https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=PUcEiVxVQx4
Something about experience as well, like experiencing the world and seeing, especially the natural world and kind of seeing God in that, I think it’s kind of been in some of the conversations online for the last few months, certainly with people like Paul Kingsnorth, which for me kind of feeds into this experience that I’ve had with the story of St. Cuthbert and with place. And if I could just give an example of this kind of tension between the buffered self and the poorest self for me. And again, this is along the lines of what you talk about with Christian re-enchantment, at least if I’ve got you right on that. So a year ago, me and my wife went on this pilgrimage and we wanted to see the island where Cuthbert lived as an ascetic, so very much in the vein of the Desert Fathers. So we purchased a ticket and we got up early in the morning, we headed to the harbor, this quiet harbor, and it was kind of like stepping into a painting. You know, there was mist all around, but the sea was just calm. It was like unnaturally calm and just blue, just radiant. And the sun was kind of coming in, it was kind of dappled by the fog. And I just kind of thought this is too much because this is like, again, it’s like stepping into a legend. It’s exactly what one thinks of when you think of the Celtic Saints. And the whole time, we got on the boat and then the harbor disappeared in the fog and we couldn’t see the island to where we were going, so it was kind of like passing into another place. You know, there’s all of these ideas kind of going on and then the cliff emerged in the fog and this little chapel on top built in honor of St. Cuthbert. And so I’m experiencing this, you know, and the birds kind of coming in and out and I’m experiencing all of this and I’m open to it. And I’m saying, yeah, the kind of value is descending from the good and forming everything that I’m seeing. All the while, I’ve got something in the back of my head saying, well, you know, you saw the weather forecast, you knew what was going to happen, you knew there was going to be foggy. I mean, we even saw like these ducks that are associated with Cuthbert. It kind of sounds a bit twee, but it’s just again, it’s part of the folk memory of the north of England. These ducks are called cuddly ducks, so like a corruption of Cuthbert’s name. And I’m kind of thinking, well, they’re there because of the, you know, the stuff. And it’s really, there’s kind of this internal tension with it. But in large part because of people like yourself, your work, I guess I’ve learned to be open to that and to kind of step onto the kind of path that awaits if you are open to that. Yeah. Well, one of the problems that we’ve been dealing with in the past century or maybe more is that we see meaning and mechanical causes in competition as if they’re at the same level, but they’re not. They’re just not. They’re just not. It’s not just because you can notice the mechanical cause of something doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have deep meaning. Just because you can account for phenomena doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have meaning. And, you know, the cup, like I use this example often, but I think it’s a simple one, right? The cup that your grandmother gave you, you can account for all the mechanical causes for it, but it is pregnant with meaning for you, you know, and that can’t be taken away from you. You can’t reduce it to its elements because that the bond between you and your grandmother related to this cup is a real bond. It’s as real as any bond that is that any pattern that can exist that’s as real as any of them. It’s just at a different level. And so you can understand that that happens personally, individually, and you could say it’s subjective, but it’s not subjective because everybody has those experiences. And then there’s a way in which that scales with the same, for example, that, you know, becomes a legend, a folk legend becomes someone who who almost like. Impregnate, you know, like prints himself onto the landscape, you know, and so then the memory of the set, the same becomes completely embedded with the landscape. The memory, like you said, the ducks, the fog, the light, all of this is part now of the memory of St. Cuthbert. And you end that, you know, and the reaction we should have to that is, of course, that’s what it is. And why not? Why is that? Why would that like? Why would you be cynical about that? Because there are other saints that have other memories and other landscapes and other, you know, think of St. Anthony, for example, like the St. Anthony is also in a setting. But if you were to go to the places identified with St. Anthony, then you would have the glaring sun, you know, and the desert landscape, you know, and the rocky hills. And that’s part of St. Anthony, right? It’s part of who St. Anthony is. And that’s also real. It’s there’s nothing. Yeah, there’s there’s no reason to discount that. So so I think that, like you said, just. And I think that we also are not naive, like we’re smart people, we’re not uneducated peasants anymore. And so the fact that we can see the mechanical causes, the fact that we know how fog is made and we know that certain levels of humidity or certain levels of pressure or whatever is what makes fog. You know, I think the idea is that that’s that’s also that’s at least when you’re going on a pilgrimage to see St. Guthbert’s Chapel, that’s a secondary thing. Right. It’s secondary to the fact that you’re going on a pilgrimage to see St. Guthbert’s, because that’s what you’re doing. So it’s normal that the facts align themselves with what you’re doing, just like when you’re going to buy milk at the store, you’ll notice the things that will drive you towards getting milk at the store. It’s not it’s like it sounds like I’m actually being almost demythologizing, but I’m not. I’m saying that that’s actually how the world works. And people who are people who are cynical about your experience in going to see St. Guthbert’s Island, but would understand that necessarily if you’re going to buy milk at the store, you’ll you won’t notice all the facts of the world that aren’t driving you towards that. And when you’re in the store, there’ll be a million things. There’ll be a million things, but for some reason you’ll notice the milk more than all the other products. And then, you know, it’s like, that’s just how that’s just actually how our experience functions. It’s not it’s not a not it’s not weird at all. But amazingly, I think this is a sort of shift that I’m at least sensing. I mean, in a very post-Christian country as well, it must be said that people aren’t cynical about this. You know, they’re not cynical anymore about this. So when I when I, as I have told people about this pilgrimage going to see St. Guthbert, you know, all guys around my age, early 30s, they’re not cynical. Actually, they think it sounds really fascinating. Cool. And that’s, I guess, that’s kind of what inspired me to try and try and make a make a tell a story about St. Guthbert so they can see they don’t have all these layers to go through before they can see that, you know, so like, you know, representations of Cuthbert in the UK would be stained glass windows, maybe icons, maybe Aiden Hart’s beautiful icons. But it’s hard for people to see those, as you well know, who are not who don’t know how to see them, shall we say. So that was kind of the inspiration behind making something. But for me, it’s like, this is the really positive aspect of of of your work, kind of say, and the stuff that’s come out of John Peterson as well, is that there’s something here that’s really, there’s something here that people can access that’s far more radiant than most Western people today deem possible. You know, like to, like my example of this this Cuthbert pilgrimage, I’ve never experienced anything like that. I mean, there’s nothing more I can say, but that’s in theory that’s on offer to to anyone, you know? Yeah.