97 Comments
Nov 6, 2022Liked by Jack Leahy

Last weekend my wife, Liz, and I were sat on the concourse at Kings Cross railway station in London, drinking coffee and waiting for our train, north, back home. A young man materialised at our side; a suddenly still figure in the shifting mass of folk in transit. He had a newspaper in his hand. Turns out he was homeless and selling the paper was the way he kept body and soul together. “It’s a really good alternative to the mainstream media”, was his sales pitch. The paper was called Dope. The front page was taken up by the legend, “Already Against the Next War”. I have it here. On the inside cover a strap line informs the reader that the paper is published, “in solidarity until everyone has a home and nobody lives in a cage”. It counsels the reader to “Let this radicalise you rather than lead you to despair”.

Dope is a kind of anarchist patchwork quilt comprising freshly written pieces and extracts filleted from texts of the tradition. We were reading bits and passing it back and forth between us on the train to Hull. I can’t remember whether Liz or I came to the last piece first. No matter. The concluding story was written by a woman who had opened a community bread making business. She named her enterprise, The Conquest of Bread, after the book written by the great libertarian-pacifist anarchist Peter Kropotkin.

I guess the bread-maker doesn’t know this, but she shares her reverence for Kropotkin with Servant of God Dorothy Day. However, she may well hear all about that link soon enough as the bread-making takes place in a small bakery in Hull. And, given that Liz and I are currently reading, The Conquest of Bread, after our morning prayer; and, as we are currently seeking some kind of encounter with local anarchists that we might re-engage politically during this weird time we have exchanged e mails with the baker.

Your latest offering landed in our in-box as we began our baker-outreach thing. Got to say, I love it, Jack. Our struggle is to find the language necessary to radicalise the faith and spiritualise the

anarchy. The attendant problems this endeavour encounters has been my major preoccupation ever since we quit the Catholic Worker. Still thinking. Don’t want this to get too long and clunky. So, et me quit, here. I may have suggested this before, but you really ought to read Jacques Ellul; Christianity and Anarchism, and The Meaning of The City, are slim but indispensable volumes. I would argue, strongly, that much the same could be said for Peter Kropotkin’s, The Conquest of Bread.

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Nov 5, 2022Liked by Jack Leahy

Thank you for this thoughtful piece 🧡 Nearing 60, having done such things as started a school of sustainability, facilitated for Occupy, represented the incarcerated at standing rock, gone through Al-anon, and come out of decades of yoga with the jewel of a simple daily 40 minute meditation practice, I have come to these same conclusions. Being only a few years into my contemplation practice, I am finding much loosening of neurosis and an expansion of the understanding of what it is to “hold space” for others. I still struggle with how to expand this into larger local efforts-projects but I trust that will come in time 🙏🏼

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Nov 5, 2022Liked by Jack Leahy

Growing up on a small hill farm in South Wales I remember well how communities supported each other. They gave their time and effort to help those in need, knowing that when the time came that help would be there for them. No money exchanged hands, ever. And even today those principles and practices are still alive though not as obvious to the outside onlooker. A stray sheep having got mixed up with the neighbours flock would be brought home. And then the kettle would be on the stove and fresh baked bread and cheese on a plate, with conversation going on well after the sun had gone down.

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Nov 8, 2022Liked by Jack Leahy

The only place in the Bible where the kingdom of God or Heaven is explicitly defined is in Romans 14 where it says the kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit and speaking of anarchy in its highest sense - “where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty” 2 Corinthians 3:17. So I get what Berdyaev is saying above

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Nov 6, 2022Liked by Jack Leahy

For a time my family were part of a house church. We rotated weekly between 3 different homes and shared a meal afterward. One man in this group was in recovery via Narcotics Anonymous. He was always working with newer members (of NA) and very involved in their day to day well being -- phone calls, rides, advice, encouragement. Most of what I know about the 12 steps is through him. He would always encourage us to read more about the program but I never did.

I've been contemplating this mentality of control and ideology recently from the angle of agriculture. There are those who idealize hunter-gatherers as uniquely in tune with the natural world. Then there are the permaculture idealists who have been mocked for making it sound like if you plant a perennial food forest, you only have to walk outside and open your mouth for food to fall in. I think we can all agree that the state of agriculture is horrifyingly far off from the scale and balance that feels acceptable.... but how much control and manipulation is too much? As you say, we won't map it out without getting out there and making a go. Wendell Berry says, we need to re-ruralize because rural land is the site of the problem, of our disconnection to nature. If the people who are concerned and longing for healing don't go to where the problem is happening then all their talk and writing can't begin to help.

Now, I have been planning on getting into dairy on a very small scale. In reading a couple books about this I have been amazed to learn that artificial insemination of dairy cows is the norm even on very 'natural', small scale, idealistic farms. This strikes me as one of those lines that shouldn't be crossed. I mean, the semen from a few prize bulls is being used across the whole country to father almost all the dairy cows. How do cows feel and should that matter at all? nevermind all the technological wrangling needed to facilitate this process: "It only cost $300 per year to keep 2 cryogenic tanks of liquid nitrogen where we can store bull semen rather than all the expense, hassle, and danger of managing bulls." I don't mean to downplay that keeping a bull or several is no joke.... Anyhow, it strikes me as a fine example of how we will need groups of people, accountability, and to have at the fore of our consciousness what we want to avoid and the willingness to work hard and trust God in order to follow a different path from the standard of efficiency, control, profit, and preference.

Chris Smaje has been discussing Genesis and farming on his blog (Small Farm Future https://smallfarmfuture.org.uk/?p=2003). He is someone who also helped me to think through the whole question of annual vs perennial food systems. He suggest we need to accept that our longing to be "one with nature" may be tragic in essence because we live in a fallen world, and that we need to accept our role as a patch-disturbing species like elephants or beavers. We may have to plow the soil and to breed plants or animals for our own ends. Working out the right and wrong, finding the balance, requires the community you suggest. Obviously in a situation of declining cheap energy people will be doing whatever works, and that may be brutal, but we want to hold a different ideal. I like the 12 steps for this.

Clara

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Nov 6, 2022Liked by Jack Leahy

I wonder if there is also a human technocratic replacement for the Elder, the ‘Leader with The Vision!’ I think our desire for a Strong Leader is in essence technocratic in that it appeals to the Left Hemisphere’s lust for ‘Control’, ‘Success’ (read measurable outcomes), etc. This is why Anarchy terrifies, for fear also belongs to the LH, yet in the end our journey begins with a crucified King . . .

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Dec 1, 2022Liked by Jack Leahy

anna, I tired to reply to this in order to suggest that if you wanted to exchange e mail addresses we would be happy to develop a conversation with a like-minded soul. Oddly, that message seems to have been delivered to Jack. I say, 'oddly', but it was obviously my ineptitude. Anyway, if you fancy getting to know a couple of ageing, ex-Catholic Worker, Roman Catholic. Pacifist, Anarchists we could exchange e mail addresses. Solidarity. John & Liz

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Dec 1, 2022Liked by Jack Leahy

Well, my geography is more than a little shaky, but I guess you could draw a diagonal line on a map of England from Hull to Hastings. Anyway, Liz and I are more than happy to be in contact with fellow travellers. So, if you fancy the idea of beginning a conversation with a couple of ageing Roman Catholic, Anarchist, Pacifists give us a shout any time you want to exchange e mail addresses. x

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Nov 25, 2022·edited Nov 25, 2022Liked by Jack Leahy

Hi, Jack,

I think I have managed to articulate my uneasiness with your emphasis on contemplation so I am making an attempt here to do so. I believe you are a believer in Jesus, if you weren’t I wouldn’t be sharing this. To me the pointing to contemplation as the means seems to be a subtle dethronement of Jesus by a mental method as being the savior and source of the Holy Spirit. Jesus said it is the Spirit that gives life. Prayer is a continuing result of John 7:37-39 not the source. We are told to pray in the Spirit. We pray because of the joy of having the Holy Spirit. As sons of God filled with the Holy Spirit we now go aside to pray as the Son of God did because we have free access to God, “we go forth in joy and are led forth in peace” I don’t see the step by step contemplative path in the Bible, but a free giving of the Spirit from God through Jesus and the results thereof. Galatians 3:2-5

I had a l’esprit de l’escalier moment French for thinking of something else to say on the way out on the stairs, so I came back to edit. I can agree there is a feedback element in prayer - “building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit” Jude 20. Paul warns us to begin where we should begin and rely on the Spirit not human effort Galatians 3:3. I pray we all have a clear taste and knowing of the comfort of the Holy Spirit to enliven us. “How much more will the Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.”

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Nov 17, 2022Liked by Jack Leahy
Nov 12, 2022Liked by Jack Leahy

Hi, Jack, you invited input in footnote 11, as you know I am a fan of the 12 step approach, especially the first three steps, and it’s anarchist communal style of governance. I wish society as a whole was a blend of the anarchist communal and distributism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributism And as you know from past comments I am not a fan of the contemplative system and think there is something better. But to talk this through with clarity and care and closeness would require face to face and time. So I don’t know what to do. Reminds me of this scripture - Moses would talk with the Lord face to face as a man does with his friend.

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I read 'megasystems of technique' and had the sensation of cold mercury pouring down my back. Thank you for this horrible excellent phrase. Sadly, it will be very useful in describing that which we were not made for but are nevertheless headed towards.

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Nov 7, 2022Liked by Jack Leahy

No worries, Jack. I will be keeping a weather eye out for every in-coming communique from SinW. And, whenever you require tutoring in the ways of righteousness your everso humble servant will take up the quill. As far as SoGDD goes, the literature is not great. She wrote her own partial auto-biography, 'The Long Loneliness' , which is worth a look. Her biography (really an extended essay) on the co-founder of the Catholic Worker, Peter Maurin (the man she always referred to as her 'teacher') offers lots of insights into her thinking. But, if you really want the real flesh and blood Dorothy Day, warts and all, you need to read her published diaries, ' The Duty of Delight'. If you want to read a good context piece on the radical catholicism of the time, I can recommend, 'Disarmed & Dangerous: The Radical Lives and Times of Daniel & Philip Berrigan' by Murray Polner & Jim o'Grady. Peace on ya, kid! John.

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Nov 7, 2022Liked by Jack Leahy

OK, Jack. Seems like my work here is done! It's been grand. Thanks for the ride. Keep The Faith. And remember these immortal words of Ursula La Guin: "We live in capitalism - its power seems inescapable. But so did the divine right of kings". Blessings, me dear.

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Nov 7, 2022Liked by Jack Leahy

Certainly doing such things as growing your own food, or burning your own wood on your fire might possibly soon be labelled terrorist acts, undermining The Great Leap Forwards. As for my eating the beef and lamb raised on my brother's paddock . . . In an inversion of that scene from the Matrix 'I know this steak exists, nothing is fooling me into thinking otherwise, and that knowledge is bliss'

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Nov 7, 2022Liked by Jack Leahy

Oh, by the way, Jack, I was very taken with the title of the post. These words of Jesus have been very much on my mind of late as part of a collection of texts where we unconsciously insert extra words. Here the unconscious addition is 'as few as' - i.e. 'where as few as two or three are gathered', yup this whole Christian gig even works for those who can't really get along to belong to BIG church :-) Whereas, I think that there is something in the 2 or 3 which any more dilutes. Once you get to four, the dynamics of attention shift and those involved become less so, mere observation is more and more the name of the game. With 2 or 3 it is easier to name your weakness. Beyond that the temptation to some kind of performance and sense of 'I'm not really good enough/radical enough/whatever' enough grows. True accountablity with Love becomes less real - perhaps? And as I htink you said on PK's latest essay thread, there's not all that many around willing to own up to their addiction to the machine . . .

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