“That’s How the Light Gets In”
“Will you refrain? Will you grow up? Will you become an angel instead of a beast? O Man, will you be a loving father instead of a hateful murderer?”
I subscribe to James Corbett’s “The Corbett Report” but I usually don’t listen to long podcasts, impatient man that I am. But today James Corbett had an intriguing thing or two to say:
"In Praise of Sheep”. The Corbett Report, June 8, 2025 [you don’t need the code, just look it up by the words]
We often hear the din of this slogan shouted in protests and screaming from signboards, “Wake Up Sheeple!!” But, James Corbett cautions us to be more careful what we are saying and what we are understanding by that angry shout. I have heard it said that the English language, being both Germanic – from the ancient Anglo-Saxons – and Latinate – from the Norman French which the Old English embraced – is the most expressive of European languages because it is the most nuanced language of Old Europe; there are at least two words, one “Anglo-Saxon” and the other Latin-influenced, to say everything and each word connotes, denotes or suggests, something subtly different. So our English words do clash and make love and interbreed to make new words. Thus the offspring of “People” and “Sheep” was born and it means something mean – and there they go again, those elusive and allusive English words.
Calling the peaceful ordinary people that we really are, calling our neighbours, our erstwhile friends, all the strangers who sell us bread, who bake the bread, who grind the flour, who raise the grain, “Sheeple” – as if they are less than human? And demanding that they “Wake Up” – as if they are unconscious or stupid? What are we demanding?
All the people around us when we walk the sidewalks and paths, our fellow humans brushing past us, living their lives, not harming us and offering their vulnerability to us, trusting that we are one of them and that we are not predators. They win that bet time and again, don’t they? Don’t we, you and I, offer that same wager and mutually we win, we win our freedom and we win our futures, do we not?
Do we presume to insult other people, saying that they are witless and sleepwalking and that they ought to "Wake UP", by adopting our mean, contemptuous opinions of themselves? What do we want of people? They are sheep for the slaughter, in our estimation? And we, the smart ones, are not? Our fellow humans are powerless unless they transform into lions or wolves? Isn’t that what is implied?
James Corbett recalls George Orwell’s character, hapless Winston Smith, saying, in Nineteen Eighty Four, that to overthrow the tyranny of “The Party” the only hope is not internally, but rather it is in “the proles”, the oppressed mass of people. So Corbett says, “The Hope is in the Sheeple”. Because sheep are kind and peaceful and productive, not violent and predatory.
What does the revolutionary always want? He hates the wolves of the political class, the killers in high places. But what’s his solution? That the people should “rise up” and transform themselves from sheep into wolves? And what is the ever-recurring outcome? Some of them, the most ruthless of them who once were the sheep, become a new class of wolves. "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.” – Peter Townsend
Why is it that in classic Christianity Jesus is referred to as “The Lamb of God”? The archetype comes out of the ancient West Asian practice of sacrificing the best of the flock, the best of the grain, the best of the offspring, the produce of peace, by killing it ritually as a symbolic offering to propitiate the divine spirit, which is seen as ruthless and vengeful and tyrannous, a god of jealousy and absolute power as pitiless as the thunderclouds. Power is the power to kill. The utmost powerful thing is a murderer who gets away with killing.
But Christianity doesn’t see God that way. Jesus called God “our heavenly Father”. He said, “You ask your father for bread. Does he give you a stone?” Christianity satirizes and reverses the ancient idea of what the divine spirit is. In the sacrifice which is the death of Jesus it is God, not man, who offers up his perfect best offspring to be a Lamb. It is not God who murders the Lamb. God makes the Lamb, his “only begotten son”, vulnerable. It is man’s evil nature which is called up and questioned again and again, “Will you refrain? Will you grow up? Will you become an angel instead of a beast? O Man, will you be a loving father instead of a hateful murderer?” And man fails and the lamb is killed but in dying in perfect innocence the Lamb becomes a martyr. He shows the people the true face of evil so that they will be disgusted by it and turn away from it.
And here is the miracle: the Lamb rises again and again. Evil can do all it can do but the people are never killed. When evil has done its utmost triumph it kills itself.
It is goodness and life that truly has the power.
Leonard Cohen - Anthem (w/lyrics) London 2008 - YouTube
“Thank you so much for your warm hospitality this evening. We are so grateful to play for you. Thank you so much friends. We are so privileged to gather in moments like this when so much of the world is plunged in darkness and chaos…’’ – Leonard Cohen, 2008
ANTHEM
by Leonard Cohen
The birds they sang
At the break of day
Start again
I heard them say
Don't dwell on what has passed away
Or what is yet to be
Ah, the wars,
They will be fought again
The holy dove,
She will be caught again
Bought and sold, and bought again
The dove is never free
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in
We asked for signs
The signs were sent
The birth betrayed
The marriage spent
Yeah, and the widowhood of every government
Signs for all to see
I can't run no more
With that lawless crowd
While the killers in high places
Say their prayers out loud
But they've summoned, they've summoned up a thundercloud
They're going to hear from me
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in
You can add up the parts
But you won't have the sum
You can strike up the march
There is no drum
Every heart, every heart to love will come
But like a refugee
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in
That's how the light gets in
That's how the light gets in