Dear Georgians

Please do not fall into this trap. It is off course hard to feel comfortable with all people from all countries at all times.
And in every country there are good and bad. But we reach a moment when globalization makes us all uniquely
aware of the plurality of man. Now come on guys, it is obvious, isn't it ? - that Christ reached out to the outcasts and
the marginalized in society, to the Samaritans and even the tax collector and the prostitute .... Don't you think it shows
a lack of an informed point of view - to bring Christ's image along to such a demonstration? As if you are trying to tell
us that Christ is in fact a racist? That he somehow agrees with the premises of your demonstration!? That would
actually be blasphemy in all Christian traditions! The mis-use of symbols is a dangerous thing.

What I would like to tell you is that thanks to your amazing, beautiful country and the inspired welcome I receive here
at all times and from all people - almost without a single exception over 7 years now! - I have reached a new, almost
unprecedented, and heightened state of joy: all this quite recently, in the last two weeks of my return to your sacred
shores.

Such joy I have only occasionally felt, perhaps as a child, long, long ago... Joy - because things are coming together;
and all due to Georgia! My decision to come here with Misha's invitation in 2010 is one of the greatest of moves and
one I am constantly grateful for. In the UK just now the prejudice against foreigners has destroyed civil society - or
almost. There is posturing going on. That is just what this Tbilisi demonstration is. And posturing is an inadequate
form of pseudo-dialogue.

I saw it last Monday with my old school friend, Damian Green, trying to defend Mrs May. It would be alright to leave
Euratom, somehow set up a completely fresh structure for transporting toxic isotopes, and the fears were 'greatly
exaggerated'. How sad I am to see a great intellect and a man I respect p o s t u r I n g. And why? Because he has a
great office of state, currently No 2 in the UK and he is too damned scared to say what he really thinks. A man of his
stamp could actually put things right. But no, he prefers to herd the Gadarene swine into the lake of Genasareth.

This brings me to a related point. Truth is sacred. At whatever cost, we must say what we r e a l l y believe, not
posture. And of course, there will be, sometimes, conflict.

But a conflict based on a free exchange of different positions (because God has made us all different) is h e a l t h y!

What is not - and what all creeds would see as deceitful, if we speak theology just for a second - is p o s t u r i n g. ie
insinuating by the adoption of attitudes which you KNOW in your heart of hearts to be shabby and false - that there is
some great ill going on which needs to be corrected. How many times has this poison flowed in the Brexit debate!?
So much so that I have no intention EVER of returning, until the tide turns. And by then I will be 90. And meanwhile,
Georgia, you and I together - we will have done great things! We will have been ' a light to the (other) nations' ;we will
be an important tourist destination: a place of delicious food, of amazing food, of the warmest imaginable people,
unparalleled wine (although I hope that the current fashion for naming it by number and colour is a passing fad!) and
and one in which there is a great deal of what the Irish call craic - which is somewhere between 'la bonne chere' and
'gemutlichkeit'.

During my absences, Georgia does tremendously well. Here in Bolnisi, rubbish is collected daily! Fady Aslis crude
at the time - prediction of ruin for Georgia has not happened. As if it was just a pitiful little country! The dollar is still at
2.39. There is a bit of recycling now, everything is immaculately maintained. Tbilisi's roads are now a lot better. The
Chinese investment has worked marvels.

So do not start saying unfortunate things about my dear Chinese friends - who provide me - just now - with a
livelihood. There is only one thing which matters : (as it says in Scripture) something that we should 'meditate
on...in our hearts'; and 'teach...to our children'. And it is not new: it is this

ALL PEOPLE COUNT - everyone has their story, their reason for being on the planet. They all have worries and
difficulties and disappointments and emotional scars and losses and lacks just like we all do. If we really met with
them in patience and kindness, we would unlock their story. We would be aware that all are one.The real true inner
heart of man - the heart of us all -- would surface; and we would 'see them as they really are ' - which is of course
usually applied to Christ.
Because Christ is not a religion. Christ is not an icon. Christ is not at all an icon carried in a secular, posturing,
meaningless, and unworthy protest. Christ is simply man divided by infinity, the single drop of water from the
mountain stream that refreshes all of us in the summer heat. If Christ did not exist, we would have to invent him.

Because it's nothing at all. It's just a code-word for showing humanity - whatever you believe; and without rancour
and posturing, you may quite reasonablly ask for, from your position - which is always never 'mine' - to sound like
Kierkegaard for a moment.

So multiplicity in diversity; and asking, in the correct way, for improvements that, also, is always right....

Georgia is not going to have Brexit, terrorism, splits, ethnic tensions - beyond what we see so far. Is it not already so
much better than 1989, when in the same street, those courageous women - martyrs for Georgia and all humanity -
were mown down by Soviet tanks...? Do we not hear their voices in such a sacred spot? Where also - not far away,
Tigran Petrosian lived and played! Wow guys, there are greater things you, know...! As Shakespeare said '...than are
imagined in your philosophy, Horatio'. And what did Buzz Aldrin say? 'I came in peace for all Mankind'. Nunc dimittis.
Guys - let us go, let us come in peace, for all Mankind. Because La Georgie vaut bien une messe! Georgia
dererves no less.