East west, home’s best

Even if the door's behind you.

The doors to a church face west. Muslims pray facing east. Is that not a token of how fundamentally different Christians and Muslims are?

Maybe. But not as much as it is a token of how hard facts are but a raw material in the hands of those with dishonest intentions, or bathed in ignorance. Because Christians also face eastward when they pray. The door is behind them.

My brother’s wife was an air hostess with a Middle Eastern airline when she and he met, and she told me once that Arab passengers would ask, when preparing for their communion with God, which direction was east. She and her colleagues would indicate the line of the aisle, as being an east-west line and that was a bit of a risk, because up above the clouds, you can see the sun very well and it’s not therefore hard to do a roughshod estimate of where east-west lies. But, if you need to ask, maybe you can’t do that kind of reckoning, so, does it matter? In all events, she had little choice, because she couldn’t exactly ask the captain to change course. But she casually performed that fraud, flight in, flight out. One day, I will ask her how she felt about it. Perhaps she’ll read this and tell me how she felt about it. Till then, I’ll tell her, and you, how I feel about it.

Praying while facing east is not a diktat, not in Islam and not in any religion. Do you think that believers on flights AA11 and UA175 (and there were at least a couple on the flight decks) were worried about approaching from the north and south when ramming the World Trade Centre in New York? No, and not for cynical reasons: because they knew as well as anyone that belief is a matter of belief, and not some sextant for navigating the cosmos. The trust placed in cabin crew used to be, at least, absolute. The first cabin crew were trained nurses on United Airlines back in the 1930s. They’re not really there to serve drinks; they’re there to save your life. They serve drinks just to pass the time till they crash. If they say the aisle is east-west, then the aisle is east-west. The believer needs to know that for his peace of mind, but it doesn’t need to be that for his prayer to be heard. He simply needs to believe it.

What languages does God speak? If you recall, God got very angry when the Tower of Babel was being built and He sent everyone packing with a different language. That was tricky, because, in the first few days, they had no dictionaries. But, I wonder, did God then take himself off to college to learn all the languages He had created (if you’ll allow me to be oxymoronic for an instant)? Obviously, no. Otherwise the first commandment would’ve been “Thou shalt have no language before Norwegian.”

I have to confess, I have a penchant, and it’s that penchant that even prompts me to write this: I like the King James Authorised Version of the Bible. Because he (Jim) was King of Scotland and I now own various bibles that have come to me from fondly remembered members of my Scots family, and that’s nice. When we talk about the language of the Bible, and its meanings, I often hear things like “Assuming the translations from Greek and Aramaic and Hebrew are all accurate,” and there have been some howlers; not enough to cast doubt on the entire Dead Sea Scrolls, but not so much as to have to take them with a pinch of Dead Sea salt.

In the church of St Peter in the Chains (San Pietro in Vincoli) in Rome, there is a huge statue of Moses, by that Renaissance master Michelangelo Buonarotti, and striking about this reclining figure are his diabolical horns. Before an emendation was inserted, that’s what the Bible said Moses had coming out of his head, but it’s been reinterpreted as “beams of light”, not … horns. I can only hope the emendation was made after Michelangelo was safely in his grave.

Does it matter? Yes, it does matter. But only if you’re concerned by appearances. Some think Moses done up like the Devil is … uncomfortable. Some undoubtedly find it an outrage. And, if they do, they’re missing the point. Statuary in churches is not there to be accurate. It’s there to induce a trance. And if people disagree on Moses’s horns, they’re not in enough of a trance. “Stagehand: more incense, please.”

God didn’t learn Norwegian or anything. He created languages to teach us a jolly good lesson, but what it was is unclear. (Don’t worry, I’m in my trance, but I need to think about that one.) What language does your doctor speak? Your own? It’s helpful if it’s yours, then he can tell you about you. But he listens with a stethoscope to your heart and blood vessels, because they don’t speak what you speak. They speak “Blood”. And doctors understand Blood, because they listen to hearts. And so does God.

God did googles of translations before Google ever did. But the irony is that God’s omniscience stems from His ability to listen to our hearts; and Google’s supposed data power comes from listening to our fingers. Don’t google – Goodle.

Belief in God doesn’t depend on language. Or compass direction, Bible version or standing or sitting or anything. It depends on you. Your belief springs from your heart and your mind may be busy with questions of belief and, if it is, it’s exciting, isn’t it? To think about what you believe is the first step towards discovery. But, when we emerge from the womb, there is no belief. Belief comes from our cultural and family surroundings. Mennonites say that children should not be baptised, but should themselves make the decision, between the ages of about 16 and 25. That’s a view and it really opens the freedom of your choice to be God’s friend; because, like a golf club, you don’t have to be God’s friend. It’s just that anyone who asks will be accepted by Him. God is there for the asking. If He was 20% off fresh apricots, you’d be queuing to the end of the street.

Belief comes from the heart, and what you thereby believe can be analysed and questioned with the head. But you can never tell your heart to believe something. The belief must be there, and then it can be dissected. But reasoning won’t make belief, because believing something that is provable by scientific theory or empirical observation is too easy. Even Alexander Fleming needed the luck of serendipity to discover what it is that will cure your next bout of Covid. And, if it was that easy, then, tell us: how were the pyramids built?

Now, on the Substack, I need to push my notoriety, sorry, fame. So I drop articles I’ve written into apropos comments. To be honest, aside from … don’t known, try me … there’s nothing I haven’t written on, somewhere. Go on, try me. We all do a bit of pushing on Substack: it’s a bit of friendship, a bit of pushing and a bit of crossing fingers, is Substack. God doesn’t do special offers, even if board room policy in heaven is as unfathomable as at an oil and gas concern. But the Bible, while it has its challenges, is astonishingly clear, if you can read simple language. Because, its language is simple.

Some observations:

At no point in the Bible does it say anything like, “And then Jesus stopped to have a pee.” Or “And Moses declared that chard was on offer at his greengrocery.”  And this has led me to a truism, which I’m omniscient enough to be able to back with, oh, what? A bag of apricots. It’s this: Shakespeare, the Bible and porn films never say anything for nothing. So, if you disagree, go off to opensourceshakespeare.com or the KJV and point me to something that’s in there that has absolutely no bearing on anything. And, for porn films, if you have eyes to see, then see, and if you have ears to hear, open your lug-holes. And that’s all I’ll say about that cultural diversion.

Here’s another one: did you ever see either of the films The Ladykillers (the first, Alec Guinness, is the 50s and the second was Tom Hanks in 2004)?

The storylines changed but essentially a band of robbers (a post office van v. riverside gambling establishments) plan their exploits by renting a room in an elderly lady’s house under the pretext of rehearsing Boccherini (with the title spelled all funny. Back to Italy. Here he is.)

They instead play a vinyl LP of said Boccherini and use the time for more lucrative ventures, like planning a robbery. The lady’s situation is parlous, because the robbers would only too gladly slit her throat and the only hindrance from their doing so is the boss’s observation: Mrs Lopsided knows nothing.

Eventually, they end up killing each other, including the last man, and the lady escapes scot free – even gets the loot. In Guinness, the ghost of her late, ship’s-captain husband inhabits her parrot, whom she talks to as if the old salt were still alive. In Hanks, he was a riverboat captain and his portrait hangs above the fireplace. When she’s doing the right thing, he shows a beatific smile or coos smoothly and, if wrong, he frowns as if she just went over 30 mph to 31. And that, dear reader, is the only factual inaccuracy that I’m prepared to bet my shirt on in the films The Ladykillers. Not because I know that parrots and paintings cannot frown or smile. They probably can’t, but that’s not the inaccuracy. It’s this: they never would. And the reason why is this:

We mortals make mistakes and ask forgiveness, from friends, colleagues, family and God. If we truly are sorry for our mistakes, we will go to heaven. In heaven, God will not reward you, He’ll just “love you as you would be loved.” That’s all. Why wouldn’t He? After all, you’re there because you also loved as you would be loved. You scratch His back, He’ll scratch yours — in eternity. You can throw away the rest of the Bible. It’s about changing the radio or installing KC lights. But what I’ve just written is how to make this car go. And that’s all you need. Not worth creating Norwegian after all, was it?

When we pass, we will be judged. Because your soul is up for grabs. God doesn’t have a reserved option on it. He has to do battle for it, just like Zaporizhzhia. And there are some He loses, which the Devil wins. Have no fear, Devil-worshippers: just like God does with his lot, the Devil also loves as he would be loved. With one slight difference, there: he doesn’t give a toss about your love. It’s the central tenet of satanism, is it not? “Love thyself, care not for others.” As the Devil jettisons you into a vat of boiling oil, or whatever treats he has in store, he’ll be muttering to himself, “I must love myself and sod the rest of them.” I’m not sure on the language he’ll use, but you’ll understand him, no bother.

And that’s it, a quick triage and, like the lift boy says, “Going up, or going down?” And just like the lifts in Lewis’s, when the lift boy says, “This is your floor,” out you step and there’s no more going up and down and there’s no more judgment. Judgment Day will seem like an elevator pitch. And to think your annual appraisals take an hour but, then again, so much depends on them.

But once you’re where you’re going, that’s it with judgment. You will no more be judged and, what’s more, you will do no more judging. No approval, no criticism, no wrinkling of noses, no check the box, no gold stars. No more “It’s just not the done thing.” There will be no more sin, because there’ll be no more temptation to sin, because there’ll be no more point to sinning. You’ll not be autistic, but you will be freed from the manacles of judgment. We mortals make rules and judge. It’s all we do. Really, think about it: it’s 90% of our lives. Cook for 6 minutes (appliances vary). Yes, appliances vary, but commercial organisations trying to offload their responsibility, they don’t vary. They’re all the same.

It’s only when you get up there that you realise how cluttered your life was with judgment: on the lateness of the paper boy, the accident on the centre lane of the E40, the fact the grocer’s closed, and whether your pension’s enough. A million judgments, every day, and dissatisfaction at things you can’t change and most that you even can. And when, finally, you get to the afterlife, that’ll all be gone. And, if you’re up there, all you’ll even want to do is love — it’s all you need. And if God lost, hate. On his deathbed, British actor John Le Mesurier’s last utterance was, “It’s all been rather lovely.” Little did he know how much lovelier it was about, in the next second, to become.

In short

Religious traditions and rites and catechisms unite people in common worship and belief experiences. They’re not essential. They’re helpful lodestars for those who need or want some guidance. There is no shame to booking a guide if you don’t know Rubens. But, if you do know Rubens, the guide can’t really tell you much more than you already know. The odd snippet, maybe. But you don’t need a guide to know how to love people as you want to be loved by them, do you? Okay, book one, and see what they say. But it may just turn into a long natter, about the two of you’s favourite subject.