Newsletter: March 2025
Greetings again, dear web friends
And we’ll get to hope, because it’s always there, but first we may need to sit awhile in the ashes of our anxiety.
It is a sign of the times that three clients in the past week, without any prompting from me, have mentioned how they struggle to watch the news these days. One said, ‘My husband just avoids it now. He walks out. He can’t bear to watch.’
I’m reminded of some words of the poet Mary Oliver. She is famous for calm and penetrating poems about nature. She loved long walks alone, the winter snow, the messy and miraculous leaves. But occasionally she settled her gaze on government and society. In 2008, in a piece called ‘Of the empire’, she wrote this:
We will be known as the culture that feared death and adored power, that tried to vanquish insecurity for the few and cared little for the penury of many. We will be known as a culture that taught and rewarded the amassing of things, that spoke little, if at all, about the quality of life for people (other people), for dogs, for rivers. All the world, in our eyes, they will say, was a commodity. And they will say that this structure was held together politically, which it was, and they will say also that our politics was no more than an apparatus to accommodate the feelings of the heart, and that the heart, in those days, was small and hard, and full of meanness.
As even a brief glance at the history book reveals, the world has never been just. It has been alive with glory, infused with kindness, blessed by courage and riddled with hope – but never fair, not remotely; and often savage. From the Garden of Eden onwards, watching the news has never been easy. But for some it’s particularly difficult now – a world re-ordered in a matter of weeks; and the oft-repeated lie now the standard-issue truth.
And how do you stay well as these days unfold? Is staying well even allowed when so much is unwell? In response to these questions, we must follow Oliver’s lead, take care and ponder our heart – the heart that ‘in those days, was small and hard, and full of meanness.’
You’ll have your own truth but my rule is this:
‘Do what I can; eschew moral superiority; stay fresh.’
We all do what we can for the world, with the small opportunities given to us, and I know some of you do a great deal. We do what we can and that is enough.
But whatever behaviour the news reveals, I run from moral superiority in absolute terror. It does me no good at all to feel better than others. Neither does it do anyone else any good. I find nothing quite as tedious or life-draining as yet another voice running down Trump, Putin or Musk or whoever.
The moral high ground is comprised of aggression, negativity and self-righteousness, which are a bleak trinity and offer nothing to the world. We already have ample stockpiles of such things. I need supply no more.
We may feel deep sadness; sorrowful to our bones. But that is different. It possesses no judgment.
And staying fresh? I don’t avoid the news myself, but despite its ubiquitous nature, neither do I wallow in it. I breathe in the lie, the discomfort, the tragedy, the awfulness, and breathe out something good – something like relief or space, kindness, sorrow, courage, health or hope. It’s about converting the toxic into healing.
TS Eliot said, ‘Teach me to care and not to care,’ and while this is counter-intuitive to many, it is fundamental to human health and freshness. I have met charity workers rigid with care which has morphed into hate and self-justified behaviour; as if theirs is the only cause, and that somehow hostility towards the perpetrators is virtue and a badge of honour. It is neither; it is part of the problem.
Care is beautiful; care is cost, care is miracle. But care also breaks us; care hardens us, calcifies joy, makes us rigid and small. So we care, and we let go of care, as Jesus did when he disappeared into the hills to be alone in his cave. There he could put everything down and we follow suit.
However we do it, we put down the weight of care, take a break and start again, fresh at the beginning of the day, like a beach washed by the outgoing tide; yesterday’s sand castles and litter all gone. Teach me to care and not to care. Keep me fresh for the possibilities of today.
You know all this… so be patient with my struggles.
Meanwhile, away from the news, I have recently enjoyed being Jeff Bezoz – probably more than he enjoys it. In my last newsletter I gave you the chance to buy my latest illustrated novel, London’s Knotty Pickle, and it has given me almost indecent pleasure to respond to requests. I hope you’re all enjoying it. If you missed this offer, the book is now in my online library, with a few copies left should you wish to purchase. Go here:
And, on a different note, for any who’d like to contemplate the authentic spiritual journey briefly, some reflections close to my heart:
The authentic spiritual journey
As I started with Mary Oliver, so I finish, with a different piece of her wonderful writing. The poem is called ‘Today’. We started with her rage, and we finish with her peace, with her ‘taking the day off’. Amidst all you carry – and no one knows but you – I wish you rest too, and hope, until we meet again.
Today
Today I’m flying low and I’m not saying a word. I’m letting all the voodoos of ambition sleep.
The world goes on as it must, the bees in the garden rumbling a little, the fish leaping, the gnats getting eaten. And so forth.
But I’m taking the day off. Quiet as a feather. I hardly move though really I’m travelling a terrific distance.
Stillness. One of the doors into the temple.
Simon x
