The bell

I've started reading The bell by Iris Murdoch. I admit I haven't yet got very far but already I am impressed by the telling detail of her description of unbelieving Dora returning, after a period of separation, to her alienated husband Paul who is now part of an Anglican lay community. His life is conditioned by the community. Hers by her shallowness of character and previous dispensing with religion. And yet of the two she is the more likely to give time to stand and stare...

What is this life if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs

And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,

Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,

Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,

And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can

Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

William Henry Davies

I do allow myself a little time to stand and stare, well at least to run barefoot and stare. I try to get out four times a week although two of those are early morning when I am only half awake. These are good times for private prayer, and for dusting cobwebs from the mind and I like to think they also keep me fitter than I would otherwise be given my office job. The other great escape is my bed: how I love that feeling of laying my head on my pillow, relaxing every muscle and at last surrendering myself to sleep. Oh, and breakfast. Because I generally retire at a sensible time I also start the day earlier than most others here. This means I can take my breakfast in solitude, a practise that I firmly recommend.

But at other times I too, like Paul, am conditioned and imprisoned by my supposed beliefs. I say "supposed" because so much I find myself wrestling on the horns of the dilemma: is what we say we believe true or are we Christians fools?

I'm rather of the opinion that the truth is somewhere else. I am reminded of

But amidst all these rejoicings Aslan himself quietly slipped away. And when the Kings and Queens noticed that he wasn't there they said nothing about it. For Mr Beaver had warned them, "He'll be coming and going," he had said. "One day you'll see him and another you won't. He doesn't like being tied down and of course he has other countries to attend to. It's quite all right. He'll often drop in. Only you mustn't press him. He's wild,' you know. Not like a tame lion."  Lewis

When I was younger I had a problem with Lewis' theology as expressed here. We evangelicals are taught that God is omnipresent. But I find it to be true in my life that it at least seems like He comes and goes. And my fervour or lack of it doesn't appear to make any difference, again contrary to what we are taught. I don't want to exchange standing and staring at the beauty of this year's daffodils (my fav flower) for busyness and religious activity.

Then I wonder how I can have the gall to even contemplate such agnosticism when at the same time we are warned that over a million children might starve to death in Africa this year, and hear of atrocities in Syria, inhumanity in N. Korea, and so the list goes on. Not that either my being busy or standing and staring has yet, I regret, made any difference to the third world.