The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

In the preface to The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis writes:

“Blake wrote the Marriage of Heaven and Hell... The attempt is based on the belief that reality never presents us with an absolutely unavoidable ‘either-or’; that granted skill and patience and (above all) time enough, some way of embracing both alternatives can always be found; that mere development or adjustment or refinement will somehow turn evil into good without our being called on for a final and total rejection of anything we should like to retain.  This belief I take to be a disastrous error.”

“I do not think that all who choose wrong roads perish; but their rescue consists in being put back on the right road.  A sum can be put right: but only by going back till you find the error and working it afresh from that point, never by simply going on.  Evil can be undone, but it cannot ‘develop’ into good.  Time does not heal it.  The spell must be unwound, bit by bit, ‘with backward mutters of disservering power’ –or else not at all.”

Fractional Politics

As the 81-year old Dalai Lama approaches his latter years, China announced again its claims of being able to retain the right to announce which baby will be the new reincarnated Dalai Lama. Chairman Zhu Weiqun of the Ethnic and Religious Affairs committee, which stands as a top advisory body to China's parliament, wrote "The central government has stiffened its resolve to decide on the reincarnation of 'living Buddhas' so as to ensure victory over the anti-separatist struggle."

Let me say that one more time.  The atheistic, communist, government of China says it holds the right to decide who will be reincarnated and when.   Its like a strict orthodox Jew laying out all the parameters for how worship should be offered to Athena.

Of course, this contradiction does not escape them.  China is certainly aware of it.  But noticing the irony doesn't make them hesitate for a moment!  That is because the Dalai Lama's reincarnation "is first and foremost a political matter."  Political expediency is the end game.  Everything else lines up behind that, even if it means laws that assume spiritual realities they already resolutely deny.  It is amazing how fractional and compartmental our convictions and beliefs have become, particularly in the service of political ends.