The irony of irony

I have rewritten the blurb to my book Irony because I realised I had rushed the original blurb and it didn't accurately reveal what is in the book. As this book seems more pertinent than ever, I've also decided to blog about it. The cover art is one of my brother's amazing watercolour paintings (which he was happy for me to use).

Here's the new description:

Have you ever considered that the very act of questioning God's existence might be laced with irony? In this captivating non-fiction work, the author presents a unique and intriguing idea: that irony itself could be a subtle hint at the presence of a higher power.

Literary masters like Voltaire have long used irony to challenge spiritual beliefs, but what if this obscured the true irony - that God, with a playful wink, uses irony to invite us to seek him?

This book extends an invitation to explore faith from a fresh and captivating perspective. It is tailored for agnostics, seekers and doubters who grapple with reconciling the concept of a benevolent God within a world replete with negative ironies. It offers an original, practical and contemporary take on an age-old dilemma.

By embracing a broader understanding of irony, encompassing hypocrisy, serendipity, and those moments of 'crazy bad luck', the author illuminates how even in our sophisticated, post-ironic age, irony can serve as compelling evidence for a benevolent deity.

The notion that irony, so often associated with misfortune and contradiction, isn't, in fact, evidence for a malevolent God is also explored. How can these two seemingly disparate concepts coexist? The answer lies within these pages, and it is well worth discovering.

While this book won't provide easy answers to the age-old problem of suffering, nor promise worldly riches or viral fame, it dares to ask: why do you feel compelled to pick it up and yet, somehow, unable to take the plunge?
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Embark on this intellectual journey to challenge your preconceptions, engage with fresh insights and uncover a perspective that just might illuminate the existence of a God who is far more intriguing than you ever imagined.


If you are interested in this book, please take a look - it's available in print and as an ebook from here.

Day 59 – Everything will conspire to cause you to pray

 

I have a strange relationship with prayer.

I was effectively in a mental hospital back in 1995 because I was so unbalanced that I thought I had to pray continually (ultimately, I believe, because of my past use of drugs at university (especially LSD)).

I would run off to places in order to pray. Eventually I was sectioned for it. It was not very nice. In hospital I continued to try to pray (often all night). I don’t know if anyone has ever attempted to pray all night – but I can tell you from experience that it’s very difficult. I think I managed it once. And after I had succeeded, I thought, Well done. And now you have to do that again tonight.

Prayer seemed to me to be the most important thing in the world. But whenever I prayed too much in hospital, I would get confronted by the NHS staff. They would give me the ‘choice’ of either taking my meds orally or having medication forcibly injected. I cannot express how difficult it was to pray after being injected with whatever they put into me via needle. But it was impossible. You wouldn’t have been able to do it either.

Afterwards I wrote this poem about the experience:

 

Compliance is Futile

At first, I resisted the doctors and the nurses,
I would pray non-stop and the tablets would be rejected,
I told them nothing. Couldn’t. Wouldn’t.
For this I would be injected.

They injected me on the floor on my knees,
I remember the needle once made me bleed,
but the drug in my system felt so vile
that I couldn’t keep saying my creed.

No martyr me then.
I learned that my behaviour was linked to my rights,
so I swallowed my religion along with the pills,
and started sleeping through nights.

I’d like to say I resisted to the end,
but Heaven knows I would then have lied.
You see, because I was scared and I felt so alone,
I complied.

 

There is something within humans which has the capacity to take things too far. Frank Bruno was famously sectioned for training too much. Punching, punching and punching and not stopping, pummelling his invisible enemies in the only way he knew how. Others struggle in different ways and obsess over an irresistible urge to do this or that. The conscience can get sick too. Another thing which God has allowed.

Afterwards I was a little more balanced. I decided that I would not let the compulsion to pray ceaselessly take over again. So, my prayers after that, though largely heartfelt, were much less lengthy. They were brief. But they were reasonably persistent.

There is a particular parable in which Christ likens God to an unjust judge. The parable is called ‘the parable of the persistent widow; and is about a woman who continues to petition a seemingly corrupt judge to attain justice for some problem or other. Perhaps it is as well that God is likened to this particular judge. It seems appropriate to me these days.

The point of the parable is to encourage people to pray and not to give up. There are other scriptures which say that believers are to pray and not cease. Certainly not to go on a prayer strike. So, I know I am being disobedient to those parts of the Bible. But let’s face it, how often have I been obedient to the command to love? Also, according to the Bible (and the creed), there is only one condition to being a Christian anyway. That is belief, or faith. The rest is small print.

I still believe. But I ask you this – if it’s all about Jesus – then why is it all about him, apart from the blame or other bad things? There are a million and one books out there with titles like, ‘Stop blaming God’. But if Christ only wants the good things, what kind of relationship is that? He should take some responsibility and be more accountable.

I could probably not write a book about prayer. The trouble is that people tend to be naturally interested in having their prayers answered. So, if the author has not had that many prayers answered, no-one is going to be interested, are they?

Any strike has demands for work to resume. In this case the demands are obvious – God has to answer my past prayers – the main ones I had been praying before the strike. Furthermore, I am demanding better treatment from him for us all. It’s not unreasonable. A few answered prayers and better conditions. As some of the prayers do not concern myself, it’s not entirely selfish.

They are the parameters for things not to escalate further. Otherwise, I will continue to kick up a holy fuss about this as imaginatively as I can.

I wonder what I should give up for Lent.

Or perhaps they will put me back in hospital and inject me until I start praying again? I’m quite sure God would allow that too.

Day 52 - My strike against the Almighty

Day 52

I think it’s true that we all grieve differently. Since my only brother died from a brain tumour on Christmas day, I have been prayerless. 

They say I should let God know that I’m angry with him. Through prayer.

I’m not doing that. It’s manipulative.

Instead, the temptation for me is to escalate things further and become an ex-Christian.

Except I would be the worse ex-Christian ever because I would still believe. I’m pretty sure I know how to leave the faith, but what’s the point? There are some very lovely ex-Christians. The human rights act says that any person can leave any faith (or presumably return to it). But it’s a bit of a no-no within most faith communities.

There are usually mitigating circumstances in someone making a decision like that. Besides, there isn’t a court of law which will accept a testimony under duress is there? Confessions under torture (even the slow torture of capitalism) are not evidence.

Anyway, my threatening to pack it all in is no more of a threat than anything the Almighty says… except at least I admit it’s a threat. Does that make me the better person?

It’s tempting though. The ex-Christians largely say that they feel much freer now and I would like that too. To feel free. Because that’s just another seemingly broken promise from the Almighty, isn’t it? The truth will set you free. But when?

Maybe in a year’s time I will be like the writer who decided that he was going to try Atheism for a year and will have left the faith by then too? Options are open.

 

Strikes

So the prayer strike continues. I had already effectively stopped taking communion. For me it was all those scary scriptures about taking it unworthily. Now it’s just part of my strike against God. But I’m still going to church online – to me it is one of the picket lines. A good place to stare at crosses.

I’ve been prayerless before anyway. For the first 20 years of my life, I resisted the urge to appeal to a higher power. People do it, or rather… don’t do it… all the time, and they seem to get on with life pretty normally. Some of them even thrive. So what if the majority of my life has been about sporadically trying to communicate with God?

I swear that God has a policy when it comes to dealing with those who have lost loved ones. In that sense we are just another statistic. Way to go, to make us all feel special in a good way…

…I was going to write the word ‘God’ at the end of that last sentence but realised it would have been a written prayer. And I don’t do that anymore.

Maybe he particularly likes the kind of person who turns to him immediately afterwards, thanks him for the person’s life and says something like: ‘You give and take away, blessed be your name, Lord’. Maybe that’s the best way to go about things. To steal away the prayers along with the loved ones.

The thief.

 

Promises

For believers, there are a couple of promises from the Bible here and there which act like a sop. The main one being, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

But I’m, like, “When?” (Once again, without adding the word ‘God’ to the end of the question.)

It's a promise. It’s a little comforting in and of itself, but that’s all. There are a number of promises from the Almighty like that, according to the Christian faith.

But why praise and thank someone who promises to do something before they have actually done it? Few people thank a waiter before they have served a meal.

Giving God the silent treatment has not resulted in much which is particularly good. Am I to count my blessings again? Is giving someone the silent treatment always a manipulation? If God refuses to communicate with a person on earth, is the silent treatment still a sin? Or is it okay, because it’s God who has done (or not done) it? They say that God is always speaking and we don’t stop to listen. But he’s not though, is he? That’s never been my experience anyway.

We learn the silent treatment from others.

So, I’m left with, “Blessed are those who mourn…”

They say that the word ‘blessed’ means ‘happy’.

I wonder sometimes, if I have tumbled into some alternate reality in which nothing is as it should be.

There have already been some moments when I’ve felt I should have prayed. I’ve been in situations and heard some general requests for prayer from others which I would previously have said a brief arrow-prayer for.

Earthquake

In the end, with the earthquake, I felt bad for all those people in that hell on earth. I didn’t pray, but I gave £1. It wasn’t much, but I’m not rich, there’s a cost-of-living crisis still on, and I’m not a great giver financially to charities and things. I give information and writing as freely as I can and try to give in other ways – petitions and things. I haven’t given up attempting to do good deeds. The strike does not extend that far. Yet.

War

It's nice, too, to see that almost the whole Church has effectively joined me in my strike. I wouldn’t have done so myself but they are largely refusing to pray for the people of Russia in public. But as I mentioned, I don’t really want others to join me in this lonely, austere task. And I think it’s a bit of a shame that in war time we are no longer allowed to express love for our latest Government-manufactured enemies.

 

Anyway, it seems that God isn’t bothered by my silent treatment towards him.

So he won’t mind if I continue then, will he?

 

Day 45 - Why no-one is in my thoughts and prayers

 

I’m not sure that the Almighty particularly misses the prayers of mine which used to be sarcastic. 

For example, I was always quite adept at shooting up sarky, ‘Thanks a lot, God’ arrow prayers. ‘Arrow prayers’ are quick prayers shot up to God in moments of crisis. My sarcastic ones were really quite satisfying when placed in situations in which I could literally do or say nothing. I liked the image of the arrow being shot into the sky. Hey, maybe the arrows could have hit someone, sending them spiralling out of their place of relative ease, back towards our world of mere mortals? The blood could be invisible too.

I’m still angry with God. It’s not entirely a forgiveness issue. And God is still ‘allowing’ me to be in some difficult situations.

For example, after posting my last blog link in one US Facebook group, one Christian told me that he was very sorry for the loss of my brother… “but” … I was defying God. It is not what a believer does, he said.

I was also told to repent. Again.

So, when I was annoyed (after all, my brother has just died and I’m feeling a bit... spikey), I told the guy that he was wrong and that he was playing on my deepest fears and that he shouldn’t talk to people like that.

Dale Carnegie once wrote in How to Win Friends and Influence People that the worst thing you can say to a fellow human being is to tell them they are ‘Wrong’. Carnegie said the word is like a clanging symbol in our heads. But it felt right to say it. Besides, it was true. So I said it in capitals.

Now, patient reader, there is a happy world in which the right people wonderfully win internet debates, where their critics and accusers (and the trolls of the brain) are filled with shame and in which justice is served and minds are changed and truth and love win out. Unfortunately, it is not a world I’m particularly familiar with. Maybe that is just Hollywood, or in debates written in the Bible and not real life. In real life, in the group, I was told I have a “seared conscience” and nothing more could be done for me.

In these circumstances there are three things to do aren’t there? Three whole choices – after all God had just ‘allowed’ this thing to happen, and what if it was the voice of the Almighty through this man? (And really, all this is not simply about some obscure internet scuffle). To use an adventure gamebook/interactive fiction metaphor… here are the ‘choices’ I had…

If you escalate the debate, assuring your online opponent that you would never speak to someone in grief like he has just done, using scriptures as swords like he has against you – turn to page 42

If you simply walk away from the debate… turn to page 50

If you wish to respond in one word, possibly beginning with a C, turn to page 153 and lose one Honour Point

I turned to page 50.

 

Page 50

You were lucky. Count your blessings. The others in the group are kinder than this one guy. And the argument does not escalate. You remain annoyed by the whole thing and worried that you have a seared conscience, so decide to write about this incident in your next blog (Lose one Honour Point).

To be fair, people in general have been thoughtful and understanding. It’s helpful. I’m grateful for it. Thank you. Go easy on me.

But what do you do if a strike isn’t working?

What do you do if those with the power simply do not budge or even make an attempt to carve a deal? As someone else thoughtfully said, I’m effectively ‘drinking poison’ – God isn’t harmed by my being angry with him, is he? He’s reasonably happy in his Heaven. It’s not like he is suffering beyond the emotional suffering which goes along with not being able to get what you want most of the time. It’s hardly agony for him, is it? If I affirm his emotional suffering, will he return the favour? He can do, or not do, what he wants (and don’t we know it?). Dialogue must resume at some stage, mustn’t it?

Not necessarily… not even if there is… say… an earthquake… which has been ‘allowed’ too. And I can assure you I have not prayed for those affected by that either,. It must be the seared conscience.

So, this is day 45 by my reckoning. If I have lost you in any of this, then all you basically need to remember is that I am very publicly telling anyone who asks, that I am NOT praying for them. I am very publicly telling as many people who will listen, that they do NOT have my thoughts and prayers at this time – for personal reasons.

And I still believe.

So, I’m very sorry not to be able to offer my readers sporadic prayer cover anymore – but let’s be honest – it hardly helped much in the past, did it? Or were you thriving?

As I say, giving up prayer is harder than you may think.

I’m not saying this as some freaky manipulation to try to get you to pray, or to try to get you NOT to pray along with me. To me it is all neutral now. I really am relatively independent. I will neither help or hinder anyone in this. I don’t particularly want others to join me in my lonely, austere, strike against God in which I am effectively in an uncomfortable conscious resistance against the Almighty. It might be an idea not to be in conscious resistance with your opponent. Anyway, it’s hardly an enviable position, is it? My brother has just died – I’m not a happy bunny.

I await the Almighty’s imminent capitulation to my demands or for an adequate deal to be struck. I will not (at this stage) threaten an escalation of proceedings as I’m sure that all parties know that threats lack efficacy in terms of manipulation and general respect towards an opponent. Basically, to get me to pray, the Almighty is going to have to torture me. Then I would pray… really, I would. I mean, anyone would wouldn't they? But, you see, my heart wouldn’t be in it.

Besides, society has its own manipulations, doesn’t it? And maybe torture can take a number of forms.

Any further negative incidents will result in either appropriate or inappropriate responses. Things like, say, an earthquake… or, a chronically hurting arm… or… any negative incident affecting either myself or others… I may, or may not, kick up more of a holy fuss about it, depending on certain factors…

Just one last thing before I look once more to my circumstances…

For those interested in conspiracy theories (and if you are not, why not?) – there happens to be one excessively powerful force effectively doing a jig over my latest move and my reaction to life events. And it’s not Rishi Sunak, his vile political regime, or any flesh and blood enemy I may or may not have.

Knowing now that I am unable to protect you via prayer from this person and his minions, both you and I are almost entirely exposed to his attacks and accusations. I have held them off for as long as I can. Luckily for us, not singlehandedly. I’m not talking about Putin.

I can no longer ask God to deliver you from evil.

Please believe me when I say that of all the prayers which I did once sporadically offer, this was the one prayer which was heartfelt and pure enough for you and others. If you still do not believe we have an invisible, non-flesh and blood, enemy then you will probably be fine… don’t worry about it. It’ll probably be okay. Maybe.

Anyway, what kind of jig are those negative powers doing right now? Is it a good jig? Could it get on Strictly? I bet it’s not even a half-decent jig, is it?

The devil can't dance…

God and sport

With the world cup approaching this blog post is my first blog about sport. My extra-curricular activities have taken a strange twist.

I shall also be blogging about the topic which has given me the most views on Stories Make the World ‘Go Round. That topic is Christian revival.

Because nobody – nobody – is talking about the socio-economic implications of a revival today. What has happened before can happen again. And if the chattering classes know their rumours then they will also have heard and laughed at the possibility of a Christian revival happening in the UK again. And after they have laughed, what then?

So people need to prepare and even choose sides. Choose sides because people usually either oppose or support the need for a revival. Both Christians and non-Christians. Depending on whether they feel it will be good for them personally, or good for those they love.

Please indulge me as I blog about whether and why that elusive magic that sports commentators lament has really left almost every aspect of sport. Because nostalgia and sport have a lot to do with God.

I’m qualified to write this blog post simply because I’m among one of the worst sports fans in the world. I’m the one who goes strangely silent when people talk about football. I’m the one who says ‘I like watching tennis and the world cup… and the Olympics.’ Which, I believe, among sports fans is code for ‘I literally know nothing’, like saying to a music fan, ‘I really like Phil Collins and the Now compilations’. I’m the one who was in the school football team (left back) and partly responsible for us losing 10-0 almost every match. That, believe me, set me up quite well for Christianity later on.

So, you can say, currently, there is no Christian revival in the UK. There are a few ‘outpourings’ of a kind where people seem to operate in some kind of genuine Christian gifting. There is Thy Kingdom Come (again) from May 10-20^th. But we are, in my opinion, effectively (and debatably) in a declension in Europe and the West. How’s that for happy Christian jargon? Look it up – a declension is a waning of Christianity, like the moon’s sad smile going out. Despite various prophecies, there has been no revival. I’m sorry. At least we tried.

There is a revival of politics. People who like Brexit or Trump or Corbyn or Momentum or anything in between (or beyond, like the vocal and scary alt-right). Sometimes Christianity and politics are mixed together and that usually stinks, like a vision of ‘revival’ in The Handmaid’s Tale (even though that kind of ‘revival’ has never historically happened). And as an aside to anyone who wants me to write a blog post about the effect of a revival on politics – maybe do your own historical research – have past revivals really led to retrograde changes in law? I’ve never been talking about a revival of politicians. I’m talking about a revival of the people – a revival from the source of true love. But here we are talking about sport and it is way out of my comfort zone (stay in your comfort zone long-suffering readers).

What there is not, is a revival of that missing ingredient, that magic which most of us remember there once being in sport, usually when we were kids. I know, I’m being dogmatic and subjective. I’m as much a contrarian as anyone else and I’m making assumptions. Please indulge me – all writing makes assumptions (‘No it doesn’t’ says the contrarian).

We need a revival in and of sport. For sports philistines such as myself, it’s never going to be like the 80’s Olympics and Cram and Ovett and Coe ever again. It’s never going to be that romanticised world cup win ever again. Jinx. At least not without some kind of miracle. Nostalgia is a powerful force and we romanticise the past. But what if it really was better back then? Would a Christian revival mean that England win the world cup again? No-one can promise that. The sports commentators may feel that something is lacking in sport today, but how on earth is a Christian revival going to solve that problem? Saying it would might just be more fake news, a narrative that never was or could be. An obvious underhand attempt to link Christianity and sport in order to appeal to the masses. Just like politicians do when they claim a favourite team. Or worse, some kind of way to make money.

Instead, we have that most powerful of feelings - nostalgia. You can’t promise it. You can’t pin it down. You may as well attempt to promise that becoming a Christian is going to make your life better than anything you’ve ever imagined. That would be a lie. I can tell you from experience that it can make things better, but it also brings a whole shedload of trouble. Trouble like an opposing team and a Coach who seems neglectful.

A modern Christian revival could make things better, even in sport, but such a claim has to be limited to the facts. In this case we are going to have to look at historical revivals and whether or not they ever made sport better.

And you tell me how to research that? You will find a few recorded anecdotes here and there about how the Welsh revival of the early 20^th century clashed with rugby. There can be historic links between football and Christianity, the formulation of teams like Manchester City coming from churches for example. We don’t want a history lesson about how the YMCA actually created basketball and volleyball. We don’t want a long list of Christian sports players who have made the game more exciting. Some of us want it to be like when Daley Thomson won in the Olympics and that was all we ever talked about at school, because he was an inspiring black role-model at a time when there were too few of those for children in white-dominated comprehensive schools. We don’t want to wade through millions of archaic words in the hope that someone happened to say that the real reason everyone felt that way when they watched their favourite sports hero was because of God. Because it meant something.

Would people lose their jobs in sport if there were a Christian revival? Doubtfully. These days there are many famous Christian sports men and women all over the world. Revivalism doesn’t, or shouldn’t clash and oppose those things that are considered good in and of themselves, like sport. People could lose all kinds of shady jobs in industries like the drugs and arms trade, if there were a revival, but sport is considered neutral in faith terms. In fact, it is considered a little more than neutral because you will often see the best from humans when they compete. And sometimes the worst. You will see more than bread and circuses – you will see sports men and women and teams who dedicate themselves and inspire people. And even if sports is the politician’s circus for the masses, it is still a circus which fascinates, influences and inspires. Like Christianity, you will get individuals who will cheat, who enhance their game in unethical ways, or those who are only in it for the money, but does this necessarily make sport itself a negative thing?

Sport has become a highly lucrative industry in which some people say the magic has gone. Maybe kids today enjoy some of it as much as adults used to do. But there seems to be something missing for those of us of a certain age. I can play Eddie Kidd’s Jump Challenge or Horace Goes Skiing on a retro computer and wonder at the way that sport has now exploded into this strange monster that it now is (that’s personification by the way).

Politicians know the value of sport and so should believers. Revivalists are no different. Billy Graham understood the necessity of linking revival with sport. That was why he had some of his biggest events in sports stadiums. He understood that if you could prove that God was somehow linked with sport then you made Christianity a little less… boring. But there is no revival and Billy Graham’s revival ethics clearly do not run in the family. These days, even the revivalists need to repent. And everyone, always needs to repent… except ourselves.

But is there a link? Is this a Christian fake news blog in which I’m going to promise that Christians in sport have always been there and when there is a revival you always find that missing magic? Not if I have a shade of integrity left I’m not.

When I researched this blog I also found that during the Welsh revival, people were told to stop doing anything ‘doubtful’. And for some of them they interpreted that as playing and watching sports. It’s ironic when you consider that the whole basis of revivalism is about freedom – about freeing people up – that so many innocent pastimes get thrown out with the bathwater. It’s like there being a revival when Christ was alive and then Peter, witnessing his death at Calvary, and his coming back to life, suddenly said ‘I’m giving up fishing’ now.

A Christian revival would only help inasmuch as more Christians are involved in sport and whether or not God himself put that magic back into the sport we loved. Whether God made that nostalgic memory happen again. Whether he let all that happen for a reason. There may not be a lot of research about the effect of Christian revivals on sport, but what there is, is a lot of research on the effect of Christian revivals on people and atmospheres. Because it is the atmosphere that is missing isn’t it? That’s part of the magic. Open the floodgates of heaven and you have better sport – because sport involves people and God is interested in people, skills and talent.

Look at organisations like Christians in Sport. There are many chaplains involved in sport. They are better qualified to talk about it all than a non-practicing Stoke City supporter. And there is a lot of prayer involved from all kinds of people.

I’ve never really understood why people can’t pray for their favourite sports heroes to win. Why not? It has never been explained to me. People pray their desires all the time. Who are any of us to say that you can’t pray that? Okay, maybe God is rooting for an apology rather than for us to pray that England win the world cup again. But I don’t know. God knows.

Because my conviction is that a Christian revival would make things better for most people in this country, I desperately want to say that it would influence sport too. That it would bring back the magic. But conscience stops me from saying that. However, there are strong links between Christian revival and sport. There would probably be a positive influence, more Christians in sport for example, a change in atmosphere and a reduction in the peripheral violence and drug use. Maybe the atmosphere would change. That nostalgia, that sense of magic and the joy at seeing sporting heroes win is known to God. All I’m saying is that if anyone can bring back the magic into sport, then God can. And that a Christian revival would make that more likely not less.

So choose sides. Or change teams.

Think happy thoughts.

Book launch - Irony by Nick White

“We’re living in strange times.” It was an offhand remark to the electrician as he came to assess a broken cooker. We had been talking about politics. It seemed like a safe, anodyne remark, unlikely to cause offense or to alienate. And maybe it was ironic.

But it’s true – we are living in strange times. Perhaps the times have always been strange, but they are no less strange today than they were before. This world of alternative facts and fake news has driven many of us to the edge of our resources. All kinds of things that we used to take for granted now have to be fought for. It’s partly the fault of the citizen journalists but it’s also true that alternative facts and fake news are not new.

We can say we are post-truth and post-irony and that we are far too sophisticated to accept old dogmas, but there is still that longing for some kind of meaning to it all, some kind of certainty. For some kind of pragmatic way of survival in this strange world. And that is partly why I have written my new book, released today.

It is a non-fiction book which takes an original look at irony in our modern lives. It is a book which extends the definition of irony in line with our modern understanding of the term. And it is written for people who blame God when things go wrong. It’s for the agnostics, for the people who wonder why the believers and atheists are so loud. I make some wild claims in this book. I say that irony needs there to be a story. That it needs there to be an audience. That it implies an ironist in the same way that a story implies a storyteller. But what would the nature of such an ironist be, given the nature of the ironies which we are subject to?

Would it be ironic for there to appear to be patterns in both our lives and in the story of history or in our meta-narratives, stories like the Gospels, Frankenstein or 1984? Or are such things evolutionary survival mechanisms, like the formulation of language or the willingness to arrange our lives into some kind of meaningful story? What is the point of the sword which is irony? Why is it there?

I invite you to read my book as it is written for thinking people like you. People who seek meaning.

It’s available from Amazon here. 

Think happy thoughts.

An Easter parable for David Cameron

The palace of the king

Once upon a time there was a powerful king who ruled a land filled with all kinds of people. Some of the people were concerned about the land and they had asked the previous king if things would get better for them all. They had also asked this old king what he had thought about God (because it was an important question for many of the people).

"We don't do God," said the old king, but he assured the people that he was one of 'them'.

Some of the other people then began to blame 'them' when the old king went off to march to war (or at least sent his people off to war (because his legs ached when he marched)). Some of 'them' were horrified that he had said he was one of 'them' and had then gone to war (because 'them there people' didn't like war on the whole).

The new king was only a little different (as kings often are). The new king presided over a court who believed that the people in his land would be a lot happier if they learned to stand on their own two feet and stop complaining about their lot. He believed that these people needed to quit complaining and get on with his Big Plan. Some of the people in the country were unhappy because they didn't have their basic needs, but the king was adamant that they had made the decision to be unhappy themselves and they needed to learn to take responsibility (because responsibility never belongs to kings) and to pull themselves up by their bootstrings and count their blessings (because he liked to point out people who were worse off. 'Let me take you by the hand and lead you through the streets of London...' he may have said (except he liked to keep himself to himself and not mix with the hoi polloi)). If only the people would support him and carry out his Big Plan then things could go on as usual and he could stay king, he thought.

When some of the people asked this new king what he thought about God, the king said, "We do do God and I am one of 'them' too." He went on to talk about how God was on his side in his Big Plan and that he was just carrying out God's own plan from way, way back, many centuries ago.

Again, some of the people were horrified that this new king had told all the people that he was one of 'them' because the other people always took this as a bad sign (that was partly because of the previous king and because it was simply not cool to be 'one of them'). Cool was always as cool looked, not as cool did. Kings were not cool and 'they' were not cool.

So the king waited for a huge festival that 'they' liked (just a little while before the people would decide if he could remain king). And then he said that the poor people in the land would have to work ever so much harder because they were not carrying out the Big Plan. And besides that, he said, God was with him so anyone who disagreed was really disagreeing against God. Well, he left that conclusion to their imaginations. He said that he hadn't said these words so that the people would keep him as their king... no, not at all, nosiree (after all there are those who say all kings are the same).

So the people, all kinds of people, waited and looked for some kind of hope for the future. But they feared that all kings really were the same. And when kings said they were one of 'them', it was the 'them' who got the blame (even though 'they' were not the enemy).

So all that could be hoped was that things would get better and the kings would have a change of heart. And if they really did do God and really did have a Big Plan for a 'broken land' (which may or may not have been misdiagnosed (but who can argue with God?)), then one day things would change for the better and they would not march off to war or make things worse in the land again.

But kings are kings.