Been forever (Jan 20th) since I posted on Sicily. Gayle has been in Malaysia (back on Tuesday) and I have survived, for that I give myself a pat on the back. As from the previous posts I have also been reading and writing about ‘Israel’ and ‘Jew’. Got a way to go on that but some things are coming clear to me. The two terms are not interchangeable – so much quickly becomes evident when looking at where the two terms are used and where they are not – in Josephus, Philo, Paul and Scripture. Anyway…
Sicily has had a tie of being battered. Initial estimates of the damage was around 750,000€ but that quickly rose to 1bn and now the suggestion is it will be closer to 2bn€ of damage. The East coast was hit hardest but many will have seen on the news the landslide in Niscemi – about 50 miles / 80 kms from where I am currently based. The weather was intensified as Sicily was the centre of the coming together of three different fronts – one from the West, one from the East and one from Africa. There is ‘weather weather’, ‘demonic weather’, and at times something to be read from the weather – the land speaks, as also does the seas. There is some element of creation speaking in the storm that has been so violent. (I have a sneaky desire that sometime into March that Mt. Etna speaks – a sign of fire… spectacular but without damage. Let’s see!)
Over these past 10 days I have sought to hold here at the level Gayle left things, she has been far east with some wonderful doors opening. (The wonderful aspect of seeking to be a Jesus’ follower has nothing to do with success but is marked by ‘where did they come from, where did they go’ (Jn. 3 illustration used of those who are born of the Spirit) is that we are all so ordinary but 2 coins ignorantly put in a treasury can change so much!)
Walking there is stuff to see. Today two street names. Of course they can be innocent but they can open one’s eyes to what part of the history is being / has been remembered. The first Civil War 1921. And if one searches google maps it is not even on there. 1921 – a time of deep unrest in Italy and the year of the formation of the Communist party and the major entry of the Fascist party into parliament, paving the away for Mussolini in 1922 to take over. The second street was December 1968 – the aftermath of one of the most significant earthquakes to hit Sicily with towns like Gibellina, Salaparuta, Montevago, and Poggioreale destroyed, and causing over 300 deaths, injuring 1,000+, and leaving around 100,000 homeless.
Avola – been a good place to kick back and be quiet, but oh my a tough place for the likes of me. So ordered and neat. It is what lies behind the order and the call for compliance. I posted a map of the internal ‘hexagon’ a few days ago… it is wrong to forget the past and probably understandable to have memorials erected, but along that main road through the middle of the hexagon down to the sea… well Madonna and child by the sea looking straight up and then walk that road and one will encounter monument after monument that has been erected to those who have ‘fallen’, ending with (the expected) obelisk at the end. Maybe some 2kms away from Mary and baby Jesus.
I have learnt something (maybe the first thing I have learned – how do you spell learnt / learned???) that with history that runs so deep what on earth is appropriate to focus on. (That was a bad sentence not sure myself if it was a question or a statement, whatever…) Whatever stops a moving forward and holds something in place needs to be addressed (whether at a personal, city, corporate or global level). The issue we (at all the above mentioned levels) all have a past -what becomes relevant is whatever blocks the entry to the future.
It could be easy to get bogged down here but I sense these days are about sight. Yes walk the streets and ‘see’, take note of street name even… but I think it is about sight for the next phase. Gayle returns Tuesday and we will then move, find a place to settle, but be mobile. In a few days after Gayle comes here we will be joined by 3 very smart women who will be so important to close phase 1, and move through phase 2 to open the way for phase 3. (Sounds like I know what I am talking about; I hear Paul say ‘don’t leave a falsehood’ so to make it clear all the above is vague, with a capital ‘V’.)
I hope to take the sight from here into the next weeks. There is a way forward from earthquakes, even from major landslides and devastation, but it should not be into the nice orderedness of conformity. Conformity offers safety. Something we run to when we feel insecure. So with the help of good feminine energy (and there is no gender in God but if there was the references to the Spirit (ruach; rechem = womb and thus the Incarnation involves the womb of the Holy Spirit and the womb of a wiling young woman)) it will be time to close down orderedness (epitomised in Christendom) and call for the release of the wild – hence a little sneaky desire for Etna to speak after those weeks.
The above might be a bit vague – and we will forever only see in part. Always enough to provoke us to pray and to seek to align with heaven… and earth.
Separate to the above and I might post on this separately at some point. Around 3-4 years ago I was praying and had in my vision a map of the world. It looked standard the same as one could buy. There are 3 major land masses on the bottom side of a map – South America, Africa and India. In one instant South America relocated underneath Europe; Africa under China – that surprised me as it happened simultaneously. But India did not move. India is the dark horse of this next era (through to 2040). An old world order is not going back – Mark Carney spoke of a rupture. The importance of the ekklesia is in focus. It is a governmental word but NOT to be understood as governing over (as per seven mountains of influence) but taking responsibility for a shape to be held so that what is healthy can grow up within it. It is not about discerning where the next trade deal can be done… they might give us signs but I am convinced we are to look for a new economy and Scripture is full of it. No need to fear ‘not allowed to buy and sell’ as that is part of an economy that is collapsing… We bumble along in Sicily, the centre of ‘middle earth’ hoping we will cluelessly contribute to the future, and staying here in Avola is underlining for me that we have to step away from being locked in what has been.
Martin: Thanks for the update. I wondered how you were doing with the weather there. I think the partial vision and sense of bumbling around is appropriate. We are going from a time when many felt they could see clearly. But much of what they saw was facades, lies and myths, that covered a different reality. The new reality emerges from a fog and it will take a while to see more clearly as the future is shaped.
And it is being shaped. There are all sorts of powers seeking to shape the future. Unfortunately many of those powers are not interested in the well-being of humans, other species, and the earth. Rather they seek power for the sake of power for themselves. Its a funny thing to do. In a time of climate chaos, that kind of power will save no one. We all need to learn new and old ways of resilience. . . and that means community.
At the same time we can see resilient communities being formed and strengthened as neighbors help one another or organize to meet a threat. We will need to move forward and build the structures/infrastructure of community resilience even as we feel half blind. We have to accept the chaos and move with it. Make space in the disorder. Quite a challenge for all of us.
I am just finishing a book titled: Apocalypse, How catastrophe transformed our world and can forge new futures, by Lizzie Wade. No not a theological perspective but an anthropological one. She examines different societies and civilizations in the past and how they survived and were changed by their own apocalypses. From climate change along the north coast of Peru to the plague in Europe. And lots of other places. She ended up writing this during the Covid pandemic, our most recent global apocalypse.
A few of her conclusions:
‘Apocalypses have always revealed and exploited societies’ weak points, from an unsustainable relationship with a changing environment to an overly rigid and oppressive social hierarchy. Because of that, apocalypses are also the best chance our societies have for change. . . . apocalypse can reveal the failures of old systems and inspire the creation of new ones.’
‘We can harness the energy and potential of apocalypse to create a new world. But first we have to accept that the apocalypse, with all of its horrors, is here to stay. Only then can we see its opportunities. . . ‘
‘Embracing apocalypse doesn’t mean resigning ourselves to the worst-case scenario, or giving up on the idea of progress. It means believing that destruction can be a gateway to that progress, societies can and should change, and endings are also always beginnings. It means recognizing that just because we’re used to something doesn’t make it right. It means prioritizing values and ways of life that allow us to adapt and change rather than shoring up brittle social structures that crumble at the first hint of challenge or pressure. It means looking forward with clear eyes rather than scrambling backward toward an illusion of safety that has already disappeared or perhaps never really existed. It means mourning what we’ve lost while also imagining all the things we could create next. It means choosing hope, not instead of fear but alongside of it.’
People have prayed the Kingdom come for millennia. Perhaps this is the moment. Not to look back and try to resurrect a structure that was ungodly in the first place – Christendom – but to look forward to connection back to community and to the land (and yes, that involves it’s history) as we face the challenges and opportunities ahead of us.
And to quote the Canadian Prime Minister in his recent comments at Davos: ‘Nostalgia is not a strategy’. It’s time to move on from what is over and find/create our new homes.
Wow… whoever Lizzie Wade is there are multiple layers of wisdom in what she wrote / you reflected. It is so immaterial for us right here and now about the ‘appearance / coming’ of the Lord… this is our world. As Martin Luther responded to the question ‘and what would you do if you knew the world was to end tonight?’ He replied with ‘plant an apple tree.’ Yes and yes – this is our world, and ‘apocalypse’ is the context of the current rupture.