To me it is human folly &/or desperation to think we can understand the divine plan. I do so want to know where all this is leading, that what I am doing really is the right thing for me to do, that it will actually lead me to where I am supposed to be.

But I have no real knowledge of that.
I only have a faith based on my past experiences.
What is "obedience"?
What is "the will of the father"?
All I know is the moment and listening to my conscience.

I find it frightening when I think about it - about this not knowing the big picture or where (or if) I fit in.

That is why I find great comfort in Merton's words:

My Lord God,
I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.

Nor do I really know myself,
and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean I am actually doing so.

But I believe the desire to please you does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all I am doing.

I hope I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it.

I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost
and in the shadow of death.

I will not fear, for you will never leave me to face my perils alone.
Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude

Go with Love, Go with God

Are any of them "following some Divine Plan" in the sense that John Henry Newman would have been thinking when he wrote the meditation above?

Could you rope any of them today into a frank conversation like the one +Geoff Robinson had with Ingrid Shafer which we published today? I am honestly sceptical. They are all "losing their own consciences" but are they necessarily adopting some "Divine Plan" as its replacement or have they, like sheep, adopted some "flock" or "peer group conscience" not "the conscience of their Father in heaven" like the example of the man Jesus they are meant to be following?

Four Corners tonight has been interesting as I've been writing this. It's about the Mormons and what "Divine Plan" they follow and will it influence Mitt Romney's outlook if he were to be elected President of the United States of America and the "most powerful man on earth".

Francis, I honestly think this is one of the great mysteries of life and I don't pretend to have an answer but just more questions.

I certainly comprehend what you are driving at — that might be summarised as suggesting that Life itself, or Creation itself, has a "plan" — and that's essentially what we see in the video as a new life "unfolds" driven by a completely logical set of "laws and relationships" (which we scarcely yet understand) that govern how cells divide, then gradually develop into specific organs and functions within this complex "superstructure" called the human person. In a sense there is no "director" or "God" there with a metronome like some orchestra conductor telling the cells at precisely which moment to divide, or telling the developing brain at which precise moment to start thinking, or the heart to start pumping, etc.. We can self-evidently see there is a "plan" there but it doesn't need an "external conductor" who "pushes a button" as on some mechnical production line in order for the next phase of the production process to begin.

I think most intelligent people can accept the foregoing. It's the classic story of the "clockmaker creator". The clockmaker assembles all the parts of the clock or watch and then "sets it ticking" and, assuming it has a perpetual motor that doesn't need to be re-wound, it will "tick on" until some of the parts wear out mechnically and, through the Law of Entropy, it will eventually rust away and "return to dust", or the individual atoms and molecules, that were originally assembled in defiance of the Law of Entropy.

Where I find it all begins to get a bit more difficult is in this very adult question: does God, or Life, have a particular "plan" for me? Or, to put it another way, what is my role in life? It's a question every young person has to ask at some stage when they choose a career, or earlier what is the best course to study that will help determine what careers are available to them? Is this process just "all serendipity" or "random"? Or as traditional Christian spirituality tells us is there some "Divine Plan" or guidance we can call on? Christ himself says in the famous Garden of Gesthemane scene that, in the final analysis, he had to leave it up to "the will of his Father in heaven". At various times in my life I've found this prayer of Cardinal Newman a great solace in my life...

That prayer of Cardinal Newman's might also be described as an iconic part of Christian or Catholic spirituality and theology. It attempt to describe our relationship with this "Great Mystery" we try to compress into the word "God". It also defines that ultimately the "plan" might be a mystery even shielded from ther person the "plan" is to be enacted upon — "I have my mission. I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next." I'm not sure if that was the classic, or universal, paradigm of thinking that all Catholics and Christians are brought up in. (Perhaps that something that might be discussed here? What are the experiences of readers in Catholica?)

I'm not sure that everybody has that Newman-like "outlook towards life". This was a question I never entirely resolved in my conversations with my mother — who didn't believe in an afterlife (in which you might be told what the point of it all was). Self-evidently there are a lot of people in life who seem more motivated by an "eats, roots and leaves" outlook toward life. In other words it is all about immediate gratification — making the most of the now, or the moment — and, if there is a "plan", that will look after itself in the future. There is no point in working one's mind and emotions up into a lather trying to work it out. The important thing is simply to "enjoy the now" or "enjoy the present moment" and "worry about tomorrow when it comes". In some senses that is the paradigm I work out of today. I just sit here and watch what comes through my telephone line each day and "voila" out of the blue yesterday arrives this email via Christine Roussel and Ingid Shafer asking me to publish the interview with Geoffrey Robinson — something that it would be almost any publisher's dream to be able to publish.

At another level though I don't see that opportunity "coming to me" as an entirely random or serendiptous event. It seems tied in somehow with this entire "cycle of life" or this "complexity of relationships" that does lead to things "falling in our laps" at times. Milly calls it "God-incidence" rather than "serendipity".

At another level I agonise as to whether I have chosen the right course for my life. Building Catholica is the most stupid enterprise any person could concieve of. "How are you going to get rich from that?" some people has asked me. I think my children think I am "absolutely mad" undertaking an endeavour like this. There's going to be no great inheritance I can pass on to them. In fact at times I've been dependent on their financial generosity to keep this ship afloat. It's completely "mad and stupid". It's in a sense "mad and stupid" like the enterprise I was writing about yesterday of those Dominican Nuns who came from News Zealand to educate the uneducated "Bog Irish" who had migrated, or drifted, to the harsh outback environment of the Murchison where I was born (and which is featured on "Australian Story" as I write this tonight). The great convent the nuns built at Dongara no longer exits or was sold off decades ago, all those little corrugated iron "convents" at almost every whistlestop along the railway line out to the true "outback" have long since rusted away or been sold off. I'm not sure of the exact numbers but there might be only two or three Dominican nuns left in the whole of the Diocese. Were any of those women following some "Divine Plan"? Even at my close to normal retirement age now I appreciate I probably still have enough talent that if I applied my mind to it I could turn around and do something else and make a pile of money somehow by learning how to become some kind of astute financial investor and spend my days following the movements on the stockmarket, or some other casino. I keep asking myself "why persist with such a stupid endeavour as this?" I ask myself if I am following some "plan", or slave to some "plan" planted in me by my parents, my family or religious culture, by my circumstances, or by God?

I jokingly referred to something Enda wrote earlier about the beliefs of priests and referred to it as "mythology". In a sense what most priests do could be described as "dumb and stupid" because it defies the more general "success at any cost" paradigm that is built into Western culture. Our prime drive in Western culture, if it isn't to make a huge pile of money, it is at least to acquire enough to look after yourself and have some comfort in your retirement. Some in the Church seem to have acquired a great formulae for "acquiring a huge shit pile" while subscribing to the "mythology" that they own nothing under their "vow of poverty". They don't exactly "do without" as their accrual of frequent flyer points jetsetting around the world testifies and being able to star in "5 Star presbyteries" in almost any city of the world they care to nominate. "Become a bishop and see the world" would almost seem to be the new motto for many. It's in danger of overtaking the old adage "Join the Navy and see the world"! Are any of them "following some Divine Plan" in the sense that John Henry Newman would have been thinking when he wrote the meditation above?

Thanks, Dolores. One thing I am certain of is that hope in the love-filled outcome will not deceive me and that I need to be alert to the signs of the time and take the path of least resistance.

Francis

We humans so love "certainty". Even when we know there is nothing we can be certain of. I do agree with your response but hesitate to define it as "right or wrong" as that implies a certainty and sets up a duality.

Maybe there is a different definition of certainty. A certainty not for all time but just for the moment. Knowing (being certain of) the right thing to do in the moment but not holding on to as the right thing in the future. Realizing that what I know, I know for me. I am glad that I can share with others what I have come to know. And that their responses help me to come to a clearer understanding of what it is I think I know.

Go with Love, Go with God

I can not fully understand the divine within the limitations of my human mind. I continually circle around my understanding of "God". Everyone who attempts to understand God helps me in this endeavor. Even when I don't understand the meaning of the words used. It is too easy to write off those we don't intellectually agree with. It is too easy for instance to say "I don't agree with the Nicene Creed". But the question is not what I agree with but what "God" really is. Maybe I can not accept certain words now but it does not mean they are not true, in as much as any of our words can accurately describe the divine. Words tend to force us into a duality - I believe this but not that - way of thinking.

So the simple answer to your question is yes. Yet I know I don't fully understand your words. That is okay because one day I may. Until then I will hold on to your simple/complex concept of "Being".

Go with Love, Go with God

Brian, I suggest the moral questions are to be considered along and somehow connected with the process of evolution. All the killing through wars, executions, murders abortions and disease contribute in some way ... otherwise we have to explain the killing of animals to eat and the insects we kill to preserve our city living and agriculture.

Francis

Dolores, thanks for good points. May I suggest that God in the conventional sense is eternal so all is only in the now. For God to be involved God has let loose the compulsion of creative love that otherwise is explosive. God in allowing creativity to burst forth God is and becomes one with the created. Thence creativity is the force that cannot be stopped.

Can this fit into your conceptions, Dolores?

Francis

Brian, when a person is conceived and eventually born do we see a perfect and complete picture? I believe there is inbuilt in that human being the image of the living God. That 'image' is prompting that human being to progress, to evolve as it has in the past to this stage. The urge within humanity is to go ahead and evolve until it has come to the finality of the divine. Then again, I cannot conceive the divine being must inevitably create again and again without end. That is what the universe has done and going through the stages of big bangs and black holes. That is what humanity must do from what we see now to what will eventually occur. That does not mean God has a plan; it is simply being one with creativity and creativity is something that once started will not stop. Divinity is a name we give to the creative process and that process has within it all that is, divinity, creativity and humanity. There is one being that simply evolves and evolves. We are filled with awe and we worship. We worship the Whole and that is Divinity, Creativity, humanity, and whatever comes from love that cannot be contained. I introduce love here for what seems separate being need a joiner so that there is no dispariteness.

How does thsi grab you, Brian? No plan just being ... and eternity of evolution.

Francis

Dolores, In my email ministry Iwas told "To gain progress we need certianty."Do you thinl my response was right or wrong?

Certainty is a sure way to stagnation. Jesus did not give us certainty but urged us to search for the way that brings about the Reign of God as he lived and taught it. We have to push forward in cooperation with the evolution of our world and inner self that God is engaged in.

Francis

Brian,

The food chain does create a dilemma about for belief in a benevolent personal God. Because from any (human) point of view, it is revolting. It requires the suffering and death of the prey at the hands of the predator. Despite suggestions to the contrary that plants "feel", it seems more likely that they do not have the same nervous mechanisms that we have to feel pain. And this is the big difference between being a herbivore and an omnivore. Now, of course, there is a kind of dimmer switch in terms of pain and consciousness within nature, so that one is entitled to question the degree of suffering of an oyster as against a pig or cow.

I wouldn't be surprised that future generations will move towards vegetarianism, not just for environmental reasons, but because the combination of modern economics and production systems to the production of meat must invariably involve more cruelty to animals than is necessary.

After listening to the recent debate on the ABC about whether meat should be on the menu, it was very hard to justify any form of meat eating in this day and age - except for the fact that most of us enjoy it, and a lot of people have jobs because of it.

No, there is no correct way for a human being to "read" a divine "script". We can't understand the "language" from an intellectual point of view. We can't interpret what God "wants" so that we make the best choice for long-term survival.

For as long as there have been humans there have been questions about the unknown. And people willing to provide answers. And when those answers are too difficult to comprehend in their totality, there are people who just simplify the answer.

And we get stuck on the "Cliffs Notes" version of the original answer which in itself didn't really provide a solid answer but more of a guide.

Yet we do know the right thing to do in each moment.
We each know it in our moral conscience "where we can hear God speaking." (CCC 1777)

It's not an answer to the question of "what do I do to insure all works out in the long-term?" It is an answer to "what do I do today, this moment?"

We all have a connection with the Divine - however we choose to define that undefinable being.

We all know the right thing to do in each moment - if we stop talking and start listening.

My personal experience is all I have, all that I can believe in. And my personal experience has been that God does illuminate my path, "talk" to me suggesting a way to go. Not that I have to. No threats if I don't. However I have found that life just has this wonderful way of working out when I do walk my path. I finally understand what hope and trust really mean.

Go with Love, Go with God

But I'm still having chicken for lunch - just hoping that it was raised humanely, and dispatched quickly.

There are no simple or easy answers.

Annie

Thanks Annie. The current and ongoing media discussion about animal cruelty* is, in a sense, the surface level discussion of a much deeper moral dilemma. The deeper moral dilemma is this: seemingly built into Creation is the reality that the higher life forms have to devour the lower life forms in order to survive. Even if we give up the eating of meat, in a sense and in order to survive, we have to devour a lower life form than the animals, plants, in order to survive and grow. Vegetarianism merely shifts the moral dilemma down a rung to a life form that is a little more different, or less developed than ourselves than the animals are. Even in the animal and plant kingdom there is enormous pain and suffering as the higher life forms devour the lower life forms for their survival. We continually ask ourselves: Why did that have to be built into the whole template of Creation?

The present debate, the existence of organisations like the RSPCA, is essentially a mechanism we use to try and resolve this deep moral dilemma. How can we engage in the wholesale destruction of the number of animals the world needs each day to feed itself, or the lower forms of plant life, in ways that inflict the least pain and which respect the dignity of all of Creation?

*See, for example, the recent Australian Story on ABCTV of the crusade of Lyn White to reduce animal cruelty in live cattle and livestock exports for slaughter in other parts of the world:
http://www.abc.net.au/austory/specials/therazorsedge/default.htm

And let's not forget that other mammals develop in the same way, from embryos and foetuses. We are just the most complex living beings yet seen. We are all part of the same web of living creation, from the first funguses to mammals, including homo sapiens.

I no longer believe that we can regard ourselves as a separate privileged species, made special by having a 'soul'. My 'soul' to me is just my consciousness and identity, developed over a lifetime.

Just watching the different varieties among our closest relatives, the great apes, there is intelligence and consciousness there too. And love for the offspring. Why is it wrong to kill a human being, and not an animal?

Where does one draw the boundaries for the 'right to life'?

I dnon't have any answers to these questions - only more questions.

Annie

WANT MIRACLES WATCH THIS.
I watched it many times Brian and I thank you for the opportunity. The whole time I watched it I could not get Jeremiah !:5 out of my mind (I knew you before you were in the womb). So many miracles of atoms coming together.We should not forget the miracle of technology that has allowed this beautiful vid to be made either. A child 7 billion children all miracles in their own right born with their own fingerprints toenails , fingernails and D.N.A. A divine plan ???? lets not waste time trying to understand lets appreciate it.
THE TROUBLE WITH RELIGION IS------RELIGION.It will get as many of these young miracles and without any thought to their individuality try and make them think that god speaks only trough that flavour of religion .
Gunnna cut this short My granddaughter has arrived I am working on a Dog Kart with her.
Cheers Ian Lawther.

> What I do know is that Jesus walked his path.
At each moment in his life he did the right thing for him to do.
This is what he showed us we can do. We can all walk our paths. Each moment doing the right thing for each of us to do. This is how we can have control over our lives.

Thanks Dolores - this has cheered me up no end because this is what I believe too. And in doing this we become more fully human, more fully alive. It isn't easy but it is the only way to live IMHO.

Marian

Helen

Of course i agree with you but having such a big soft heary i never really think about rape, having a baby, i am sure there is a lot of that going on and these wonderfu woman choosing to go ahead with the pregnancy and in some cases finding out its too late for an abortion. i suppose you just never know who had been born out of such a shocking crime.

Macbee

The pro-life segments are already going ape-shit about this video judging by some of the responses on the You Tube site. Unfortunately it does, in part, bolster their case but I think that is essentially a major distraction to the principal lessons that can be drawn from this visualisation. I don't think the visualisation answers the question as to when sentient life begins or the unique individual "I" or personality capable of self-reflection and unique self-identification emerges. Does it tell us when the "soul" emerges and the conscience capable of choosing right from wrong and making moral judgments? We can all get carried away emotionally by the beauty of the video but that does not necessarily help us answer the deeper moral questions that human civilisation faces and we each face individually.

Thanks to all of you for your responses on the core question I'd put up for discussion: this question of whether or not you believe there is some "Divine Script" or "God's Plan" — for humanity, or for each individual?

My own view is that there is. But it ain't simple. A lot of my thinking derives from the sort of relationship we saw illustrated in this TED Talk by Alexander Tsiarias. The unfolding of the human embryo into a fully-fledged human being does follow some "script". There is some "relationship" there between the created and whoever thought up the script. This is perhaps not illustrated so much in the "perfect" human beings that are created but when something goes wrong with the script and some imperfect person emerges with some kind of disability. That, in turn, evokes a response from the parents and the community into which the individual is born.

The important question to me centres around the nature of that relationship once the child is born. Self-evidently the "script" continues to work at the physiological level — our immune mechanisms kick in, we learn to think and become highly cognizant, we continue to simply "grow" in obeyance to the same sort of "laws" that were causing the cells to divide right back at the very beginning. The BIG question to me is the nature of the relationship once we become fully cognizant and capable of making decisions for ourselves. How do we discern right from wrong? Even without ethical and moral considerations, how do we choose the most intelligent choices in life for our long term welfare, or the long term welfare of our family, clan, nation or the entire human community?

I think a claim could be made that the entire agenda of a religion like Christianity is essentially an attempt to answer those two questions. That's essentially what the entire Genesis script — the rise and fall and expulsion from Paradise — is trying to get its head around. And then along comes Christianity with a new interpretation of the Messiah and again it is essentially "trying to fill in the blanks" that had previously been unanswered by the ancient Judaic script.

As I've written, I'm in two minds today whether the historical Jesus actually had some "royal telephone" to his "father in heaven". I think it just as likely that the historical Jesus is as much an embodiment of the "wisdom of the ages", or the "wisdom of humankind", as much as he is an embodiment of the "wisdom of God the Father" or an embodiment of the "wisdom of the Divine". In the long run, I don't think it really matters — this is essentially the debate his early followers were trying to nut out as to whether he was "the Son of God" or "the Son of Man"; whether he was human, or divine, or both — what matters in the final analysis is whether his "script" or "way" actually works; does it lead to what he argues it will lead to?

But what is that? Is it "earthly success" or "happiness in this life" ... perhaps contentment? Often enough in the Scriptural record he emphasises that the answer is "no". Yet we crave "success" — almost the whole of Evangelical Protestantism seems built around an (abundance) theology of "pray and God will deliver to you success and a happy family". I don't think it has ever been part of the authentic Catholic vision – and in fact might be one of the things that delineates the Catholic vision from the Protestant vision and more especially the Evangelical Protestant vision (or theology) – but there seem some in Catholicism who interpret it through the Protestant vision. The "way" or "script" is essentially about emotional security in this life and that comes through the "happy family" and material success.

Authentic Christian theology though, I would argue, is essentially trying to develop an explanation, or theology, of how this "loving (and obviously genius) Creator-God" invites us into this relationship and, at the same time, he/she/it appears to also endow us with choice to contibute to the "unfolding of history" or, in more churchy talk, the "building of the kingdom". AND THE 'BIG' THING is the choice he gives us is unfettered. If we choose to make our nest, our home, or planet, uninhabitable he is not going to restrain us or step in and correct our choice. We will have to live with the consequences of the choices we make.

This is where I find myself closer to the arguments that James' advances. I don't think this "script" or "way" is communicated to us through "voices in the head", or by some script written down in places like "the Ten Commandments" or the dogmas of Catholicism, or exclusively communicated to the mind of someone like the Pope. They are not unimportant but some seem to interpret them as the only thing that is important. Creation itself has direction, life itself appears to have direction. It is not just random or without some final objective and we're just here to "eat roots and leaves" and amuse ourselves until our earthly sojourn is up. We are called into some kind of responsibility to try and discern where life, creation and civilisation is heading — we are called into some kind of responsibility to "discern the script" — and to then help contribute to life, or creation, reaching or fulfilling its destiny.

This theology of Benedict is wrong: "The Christian believer is a simple person: bishops should protect the faith of these little people against the power of intellectuals." The responsibility of the spiritual and ecclesial leaders is constantly to be lifting the "simple people and little people" above their lizard brain level behaviours and to building a more civilised, intelligent society. Similarly the agenda of Rupert Murdoch is wrong that the simple yobbo and yobboess is there to be entertained and distracted by tits and bums, sensationalism, contrived conflict and village cock-fights as a means to making some shit load of money or accruing to oneself enormous power. Both Murdoch and Benedict decry elitism (that's what essentially Benedict argues in that passage quoted above) but essentially both of them are trying to impose on a society a form of elitism — their own. You "simple people" and "little people" will follow my agenda — my interpretation of what God wants or, in Murdoch's case, what life is all about.

In both their cases I would argue society at large is today reining them in. Their "empires" are in a profound state of disintegration and collapse. They've both read "the script" the wrong way.

We're still left with the problem though — the perennial problem that has engaged the best human minds since humankind climbed out of the first embryo — what is the correct way to read the script?

It is an amazing video that is for sure and makes one think about abortion.

But it does get back to how the baby was concieved in the first place. I still think a baby must be formed from a loving couple - regardless of whether they are married or even if the baby wasn't planned. To become pregnant through rape is an entirely different thing and therefore abortion should be an option.

Helen

After seeing this miracle of the growth of a baby inside the Mother, while i was out i was thinking of what people would say about abortion after seeing this, when does life start? to me it seemed at a very early stage of the growth of the baby to be born.

Macbee

I do believe there is "a divine plan" as you call it. But that's too much of a catch phrase that leads to a duality ("this is part of the plan" but "that is not") way of thinking. You speak of one person being successful and another unsuccessful. We hear self-help guru's talk about success all the time as if our concept of success would necessarily be the end goal of (or even play any part in) God's plan.

But Jesus died a most horrible death. Betrayed by one friend, denied by another, thought a fool by his family, abandoned and alone. Crucified as a common criminal. Not one of the beacons of success that you suggest we would want to become.

What I do know is that Jesus walked his path.
At each moment in his life he did the right thing for him to do.
This is what he showed us we can do. We can all walk our paths. Each moment doing the right thing for each of us to do. This is how we can have control over our lives.

It's not a promise of a "tip-toe through the tulips" - it is hard and constant and dirty and sad.

But it leads us to exactly where we are supposed to be.
One step at a time.

One moment you wonder how it all went so wrong.
And the next moment you wonder how it could all be so wonderfully right.

Go with Love, Go with God

I'm sure the whole "shock jock culture" of contemporary commercial radio owes much to the pathway blazed by Rupert Murdoch in tabloid journalism around the world. Continually "pushing the ethical limits" in pursuit of readership and audience numbers. This news story from today make for interesting reading in the light of what is happening to Murdoch and his culture around the world...

2GB forced to reveal its backers
April 28, 2012

THE Sydney talkback radio station 2GB - home to presenters Alan Jones and Ray Hadley - has failed in its bid to stop new rules that force it to reveal its advertising backers on air, despite a plea that it would be tantamount to an attack on freedom of speech.

The station's owner, Macquarie Radio Network, argued it would be impossible to comply with the new rules, which say presenters must declare if they or their radio station are getting cash or favours from a sponsor.

Macquarie had sought an injunction to stop the introduction next Tuesday of the new rules, which the Australian Communications and Media Authority rewrote to prevent another cash-for-comment scandal.

FULL STORY:
http://www.smh.com.au/national/2gb-forced-to-reveal-its-backers-20120427-1xq9f.html#ixz...

There is probably no "script" or "plan" otherwise someone would have made a fortune marketing it by now.

However it would seem Jesus did have a "formula" that can be summed up in a word: compassion.

Compassion may not be the fastest route to fame and fortune but it would seem to be a key to living life more ‘abundantly.’ It tends to divert us form self-absorption by focusing on the often more pressing needs of others, thereby releasing the ‘better angels of our nature.’ It is widely accepted that one of the key elements in a happy and fulfilled life is for children to grow up in a loving family environment. Compassion can deepen the love and understanding between partners and the children they care for can be a constant wellspring of compassionate love.

If Christianity let go of its God bothering and focused on the actual teachings of Jesus (instead of the personality cult of Paul) it might seek to elevate compassion into the powerful spiritual force that Christ envisaged. That would involve a deeper exploration of Christ’s teachings on humility and forgiveness and a new praxis that combined various spiritual disciplines with social and political activism.

Such a renewed Christianity could be salutary both for us as individuals and for our tormented planet.

Thanks for the link, James. I have read a lot of the news reports and this was among the more interesting. At the end of Eric Ellis's article I followed the link to this 2007 essay in The Monthly about Wendi Deng and found that as enlightening again [LINK]. My own sense from watching all this is that Rupert is intelligent enough to appreciate that he is now in serious trouble and unless he plays his cards right this could end up in the sort of scenario that Robert Maxwell, Conrad Black or Alan Bond experienced. My own view, admittedly from a distance, is that Murdoch has chosen to play this by "being humble and trying to tell the truth". Only once or twice during the verbal interrogation did his "poker face" break and we saw the character of the Murdoch emerge that was more vividly on display in Bruce Guthrie's observations in the SMH some months ago [LINK]. On both occasions he quickly corrected himself, apologised to both Counsel and the Chair.

Murdoch seems to be this enormous paradox — the anti-establishment, establishment figure. I think he has inherited from his father this genuine desire for "truth" over smoozing with the officer class and establishment. (Sir Keith Murdoch established his name for his exposes of what was really happening at Gallipoli when he was a war correspondent there.) His mother, Dame Elisabeth, in her various media appearances over the years seems to embody those qualities also. Rupert though also has an element of the "bovver boy" and back street fighter in him. I don't believe what occurred at News of the World occurred because of some cover-up at lower realms in his organisation and he and James were unaware of what was going on. There may have been some "cover up" of lower executives being reluctant, or slow, to keep the bosses informed but the fundamental failing was a systemic failing in the culture. Despite all the forests of explanation that have been felled in recent days to explain the evidence coming out of the present proceedings in Rome I still think Bruce Guthrie's piece provides better insight into the corporate culture encouraged from the top than anything else I have read. When "push came to shove" Rupert did think any journalist or editor overly concerned with "ethics" was a "wanker".

I honestly think there is an enormous parallel between what we're seeing happening to Murdoch and his Empire right now and what we see happening to the empire of the Holy Roman Catholic Church. The failings are "systemic" — right back at the culture that has developed at the heart of each organisation not at the particular failings of individual editors, journalists, bishops or priests in either "empire".

Murdoch increasingly comes across to me as having really swallowed the myths of the neo-conservative agenda. He really is trying to inflict that on the world through these organisations he controls such as his newspapers, Fox News across the US, and the agendas of his UK papers, and as I've written his "education agendas" (which I scarce knew anything about) which have come across through the probing of the Leveson Inquiry. That's why he employs the likes of Andew Bolt and all these "shock-jock" type characters. Ultimately I see what is going on at the moment in a big canvas sense as "society at large reigning in another tycoon that has gotten a little too big, or smart, for his own boots". He might have been a heck of a lot better off to have retired when his previous wife, Anna, urged him to and he might have been remembered by history as one of civilization's "greats" for what he had built.

I want to also write more on some of your observations about the core question I was asking about whether there is a "divine script" to life. I'll save that 'til later as I want to mull on it a bit more.

Brian

If there was a script for some of our lives who have been abused bu Priests what sought of creator have we?

macbee

One would need to be a very young, inexperienced teacher to think one could predict the outcomes of a student.

IMHO, of course.

PeterR

Brian

How wonderful is this just so wonderful I carn't believe it!! i have always been fescinated about birth and for years i wanted to see an Elephant give birth (for some reason) wondered if it gave birth standing or laying down rhen only last year i saw a ultra sound of a Mother with baby and the bay elephant was sucking its trunk, the way she just drop that huge baby in birth was great. Then the Zoo had a camera in the Gorillas inclosure and the Mother just lay down and put her legs up on the side of the cage and pushed just like us woman so really we all give birth the same marvellous, wonderful.

My Mother told me about my birth just before she died i couldn't stop laughing she hadn't had me buy the end of the day and the Dr Roberts was going home and said to her if she hadn't had the baby in the morning he would give her something to help her along (I wonder what that would of been 60years ago) by the time the Dr got to the car park the nurse ran out side calling for him to come back as i was arriving when he got to the bed side there i was with my Mother saying "THIS BABY COULD NOT OF BEEN INSIDE ME LOOK AT THE SIZE OF HER AND SHE HAS WORKERS HANDS" I was hugging my Mother saying Mum i must of heard that I have been cleaning bloody floors all my life.. by the way I was 11 pounds 4 ozs and 23 half inches long. the eighth child out of ten, biggest in birth and smallest in statue as a adult.

Macbee

Polly Toynbee of the Guardian has a penetrating analysis of Rupert's activities to gain control of the media and eliminate his opposition, including the BBC, in Britain. The ABC in Australia has also been affected by the appointment of Murdoch employees to its board in recent years.

... here's a reminder of what Hunt was about to unleash on the country, with Cameron and George Osborne's approval. If Murdoch were allowed to own all BSkyB, within a year or two he would package all his newspapers on subscription or online together with his movie and sports channels in offers consumers could hardly refuse, at loss-leading prices. Other news providers, including this one, would be driven out, or reduced to a husk. His would be the commanding news voice. Except for the BBC – which his media have attacked relentlessly for years.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/apr/26/murdoch-cameron-shameful-tale?INTCM...

Annie

Some stirring questions Brian?!
Sometimes one can envy/covet some "successful" people, and yet what is success?!
Probably to put up with whatever life may throw at you?!
Maybe have a few real friends and be able to love?!
Does all the power,money etc enable people like Rupert achieve that any more than just being a pauper?!
Just wondering?!
georgeh

Whether or not there is a divine plan, it seems that there are some very human factors in why certain people become successful. It is very well described in Malcolm Gladwell's book, Outliers.

The first thing is that you have to have some native intelligence but you don't have to be a genius. Maybe even just a little above average is enough. The second thing is that there has to be the opportunity, and the third thing is that you have to have enough discipline to spend at least 10,000 hours a a relatively early age doing what ultimately makes you successful.

So, only one of the three has anything to do with your own efforts. The natural intelligence comes from the genetic lottery and the opportunity really happens because of when and where you were born. If you believe that those last two happen through a divine hand, then of course, God has something to do with it. If you think it is just one of those mysterious quantum things that happen by chance, then I suppose He doesn't.

By the way, on Rupert Murdoch, there is a blistering account of his evidence before the Leveson enquiry by Eric Ellis entitled "All the Truth that Fits" in the Global Mail. Harold Evans has described Murdoch's evidence as more akin to the fanciful plots that his Fox Studios script writers might have concocted.I couldn't help thinking much the same as I watched it, particularly when he said that "you scratch my back and I'll scratch mine" applied universally to all humans, but did not apply to his dealings with politicians. It was also interesting to read the drivel coming from his "raucous cheerleader", Andrew Bolt, who just happens to work for him.

http://www.theglobalmail.org/feature/all-the-truth-that-fits/216/

Mulling a bit further on this...

As I've been mulling on this week's discussions in preparation for Saturday's email, I've been wondering how much is there some Divine Script or Divine Plan to life? You see it in some people whose lives have been "successful" — "successful" in the sense of making a huge pile like Rupert Murdoch, or bishops, politicians, business people, academics or journalists who rise to places of enormous power — who seem to believe their "success" came about because they found the "right formula" or the "divine formula" if they happen to be religious. What increasingly comes across in all I've been reading about, and seeing of Rupert Murdoch, in the past few days is that he wants to impose his "formula" on the rest of society.

Whether it is his forays into education revealed in his Witness Statement to the Leveson Inquiry (as well as his verbal comments offered directly at the end of his examination) or the observation I quote below from Robert Manne's essay on Rupert Murdoch's desire to influence Australian politics and life through his flagship newspaper in this country, The Australian, Rupert wants to impose his formula on society.

"In the guise of a traditional broadsheet newspaper, the Australian has turned itself into a player in national politics without there being any means by which its actions can be held to account. It claims that it is held accountable by commercial reality. [A claim Murdoch himself repeated at numerous times in his examination before Lord Justice Leveson.] According to those who understand such matters, its financial situation is altogether opaque. Ironically, even though its core value is the magic of the market, it is very doubtful if it could have survived in the past or could survive in the present without hidden financial subsidy from the global empire of its founding father, Rupert Murdoch, for whom the Australian has offered the most important means for influencing politics and commerce in the country of his birth." [Robert Manne, Bad News: Murdoch's Australian and the Shaping of the Nation, Quarterly Essay 43, September 2011, http://www.quarterlyessay.com/issue/bad-news-murdochs-australian-and-shaping-nation]

In one's journey through life you come across many people who appear to believe they've got life "all figured out". They are sure that if everyone followed their formula, or script, then everyone could be as "successful" or as "happy" as they appear to be. You also meet others who appear to have been "successful" or "happy" and they appear to be a little more reserved and see their "success" or "happiness" as some form of luck, or "good fortune", or "Providence". You also meet others for whom life seems to have been decidedly "unsuccessful" or a "continual struggle" from birth to death and there seems no rhyme or reason for it. (In recent times I've related the story of two of my mother's sisters, my aunts, one of whom "breezed through life" with seemingly few hassles and her sister, who seemed just as bright and intelligent as the "successful sister", but whose life was just one continual tragedy and failure after another. There seems no rhyme or reason, nor a God, to explain the difference. In fact, in that particular example, my observation was that the "unsuccessful" sister was more religious and a greater believer in the Divine than the "successful" sister.)

I remember when I was a lecturer at a film school back in the late 1970s and early 1980s and we used to have almost a game as the staff in the selection process of students of trying to predict which students would become "successful" or "famous". (It was a course where there were many applicants and only a few could be chosen each year.) In the end it was almost impossible to predict. I'm sure most teachers of long standing have experienced this sense of being quite stunned at the different life courses taken by various students they taught. Some of the ones they predicted would be great "successes" in life didn't fulfil the promise and some of the most unlikely did achieve enormous "success" or "fame".

It might be claimed that one of the most enduring myths of the Western civilization we're all a part of is that "through hard work and diligence and frugality and careful saving" every person can be successful. Just look at Barack Obama (as a gifted example) or George W Bush (who would not seem to have been especially "gifted" at least intellectually) and how they rose to become Presidents of the most powerful nation on earth.

The question I'm really pondering, and putting up for discussion here, is whether or not you believe there is a "Divine Script" or "God's Plan" for life? In the video we have just seen there seems this "direction" how the cells keep dividing and gradually form into the various arms, limbs, eyes, heart, brain and all the parts that make up a human person. In the recent video we featured here from Professor Brian Cox "The Wonders of the Universe" he showed how science has a direction in the Law of Entropy and how glaciers fall into the sea and we never see the sea rising up to become glaciers from the sea. On the other hand we are mindful that Jesus Christ warned that the "success" he offers is not of this realm. Do you think there is a "Divine Plan" to life — some "formula", like going to Mass on Sundays and obeying the Ten Commandments, OR perhaps obeying your own conscience (the "voice of God Within"), that leads to some kind of "success", or "happiness", or "peace of heart" in life? The myth in our (Western society) seems to be that we all have it in us to become as "successful" as a Barack Obama or a Rupert Murdoch — I'm not sure that the myth also extends to us "having it within us" to become another Albert Einstein, or an Olympic gold medalist, and you might want to throw that into the mix as well — what do you believe about this idea that there is a "plan" or "script" for each of our lives?

The problem with religion and belief, it seems to me is not the concept of "God" or a "Creator". The problem is what we human beings do with the concept of "God" or a "Creator" and when some people want to start playing "God" themselves and start themselves dictating the script of life.

It continually astounds me how some people seem to crave miracles like weeping statues and other "signs" of divine intervention in life. Little do they seem to realise that they themselves are a "miracle" of far more astounding beauty and complexity than any weeping statue or "dancing sun" could ever hope to be. Here is a TED Talks video that illustrates better than anything I have seen what I am talking about. It is a visualization of human life from conception to birth using the newest x-ray scanning technology that won its two inventors the Nobel Peace Prize. This is the sort of thing that keeps me as a believer rather than an agnostic. Whoever, or whatever, it is who thought up the "miracle" of life itself deserves some kind of recognition and thanks...

...surely, my mind asks, the relationship between this "Creator" and each of us and the whole of Creation, does not cease at birth?