘for mercy at the hour of their death’
may wish to envisage. St Paul, himself, hinted at progressive stages in
the hereafter, and St Peter spoke of those needing deliverance years
after their earthly sojourn. The extreme concept of a ‘Jesus paid it
all’ theology may well be a relief to the guilt ridden professing
believer; but the closer followers of our Lord will be too busy
emulating the work of Christ on earth than in being ‘time-locked’ in
reiterating: ‘I’m saved for time and eternity!’ Yes, a claim that others
may very much doubt!
Having faith that could remove mountains will not compensate for a
love that seeks not it’s own. Yes, such as that of St Theresa – the
little flower! -: who asked that she might spend her Heaven doing good
down here! Indeed, love that is altruistic should be the fruit of each
child of God; whereas love that is primarily concerned with seeking to
continually convince oneself of one’s own personal acceptance by God,
appears utterly selfish. God knows our hearts, and He has given us all a
task to do while we remain upon this planet earth. As for the hereafter,
it is surely enough for us to leave that with a just and merciful
heavenly Father whose Son told us about so many future dwellings within
His Father’s kingdom. I like the words of the blind George Mathieson’s
hymn written after he was jilted ‘O love that will not let me go’!. But
here are just three verses from a lovelier hymn still. It was written in
his years of maturity:
Gather us in Thou Love that gatherest all.
Gather our rival Faiths within Thy fold
Bend each man’s temple-veil and bid it fall
That we may know that Thou hast been of old
Gather us in
Each sees one colour of Thy rainbow light
Each looks upon one tint and calls it Heaven
Thou art the fullness of our partial sight
We are not perfect till we find the seven
Gather us in
Some seek a Father in the heavens above
Some seek a human image to adore
Some crave a spirit vast as life and love
Within Thy mansions we have all and more
Gather us in
Go on to
A Letter from The Scottish Highlands That
Speaks For Itself:
Return to Spring 2006 Issue