Greek Wisdom

By John Williams

In 2022 a man went on a modest trip to the UK and Greece. John’s purpose was to look upon the marvels of ancient Athens; to set his eyes upon the anthems at Thermopylae, where Greece sang with arms for everyone’s freedom; to adore divine temples and to gaze upon divine thoughts, which were built when humanity was in its youth; and to catch up with family and friends. His journey was to last only one month. During which arduous time, he chose to right all the wrongs which we have created in our world. Undaunted, he also sought after the poetry of our language and the poetry of religious thought, and he drank in wonders of our ailing world. Relying on the fundamental goodness within our human nature, he railed against social conventions and treated with disdain all those habits which cause ‘thortistic’ people to be treated appallingly. The result of this month of desultory and dilettante research is a self-declared remarkable story of his whining and his denying himself, his becoming entwined as one within the heart of ancient GREEK WISDOM.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that the people are to be created equal.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Sep 19, 2023
• ISBN: 9781446756119

John Williams

John Williams - A 27+ year aviation professional, published author, musician, EZine Articles Expert Writer, TripAdvisor Senior Writer, Quora writer and public speaker. John leads a highly professional team in the publishing of quality books that educate and entertain the reader. John has written fifteen books and published thirteen books to date. John is working on the screenplay for the first book of his Sci-Fi, 4.8-star series: “Wormhole Moon.” This is his first of six planned films for the “Wormhole Moon” series. The awaited second book: “Paradigm Shift – Wormhole Moon II” is completed and in the editing process. It should be released soon. “Wormhole Moon III” is in progress.

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Copyright Year: 2023

Copyright Notice: GREEK WISDOM by John Williams.

Some rights reserved.

The above information forms this copyright notice: © 2023 by John Williams.

Some rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-4467-5611-9

Cover photo credit - artisteer - iStock

Stock photo ID: 1016137658

This book is written within Australia. In the spirit of reconciliation we acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.

No living person is described within my book, apart from myself. If there are character descriptions which have similarities to living people, these were by ourstake as I sought to avoid this. I have sometimes referred to leaders by name or people by name.

This should have the same force as any other declaration of this nature, since this would be an honest deceleration - my view is that every writer draws on their personal experience – what else is there to draw on? Are there any writers who can honestly say that they do not?

It isn’t you.

Note to you

This book was largely written on a trip to Greece and the UK in July/August 2022. It isn’t all presented chronologically, in the order it was written. Sometimes what I write will only make sense as you continue to read. Sometimes it may never make sense for you. I should like it for everything to be seen to be timeless.

This book is a book of love and heart and care and empathy and sensitivity for others and love.

Almost all which is written here was written before my book, GREAT MYSTERY, before I had been given the mystery’s understanding. Originally GREAT MYSTERY was the conclusion to this book, because I discovered the mystery as I wrote this book, but it all became too wordily unwieldy, so I split this book into two, and I got side-tracked by my excitement in discovering the mystery. Who doesn’t get lost in a mystery, particularly one of biblical proportions?

For those unusual people who do not love poetry and religion, be assured there is only a little poetry here and, when you look beyond the beginning, I believe the secular will enjoy the religion which is here. You will discover a cynical, satirical, cunning light; a lampooning, if you will, which serves God. Roses are going to flower, and every crop produce abundance, and we will be alive with love together.

For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jew a stumblingblock, and unto the Greek foolishness; But unto them which are called, both Jew and Greek, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. 1 Corinthians 1 v. 19 - 25

PRAISE GOD

Lord, you are everything and know things;

You are our heaven, our star, our light, our life.

We have mocked and laughed and joked and satirised;

Alone we have cried and quivered and shaken with terror;

Never once did you tire of us or deny us or leave us;

Always you were here with us, showing us one way.

We have found you and we praise you, Lord;

We praise your heavens and your stars and your firmament;

We praise your waters and your land and our lives;

We praise existence, with all its black and white;

With all its grief and absence and love and joy.

We praise your mischievous sense of humour;

Which is very funny.

We praise Jesus Christ who lives.

We give thanks to you, our Lord,

For every thing.

GLORY BE TO GOD

PRAISE GOD

Sonnet 8

Music to hear, why hear’st thou music sadly?

Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy.

Why lov’st thou that which thou receiv’st not gladly,

Or else receiv’st with pleasure thine annoy?

If the true concord of well-tunèd sounds,

By unions married, do offend thine ear,

They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds

In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear.

Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,

Strikes each in each by mutual ordering,

Resembling sire and child and happy mother

Who, all in one, one pleasing note do sing;

Whose speechless song, being many, seeming one,

Sings this to thee: Thou single wilt prove none.

Life

I am our great lie. Fought over by the living;

Thought over by the dead; thought about by all;

I fear nought. Within my dread heart,

I do not feel wise. It is all for nothing

Less than everything that I live.

Well within the deep wastes of my mind,

My voice cries doubt into truth’s entente.

Entwined within the dark, I cry like night’s angel.

I feel our sorrow in my want for more.

For my call to arms, I’ll endure arrows,

Provoke fiery rage. I’ll lend you our rose,

A defiant ranger. I will not hide!

In everything there is, jaded and alone,

With the life of the dead, I deny power’s demand;

I deny me to be we. I will give death life.

A Dead Light

‘Is it a dead Iight?’ I ask.

Saith gilded artists,

‘No one knows death is light.

To know time is to know life;

To know tick now tock now.

Warm

I will bring warmer words, good news undoubtedly.

Be sure you do, you be, the only one you will be.

Here, within this, I will redefine our everything.

Our hearths must roar and fire our hearts into

Uniformed eternity.

It isn’t as though there is anything wrong with getting into First Class, is there? It is just damned comfortable and damned fine, and it suits me as well. But logically and emotionally and spiritually, we align ourselves with the man wearing sandals, when we up the standard for everyone else as well. Then we are sitting within perfection.

I am going to ask us to let you in.

The Rail’s Swaying

The engine stores power beyond.

Our inglorious minds fathom less,

Hear racing time’s lonely heart,

As right love only tracks one life.

Read on now for certain presents;

Gifts every moment, proffering a way.

Rumbling, unspent, up the one line;

A powerful journey to understanding.

The rails sway, balancing all above.

Hold our ailing world, never let go.

Here we alight.

I am here, in the Railway Inn, where I wrote this poem, listening and trying not, impolitely, to listen to good people chat with warm familiarly. I am envious, wanting a familiar way to talk.

And now I hear how I should not be trying to write, trying to be. And yet, I did already. My time has been and will be and it is.

Poems are lonely but they can bring content and sometimes happiness. Still, I should prefer living a life able to communicate.

Doing what was right; it was right. I like when I witness right.

Some people do not need help with their journeys - they work and they talk with each other in good grace. They might not realise they have already made peace within.

I talk about good work. Sometimes the secular might greet, might help, the right socially inept traveller and prove their faith by doing just a little bit for them, making that traveller welcome.

Our Roo mate, he insists his mate Pete makes room at the beginning of the line.

Though better to begin by covering your doubtful bases, just in case. Who can be sure who is the right traveller to welcome in?

Though I have a feeling my mate Pete might listen to me, just in case.

For you to resolve your concerns for the future, everyone else, except family and people who have kindly and unknowingly welcomed me, work well and you might strike it lucky, too.

But don’t do anything too naughty whilst you are waiting to understand the why and the how. I purposefully leave some things ambiguous. You should find your purpose.

It’s often how I present my messages which is hard to understand.

Once more, everything in moderation.

Tricky devil got me seeing a little leg.

On a count of my pride, I may fall short.

That’s the Devil - he sneaks in.

I think I will be ok, though, and able to seal it for you.

The Great Gamble

I say yes to free me.

I redeem hidden tiers.

From behind my ayes,

I affirm my way.

And each yes today,

Bets present joy

Against future’s now.

Will ‘aye’ get you, too?

Know I have cried,

Given song to a void,

Unleashed my soul,

Flown with the winged.

For every freedom,

For every constraint,

If I’ve lost my reason,

It is to an eternal sun -

Truth.

The truth is these words are given to me - more accurately I bring light to darkness with help from a back light in the sky. It isn’t me except errors are my own, but my errors may roar. I hope.

Do we ever stop and wonder why we ask questions? Might it be that the answer lies within inscrutable games? What might we call life’s game - tag it time? Mitigate mage’s sighs; lace with gimmicks what we see in a name; emanate with understanding. But play up and play the game of life well. Then we will find wisdom within words. I have laughed at wit as I have entered the timely gateway to our present.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.

True, except we all know that all men are not created equal – people are born to wealth and privilege and opportunity or to poverty and abuse and lack of opportunity. It is clear what the intended meaning was – it means we should all have equal opportunities to thrive and succeed in life and it doesn’t mean we are literally equal when we are born – plainly - because some people are born within inequality. It cannot mean we are all born equal.

This statement prevents the US from making everyone equal - its intent: if everyone starts equal, why would you have to even the playing field?

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that the people are to be created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.

I like this better.

The people are to be created equal.

I had a great idea for a business. I am going to offer to set up a profitable business but keep my employees salaries nice and low to make more money. And very importantly, I will tell my employees that they are fulfilled and that my office is a dream centre and that my chair is a dream chair and that together we are enabling dreams. I am full, filled with more money than any human being could need. Just a sliver more please. Is it a good one - my idea?

No one is really thinking, I will screw my employees into doing hard work for barely enough or not enough to cover rent and living expenses; no company bosses are really the caricature I have created. I hope. And company bosses can take it - they are not cooks.

And they are good men and women who know why they almost all operate this way, though not always with a ludicrous company ideology. The system we have created for our companies to operate in drives this culture everywhere, because companies must operate for their shareholders’ benefit.

Operating for an employee’s benefit is largely an irrelevance, until the employee begins to be powerful enough to impact company policy. Inexplicably shareholders then take second place, notwithstanding obligations to the contrary, because then employees offer themselves, or those like them and who work with them, very high salaries.

It is my and your fault, the majorities in our democracies, for letting this happen. We should better balance what shareholders get with what employees get.

All companies should be made by law to use 25% of their profits to pay all employees better, with equal shares for all, which should be paid in shares, and to provide good health insurance and super/pensions for their staff and good health insurance for their staff’s families. The amount of this bonus per individual should be capped at $75000.00 annually (which amount should be index linked) with the balance of the 25% paid to a fund for low-paid workers who have employers with insufficient profits to pay this amount.

The staff holding shares should increase efficiency and effectiveness. Currently, where they operate, unions help make companies better serve employees and put an end to terrible working conditions and are owed by us all. But through conflict and combined power which can hurt the company. Strikes and industrial action will probably be really rare, when you wish to make your bonus in shares.

Yes, it is significant, what I just said. It should not be lost, the alarm bell which is ringing. The time to fight for our freedom is now.

Companies may base themselves elsewhere. But any large company that does business within our countries should have to pay a huge tax, if they do not have sufficient presence within our country to compensate. And if companies leave, we may create our own domestic opportunities.

I am for internationalism, but not when it costs freedom. If we do not fight now, big international companies must take our freedom. It is time to fight for our democracies to be in control.

It will not impact competitiveness, since we are talking about profits. The only avenue that might impact competitiveness could be in reduced reinvestment. The assessment of profits should be after reinvestment funds have been spent or irrevocably committed.

Companies may choose to keep reinvesting all profits in order not to pay this bonus, so reinvestment should be capped at a maximum of 50% of profits for the purpose of assessing the 25% payable to its staff.

As I said, companies may base themselves abroad. Let them. They should only be able to trade in our country, if they comply with this rule, wherever they base themselves. Cut them out from our markets. It is time democracy fought this battle, or big business must take control from the people.

And lets means test health care. What could be simpler than means testing GP visits. Within Australia that would mean that I pay for my health care but people with less do not and people with more pay more. Health care fixed.

The people are to be created equal

It is the Christian way.

For the secular, it is a very good way, isn’t it:-)

Landlords and agents regularly discriminate against minorities or people who have been homeless based on appearance and not the fundamentals. Mostly this is unconscious, but who will not say yes to a nice middle class white guy with a job?

All rental applications should have to be made anonymously. It should be simple to provide contact details on the application form as being an email address.

When someone’s identity is revealed, for example because they telephone to check on their application, where there is more than one applicant they should be disqualified.

Every employee should be freely allowed into a union. Anyone who is promoted within a union should by law be offered a similar promotion at work, within one year. They are clearly talented and should not suffer prejudice to their careers, which has happened and still happens. Union membership should be secret and union meetings open to all employees who should all be able to vote on whether or not there is strike action. What the union is asking for and the action it is proposing effects all employees, so they should all get a say.

Why do we allow there to be a gap between what a health fund covers and what health insurance pays. There should not be and there should be sufficient competition between health service providers, so that health insurers can keep costs reasonable.

It will cost more, but not for the majority, not when we means test the premiums to make the wealthy pay super high premiums which subsidise the middle classes and which pay for the poorest to have health cover.

The people are to be created equal.

Politicians try and do well by us, but they are constrained by accepted conventions. These are not the political conventions about how parliament operates, but they are also the conventions about what are and are not appropriate mechanisms with which to adjust the economic health of the country.

The simplest expression is the conventional view that we are not able to tax the rich without stymieing investment, because money doesn’t stay in our country and runs from high taxes, or doesn’t come into our country to avoid high taxes. It is logical to believe this because it is true.

But we forget we have the power to make money stay and to give reasons for money to come. I am saying change the equation so it is possible for us to tax the rich, who pay the least proportionately in tax and whose wealth contributes the least proportionately.

The only issue will be whether we, the majority, are losing more from incoming investment than we gain from taxing the rich.

I do not require a calculator. It is as plain as a more comfortable arse on a train or plane that we will gain far more, both in quality of life and monetary terms, from means testing prices paid and from taxing the wealthy more. The quality-of-life gain is a no brainer; life will be much better quality for the vast majority.

The monetary gain or loss in incoming investment is additionally clear. There will not necessarily be a loss, for example because of our incentivising companies to inwardly invest by profit sharing with employees only after reinvestment of profits has taken place.

We will also see more money spent in our countries, because the wealth currently sitting doing nothing will be shared. Most people will have more and they will spend more. Where we spend there will be companies seeking for this money to be spent with them. People and therefore their companies are going to like living here.

The wealth tax should apply to non-citizens who are resident in our countries and not to non-citizens who merely hold assets in our countries. In which case, why not invest?

I think it is virtually inevitable we will gain.

THE PEOPLE ARE TO BE CREATED EQUAL

A FAIR GO FOR ONE AND ALL

Companies should only avoid profit sharing with employees on reinvestment of the first 50% of profits.

Except we are unable to have our wonderful monarchy, if we tax our monarch and their direct family. They should be exempt from the wealth tax, until the monarch’s family’s wealth is huge. What huge is, should be up for debate, but I am thinking far more than they currently have. We should never tax our monarch.

One likes exceptions.

An obviscant – someone who is obfuscating whilst removing a difficulty; someone who is a philosophical Kant.

Fawnish – Fawning for a fairy Prince or Princess; or someone who is in the act of being away fawning with the fairies.

We may change accepted conventions about these class distinctions in quality of service and all sorts of other things as well, when we realise that we may means test the prices people pay for services and goods which can track with individuals, like houses, cars, airline and train tickets and so on.

Where the argument is about international competition undercutting us, we use the strength of our democracies to make everyone follow the same rules or not fly to our countries or trade with our countries.

We will be able to means test the prices people pay when we have a wealth tax like I have proposed elsewhere, because the tax office then knows our total worth and this can simply be linked to bank accounts and bank cards and so forth.

Now I bet the rich are ruing the end of cash as a means of payment - you were not expecting that.

My wealthy and rich friends who like first class – I agree. We all like first class. But I believe most of you will be happy with the changes that I propose, because most wealthy people are good people who can take my gentle teasing. You are just like everyone else and have accepted what has been because it is what has been. Now you know the truth, I think many will join the fight for more equality and opportunity and for you to be made to pay more for others.

I am extraordinarily reluctant to part with my cash unless I am made to. We are the same. Except you will have to forgive me my teasing you. I suspect you may realise that I am doing you a favour, with teasing you. I get to tease you and then I owe you a little assistance but not help. You guys do not need help.

If you sit in first class on a large plane, it is statistically likely that someone on the very same plane with you is elderly and in discomfort, or is a young mother who has an infant who she is struggling with.

There are about five families with infant children here in economy class, as I write this, and they look like they are doing a lovely job, but I bet some are struggling.

And there is a very old lady sitting separately from her son, who is shaking and very cold and who has become very sick. She is sitting beside a caring mother with her baby and the three of them are in about the same space as you, who are in first class, are lying in - literally.

I know you would not accept this, were you to be confronted by the reality. It is why I am confronting you with the reality. It would be classy if you offered.

And not only for mothers and babies and sick grandmothers. It should be offered for everyone to travel well the same.

It’s like the social convention about never talking about nor admitting innuendo and allegory, when we sit in first class. Just because it is the way things are done, doesn’t make it the right way. And it doesn’t mean we should silently ignore the silliness in the status quo and simply accept.

I was brought up being told repeatedly not to make a fuss.

That lesson was lost, it seems.

How many people in first class are Christian? It isn’t Christian, is it? Really it is the antithesis of Christianity. We define ourselves through putting others first.

Class was never a very good concept; we might say it is a very bad concept, when it is tierful.

Halo, halo first class. Good mourning to the old way; good moaning to a new way.

I shouldn’t associate myself with my friend Peter; him and his friends were not welcomed by the powerful. It didn’t end well for Peter – corporeally. We should hope that after death he had a wonderful time.

There must be hope for me because I am powerfully funny.

Really, the best jokes are God’s.

No harm in a little flattery, eh ego.

I do not think I have made many egg jokes.

Everyone should agree we should all sit in a class together which is the equivalent of premium economy – in fact higher than this. We should expect people currently able to afford premium economy to pay less or no more than currently with current Business and First Class passengers paying for economy class to fly the better class. It will be classless, as in classlessly classy.

Let’s make it simpler to get a university education.

Some jokes require thought.

Creating the Land of the Unfree

Our constitutions should make it impossible to alter our constitutions without a majority of 65% of the popular vote.

Imagine if one party won 66.66% of states and the law said that 66.66% of states could alter the constitution. Remember some states only have about 500000 people in them and other states have many millions of people in them. The minority could change the constitution so as to ensure they were never out of power. It would be the end of democracy. As if that could happen. It would be a crazy world, were we to allow that to happen.

Is it true that an amendment to the US Constitution can be called for by 66.66% of State Legislatures?

Is what I read true? Isn’t that something like what some of you are working towards? That number – 66.66%. It is a very big clue as to who you are working for, if it is true. And yes, it does then require three quarters to vote, but even so,

66.6

What’s in a point like that being made? Sin is. Anyone working to ensure the end of democracy by changing the Constitution in a way which will ensure a minority stay in power would be working towards destroying democracy and potentially the world. That is sin.

I now address that in moral terms for both the secular and for Christians. In working towards that, what you are doing is:

Incompatible with scripture.

Very bad behaviour.

Reprehensible.

Terrible.

Sin.

Vox Populi, Vox Dei.

I am really not happy. I am being squeezed into who I am. And I am being told that I eat too plentifully. Leave me my delicious lunch, Lord. Except we both know that I am eating for me.

Relentlessly logical.

We all take little luxuries for ourselves. But we should be conscious and try to make sure it is just a little wafer of luxury and not a wafer more. All in moderation.

I ate a whole snapper last night.

Moderation is everyone being reasonably comfortable on a plane or train experiencing our journey the same.

And if you were born within privilege and got a great private education, which gave you a massive head start in life, I can trust you are equally into fair play and working for our society to give everyone the chances you had.

They did not work for it, you may say, if you are sitting within the lovely plush comfort of first class. But look around you. Many did work, but very few were not gifted where you are through privilege and private schools and being born into class and trust funds and marriage. Those that did work had massive head starts. And one, maybe two, maybe a few, who struggled your way to first place, you know better than anyone that the people behind you work too.

Are we working for me or for US?

Will you recall I met you and saw all within your mind? And you were very kind to me, when you met me. Giving someone the water of life is to give someone the water of life, to win one result. Some favours pay manifold dividends, and who we choose for our spouse says a very great deal about what we secretly value. Kindness offered to a stranger waiting for a delayed plane pays...

Some may say me, but in their hearts they know it is wrong.

That is the US way - we work to better me, but when we succeed we think US.

All in moderation is an oxymoron. Go hard making US better.

It is difficult to argue against moderation. What isn’t moderation is excess - I’ve got it for me.

Real luxury is being fully conscious. Then everything is in focus.

Excessive consumption is just excessive consumption. Captain America would agree.

The world - it is amazing. Flying through the air above and seeing the earth’s curvature is just fine. I tell you, it is everything we have.

Until Elon Musk makes it possible for us to live in space.

Either way, it would be illogical to destroy our planet, Captain.

Look carefully at nothing and you will see everything there is.

Listen carefully to nothing and you will hear everything there is.

That isn’t strictly true, because it will probably take practice. And not being distracted by your friend yelling out upon their first go:

‘I see everything there is! I see it all.’

I am joking, a little harshly, because we do not want to be able to see everything.

I got bored flying. Yes listen to the sound of nothing beneath the noise you hear, but enjoy life and make good friends who support you and find love. Those are my paternal instructions for you.

Me, I kept the company of Henry Wotton for a short while during my flight from everything to nothing, reading more of his letters. He was a frighteningly hood writer who served up threats in the guise of friendship. He basically said Overbury annoyed his betters enough, by not quietly departing the scene, that he would depart the stage. Overbury was murdered in about 1613 in the Tower of London! And did I mention before how strongly Wotton inferred Cornwallis and Sharpe killed Henry Howard in 1614? Wotton was involved in competing hostage taking in 1628, it seems clear. And much more.

People will have to learn to read.

What I haven’t written is the unwritten story.

I realised that I came face to face with Anne within Burleigh House; she was Prince Henry’s and Prince Charles’ sister, who was so very grief stricken by her brother Prince Henry’s death in 1612. My memory is very fickle, and I am sorry I did not pause and remember their relationship.

How much did King Charles 1st knowing his brother Henry was murdered drive his need for power and control, to keep him and his family safe?

Henry Wotton wrote about a publication implicating a lion and Buckingham in the murder of a very great Lord and King James. It was called a slander, but I reckon Charles thought Buckingham was behind the murders with Lionel ‘the lion’ Sharpe and went for them during 1628. Except maybe that was the intent of the publication and he saw that.

Lucky he missed Lionel Sharpe – we would not have democracy, if he had successfully hit him.

Lionel Sharpe came back. It would take a genius writer to come back with a better line than Lionel Sharpe.

I’ll be back to look at Lionel Sharpe again, no doubt.

When we live our lives well, we may see an old wheeze gnarr shamelessly in the direction of all people, ‘VVe vvant more, sir. Grovl’. One terminator waits for us all.

Gnarr is a real word vvhich carries a hazard with it, and which allows for arrows to fly.

Who are we? We are not our bodies or names, came John’s laboriously worked response. Nor are we our writing, because we are what we right. But sometimes we just write right. This is something I struggle with.

I was laboriously looking at, ‘John’s laboriously’, thinking that I was saying, ‘John’s la boar. Owe you sly.’ I thought, since it was clearly me who I was referring to by accident, that I should leave it in. I should not want anyone else thinking they were being called a bore, especially when I hold a contrary view. Anyway, I ramble, as I do in my boring little mind. And it came to me.

Love’s Labour’s lost.

Loves la boars lost.

I did see, oh. We owe everything to one another.

Many will say we must act in the national interest, which is understandable. To protect our national interests, we should make the changes that I have proposed and make our world a garden where we are all well and wealthy.

Where there is a very unfair advantage, with another country, exploiting how we operate morally, we should make that country pay through trade or other sanctions. Democracies together will carry the world and create a new world order of unbound prosperity and equitable wealth.

I adore writing about a new world order - an addorder for the world.

Addorder – a verb for adding order through trade sanctions, blocking visas or other peaceful ways e.g. we must addorder the Weartakinmik trade in copper. Unusually its first use was as a noun.

Our children grow into us. They run like wild animals, and we teach them not to hurt themselves or each other, and not to take too much for themselves, and to take turns. Many children grow up and become adults, but they never learnt what not to do as children.

The most typical expression of that is sex. We hurt each other, take too much and we act like wild animals. Except wild animals generally do not hurt those close to them.

When we do anything like this, we know we hurt ourselves and people we love and we feel sad and guilty and ashamed. We might feel self-distrust as we play with the ring of fire.

It is very simple - we need to look at others, who make ourstakes, as we would look at our children when they do wrong. With love, but we will not play the wrong game with them.

The right way is to not hurt others or yourself.

So as to be Christian, the right way is to not hurt your neighbours.

The same for money and power - do not let money and power hurt you or your neighbours.

Go further and help others. It is the twice right way.

Or Christ’s way.

Our dress

I do want to write this, but not for me. It cannot be written without sounding ridiculous. Who cares how you dress? I do not, mostly. But many people care, and we should respect others. These are my views for people who want to listen to me.

I do not believe we should use sexualised imagery for everything we are trying to sell, especially where this presents an idealised, unattainable image of womanhood. I have talked about this before – it is damaging and hurtful and blatantly exploitative.

In the west we are liberated or believe we are in terms of women’s rights. Women can and should dress as they please. Should women wish to dress sexually or revealingly, they should be able to do this free from censure, free from lewd comments, free from cat calls, free.

When I dress well to look sexually attractive, I expect women and gay men to step back in awe of my sexual magnetism and to look. They will look, but they cannot touch this. They will talk to their friends and tell them how hot I am. It is sinful to say that I am plainly a one and not the one. Like I have said, reality is a fantasy – I laugh thinking that it could be happening in one universe.

I never wrote none universe; I am being gently teased by a very good friend.

Women who dress to look sexually attractive should expect the same from men and women who are attracted to them – people will look and they will talk. I can talk about many men and how they are going to talk. Many will talk and they will look. Some may say to their mates that they would give you one or they may say that you are a one (very, very rarely, they might say ‘I saw the one I am going to marry’, which may or may not be creepy, depending on how you feel about it) or they may talk lewdly about you quietly in their corner – they should not do this disrespectfully, but they will talk and some will talk disrespectfully, until this changes and men learn to communicate more respectfully.

Giving you a number out of ten is generally mean or cruel, if it is a very low number. Mostly it is in good humour and sometimes it is leery and wrong. We joke about it, but when it crosses a line, it isn’t very good behaviour and we know it. It is even mildly bad behaviour. When it takes place wrongly, this behaviour is generally very, very quiet because men know it is wrong. Doing it wrong loudly isn’t usually socially acceptable; we should work on stopping this when it is done quietly with your mates as well as when it is done loudly on a building site. Men and women who hear their friends talking disrespectfully or looking in a way that is intrusive should tell them they should stop it.

You choose how to dress and whether or not to dress to be sexually attractive, but when you do, it is impossible for you to pick who you want to be attracted to you and to limit the attention you get to them only. You should be able to indicate to men you are not interested and have them back away. Dress how you wish – dress sexy – dress attractive – enjoy life. This should be free from lewd comments and cat calls and public insults and rude leery staring. But people will look and some will chat you up.

It is sinful to say anything other than that I am the one, tender, kind man who you will encounter who will say this to you. For those who are quite literal – I am joking here. I will settle for nice looking. Seriously, who thinks I am able to regulate what you are going to say about how I look.

However, when you dress very modestly, few people will say anything about how you look. Do you want this, or do you want to look sexually attractive or anything in between? It is your choice, and it is good that many of you will choose to look sexually attractive and it is good to look very modest, too. It is how you look inside that matters.

Except, some places and times require you to alter your dress for obvious reasons. I will not wear my swim suit to a funeral or the office or to church or to court. We should respect other people and we should give up our ego through showing this respect in how we dress. When there is reason to, I will dress very modestly.

We should not be vain about how we dress and spend a lot of time getting dressed or doing our hair and so on. How much is too much time? It is too much time if you are spending too much time. It should be pretty clear when you are overly focussed on how you look outside and not inside. When you spend a lot of time thinking about how you look or dressing or preparing yourself or doing that lovely personal grooming ritual that you follow, then it is your ego.

What is sexy and what is very modest - it differs between you all because of who you are and where you are and what you are doing. What is very modest for one person may be very sexy for another and vice versa. Only you might know within, when you are being very modest or when you are being sexy. And many will not know until you die, how you have dressed.

Have fun with how you dress, but try to do what is right in the circumstances you are in. Listen to other people and work out the consensus view, as well as you are able to. Unless there is good reason to not dress how everyone else is dressing, for example when the dress code excludes you or symbolises your genuine oppression. This ought to be really rare.

All women should remember that sex and dress has been used to diminish and reduce your status in societies throughout the world. In the west, overly sexualised imagery and expectations have created extremes for you, to be the whore or a wife. Both are caricatures. Be confident in your dress, but it would be worthwhile trying to diminish these caricatures by not dressing in them. And in Muslim countries, well you know what you have done with your women in the name of modesty and how an instruction to dress modestly has been used to control women.

It really will not matter, the clothes you wore in life, when you have died, if you have undressed your ego in life. If you are wearing your ego, when you die, you will not have dressed your life well.

When you dress how I have described here, you are dressing modestly.

With more brevity:

Modesty is about diminishing our ego; dressing modestly is about diminishing our ego. Dressing modestly isn’t the clothes you are in, it is how you wear the clothes you are in and why you are wearing the clothes you are in. Someone who is dressing to look sexually attractive may be dressing modestly; someone who is dressing to look very modest may be dressing without any modesty at all.

God will never be interested in how you look on the outside. Is anyone seriously saying God will worry about what you looked like on the outside in any religion anywhere in the world? Surely not. Modesty is the most clear example of an internal value and it is about what is within your head and heart, and it hasn’t got anything to do with how you look on the outside.

Dressing modestly is when we dress well within.

For you, Mahsa Amini.

We never know for sure what God will think about how we have dressed until we are dead. Will God think we have given up our ego in how we have dressed and in other ways, which will prove our modesty. Until then, we never know whether we or someone else has been modest or not.

We may see someone who is over-the-top sexualised in their dress, and we may judge them. We are wearing judgement, when we judge them, but we simply do not know whether for them, with their lives, God will judge them to in fact be very lovely and modestly dressed.

When we have judged them, how will God judge the appearance of our egos? Were we dressing ourselves in our ego and without modesty, when we have boasted about how we dress or instructed others in the right way to dress, or where we have judged others about their dress?

Where is the modesty in judging others and how they dress?

I pray to be forgiven this dressing down.

Wear modesty.

I was appointed a preacher and an apostle. I am telling the truth, I am not lying - a teacher of nations in the matter of faith and truth. So I desire that in every place the men carry on prayer, lifting up loyal hands, without anger and debates. Likewise, the women should adorn themselves in appropriate dress, with modesty and soundness of mind, not with styles of hair braiding and gold or pearls or very expensive clothing, but in the way that is proper for women professing devotion to God, namely, through good works. Let a woman learn in silence with full submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man, but she is to remain silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve.

1 Timothy 2

What is Paul saying here about women?

If you are Christian, it is your good works which will count.

It is very appropriate to dress sexually provided you are modest about how how you look and provided you do not become overly focussed on how you are looking, so you should not spend many hours braiding your hair. And provided you are not wearing expensive clothes and jewellery, when poor people are starving and going without. You should dress properly for the circumstances, thus it is probably best not to wear a little black dress and high heals in church. We should all learn in silence and with full submissiveness occasionally. I do not believe I wholly agree with Paul, but that isn’t such bad advice about dress.

Except I later found that I wholly agree with St Paul, as you will discover in due course:-) Cheeky apostle. Filled with integrity to the point that he would never fib, of course.

You got me, Paul. And thus the women who have been deceived are in company with me and with us. Saul, naughty Saul.

I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man, but she is to remain silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve.

Paul has made very clear that this is his personal view. The truth here is only that this is his choice and not an obligation on anyone else.

It is interesting that Paul did not make this an instruction. Something prevented him from telling people that this was the way things should be.

If you are Christian, you should believe that, if God wanted you to behave in this manner, you would have been instructed to behave in this manner. As you are able to see, Paul wasn’t shy about saying that he was an appointed preacher and apostle. If it was an instruction, he would have made it an instruction and you are not instructed to do this.

Why not? Who could possibly have had the power to prevent Paul from making what he did an instruction?

From my future - I want to take this page out and make more changes above and below, because it isn’t nice to be deceived, Paul. And now I am going to make up for you a little by leaving it it. Just so the women you inadvertently hurt have a very little consolation.

In the original, in your language, Paul, it would have been clear your real meaning.

Rate God’s words one way and soon you will see they are getting rated the other. In case my other work is lost to posterity, Paul said we are even and equal and one and he was joking above.

Not Paul’s best joke, many might think, but only because of how it has been seen. Really, I love it for the humour’s sake, despite the humour’s ache.

Grrr

In the past I got Paul very, very wrong, which you will soon discover and are beginning to discover.

We all did!

Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives; While they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear. Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price. For after this manner in the old time the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their own husbands: Even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: whose daughters ye are, as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement.

1 Peter 3

It is true that we are who we are in goodness on the inside. Do not forget who you are isn’t your appearance.

What Peter says here is very true, if it is mutual. He doesn’t say it isn’t mutual. Thus we might all agree that for those people who this works for, men should also be in subjection to their wives. Nothing within the Bible prevents you from believing that these obligations should be reciprocal.

And again, I later found out what Peter was really talking about. Sorry Peter! Peter also said we are even and equal and one. The next few pages were written before this discovery. You guys are going to have to wait a little.

I like that before my little discovery of a very great truth, I told you I was playing with semantics, as you will see.

In fact, in this King James Bible translation, Peter says it is mutual because he says ‘likewise’ and he says they are heirs together:

Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered.

Christians, both in logic and in the spirit of Christianity, may also say:

Likewise, ye husbands, be in subjection to your own wives; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the husband; While they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear. Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; But let it be the hidden woman of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price. For after this manner in the old time the holy men also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their own husbands: Even as Abraham obeyed Sarah, calling her wife: whose sons ye are, as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement.

Likewise, ye wives, dwell with them (your husbands) according to knowledge, giving honour unto the husband, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered.

The above verses and others like them kept women imprisoned for generations. If the Bible is God’s word, then it is possible for us to see above how the above Biblical verses may be interpreted completely differently to how people have interpreted them for generations, to keep women in subservience.

And yet we do not need to play with semantics.

Should you wish to live in a relationship which is unequal and to believe this to be God’s instruction to you, which on the face of it sounds so very wrong and unlikely, as Christians you are free to do this only if your partner freely agrees. But as Christians you have an overriding commandment to love your neighbour. Should your Christian partner not wish to live like this, you have to accept this with grace.

In regards to Christians who do not wish to live in unequal relationships, you have an overriding requirement not to make yourself try and live like this because you would be creating a barrier to loving your partner, if you tried. You are commanded to love your partner (neighbour) and this commandment overrides all over Biblical law.

The words of Christ were simple and Christ said that all the law is subject to loving your neighbour as yourself, and this overarching commandment, this great commandment, overwhelms and overpowers all of Saul’s law