'God, the universe and everything': My take on Dawkins, the God Delusion, and 12-step spirituality

Ever since I started my blog I’ve been champing at the bit to write a partial rebuttal of many of the ideas of Richard Dawkins, biologist, television presenter, writer of (among other books) The God Delusion and passionate crusader for atheism. A recent blog entry at What The Hell is This? (see link on right) has spurred me on, as well as the twin aim of writing something of my experiences in a 12-step program. So here goes.

This is turning out to be by far my longest rant ever, so I’m dividing it up into three blog entries.

Dawkins mounts his challenge

In The God Delusion, Dawkins throws down the gauntlet at the God industry on both sides of the Atlantic. He argues passionately that religion – whether the fundamentalism of the Taliban or moderate versions of traditional religions – threatens our civilisation by causing widespread death and human rights abuses and by attacking the science teachings that have produced so much medical and technological progress. He contends that it’s behind many of the most evil acts and movements in history, and presents atheism as the only rational alternative.

Now, I have much sympathy for aspects of Dawkins’s project and I can understand the sense of urgency, indeed of being embattled, that led to the writing of this self-styled polemic. For example, a little-discussed aspect of The God Delusion is its references to the oppression of atheists and atheism in the USA; in one US town, police who were themselves religious refused to protect from violence peacefully demonstrating atheists, and there are documented cases of atheists being victims of ‘harassment, loss of jobs, shunning by family and even murder’ (p. 45).

Similarly, the rise of creationism and its offshoot, so-called intelligent design, is a social, technological, environmental and economic disaster in the making. As Billy Connolly put it recently on the television show Shrink Rap, Sarah Palin, if voted in as the USA’s vice-president, could have become president and therefore the most powerful person in the world – and she believes that the Earth is 4000 years old. That's scary!

Creationism seems to act a bit like a virus – it’s not just the province of evangelicals but is being spruiked by conservative elements of existing religions like Catholicism. (Although the Catholic position is an increasingly firm support of evolution, it doesn’t appear to be church dogma; Catholics are free to believe in creationism, and there are a number of Catholic groups that advocate it.)

Dawkins doesn’t confine his ire to religious fundamentalism – quite the opposite. He believes that moderate religion paves the way for fundamentalism because it’s based on the central concept of faith; and that this concept is seized on by the fundamentalist mindset and taken to its illogical conclusion in the case of terrorist bombings, or opposition to ‘victimless crimes’ like homosexuality.

Although I have sympathy for this argument, Dawkins seems to suggest that fundamentalists, who go all the way with even the most bizarre scriptural pronouncements, and who in extreme cases are willing to kill for their cause, are intellectually more consistent than religious moderates who would support his pro-science stance. And he's often criticised for this by those very moderates, who are as pro-Darwin as he is.

Religion – creating hell on earth?

In The God Delusion, Dawkins mounts a nuanced argument about the links between human evil and religion. He acknowledges that evil occurs in all societies independently of religion, but provides telling examples of the ways in which religion either worsens existing tensions between separate groups, or fosters the separate identities of otherwise similar groups. It does this through labelling children from an early age (eg ‘Catholic’ and ‘Protestant’) and discouraging marriage between the groups.

The results, whether it's the death of more than 1 million Hindus and Muslims during the partition of India, the murder of 6 million Jews in the Holocaust or the cruel kidnapping of a Jewish child in nineteenth century Italy simply because he’d been baptised as a Catholic by the child’s 14-year-old nanny, are chilling indeed.

One of the reasons for the continuing power of religion, despite such horrors, is the spurious respect with which religious sensibilities are treated. But the tenor of such sensibilities can be nothing short of murderous. It’s evident that particular kinds of religious thinking encourage and justify evil attitudes and acts against outsiders – Catholicism, Islam and Judaism have all spawned terrorists.

In one study quoted in the book, 66 per cent of Jewish children between the ages of 8 and 14 thought that the biblical Joshua and the Israelites had acted righteously when they sacked Jericho and massacred its inhabitants. However, when the children were asked to give their opinion on similar actions carried out by a mythical non-Jewish figure, 75 per cent disapproved.

Elsewhere, Dawkins argues that there’s a remarkable degree of consensus among different racial groups on basic moral precepts, and that this is totally independent of religion. The study described above suggests that, rather than being a moral force, religion can actually destroy this consensus and give tacit permission to morally repugnant actions.

But religious absolutism means that ‘insiders’ – members of a religion, not always voluntarily – are also vulnerable to harsh religious laws that demand severe penalties if breached.

This is particularly so in the case of women. Dawkins shows an admirable recognition of the horrors that patriarchal religion has foisted on women’s bodies, minds and hearts, mainly in the case of fundamentalist versions. These include publicly sanctioned rape (ie forcing marriage on underage girls); forcing them into early childbirth; withholding education from them; severe punishment and death for offences against ‘modesty’; honour killings and mutilations.

I’d also add that a religion (ie Catholicism) that says a young person with a vagina can never aspire to be a priest is committing religious abuse; and the culpability of the Catholic church in helping the spread of AIDS, STDs and unwanted pregnancies by preaching against the use of condoms doesn’t need to be reiterated here.

Religion isn't wholly responsible for the misogyny practised in its name. But patriarchy is self-perpetuating, and religion provides a convenient excuse for barbaric practices that keep women powerless.

For example, society long ago left the churches far behind on the matter of social change. Equality in the workplace is still a long way off in Australia, but at least equal opportunity is on the statute books. Yet it's absolutely fine for the Catholic church to openly discriminate against women, and for the Anglican church to tear itself in two over the issue of female clergy, because these trends supposedly have nothing to do with deep, unacknowledged sexism: they're about sensitive religious beliefs and feelings, which must be respected at all costs.

Like Dawkins, I believe that religious dogma has inherent psychic dangers for both sexes. Religion fosters emotional and intellectual retardation – an authoritative, all-protecting god demands a childlike position and a willingness to obey authority without question (I can still see this operating in my father's sometimes excessive piety).

It can lead to mental suffering and illness associated with excessive guilt, while ‘moral’ positions derived from the Bible can encourage people to judge others harshly. The religious right gives its members permission to project their unwanted qualities and desires onto others, a recipe for hatred of and discrimination against the other – thus, instead of spending their energies assisting the poor, some so-called Christians fight to overturn laws that allow gay people to marry.

Religious abuse of children

What I find most offensive, and I agree with Dawkins wholeheartedly on this, is society’s tolerance of children being forced into a particular religion from birth.

Sexual abuse of both males and females is just the tip of the iceberg. It’s arguable that every child indoctrinated into a religious faith suffers a form of religious abuse, however welcoming and loving the religious community.

For example, supposedly ‘mainstream’, sometimes government-funded Catholic schools in Western countries are telling their pupils that 2,000-odd years ago a virgin gave birth to a baby who was actually the supreme being; that when he grew up, he was cruelly killed to pay for the sins of those very children; and that he miraculously rose from the dead three days later. And the fear that they will burn in hell, alone and far from family and friends, causes very real suffering for minds too young to know the difference between myth and reality.

The extent to which more serious religious abuse of children is tolerated in the USA is nothing short of tragic. This includes some evangelicals leaving extremely ill children untreated and sometimes in great pain for days and weeks while relying on ‘faith healers’, or sending them to camps where they are brainwashed to support far-right religious Republicanism.

Australians shouldn’t feel too complacent: this country has no constitutional separation between church and state, which means that taxpayer dollars are freely spent on funding religious schools; some of these schools teach creationism, and it’s perfectly legal for them to do so.

Meanwhile, in Queensland, bible instruction is now being provided at non-government schools in ways that appear to contravene the Queensland Education Act. As well, the National School Chaplaincy Program provides federal funding for chaplains in government schools – schools that could well be in need of social or welfare workers, not to mention teachers or infrastructure – and funding for this program has been extended by prime minister Kevin Rudd.

The securities of religion

Despite all this, I don’t share Dawkins’s optimistic belief that it’s possible to eradicate religion.

For one thing, some people will always want to be spiritual within a community, to ‘worship’ in a group of fellow ‘believers’. Others will turn to structured religion for security in an increasingly insecure world, or simply because they want an outside authority to direct their lives.

Creating an ‘out’ group, as religion does (even if it’s just the secular world with its many temptations), strengthens bonds within the group. I’ve seen this up close, both in what I’ve heard about the early lives of my Catholic dad’s family of origin, and what I’ve seen of the close relationships of some overseas cousins of mine who follow a fairly fundamentalist version of Catholicism.

In the case of my cousins, their common passion for the dogma and rituals of the church helps to keep the family together. Similarly, in a recent television series that satirically explored his guilt about wanting to marry outside the Jewish community, comedian John Safran demonstrated his love of the Melbourne Jewish community and its often endearing quirkiness, even as he exposed the exclusivity of some of its members; at one point one of his best friends tells Safran that if he married a non-Jew, he’d feel compelled to boycott the wedding!

But there’s something else. Like it or not, religious rituals can provide a way to access a spirituality that is experienced through pathways in the brain. I wonder if, when repeated often enough, rituals can act like signals to the brain that activate these spiritual pathways.

I am guessing here, but that’s why I imagine Muslims find it so important to pray five times a day in designated prayer rooms; the rituals they enact and the words they recite during prayer may amount to a kind of moving meditation. Perhaps, rather than invoking Allah, they are accessing a force inside themselves that is beyond religion. The same applies to any kind of religious worship, although Western religions are generally poor at bringing the body into it. Perhaps this is one reason why evangelicals are popular: believers in these churches are free to dance, sway, and even throw themselves on the ground.

One of my sisters, recently qualified as a primary teacher but never particularly religious, used her background to get a job in a Catholic school. She remarked that the children were calmer, the general atmosphere more peaceful, than in the government schools she’d taught at. This Catholic school wasn’t in a wealthy area and would have included disadvantaged kids. One reason for the calmness might have been the religious prayers and rituals the children spoke and enacted.

For historical reasons I don’t think that in Australia an end to funding for religious schools is electorally possible. Instead, it should be impossible to actually join a religion until you’re 18, just as you can’t vote until then. Religious schools could still exist, but should be permitted to teach their students only the broadly ethical, spiritual aspects of the religion, not the dogma or so-called ‘morality’; nor should they be permitted to put down other religions or spiritualities. Once they turned 18, young adults could be free to join any religion they chose; this would be a perfect time for them to study the dogma and decide for themselves.

So Dawkins is totally justified in his attack on religion, but I'm much less sure about his dismissal of God -- in my next entry I’ll look at why.

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Dedicated follower of fashion: bargain hunting, ethical and sustainable fashion, feminism and the retail cycle

One of my favourite hobbies is hunting for fashion bargains. I love swooping in towards the end of the retail cycle (ie at the sale stage) and finding something that is, say, less than half the price of the original. An example: recently, at Sportsgirl, a baggy grey summer cardigan for $15.95; original price: 49.95. I’ve honed this skill to the point where I ‘know’ which shops to go into and which to avoid, whether I’m wasting my time or not and whether I need to buy something that I’ve tried on (I even wrote a book about this skill, and started an unsuccessful blog; now I’m resigned to using this skill for my own betterment, rather than that of humankind!)

As a former 12-step person, I’m constantly scanning my behaviour to ascertain whether it’s slipping into compulsive buying territory. I’m also aware that my shopping hobby gives me a kick because there are so many less consumer-oriented, more social pastimes that are just too hard. In some ways, too, it’s been a kind of return from exile to an earlier preoccupation: coming from an all-girl family, I grew up adoring clothes, but ditched that interest entirely when I became a radical feminist at the age of 19. For over a decade I lost the ability to dress in a way that suited me, and my shopping adventures have enabled me to gradually recover that. I also don’t spend that much on other forms of entertainment like restaurants and the cinema.

But of course, following fashion in a time of catastrophic global warming seems frivolous to say the least. This is something that I struggle with. I sometimes rationalise that by buying towards the end of the retail cycle I am not really a part of it. But this is not true: when you pay full price for a piece of clothing (which I do only rarely) you’re subsidising the likes of me. The full price of an item takes into account that a certain percentage of stock will not ‘move’ until offered at a discount price. So my bargain-hunting behaviour is definitely factored into the entire retail equation.

Ethics and sustainability
I also struggle with the notion that, because I mainly buy from the cheaper chain stores, I’m subsidising cruelty – the appalling working conditions at some Chinese factories, as well as the sometimes equally dreadful conditions Australian outworkers face.

Plus I’m contributing to the many problems caused by China’s reliance on coal – global warming, poor conditions at coal mines, and dangerous levels of pollution. China burns more coal than any other country, and 80 per cent of its electricity comes from coal-fired power plants. To feed its giant economy, it’s starting new coal-fired power stations at an estimated rate of between one and two a week. As well as illness and deaths caused by carbon pollution, at least six coal miners die on the job in China every single day – the figure used to be higher.

Now, I’m not so sure that buying at the higher end of the market – designer clothes or even upmarket chains like Country Road (a label I buy from very occasionally, and only at sale time) – would make much difference to this. After all, Country Road clothes are also manufactured in China.

However, it does make sense to buy more expensive clothes that last longer, and buy fewer of them. The quality of Country Road clothes, for example, is surprisingly good. They wear so well that you can easily find yourself wearing an item over three fashion seasons.

Buying an item that you will get much more wear out of is surely better for the environment than buying something you only wear three or four times, but it does not resolve the ethical dilemma of workers’ conditions. I’d like to think that workers making clothes of that calibre have to be treated a bit better to keep the quality up, eg needing to complete fewer garments per hour, but I have no idea whether or not that’s the case.

And buying a garment manufactured in Australia doesn’t necessarily let you off the ethical hook. I bought a top recently from a cheap chain store, Supre. The top had a tag on it proudly declaring something along the lines of ‘Made in Australia – bringing jobs back home’. But this doesn’t mean that the workers who made the top weren’t exploited; they could have been piece workers paid at appalling rates. Despite much community activism, the Australian Government has so far failed to end the exploitation of these workers.

An Australian organisation fighting worker exploitation in the garment manufacturing industry is the FairWear campaign.

They’ve introduced a Home worker’s Code of Practice that they lobby manufacturers and retailers to sign. Manufacturers who have signed it are entitled to include a No Sweat Shop label on their clothes. While the list of companies that are signatories is currently disappointingly limited (but significantly includes Bonds, Collette Dinnigan and Maggie T), whether more sign up really depends on pressure from consumers: if they think we don’t care, they will do nothing.

The Code has been signed by many more retailers than manufacturers. These retailers include Big W, K Mart, Country Road, Target, Sussan, David Jones and David Lawrence (Witchery hasn’t signed, and nor has Supre, which I mentioned above). However, the obligations of retailers are far less onerous than those of manufacturers, and they may not even be selling clothes with the No Sweat Shop label. Of the duties of the retailer signatories, The FairWear website says:

If a retailer is provided with evidence that a supplier is not meeting their obligations in relation to the Code or relevant Awards and legislation, the retailer will inform the non-compliant supplier that if the problem is not resolved, all of the supplier’s products will be removed from the retailer’s stores and will not be sold. Such action from Code Signatories has proven to be an effective method in changing the behavior of unethical manufacturers.

FairWear’s website includes a sample letter to send to retailers who haven’t signed the code.

FairWear should be lauded for its work. But why does the federal government allow such a code to be voluntary? It should be law, not something you sign up for because you fear a consumer backlash. And what happens if the garments are sourced from overseas? How much control can the retailer have over the manufacturing process in that instance? And how do we actually know that the retailers are sticking to their promise – who is keeping tabs?

Meanwhile, a group of FairWear supporters have started their own Facebook page, at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=19858516103&ref=ts&v=info.

However, action on this front doesn’t stop the problems of coal-powered electricity, pollution, and global warming.

Ethics and sustainability – recycling
Buying second hand clothes offers a way out for many consumers concerned with ethics and sustainability. One thing I’ve become very good at in the last few years is throwing clothes out that I don’t wear any more, and taking them to my favourite op shop (I’m quite fussy about this – I think some op shops charge too much, and I don’t support them). I now have culls every three months or so, and it feels good. I also buy a lot of books and household goods from op shops.

But, truth to tell, I don’t buy a lot of clothes from them. I think it’s partly my taste, but also because the clearance prices at Target put some of the price tags at op shops to shame. I think e-bay and the idea of on-selling is at least partly to blame for this. Op shops want to give their low-income customers a bargain, but they don’t want their shops to be free-for-alls for those who will just clear the store and resell the underpriced stock at exorbitant prices. However, I think they sometimes overdo the pricing and many op shop clothes are simply too expensive for what you get.

Buying clothes on e-bay and vintage clothes stores are other well-known alternatives to buying new. Another option is the growing trend of clothes swapping – in Australia, The Clothing Exchange holds regular clothes swapping events.

Ethics and sustainability – new clothes
Sustainable, and in some cases ethically produced, fashion seems to be a growing market, although the GFC may have damaged it somewhat. This article has a great list of fashion labels that produce sustainable clothing that are available in Australia (it’s not always clear whether they’re ethical in terms of working conditions). And a great sustainable clothing range can be found at www.purepod.com.au – again, the website doesn’t mention ethics.

Fashion facism
There’s another, much less urgent but still significant issue that being interested in clothes brings up. If you set aside the fashionable aspect of clothes for a minute, most people need to own a set of clothes suitable for a variety of different weathers and occasions. It concerns me that much of the ‘fashionable’ clothing this year doesn’t even offer the most basic of choices for women in some areas.

Take sundresses. There are two lengths available – above the knee (the mini dress) and down to the feet (the maxi dress). Embarrassingly short, or uncomfortably, impractically long. The embarrassingly short is perfect for young ‘gels’ who are happy to show off their legs (although I don’t imagine all young women feel comfortable doing this), but the ridiculously long version of the sundress is another extreme, and merely brings out the paranoid feminist in me: why, on a 34–45 degree day, would you want to be burdened with a dress that covers your entire body? For years we’ve had a huge variety of sundresses available that skirt the knee – not this year.

Talking about skirts, things are even worse on that front. This year’s miniskirts are in the main ridiculously short compared with last year’s, showing a substantial amount of thigh. Again, that’s fine if you’re an 18-year-old out on the town with your mates. But this silly length includes work skirts: retailers are happy to pressure women into wearing embarrassing, impractical clothes in the work place.

There are many reasons why women may not want to reveal that much leg, apart from feeling vulnerable and having to be careful while sitting down. Some of us have knobbly knees; some of us have prominent veins; some of us have thighs we don’t particularly like. In a youth-obsessed culture we’re told not to reveal our legs if they don’t literally shape up; but at the same time fashion wants to force us to. Liposuction, anyone?

Retailers who pretend to offer genuine choice in fact do the opposite. Country Road recently released an upmarket new label, Trenery, designed for an older demographic and selling in a new set of stores. You’d think that offering skirts and dresses below the knee would be one of its basic objectives. Instead, the catalogue features a tall young woman with long skinny legs wearing – you guessed it – dresses above the knee! There are also lots of very short shorts available for the daring older woman who’s happy to reveal all.

Please don’t even start me on the towering high heels we’re supposed to totter around in. I’m not joking when I say that they should come with a government health warning along the lines of ‘if you wear these shoes for two hours or more you run the risk of significant spinal, ankle and/or foot damage’.

Real choice
But consumers do have choices: the choice not to buy clothing from retailers who couldn’t care less about their supply chains, or fashions that degrade women; and to consider sustainable options. Although I only buy clothes I feel comfortable with, I don’t think I could easily give up my love of fashion altogether. But I can tell retailers and manufacturers what I think of their contempt for workers’ rights, only buy when I need to, investigate sustainable clothing, and refuse to participate in the most misogynistic aspects of fashion.

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Farewell to the park?

It’s been hard to write a blog entry lately because things have been in such a state of flux. A cold flattened me over Christmas, striking me down as a I struggled to finish editing a stubborn report (I always seem to get colds when I have big editing jobs to finish).

The cold was a convenient excuse for not worrying about not having enough social events to go to over Christmas. But it also presented an existential dilemma: I surveyed the coming year, and the perceived failures of the previous one, through a prism of exhaustion, which in turn made me feel helpless. Even present wrapping was tiring.

The cold took two weeks to work its way through my nasal passages, leaving me worrying about the state of my immune system. Thank God for the internet and Google – I’ve decided that the reason I get two colds a year is not because of lowered immunity but simply my plethora of nieces and nephews and our frequent family birthday celebrations (an excuse for seeing less of my family in 2010?).

A particular situation that’s been in my face for the last couple of weeks is still very much unresolved. For the moment I’m no longer walking Jordan, a mainly cocker spaniel who belongs to my elder sister, Andrea, and her husband Richard. I’ve been doing this three times a week for the past two years and it’s come to a temporary halt, with the final outcome still unknown.

Richard and I were bound to clash sooner or later. We’re both equally bloody minded. I in my pursuit of animal (Jordan’s) welfare, and he in his determination to look after Jordan in his own way.

Never would I let Richard and Andrea forget that I thought they weren’t treating Jordan properly. Apart from the occasional walk down the street to the shops, or taking the kids to school (normally a drive) they’d virtually stopped taking him for walks, relying entirely on my thrice-weekly trips to the park.

He badly needed a clip and a bath, and had knots of hair on his bum that needed shaving. I’d even offered at one point to come around and bath him – I didn’t get to do that, but my home clipping job was certainly not the best. (Although you’d never know it, Richard is extremely wealthy and could easily afford professional grooming for Jordan, even if only, say, twice a year.)

The thing that I wouldn’t let up on – that I continued to nag them about – was that they wouldn’t bring Jordan to family gatherings at mum and dad’s. If I am perfectly honest about this, my normally kind dad is inexplicably hostile to dogs. A former secondary teacher, he seems to view them as juvenile delinquents so evil they’re beyond saving.

In contrast, my mum, despite her disabling osteoporosis and concern for the domestic environment, is okay with having Jordan around. And my sister Therese and her husband Tony sometimes bring their ridgeback-cross Sarah (also a neglected dog, but in a different way to Jordan) to family gatherings. But Andrea and Richard can’t be bothered taking him in the car with them, even at those times he’d have a playmate in Sarah to keep him out of mischief.

So every time I’d turn up at mum and dad’s to find Richard and Andrea in the kitchen and Sarah in the backyard slobbering contentedly, knowing that Jordan was stuck behind his wooden fence half a kilometre away, I’d call them on it. ‘Where’s Jordan?’ I’d ask. Each time, they dug their heels in even further. Recently, Richard had been fixing me with a rather malevolent stare he’s perfected and saying in a crisp tone: ‘I’ll look after Jordan. He’s ours. He’s not your problem’.

I’ve clashed with Richard a lot in recent years. It took me many years to realise he wasn’t the brother-in-law from heaven I’d originally thought he was. He’s a charming man with a sly, subtle sense of humour and excellent social skills, and the extended family think he’s great. But he can also be a bully – he’s been dominating Andrea for years – and I heard a story recently about him that shocked me.

On the day of the recent byelection in our electorate, Andrea was working and hadn’t voted in advance, so risked getting a $20 fine. Apparently Richard and Andrea asked one of my younger sisters, Therese, to fraudulently vote on Andrea’s behalf. Therese refused, and Richard tried to make her feel guilty. ‘We’d do the same for you if you asked’, he said. Therese was furious at him for trying to manipulate her into breaking the law, but she didn’t give in.

On Christmas Day, the predictable happened and Jordan wasn’t brought to the celebrations. I made my usual protests and Richard got predictably annoyed. But the next day when I rang to arrange the usual Monday walk, he answered the phone, and said in the same annoyed tone that he’d look after Jordan while he was on holidays.

At that point I think I realised what I was up against, and I stopped fighting. My arrangement with Jordan’s family has been based on the false assumption that I and they share enough common beliefs to maintain the regular contact that is inevitable when you walk someone else’s dog. But we don’t, and my differences with my family don't start with Richard -- they’re as old as the hills, and the basis of the majority of my problems. How did I think I could skate over them so easily?

I considered at that point that perhaps it was time to give up walking Jordan. Truth to tell, I needed some kind of break. In the last two years, seeing the reality of Jordan’s life up close and feeling helpless to improve it had led to periodic depressions characterised by a deep sense of sadness.

And my whole park venture seemed to be coming to a close anyway. Jordan was a skinny, shivery, smell-crazy puppy when I decided to start walking him regularly. This arrangement would be partly for Jordan’s benefit and partly for mine, to help me deal with my social anxiety.

It seemed to be working okay, despite the occasional social disaster. But increasingly there were periods when I’d be convinced that a quiet park meant people were staying away because of me. I know this is distorted thinking – a friend of mine, who has a lot of knowledge about anxious and depressed thought patterns, shouted down the idea and called it totally whacky. But I think my paranoia was based on a deeper truth – that I didn’t really fit in with the wealthy milieu of many of those who frequented the park, despite the fact that they were ‘dog people’, and mostly friendly.

Also, a couple of people who were my anchors and as addicted to the park as I was had had their elderly, statesman-like dogs die in the last year, and although I still saw them sometimes, their visits to the park were much less frequent.

At the moment, the future of my relationship with Jordan is still an open question. Perhaps I’ll be able to come to some arrangement with Andrea and Richard, and perhaps I won’t – time will tell. If I don’t, then it will probably be better if I don’t see Jordan at all, because I won’t want to be reminded of my abandonment of him.

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