Category: Consciousness
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172 The Call of the Owl
I was tired and went to bed early last night. I woke at two and went to the bathroom and then downstairs to make a cup of tea that I brought back to bed. When I had finished drinking I turned out the light preparing to go to sleep when I heard the call of…
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171 What is before Birth and after Death?
My personal experience Many years ago at a time of personal crisis, I woke from sleep one night, and I’m sure that I stayed on the bed, but it felt as if I was held above the bed, and as sure as day, God spoke to me. I don’t imagine that anyone else awake in…
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170 Elif Shafak ‘On the deep human need for a homeland’
In Sunday’s “Observer” there was an article by Elif Shafak: ‘We are not rootless. We are each others roots.’ The novelist on the deep human need for a homeland and how storytelling can help to unite people in an age of displacement.’ It caught my eye because I’m a fan of her novels, but also…
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169 Loneliness
I’m a big fan of the American novelist Elizabeth Strout, and her latest book ‘The Things we never say’ does not disappoint. Before the story begins there is a quotation from Jung: “Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself,…
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166 Nourish your soul
The likelihood of life on this tiny insignificant little planet is remote, human life even more so, and yet here I am. My life came as a gift to my parents They were involved in that happening, but not in control of it. They might have intended it, or not They might have hoped for…
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160. Let your soul be your pilot
Insight came strangely out of what at first seemed unconnected things. In my recent blog ‘158 Rhosilli Bay’ I found myself mulling on how I can stay rooted in what has already been revealed to me by God in my world, while being open to the Great Mystery of the God of a multitude of…
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159 “An Immense World”
The mystery about all these other worlds is even bigger, and its right under our noses. Read this long quotation from ‘An Immense World’ by Ed Yong. “Imagine an elephant in a room. This elephant is not the proverbial weighty issue but an actual weighty mammal. Imagine the room is spacious enough to accommodate it;…
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157 Who does God know?
I recently wrote a blog entitled ‘An Awesome Fact’ in which I reflected on a wonderful poem by the Polish writer Wislawa Szymborska, in which she draws our attention to how utterly unique we each are at birth. More recently I bought a birthday card for a friend who was celebrating his 70th birthday. It…
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152. In the beginning
My 80th birthday in April has turned out to be a more significant milestone than I had expected. In March a series of synchronistic events led me to find and re-read my Priest’s Exam papers of July 1971. In Southwark Diocese you had to sit this in the summer after you’d been ordained Deacon, and…
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150. An Awesome Fact
I recently visited Krakow in Poland with my daughter Hannah, as part of the celebrations of my 80th birthday. Her Polish friend Joanna had recommended Krakow, and so I asked Hannah if her friend might suggest a book or two that would give me a feel for Polish culture before we went there. She suggested…
