Eremos

Sitting in front of my computer screen I contemplate the contents list of this issue of EREMOS with the usual amount of wonder. This agreeable state becomes ever more heady following on, as it does, the successful AGM—and especially the dinner celebrating 25 years of Eremos and publication of the 100th issue of this magazine. 

The dinner was preceded by Elaine Lindsay’s scintillating address ‘Against Certainty’, an edited version of which begins this issue. Elaine challenged desert imagery in spirituality as she gave a personal account of uncertainty and of finding hope in mystery. She began with an amusing report of reactions to this year’s Blake prize exhibition which, for reasons of space at an eleventh hour, we regrettably could not print. However, here is a taste of her opening remarks: 

What struck me most was…the positions of certainty from which people responded [to the Blake prize exhibition], whether they were antireligious, anti-Christian, anti-Islam or anti-art. 

There is a growing tendency in societies across the world to regress into polarisation and certainty and it is important to resist that at the same time as keeping an eye on our moral and spiritual compass. EREMOS writers understand this, and the article by Hedley Beare which follows succeeds in reconceptualising a God-image discarded long ago by all who eschew delusion at the same time as they understand illusion. 

Peter Newall then turns to James Hillman and reviews his book, A Terrible Love of War. This frightening account of how Christianity at times has lost and still does lose sight of peace is a warning against complacency—and certainty. The poem by Jeff Guess which follows takes us straight to the emotional and physical realities of war, remembering Lone Pine. 

Two articles include the word ‘beauty’ in their titles. Varga Hosseini reviews the art of Indigenous portrait artist, Julie Dowling, and the heart-rending stories it tells, while Peter Willis examines the relationship between spirituality and aesthetics, with the help of Rachael Kohn and Alain de Botton. 

Art of course, in all its forms, is an indication that human beings can embrace uncertainty and indeed be enlightened and fulfilled by it, even if they cannot always put it into words (yet how well the poets succeed in this). One of the tragedies of religion—at least Western religion as I experience it—is the separation of belief from beauty and the tendency to search out a rational understanding where none can ever reasonably (!) exist. 

To conclude, Bridget McKern takes us with her as she walks Mungo lands, led by the Aboriginal custodians of a place which incorporates both beauty and belief in its very landforms. And we have Sue Emeleus’s recommendation of books which have recently fed her good things, including a book about the saint who spoke of non-violent alternatives—very apt considering James Hillman’s theories about the human propensity for conflict. 

Our cover artist was discovered by an Australian overseas who, stepping aside into the Gallery Café, Paradise Road, Colombo, was immediately entranced by the universal image of hope: a mother’s care of her little child—an image to keep with us always.

Jacquie Pryor