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    Radical!
    Radical!
    Radical!
    Ebook340 pages3 hours

    Radical!

    By Richard Lung

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    About this ebook

    Radical! is chiefly about world changers, religious, artistic, political, social, environmental and scientific, among a few who are not. Some have offered the radical remedies that radical ills require.
    Radicalism is not by itself any more a virtue than conservatism. It is a tonic in societies, so conservative that they turn their back on new ideas, however good, that disturb their moral or mental slumbers.
    This complacency provoked a radical tradition (John Stuart Mill, Arthur Conan Doyle, George Bernard Shaw, H G Wells, George Orwell, J B Priestley) treated in the title verse narration, Radical!
    The success of scientific investigation is a harmonising of radical principles with conservative testing how far they apply.

    Humanitys sickness is that this harmony has eluded politics.
    That is the intellectual part of the problem to be solved for the health, wealth and happiness of mankind. Scientific method of radical theory and conservative method balances the needs of stability and adaptation for humanity to securely progress.

    Besides intellectual solutions, there are practical and emotional solutions. The three are inseparable but people will approach them according to how much they are thinkers, doers or feelers.

    This book 5 collection opens with a play about Mother Teresa, obviously a feeling-led radical. A friend and colleague noted that she did not organise. Yet, the way her Mission of Charity gradually extended its organisation was impressive.

    And when she was asked about her reading, she said she only had time to read the gospels.
    Not an intellectual, then.
    Yet, her practise showed Jesuses idealistic teachings to be practical and indeed a coherent body of doctrine for a way of life, that must have been thought by a real person, thus confirming not only the teachings but the teacher.

    Those teachings broke away from social exclusion or tribalism. Likewise, Mother Teresa showed that religion doesnt have to be sectarian but can work with other religions of prayer and service.

    As befits any-one being over-taken by age, this Collected Verse series has moved from the personal to the impersonal, from the individual to the universal, as if from the five year old toddler to the sun above his head, in his self-portrait on the cover of book one, The Valesman.

    The other books in my verse series are: Dates and Dorothy; He’s a good dog (He just doesn’t like you to laf; In the meadow of night.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRichard Lung
    Release dateMar 4, 2015
    ISBN9781311149169
    Radical!
    Author

    Richard Lung

    My later years acknowledge the decisive benefit of the internet and the web in allowing me the possibility of publication, therefore giving the incentive to learn subjects to write about them.While, from my youth, I acknowledge the intellectual debt that I owed a social science degree, while coming to radically disagree, even as a student, with its out-look and aims.Whereas from middle age, I acknowledge how much I owed to the friendship of Dorothy Cowlin, largely the subject of my e-book, Dates and Dorothy. This is the second in a series of five books of my collected verse. Her letters to me, and my comments came out, in: Echoes of a Friend.....Authors have played a big part in my life.Years ago, two women independently asked me: Richard, don't you ever read anything but serious books?But Dorothy was an author who influenced me personally, as well as from the written page. And that makes all the difference.I was the author of the Democracy Science website since 1999. This combined scientific research with democratic reform. It is now mainly used as an archive. Since 2014, I have written e-books.I have only become a book author myself, on retiring age, starting at stopping time!2014, slightly modified 2022.

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      Book preview

      Radical! - Richard Lung

      Table of Contents

      Preface

      part 1: Mother Teresa:

      If the poor are on the moon...

      act 1. Prayer without action is no prayer at all.

      act 2. We must not drift away from the humble works, because these are the works nobody will do.

      act 3. If people only had more love for each other, our life would be better.

      act 4. People of all faiths say: We want to help.

      part two: Symfonic Dreams

      prolog or announcers preface to two stages.

      stage one: The Impresario Berlioz

      inter-mission: Oh memories! Oh Italy! Oh liberty!

      stage two: The Senses of Sibelius

      intermission: Father died doctoring, in my infancy.

      discussion: Sibelius the psychic?

      part three

      Chromatic

      Mystic of the mundane

      the two Ziggies

      Sigmund Freud recollects:

      Jew, get off the pavement!

      In the name of Hannibal

      Copernicus centred the sun

      My own fatherly authority

      glimpses

      Thankyou 3x

      (C G Jung)

      Loves disciple

      (Leo Tolstoy)

      The Lampedusa elegy

      Solzhenitsyn

      The Long Walk of Slavomir Rawicz

      On first hearing Lutoslavski cello concerto

      Frank diary

      The Manchester air-raids

      Battle of Britain anniversary

      Satan In The Suburbs

      Erdös zero

      The exercise of freedom

      The Immortal

      part 4: Radical!

      preface to: Radical!

      Millenium

      (John Stuart Mill)

      I never was a boy.

      She.

      Generally Liars.

      The Man of Honor

      (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

      Traji-komik

      (George Bernard Shaw)

      Nout on musik akompaniment.

      1) A skym of things.

      2) Our ekual importans.

      3) Shaws inferno.

      4) For her money.

      5) Lov leters to leading ladys.

      6) The deth-defying vejetarian.

      7) Fabian falen among diktators.

      8) The Intelijent Womans G'id.

      Profet of science

      (H G Wells)

      Wells and tunnels.

      The study and the struggle.

      The profet of science.

      Socialism and the Family(s).

      Utopias.

      A freer world.

      If democracy means anything...

      (George Orwell)

      I am no novelist.

      In search of the working class.

      When the truth is not good form (Catalonia).

      Against dictatorship.

      Big Brother and Uncle Tom.

      The two Winstons.

      the Yorkshire grumbler

      (J B Priestley)

      Eden End

      because he has to.

      life without remedy.

      Out of the People.

      Theatre Outlook.

      an English trait.

      the other place.

      part 5: live and let live:

      Green is history

      Jacques Cousteau

      Paul Harrison: Inside the Third World

      Animal sacrifices

      Ten-level hells

      part 6 (essay):

      Michelson & Morley, Lorentz, Einstein, Minkowski and a...

      Statistical Theory of Relativity

      notes

      acknowledgments

      after-word

      shutting shop

      guide to collected verse in five volumes by Richard Lung

      notice of this authors books in the Democracy Science series

      and the Commentaries series

      return to contents.

      Radical!

      Radical ills require radical remedies.

      Preface.

      Radicals, religious, artistic, political, social, environmental and scientific, are featured here, among a few who are not. Some have offered the radical remedies that radical ills require.

      Radicalism is not by itself any more a virtue than conservatism. It is a tonic in societies so conservative that they turn their back on new ideas, however good, that disturb their moral or mental slumbers.

      This is particularly true of a complacent country like Britain (or England) which provoked a radical tradition, treated in the title verse narration, Radical!

      As far back as nineteen-thirties America, HG Wells observed that the term radical could be disparaging. Britain and America have been stably conservative societies that did not under-go the ravages of doctrinaire state control.

      Bureaucracy-loving government recently has waged a Prussian rule book war on intelligence and initiative, for an only obeying orders Britain.

      Western governments, covering for banks gambling away national assets, have allowed another form of relentless state parasitism of the common wealth: fleecing the lambs or socialism for the rich, so-called by one US commentator.

      The success of scientific investigation is a harmonising of radical principles with conservative testing how far they apply. This harmony has eluded politics.

      This is the intellectual part of the problem to be solved for the health, wealth and happiness of mankind. Scientific method of radical theory and conservative method balances the needs of stability and adaptability for humanity to securely progress. The US provision for constitutional amendments is an early recognition of this requirement.

      Besides intellectual solutions to the social problem, there are practical and emotional solutions. The three are inseparable but people will approach them according to how much they are thinkers, doers or feelers.

      Obviously, Mother Teresa was a feeling-led radical. A friend and colleague noted that she did not organise. Yet, the way her Mission of Charity gradually extended its organisation was impressive.

      And when she was asked about her reading, she said she only had time to read the gospels.

      Not an intellectual, then.

      Yet, her practise showed Jesuses idealistic teachings to be practical and indeed a coherent body of doctrine for a way of life, that must have been thought by a real person, thus confirming not only the teachings but the teacher.

      Amongst other things, those teachings broke away from social exclusion or tribalism. Likewise, Mother Teresa showed that religion doesnt have to be sectarian but can work with other religions of prayer and service.

      return to contents

      part 1: Mother Teresa:

      If the poor are on the moon...

      Whatever you do to the least of my brethren, you do to me.

      Based mainly on writings by Ved Mehta, Desmond Doig, Navin Chawla, Eileen Eegan, José González-Balado, Brother Angelo Devananda and Mother Teresa. This play, by Richard Lung, has tried to convey the spirit of Mother Teresa beliefs in action without judging them.

      All author royalties for performances to go to the Mission of Charity founded by Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

      Dedication: To Nikki, who met Mother Teresa, awarding her play and the players.

      PLAY with a prolog and a prelude and four acts.

      General directions:

      For accompanying music -- not an impediment to the dialog -- Rimsky-Korsakov's Sheherazade may be used for the prelude. And the four movements of Beethoven's Eroica used, respectively, for the four acts. I have not prescribed sound-effects. For the sake of realism, back-ground noises, to modern drama, intrude so much that audiences may not hear the dialog.

      In old-style theatre, actors were trained to throw their voices to the gods with complete clarity. Psychology justifies a drama that cuts out back-ground noises, because human attention does this anyway. A play, that keeps down its sound effects, helps an audiences selective attention by reducing fatiguing distractions.

      This approach suits the story of a contemplative mission that is in the world but not of the world. This play could be produced with many more walk-on parts. That would not suit most drama groups. So, multiple parts are indicated for some players. Some actors have to imaginatively become more than one person in the same scene or in a single exchange.

      A few times, I prefered to let a character double, as another character, with reported speech. (The Royal Shakespeare Company flourished many a 'He said' or 'She said' in its celebrated dramatisation of Nicholas Nickleby.) The cast is reduced mainly to an elemental family of mother, father, sister, brother, etc...

      Actors, playing many roles, remind us of the mission vision to see a humanised god in every human being. Dialog with Mother Teresa often is suspended by asides from the other speaker to the audience, as if a third actor.

      CHARACTERS in order of appearance for the whole play:

      Prolog: Mother Teresa.

      Prelude: Journalist. Vizier.

      Act one: Nun. Father. Priest.

      Act two: Sister. Man. Three children.

      Act four: Brother.

      (Note: Parts may be further combined across acts. For example, one speaker could take the parts of Vizier, Priest, and Man, respectively in the prelude, acts one and two.)

      PROLOG.

      MOTHER TERESA:

      Child of the streets wandering.

      Child of the streets wandering,

      put your hand in my own for a home.

      But the child, at the party, scarcely smiled.

      In a little while, she was gone with her smile.

      For days, I sought her in the city.

      She appeared again, I took her with me:

      Sister, please, follow this child wherever she goes.

      Sister sent word to me, 'Mother Teresa,

      into the thoro-fares of Calcutta,

      she goes, to see a woman, under a tree,

      who has brought two stones for company.'

      "Child, child of the streets wandering,

      how is it you would not stay with

      all the beautiful things you had to play with?"

      The little one smiled and replied,

      'I could not live without my mother.

      She loves me, like no other.'

      The womans smile was that of her child,

      as she spoke, 'Hearth and home to me

      are these two stones under a tree.

      Children, who are loved, never run away from home.'

      PRELUDE to the four acts.

      CHARACTERS in order of appearance:

      Journalist.

      Vizier.

      Enter JOURNALIST:

      The Nizam, His Exhalted Highness of Hyderabad,

      was jewel in the crown of the Mogul Empire.

      The Nizam took over the palace of Kamal Khan.

      On all the panels and walls, he left KK,

      the thrifty Nizam renamed King Kothi (Hindu for house).

      He was surrounded by guards and his private police force.

      Driven out from his confines of marble,

      His Highness yelled: Are we arrived?

      He didnt know whether rare journeys to planes,

      between his five palaces, took two minutes or twenty.

      I left the guest house to interview the grand vizier.

      Out of corners and out of door-ways,

      old Muslim bearers salaamed in sonorous Urdu.

      Cautious and sly, smiles vizier Taraporewala

      in white achkan of shark skin over drill trousers.

      Enter VIZIER:

      As an autocrat, no-one could contradict,

      the Nizam never learned he could ever be wrong.

      The Nizam is Arabic for order and his son,

      the Prince was ordered: Sack your harem.

      On birth-days, the king, in court, received presents of girls, like Sheherazade, wiling away the Arabian nights.

      The nazrana was a cash tax on his subjects,

      according to status, to gaze on their god.

      He never paid people himself, so knew nothing's worth: five rupees or five thousand.

      The dynasty kept no accounts, only strong rooms and trunks.

      His father threw the Jacob's diamond in a drawer.

      A servant, while dusting, found it rolled in a handkerchief.

      A sold train-load of jewelry and plate escaped

      confiscation on Indian independence.

      For a gold present of forty thousand rare coins, each worth over a hundred times its face value, the prime minister mustered: Very good.

      The Nizam, of the nazrana, had gold plate for hundreds but ate just cream and sweets, off tin, on a mat in his room.

      Always on opium, he weighed under ninety pounds.

      ACT ONE

      Prayer without action is no prayer at all.

      return to contents

      CHARACTERS:

      Journalist.

      Nun.

      Father.

      Mother Teresa.

      Priest.

      Enter JOURNALIST:

      This journalist trailed from Indias richest man

      to the servant of the poorest of the poor.

      A Catholic official and fellow news-paper-man tipped:

      Watch this woman. She's quite extra-ordinary. She's going to be a saint.

      Twenty-seven years later, I sought her beginnings, as a teacher, at the Loreto convent in Entally.

      Enter NUN:

      Please don't give my name, just mention me as one of her contemporaries.

      There are no legends. Mother Teresa was ordinary.

      She was close to her fellow Yugoslav nun,

      Mother Gabriel, who died in 1974.

      Teresa's heart was set on the work. She said:

      I couldnt meet God if I didnt do this.

      JOURNALIST:

      Ask Mother Teresa about herself and she'd interrupt:

      "That's not necessary. I am not important.

      Write about the work and my people."

      Down the road, from the Mother House

      of the Mission of Charity, is a church.

      It happens to be dedicated to St Teresa.

      From Dampremy, in coal-mining Belgium,

      a saintly old man Father Henry told his secrets.

      Enter FATHER HENRY:

      I was screwed down here, in charge of the Bengali community.

      Our church was in Entally where Mother was Head-mistress.

      From 1941 to '47, Teresa and I worked together.

      We have this secret. Prayer without action is no prayer at all.

      We want to work for the poorest of the poor.

      We comfort people in hospitals or in bustis, the slums.

      We discussed what we learned.

      Mother's search is an experiment to experience God.

      She got girls from the Sodality of Our Lady to do penance and serve the country and serve the neighbor.

      Hindu and Muslim women wanted to join

      and help the Sodality and social classes.

      Independence was in the air. Mahatma Gandhi said, Make no laws unless you consider the poorest person you know. It was an inspiration.

      The Archbishop of Calcutta, Monseigneur Perier told me:

      (FATHER as) ARCHBISHOP:

      Imagine that a European nun teaching Indian girls starts an Order to work amongst the poorest of the poor.

      FATHER:

      Your Grace, that plan humanly speaking is impossible, but it is needed.

      (FATHER as) ARCHBISHOP:

      If it is needed then God will bless it.

      FATHER:

      Ferdinand Perier, he died at ninety, invited the Yugoslav Jesuits.

      Their stories home inspired Teresa to serve in Bengal.

      I left Calcutta for a retreat and was told

      I wouldnt find her any more when I got back.

      You see, she still had her secret.

      Then one day a lady in a sari with a blue border comes in.

      Enter MOTHER TERESA:

      Do you recognise me?

      FATHER:

      I seem to have seen you before.

      MOTHER:

      Where is Moti Jhil?

      FATHER:

      You should know it well; it is the slum on the other side of your convent wall.

      ( Aside: )

      Now Mother de Senacle, from Mauritia, was Principal of Entally and a great protector of Teresa.

      She took twenty girls from Moti Jhil to educate. They were made at home on the verandah

      with a good Sister looking after them.

      After a year only two were left.

      That is why Teresa had to leave the convent.

      Two years, she waited for permission

      to serve the poor outside convent walls.

      Her spiritual confessor, Father Van Exem had her sign the decree in triplicate.

      MOTHER:

      Can I go to the slums now?

      (FATHER HENRY as) EXEM:

      It's not so simple.

      You now obey the archbishop of Calcutta.

      FATHER:

      In 1948, she was off the train, at Patna,

      the ancient imperial city on the Ganges,

      for the Medical Mission founded by Mother Denger.

      (NUN as) MEDIC MOTHER DENGER:

      The convent was once a church with disused cemetary for a garden.

      We slept between tomb-stones under the privacy of mosquito nets.

      MOTHER:

      I have no idea where my ideals will take me.

      I shall go and live with the Little Sisters of the Poor in Calcutta.

      From there on, God will direct me.

      My Order will diet like the poorest of the poor.

      On mondays, rice and salt, on tuesdays, salt and rice,

      on wednesdays, rice and salt, and so on.

      (NUN as) MEDIC:

      It's criminal. You will all die.

      ( Aside ):

      Father Van Exem visited us. Giving a talk, he asked after Teresa.

      MOTHER:

      I am here.

      (NUN as) MEDIC:

      He failed to recognise her among Indian and Anglo-Indian nurses.

      Nurses, who were her Loreto students, shed tears to see Sister Teresa in the sari of the poor, till they knew why.

      She learned everything. She mid-wifed or cut off a gangrenous thumb, and was splattered in blood.

      MOTHER:

      Our Loreto nuns should see this!

      (NUN as) MEDIC:

      A 15 year old girl dying of TB wanted to join her mission.

      Teresa confirmed her as an

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