Articles

The week of 16 May 2011 was a special one for me. Not because we inducted a new vicar in our church. That was of course special, too, as we welcomed our bishop and together lived through the solemnity of that Church of England ceremony. But that week was specially memorable to me because of the courage and perspective and grace of the head of the Church of England, our 85-year-old Queen.

I have only recently been introduced to the work of Karen Armstrong who is widely regarded as one of the best living writers on religion. Karen spent seven years as a Roman Catholic nun and then left her teaching order to study at Oxford, becoming afterwards a full time writer, authoring 16 books. She is the inspiration behind a Charter of Compassion which is gaining support around the world. 'I am a religious historian,' she says, 'and it is my study of the spiritualities of the past that has taught me all I know about compassion.'

TPM, The Philosophers' Magazine, is publishing a list of the top 50 ideas of the 21st Century submitted by leading thinkers. One on the list is Forgiveness, put forward by the writer Alexander McCall Smith who before becoming an international best-selling author was professor of medical law at the university of Edinburgh. He says that it is an idea that has come alive in the first decade of the century.

Out of the troubles in Northern Ireland have come stories of tragedy and of triumph, stories that appal and stories that inspire. The world was stirred by Gordon Wilson’s words after his daughter was killed in the horrific bombing in Enniskillen on Remembrance Day in 1987. ‘I bear no ill will,’ he said. It was an act that stirred deeper emotions than hate and revenge. Now as Catholics and Protestants learn to put the past behind them another story is emerging that deserves wider recognition.

Next month marks the centenary of the birth (20 December) of a man to whom I owe much of my journalism and my faith. He was to me the living example of the power of God to transform even the most unlikely person. He was an inspiration to thousands of young people, particularly in the United States.

It is not often that prime ministers or former prime ministers or coup leaders ask for forgiveness for their actions. Though their opponents may often call on them to apologize.

Frank Buchman believed that peace depended on new motives in people, that hatreds needed to be answered as he had found them answered in his own life.

It was one of the saddest phrases I have heard in a long time. A new woman has just moved into our street. We welcomed her with coffee parties and introductions to local groups and the like. The neighbor on one side was very friendly. The newcomer approached the woman on the other side. She was rebuffed with the words, ‘I don’t do neighbors.’

My writing has a strong Indian genesis.

A jumbo-jet developed serious engine trouble in mid-Atlantic. The pilot broke the news to the passengers and asked their permission to open the hold and dump all their baggage in the ocean. “Yes, yes, yes,” they all cried. It was done.