The books, the theology, the churches, the schools, the education: they cannot seem to convey the sense of wonder that gave rise to the ideas about God, the ideas we call Physics or Evolution or Geography, etc. The people who wrote the first books, who dreamt up to first ideas were seized with wonder, wonder … Continue reading What happened to a sense of wonder…? (Van Morrison)
Category: God
Heaven, Hell and Life After Death
When the chips are down, I don't believe in Heaven or Hell as some vision of Life After Death. Let me be clear though: I do believe in Life After Death. I shall live on in the worms and grass and bacteria, and the birds who eat the seeds from the plants and trees I … Continue reading Heaven, Hell and Life After Death
A Fall of Snow
I go to a patient in a side room. This elderly lady, about whom I know nothing, is dying and, as it turns out, has less that 24 hours left to live. She is unconscious, lying on her side, one eye and her mouth slightly open, breathing softly, unresponsive to my voice or gentle touch. … Continue reading A Fall of Snow
Failure of Memory
In the last few days, I have sat with two people with failing memories. One could not remember that their spouse had died in the last few hours, could not remember being there, the time and place, the last conversation. The other, who plaintively, anxiously asks for a sibling who visits every afternoon with a … Continue reading Failure of Memory
Thoughts at a bedside
What are we doing when we sit in prayer with a person as they are dying? The prayer, the blessing, is in the particulars: these lines and wrinkles; this graying hair; these tired, baggy eyes; this pattern of breath; this body, these cells that hold all, all, all that this person is. Has this person … Continue reading Thoughts at a bedside
Death
Yesterday, in A&E where I work, a 2 year old child died - or was already dead when she arrived. There are few things worse to witness than a dead child and the grief of parents. None, especially those of us with our own children, could fail to be moved deeply by sadness and fear. … Continue reading Death
Fear of God
Sometimes, when we consider really praying, coming close to God (or, perhaps more accurately, letting God come close), we fear what God might expect of us — some great trial, some difficult deed — or we fear that we will be asked to give up what is most precious to us — a loved one, … Continue reading Fear of God
God is dead: thank God
I feel the need to have a rant (not a feeling I am unaccustomed to). This may be the first of many. <rant> Today on Start the Week on Radio 4, Grayson Perry and Jonathon Green were banging on about being ("fundamentalist" in Perry's words) atheists. Their images of God are so outmoded and childish: … Continue reading God is dead: thank God
Reconciling different apprehensions of God
How can I reconcile: The God who seems to be so personal, personally loving and present; who is there when I "lift up my heart to the Lord with a gentle stirring of love, desiring him for his own sake and not for his gifts;" the God without whom life is desperate, depressing and meaningless?God, … Continue reading Reconciling different apprehensions of God
On God’s point of view
We often reduce the scope of God's concern to the scope of our own concerns. We are confused when we get ill and are not healed. We are outraged when a natural disaster – a so-called Act of God – is not averted. We commit acts of war or terror believing that God has commissioned … Continue reading On God’s point of view