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Showing posts from 2010

One in Fifty Thousand

[Author's note:  One of the biggest questions facing believers is the problem of pain and suffering.  There are no easy glib answers to this question.  It is clear that on a planet of fixed size, if there is birth there has to be death to make room.  But what if all pain were removed and death was always painless?  I have tried to imagine what this would be like in the following story ..] One in fifty thousand is not much to worry about.  It is hardly worth concerning yourself when you go to sleep that one in fifty thousand will not wake up the next day, and you could be one of them.  One in fifty thousand will go to sleep, content and happy and painless, and will be carried off by the silent swathe that passes over the slumbering.  One in fifty-one thousand one hundred and thirty-five, to be precise, the statisticians have calculated.  It is so curious an exactitude that one may expect to live, on average for precisely threescore years and ten, just as it has been decreed in scri

Parable

Quakers believe that something of God may be found in every human being.  That thought prompted me to dream up this modern reworking of a very old joke. After a long, good, moral, and kind life, an atheist finally dies at a ripe old age.  Much to his surprise he discovers that there really is such a thing as God, and life after death, despite never having entertained such notions during his life.  Moreover, he discovers that God, whom he had previously been warned was a jealous and judgmental character, was in fact the source of the good that was in his life - and indeed he had lived a very good and noble life. So, as a result, completely unexpectedly, he finds himself admitted to Heaven.  It is a wonderful place: a massive party with tables laid out with delicious food that never seems to run out,  and plenty of drink which you can drink without ever getting too drunk.  Laughter and dancing abound all over the place. He takes a stroll around and comes across an immensely long wa

Our Labour Paused

Inspired by Carol Ann Duffy's new poem  Silver Lining  (hear the Poet Laureate read her poem  here ), I took some photographs, and wrote my own poem, which bears no small debt to "Silver Lining".  The weekend where the skies were so empty of planes felt like a pause at home; a pause that caused havoc for those stranded however, serving to remind us how dependent we are on a precious resource that is bound to run out eventually. Our Labour Paused Not in fifty springs May I see the cherry-blossom thus: Dancing against a plain and planeless blue, Endless shades of white undulating the petals, Stamens accosted by hoverings of wasps and bees; Nature reclaiming the skies and continuing to work. But this morning, deemed safe To receive our own outpourings Of earth's innards, The blue infinities, Criss-crossed with kids' crayons, Streaked with white fragments In straight lines, billowing to a dull blur, Witness: Lovers, reunited, Supermarkets, rest

Does Suffering have a meaning?

Coincident with my daughter doing an essay for her English Literature coursework on Beckett’s “Endgame” on the proposition whether tragedy creates a sense of meaning to suffering, I find myself also pondering this subject – a fitting one for a Good Friday, when we remember Christ’s suffering on the Cross.  Rather than consider academically whether the literary genre of tragedy can create a sense of meaning for suffering, I shall try and consider the broader question of whether suffering has a meaning at all, or is it the the inevitable consequence of a blind, pitilessly indifferent nature , as Richard Dawkins has argued in “River Out Of Eden”? Dawkins’s materialistic explanation has the merit that it is the easiest to understand.  If there is no God, then there isn’t the difficult part of explaining why such a God should allow suffering. And yet, we all somehow want to find meaning in suffering – and some better explanation for it than random chance.  I do not know why this should be,

Comment moderation enabled

I regret to announce that I have had to enable comment moderation on this blog.  This is because some moron is leaving comments in Japanese that contain embedded links to Japanese porn sites, disguised as a row of dots.  This has continued despite the fact I have enabled the "Captcha" technology, so the moron has to sit there and manually enter the Captcha code.  I apologise for the inconvenience to any regular readers who might wish to comment.

Wisdom, Knowledge, and Information

In watching the "Lewis" TV detective drama last night ("Lewis" is the follow on series from "Inspector Morse") I was struck by the misquoting of a T.S. Eliot poem.  The sergeant (who is the "intellectual one" of the pair of central characters) states "Where is the wisdom we have lost in information".  On being asked what that was from he said "T.S. Eliot" as I knew he would.  However I also knew that the quote was slightly incorrect.  Two lines have been telescoped into one by the scriptwriter.  The correct quote is: Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? I first encountered the second line during the literature review study for my PhD in Computer Science.  The quote was placed at the beginning of someone else's thesis that I included in the review.  The thesis in question was about techniques for visualising complex multi-dimensional datasets in order to sp

Right Hand Girl

"I'll be your right hand, Nicky." I am lost for words at her offer.  Some would say she's pretty if you like that sort of thing.  I will describe her she has ginger hair descending in ringlets elfin features sparkling light blue eyes and an impish smile but it's not her looks that have led me to confess all my shameful secrets to her not her looks at all but something in the way she listens and seems to understand and accept me for who I am; no matter what she is there and she's listening listening listening taking away all my shame and still seeing my inner human being and her demeanour says that what she sees is ok. She's given me a hand moving my stuff into my student room setting out all my photos posters books cups cutlery baseball caps videos beer bottles cider bottles wine glasses with that female flair that just always escapes me but which I recognize when I see it.  I show her my computer, its keyboard being my chief means of expression as my f

Lucky the Suffering Servant – thoughts on Waiting For Godot

On Friday I attended the West End production of Beckett’s “Waiting For Godot” at the theatre Royal Haymarket.  I had read the play in class at school, with little understanding, as one often does reading a play in school.  Then, on finding my daughter studying another Beckett play “Endgame” in her English Literature course, I was interested to revisit the play, which of course it is now possible to do via sites such as YouTube.  I remembered from school that one of the characters, Lucky, has only two lines in the play, of which the second is a tirade of 700+ words – which originally passed us by in class as the ravings of a madman. Seeing it performed live on stage makes a huge difference to comprehensibility (as it often does in Shakespeare compared to reading it in class).  The production, which featured Sir Ian McKellen in the part of Estragon was quite brilliant – indeed riveting from beginning to end.  I had not expected such a bleak play to be so funny, and I suspect in the prod

A damp trip!

This picture was taken from the HST between Didcot and Reading. Due to the snow we decided to take a combination of taxi and train to get my daughter back to Reading University. The taxi at the other end was unable to drop us at the hall of residence. We had one huge case on wheels that didn't wheel too well through the impacted snow. The train to return was cancelled and we had to get a slow service. Then on nearly freezing to death waiting for a bus to Didcot we succumbed to the temptation to get a taxi back home. A damp and hassle-bound trip. The only redeeming feature being the obtaining of this spectacular sky at 125 mph from the fast train. Below is a picture of St. Patrick's Hall, Reading in the snow.  It was a lot warmer inside than outside! From Jan2010

Peace that Sustains

I  have been attending Quaker meetings over the past few months.  Although I still also attend a lively evangelical church as well, I am drawn to silent contemplation as a way of worship, self-discovery and discovery of God.  Perhaps in modern churches there is insufficient time put aside for silence, or maybe that is simply an expression of my preference.  Many seem to find spiritual fulfillment in the popular style of worship, with modern choruses and modern instruments, clapping hands, or raising them in the air in affirmation and worship.  But for me, I have often found that it does not fulfil that feeling of "otherness" that one expects from the truly sacred. I have seen such things happening at rock concerts, for example. And while people can be transported to a different place at a rock concert, for me, I want the transport experienced in contemplating the sacred to be different again from the secular.  But that, of course, is my own preference - my own best method for