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John Fitzgerald's avatar

Great idea for a guest post. Every word Sherrard wrote is freighted with gold. One of the greatest spiritual and cultural lights Britain has brought forth. Look at any photo of him. Class and nobility are etched on every line of his face. A sane, rightly orientated society (not the UK then!) would laud him from the eves - statues, buildings named after him and so forth. But he isn't. Not that I can see anyway.

His presence and proximity were crucial, I feel, in keeping Christianity on Kathleen Raine's radar. Without PS around, I think Temenos might have drifted away from the Faith and all its mystical depth altogether.

The artist Cecil Collins once said of him (to John Tavener), 'Philip's really hot on sex and really hot on Orthodoxy.' Oddly enough, though Lawrence wasn't a professing Christian, I think the same words apply equally to him. There were no barriers, for either man, between sexuality and the sacred. Why should there be? They were on the same level - cut from the same cloth. They both had such a sacramental, holistic view of man and the cosmos. They foresaw the ecological crisis and, more than that, the deep materialistic biases that cause it and also ensure its continuation. Two Sun Men if ever there were! Prophets of the coming transformation, perhaps.

Can I ask please - what are you referring to exactly when you mention 'a perverse form of conservatism' currently threatening Orthodoxy? Do you mean its alleged co-option by elements of the American right or the kind of nationalist church we see in Russia, say, or something else again?

I'm Roman Catholic fwiw.

Keep up the ennobling and enriching work you're engaged in. You're playing a big part in setting the tone for the world that's coming after the Machine.

One love. Grace, peace and mercy,

John

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Eric's avatar

I've read "Rape of Man and Nature multiple times" - every time it hammers deeper into my soul

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