1 - 8 Nov 2009

I saw this quotation on someone's computer desktop last week:

“The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, not to worry about the future, nor to anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly.”

Siddhartha Gautama (about 563-483 BCE, founder of Buddhism and known as the Buddha meaning Enlightened One)

25 Oct - 1 Nov 2009

I have been reading about a thesis by anthropologist, René Girard, which is very appropriate having just seen Nick Griffin of the BNP on Question Time:

“We are living in troubled times and people have become bothered and bewildered. When people are bothered and bewildered, great caution is needed because our instinctive response is scapegoating and death-dealing.

“Scapegoating seems to make us feel better – but at immense cost. All of us look for someone to blame, blaming appears as natural as the air we breathe... Tragically, there is plenty of evidence in our recent history to support Girard’s analysis...: the treatment of Jews, gypsies and homosexuals in Nazi Germany, the Rwandan genocide in 1994 and the degrading of indigenous people, are scarcely sufficient examples. The challenge that faces pastoral care in dismal times is to help us become robust enough ... to be able to resist this age-old temptation to seek out someone to blame and the ensuing socially cathartic bloodlust.”

Ann Morisy (From “Bothered and Bewildered: Enacting Hope in Troubled Times”, Continuum, 2009).

18 - 25 Oct 2009

One of our chaplains who is on secondment from the Bolton Christian Community Cohesion Project offers this quotation for your thoughts:

“We can build a community out of seekers of truth but not out of possessors of truth.”

William Sloane Coffin, Jr (1924 – 2006; American clergyman and peace activist).

11 - 18 Oct 2009

We are approaching the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin’s ‘On the Origin of Species...’. Since 1859 Darwinism and neo-Darwinism have been used and misused, passionately attacked and supported, by people of very different ideologies and beliefs. It has been a major topic in the science and religion debate. Ironically, Darwin hated religious controversy and wrote in 1878:

“I hardly see how religion & science can be kept...distinct, but...there is no reason why the disciples of either school should attack each other with bitterness”

Reflecting on the Darwin celebrations, I came across this quotation which relates to an idea of a God creating through evolution. I apologise that it will only strike a chord (pun intended) with theists, some of whom will disagree strongly:

“God has no plan; he prefers to improvise.”

Graham Bell (1949-; Iona Community; from Radio 4’s Thought for the Day on 23/2/2006).