If I was to paint myself as a person with special prophetic powers, then I could do no worse than to survey the news, look closely at what the pundits are saying and then jump in with some eerie prognostication. The chances are that I would be right some of the time, right enough to champion my clairvoyant capacity.

I read today that a 'new' Nostradamus had foreseen WW3 this year. Never mind that the 'old' Nostradamus was likely way out most to the time. Given the obscurity and any-shoe-might-fit application of his quatrains, some success might also be expected from that quarter, some of the time.

So the 'new' Nostradamus would not need to look far to find some support for his claims. There is a war in the Ukraine that could get out of hand. This depends on a whole range of variables and possibilities. If a Ukrainian counter-offence (much mooted but yet to materialize) is very successful and the Russian army looks like it might be defeated, the Kremlin might decide to use a tactical nuclear weapon  out of desperation. I don't know where that might lead.

The Korean Peninsula, the South China Sea and the situation over Taiwan are also potential 'flashpoints', where poor or complacent decision-making might prove to be a fuse for a wider conflagration. Its not hard to see how multiple scenarios might play out, but they remain unlikely.

That's my prediction. Disaster is possible but unlikely. One caveat, however. As a Christian, I am certainly aware that both Old and New Testaments have prophetic books. They are also open to interpretation (and there are many) though, when the time comes, there will no doubt about the Final Act.

Since taking up the presenter role for The New Statesman program for 2RPH, I have begun to renew my  interest in British current affairs. It's not that it actually went anywhere - rather, I had a lot more on my plate and reading up on the UK took a backseat. But it is very good to be back into it.

As part of my re-education I have been watching documentaries about the Sixties and Seventies, some from the time, others about the time. My hard memories form this period really start with the demise of the Labour Government in 1979 and the concurrent rise of Mrs Thatcher.

But the period of the Wilson/Heath Governments is very interesting and perhaps rather overlooked, though as for that, I don't suppose we talk much about the Attlee, Churchill or MacMillan administrations that followed WW2. In truth, only Clement Attlee's remarkable government, which ushered in the 'welfare state', is worthy of deeper reflection.

Harold Wilson is more of an enigma. Much of what I have read about him tends to diminish his governments(s) achievements, but there is a lot to like both in his style and capacity for modest reform. That, and holding the fractious Labour Party together, winning four general elections and building 400,000 council houses each year, suggest an assessment in in order.

His nemesis, Edward Heath, suffered a similar fate with his critics on the right. His central legacy of taking Britain into Europe has been effectively destroyed by Brexit. It's probably best that neither of these men got to see what the UK has become in 2023.

 

Padre ( Anzac Day 2023)

Somewhere in the mud he saw the face,

Still, but shimmering in the dusk,

And from a place beyond the wire,

A rain of shells came down again,

Just as they had for days.

He stayed outside the dugout as they fell,

Ignored the calls of mates,

He knew the sounding pattern,

Could explain the ways

They would tear at earth

And render sky-blind.

As for the screams,

They mimicked men

No trace had left behind.

Again, a voice had called,

'Sir, come in.'

And he had faltered then,

Stuck between a vision

And the lives of men

Who were his calling -

Prayer in indecision.

The likeness fading,

He did go in, a hand,

Clutching a psalter.

'At the going down of the sun and in the morning,

We will remember them.'

Lest We Forget.

The thought of another Trump Presidency is enough to drive one to live on a planet other than Earth, were it possible. A questionnaire for a Musk-like expedition to Mars might find this answer popping up rather too often - "I'm leaving because of Trump."

I find it hard to understand how the political party that gave us Lincoln, Eisenhower, Reagan and George HW Bush could come to such a calamitous impasse. You might have disagreed with a Republican candidate in the past, but almost always over policy. It has never been the case that you might take with umbrage with inappropriate tweets, bad personal conduct, attempted treason, potential criminal behaviour (okay, Nixon and Rockefeller) and total unsuitability to holding high office.

Yet here we are. Trump has captured the bulk of this party like a massive, orange-tinted Venus fly-trap and there doesn't appear to be anything, perhaps even death, that could stop him being nominated. There must be talent somewhere in the Republican Party and someone with the courage to put this fellow to the electoral sword. Please.

Dr Charles Stanley, the well-known pastor and TV evangelist, passed away yesterday at the age of 90. I have only recently come to his broadcasts, watching the first, perhaps, about a year ago on YouTube. Since that time, I guess I have viewed or listened to dozens of his sermons and rarely ever been disappointed - they have usually been challenging in a very real way.

I credit Charles Stanley as one of those people who helped guide me back into a Christian path after decades away from it. He may not have been all that happy that I chose Roman Catholicism (although he might not have minded!) but I am sure that he would have been delighted with my return to the faith. Like Billy Graham, he was a great man of God and blessed countless thousands with his work.

He often quoted favourite passages of scripture, one of which was 'absent from the body, present with the Lord' from 2 Corinthians. Nothing is more fitting today than to repeat that verse, for Charles Stanley has indeed left his body, and if our faith is true, is now with the Lord.

Vale Charles Stanley.

I have started to put together a word document of my poems and haikus with the view to publishing as an ebook. I have no idea whether my verse warrants being shared with a wider audience. Even if I do publish, such a document may just linger unread in the digital realm until the latter is no more.

But for me, it's a project worth doing. The preparation, culling, editing and assembling is a challenge, not something to be tossed together lightly. There are many considerations to be made even for such a slim volume as I am proposing.

The technical side is what worries me most. How to do it and then, where to share it as an ebook. No time like the present to learn, I guess.

On a  Bus.

The bus stopped short, and getting on,

A woman with an armful of books

Young, laden, like a figure from the past.

She stumbled,

Recovered, the stack unspilled, At last

Looking through the swaying rows,

Past an incertitude of stares,

She settled on a chair,

Smoothed slight curls,

Prim skirt pleated beneath the pile,

And all the while, I thought,

She could have stepped out of time,

And momentarily, brought

What is outmoded back to life,

Sought, amongst

Those dry nuanced pages

Something more difficult

Something that ages better

Than selfies, likes or sport.

Outside, shopfronts slide past,

Workers hurry home,

The light is failing,

In the suburbs-

And a great uneven settling,

From kerb to kerb,

Is broadcast.

Matthew Arnold was a Victorian who felt keenly, as did many of his contemporaries, the apparent decline of religious faith. In his masterpiece, Dover Beach, he wrote,

"The Sea of Faith,

Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore,

Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.

But now I only hear

Its melancholy, long, withdrawing, roar......"

Arnold and many others were assailed on all sides by the advancement of science, something they clearly thought was slicing ever more deeply into theology. Of course, from a modern perspective, that is just plain wrong. I have noted before that there are no real contradictions between good theology and good science. But I digress.

Christina Rosetti, as I have also noted before, was a devotional poet with doubtless a stronger faith than Mr Arnold, yet she too could be beset by doubt. Here is her poem, also masterful, about today.

Good Friday

Am I a stone, and not a sheep,

That I can stand, O Christ, beneath Thy cross,

To number drop by drop Thy blood's slow loss,

And yet not weep?

Not so those women loved

Who with exceeding grief lamented Thee;

Not so fallen Peter, weeping bitterly;

Not so the thief was moved;

Not so the Sun and Moon

Which hid their faces in a starless sky,

A horror of great darkness at broad noon -

I, only I.

Yet give not o'er -

But seek Thy sheep, true Shepherd of the flock;

Greater than Moses, turn and look once more

And smite a rock.

It is perfectly normal to doubt. What you do with that doubt is what matters. And where you end up. 

 Tom is not in the habit of passing many school tests, though he has been improving over the past 12 months or so. But today he passed his DKT (Driver Knowledge Test) at Service NSW, the precursor to being handed his L-Plates. So that is an achievement indeed.

Since he already has a car and now, he has his learner's permit, it is time to hit the road. 120 hours of driving practice in a variety of road and weather conditions is the requirement before sitting for the practical driving test. That is all ahead of him.

But like most things in life that seem too large to contemplate in the moment, one small step at a time, repeated dutifully and without looking too far ahead, is the best advice I can offer. It is not dramatic, but it works.

The election of the ALP to government in NSW last weekend gives the party an almost clean sweep of the board across Australian States and in Canberra. The one outlier is Tasmania where a conservative government remains in power.

It is hard to fathom why such a calamity has visited the Coalition (Liberal and National Parties) except to say that we have reached the end of one cycle and the beginning of another. I remember back in the noughties when a similar issue arose and the newspapers were full of gloomy predictions about the future of the conservative parties. And I'm sure that they will be at it again.

If I might pipe in with an unwarranted opinion, I don't think its necessarily the party programs that are turning voters off, at least not at a state level. The Canberra Coalition have been in climate denial for over a decade and this has cost them dearly in the present. But what seems to be happening across Western democracies is that a particularly objectionable kind of conservative has emerged in some quarters - boorish, nasty egotists who want their own way, who act unreasonably once in power, who are uncompromising in the face of issues that are eminently worthy of compromise. I don't need to mention their names but they are a blight on the body politic.

The Liberals and their National allies will return to power everywhere at some point as the cycle shifts in their favour and incumbent governments grow stale. The NSW Government had been in power for 12 years and that was probably what tipped the scales.