‘We don’t know a millionth of one per cent about anything’

This week’s column in The Kerryman newspaper.

Michael Commane Have you ever noticed when you are down the entire world looks and sounds miserable. I have a dose of the man-flu, which is annoying. It’s not bad enough to take to the bed but bad enough trying to get through a day’s work. 

I’m reminded of my time working as chaplain in St Luke’s Radiation Oncology Network, experiencing people suffering great pain but also watching people returning to good health. There’s a flip side to everything.

Thomas Edison, who invented the light bulb in 1879 said: ‘We don’t know a millionth of one per cent about anything.’

That made me ask myself who am I. Honestly, most times I have no idea. There are occasions when I say that God loves me. But do I really believe that or do I say it because I’ve been told to say it, or that I’ve heard it so often I’ve been brainwashed into believing it?

The Irish writer John Banville says that he would love to remove the word ‘evil’ from the dictionary and replace it with ‘chance’. He goes on to say that people will do anything circumstances require. He tells the story of an occasion he tripped and people rushed to help him. He goes on to say that maybe in other circumstances those same people might be shipping him to a death camp. There’s a flip side to everything.

Who or what are we at all?

We take so much for granted. I think I see the glass half empty rather than half full; right now I’m an anxious person. Ever before I visited Iran I recall saying that if the US touched the country it was curtains for the world. 

These evenings as I watch the black smoke billowing from oil wells and refineries across the Middle East I can’t help but think we are in a far more serious situation than we realise. And there is nothing we can do about it.

A former work colleague and good friend, who lives in Australia, said to me on Saturday that this current war is closely linked with religion. He pointed out it is Christian US and Jewish Israel in battle with Muslim Iran. I disagree with him but he is far more intelligent than I, and in discussion I find it difficult to counter argue. I’m inclined to say it has to do with oil, power and control, generations of bad government too. 

The previous day another man said this war is the work of Zionists. He said it to me in a public place, so I suggested he keep his voice down. Why did I say that, was I afraid his words would upset people? But I don’t agree or believe what he said.

The current world chaos, the fragility of everything, pushes me to say there must be more to life than this. WB Yeats talks about how the centre cannot hold; it looks like that now. 

But what if you take a broader look at life and place God at the centre? I’m reminded of the Psalmist’s words: ‘How great is your name, O Lord our God, through all the earth.’ (Psalm 8) There’s a flip side to everything.