This books subtitle - Looking For Life's Meaning, gives you a better feeling for the flavour and colour of Richard Holloway's ruminations in this book. Holloway, was a one time Bishop, now reticent agnostic and free thinker on the big issues perplexing us now. This book touches on the many forms of belief, whether secular or religious. Like many other books of his I've read, it's refreshingly free of dogma and formulaic theology. He is quite happy to think outside of his own boxes, and tease out the telling details.
'I am intrigued by the similarities between confident theists and equally confident atheists, and their psychological interchangeability. I belong to neither camp, but my agnosticism is not a weak, vacillating neutrality, it is the commitment to staying in a place of passionate and curious uncertainty.' From the essay - Has Faith a Future?
This book is a collection of short essays that explore a very wide range of issues, from the opening article on The Absence of God to the concluding one on the need to finish anything we do by Thanking. He ponders the troubles and the benefits of secular beliefs, of scientific and religious certainties, how can we forgive?, the need for an improvisational ethics. Each is interspersed with a beautiful and apt array of his favourite poetry. It includes essays on Auden, the contradictions and enigma of Alan Watts, and the effect of listening to Messian. Through these essays we get a real invigorating sense of following his constantly searching mind, and admire his finely turned phrasing.
'Art, music, poetry, are all priestly in their ministry, because they unite us with transcendence and place us in its midst, rather than talk about it, talk unceasingly and ineffectively about it, which is what the Church usually does. From the essay - This Is It.
As an agnostic Anglican, these essays all touch at some point on Holloway's life distinguishing act of leaving high office and its formal religious affiliations, to be able to explore and to think for himself, free of theological constraints. He nonetheless calls upon the breadth and depth of his own understanding of the Bible, Christian practice and history.
'You don't resolve paradoxes; you live them' From the essay - This Is It
I first encountered Richard Holloway's writing in the aftermath of my own leaving of a Buddhist institution several years ago. I was then experiencing the same sense of dislocation from a familiar structure, the sense of being alone, but also the huge relief and liberation. Even though his exiting preceded mine by over twenty years. Because he'd been living outside of Christian institutions for much longer, his experience and example were really helpful in reassuring me, as I settled into my more open exploratory approach to practice and my own beliefs.
'Faith can have a future, as long as we let it be Faith and not claim it as certainty. It's a bet, a gamble, but with a difference. Blaise Pascal said it was a bet in which, if we win, we win everything, and if we lose, we lose nothing.' From the essay - Has Faith A Future?
On Reflection, is an thoroughly enjoyable ramble through his very particular mind and approach. It reminds me of how much I continue to respect his careful thought processes and the refined humor in his way of expressing himself. I envy the skillful way he navigates with such ease through the often complex and subtle nuances of human life, and our search for meaning through it. Anyone, whatever the religious tradition or affiliation or none, will find something to challenge and stimulate further thought and personal reflection here.
'Religion is as human as politics and every bit as fallible and volatile. Let us value it as a story we have told ourselves to help us live well and more kindly, and stop using it as an excuse for hammering people who differ from us in the way they choose to live the brief life they have been given. and brief it is, too brief to waste bashing others. Take a walk instead.'
CARROT REVIEW - 6/8
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