Where faith does have an impact for me is in the mental health that results from its vision of ultimate reality – the broad-shouldered realisation that becoming like children, as Christ commanded, is not to make us immature, but to encourage us to see life as a playground with so many swings and roundabouts, and buttered scones at home at the end of the day. If I walk onto the stage with concerns about wrong notes, critics, applause, fame … I will not play as well as I can. Of course I could always believe that I myself am God, but I fear that deity would be far too exacting and narrow! People regularly report an increase in physical and mental energy when they start to pray or meditate, forming in us an inner silence that is an essential part of concentration. To be able to hear each note, each bar, each phrase, both individually and as a related whole, requires an ability to see and to hold many parts in unity – a key to any life of contemplation. Avoiding distractions, creating new and better material out of mistakes, balancing self-demand and self-esteem, are all qualities that unite a musical and spiritual life. The hidden, daily annoyances of cancelled flights, noisy hotels, bad food and inferior pianos are a constant ascetical challenge. The patience required in the course of a tour to meet, with kindness and attention, hundreds of new people backstage or at receptions is a real call to holiness – much like a priest at the door of his church who tries to greet each person as if they were the most important in the world … at least for those few seconds.
It was nice, when I was setting the words ‘dona nobis pacem’, to know that they were a prayer, and that the ‘nobis’ included my friends and those thousands of people in the course of a year for whom I play. But don’t blame God if the music I wrote for those words does not sound inspired.
Could God exist?
Some Christians kind of wish God didn’t exist, or at least the kind of God who prohibits doing those things we most want to do. And some non-believers might wish that they could believe in something, that there was some benevolent purpose behind the seeming absurdity of it all.
I don’t have any reasons that could actually convince anyone (even myself) of the existence of God. If faith is not the opposite of doubt but of certainty, then reasons for that faith might be called ‘reasons not to be sure’. A few pointers help me to think about the issue, starting with not asking, ‘Does God exist?’, but whether there is a possibility of that existence.
One of the reasons atheism falls short for me is in its lack of someone/something to thank for those moments of ecstasy we experience in life, those gifts that have no human source. I wrote earlier in this book about applause and how it was more a necessary release for those in the audience than an appreciative token for those onstage. Gratefulness is like a silent, interior ovation, an overflow in the presence of unspeakable blessings; and, for me, that release is more natural, more cathartic, when there’s Someone to thank.
Everything in life is a gift. And, beyond that, all things receive existence, in an unbroken chain back to grand zero. Nothing (no thing) just appears out of the blue. I therefore find it a small step from that axiom to the likelihood that some Power had to strike the first match at some beginning of the beginning; and not just a Big Bang of random energy producing random results, but something focused and ultimately ‘sense-able’. We can know things … and in a universe without design we couldn’t. You know that the book or screen you hold in your hand right now will not turn into a dodo because you know dodos are extinct … oh, and ‘things’ don’t behave like that anyway. We call it science (scientia means ‘knowledge’ in Latin) because its constant search for new knowledge is based on the foundational fact that there is such a thing as ‘knowledge’ in the first place.
The priest and broadcaster Father Cormac Rigby’s suggested definition of faith was ‘being open to the possibility that God might exist’, an open door for an open mind. It’s a neat way of admitting that there’s no way of forcing belief on someone, as well as gently reminding God that the gift of faith is promised freely to all.
‘Could God exist?’ A hymn from the ninth century puts it well: Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est (‘Where there is charity and love, there is God’).
I think that’s an existence (of God, and for me) that’s worth living.
What if God doesn’t exist?
I was on my way to try out pianos for a Royal Festival Hall recital a few years ago when I saw a poster on the side of a bus: ‘There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and get on with your life.’ Then, two minutes later, I saw another one. I felt exhilarated. My mind had been preoccupied precisely with my life, how to ‘get on with it’, how to play my recital the following afternoon without worrying about nerves, the voicing of the piano, whether my suit was pressed – all the material things that swim around us and in which we swim. And then, on the side of a bus, I was reminded of God. I stopped worrying and enjoyed … well, at least the rest of that afternoon.
Much was written at the time about this poster campaign, but I liked it because it was so absolutely British – an inverted and eccentric version of the ‘Prepare to meet thy God’ sandwich boards held up by the bewhiskered Victorian gentlemen of the Temperance Society. Its real aim was surely to annoy rather than to convert, but that’s true of much Christian preaching too. At least it’s a blast of fresh air in a stale debate, even if I know very few ‘moderns’ who actually do allow God to interfere with their enjoyment of life.
I’m not sure I would like a world without atheists – and I don’t mean that ironically. There are too many moments in history when freethinkers and ‘heretics’ were ahead of the game in their understanding of, and heroic championing of, human rights. This is still true today, and a world peopled by only ‘Christians’ would probably force me to become the first atheist. But I do have two problems. First, the concept of negativity in the word ‘atheism’. You can’t call a negative a thing, because it’s a ‘no-thing’; and ‘humanism’, which is the best attempt to label it some-thing, seems small to me: a pinprick of a species on a pinprick of a planet in a pinprick of a galaxy. Alone again, naturally. We are left with, well … me. Or, even worse, with the faceless inhumanity of matter – so big it doesn’t really matter. So nothing matters. I’m in my little shell with my semiquavers (shaken not slurred). I can try to ‘stop worrying and enjoy my life’, while it lasts, but haven’t we all found that it’s when we try to make other people’s lives more enjoyable that their happiness splashes back onto us? Unplanned. Unexpected. It’s a lesson I first learned from religion.
My second problem is that attacks on belief are usually reduced to pointing out the perceived stupidity of the believer. My maths results at school were so poor that I am reconciled for ever to a low assessment of my intelligence, but I have met too many people (and read, and played the music of, and looked at the art of too many people) who had religious faith and were simply not unintelligent. I might disagree with their views, but a scattergun aim at their IQ is a waste of bullets. Religion has caused more violence and suffering in the history of the world than anything else … except love and human relationships. There has been more bigotry and intolerance in religious societies than anywhere else … except in those societies where the experiment to outlaw religion has been applied.
Karl Marx famously opined that ‘religion is the opium of the people’. Such a quality is not a good thing – although sometimes it might not be such a bad thing either. If an elderly woman is lying in hospital, incurably ill, with no visitors, wouldn’t it be crass and heartless to wrench the rosary or Bible out of her hands? In the final reflection of the previous section I discussed something similar in the example of Ernie Levey. We give anti-depressants to people – why not give God, if it works? Studies do seem to suggest that people with religious beliefs live longer, healthier lives, and what do we have, in certain desperate situations, to take God’s place?
Some atheists found the word ‘probably’ in the poster to be a cop-out, but in fact it’s a wager – like Pascal’s infamous one
. It says, ‘If you put a bet on God not existing you’ll probably walk away a winner.’ Pascal had the reverse point: ‘If there’s a chance God exists, you have everything to gain by believing in Him and everything to lose by not.’ Both are games, of course, and Pascal’s veiled threat seems rather narrow and petty to me. But what if the thought of God’s existence or God’s presence actually helps us stop worrying, lightens our heart, makes getting on with our lives that bit more joyful, more fulfilling – both for us, and for our neighbours?
Religion’s moth-eaten tapestry
So ‘religion is the opium of the people’. Alain de Botton, instead of using this idea as a stick to beat believers, requests instead that the smouldering pipe be passed along to him for a puff.
His much discussed book Religion for Atheists has been credited for initiating a new era of ‘soft atheism’ – or humanism with a human face. One critic suggested it was more like pastoral care for the unbeliever than aggressive evangelism from a secular viewpoint. Ironically I think that the book might end up being more of an encouragement to believers to value their heritage than it will convince non-believers to change their attitudes.
Here are words from de Botton’s website describing the book:
Religion for Atheists suggests that rather than mocking religions, agnostics and atheists should instead steal from them – because they’re packed with good ideas on how we might live and arrange our societies.
Among the ideas for which he wants to be a magpie are how to:
build a sense of community
make our relationships last
overcome feelings of envy and inadequacy
escape the twenty-four-hour media
go travelling
get more out of art, architecture and music
create new businesses designed to address our emotional needs
Christian critics raised the importance of the centrality of truth in any assessment of the value of religion, but there are some other aspects to this issue that have not, as far as I know, been fully explored in the context of de Botton’s book and its ideas.
Although some Christians might be reluctant to admit it, ‘faith’ in God is not the only fuel propelling the religious experience. Guilt and fear have also been powerful incentives to those energetic believers who built schools and hospitals, went on missionary journeys, who attend weekly church services or provide heroic charitable support. One of the anxieties expressed in Counter-Reformation theology was that if ‘faith alone’ is all we need, then how can we make people behave well? ‘Faith without works is dead,’ said the Apostle James in the New Testament (James 2:26) … but not just works. Obligation under pain of sin has been an incentive ensuring strong attendance numbers at Catholic Masses through the centuries, and many a priestly or religious vocation has been kept in the air on wings of guilt as well as love – not to mention fidelity in matrimony.
I’m not sure that truth alone is enough to keep believers believing and dealing well with these issues (community, relationships, feelings, etc.); perhaps there needs to be the counter-melody of guilt and fear too. The tapestry of religious belief and practice is often knotted, tangled and moth-eaten, and nothing is so suspicious in religion as neatness and order. One of Catholicism’s strengths (shared with Judaism) has been its awareness and acceptance of this and its admission that mixed motives are an unavoidable and natural part of being authentically human. The Church is not a perfect community of saints but rather a dragnet with good and bad fish all mixed up together (Matthew 13:47) – a different kind of ‘truth’, difficult sometimes to welcome, but ultimately humbling in the best, most healthy way.
To return to opium, if atheism’s claim that nothing to nothing is the universe’s non-plan, then nothing really matters that much in the end – including my smoking of the pipe of delusion and escapism. If I were languishing in solitary confinement until death in a prison cell (whether falsely or justly convicted), atheism would provide me with no reason to live, whereas faith and contemplation could actually bring me unspeakable joy, even in those most desperate circumstances.
Summarising his thoughts, de Botton asks, ‘Even if religion isn’t true, can’t we enjoy the best bits?’ What I’ve discovered over the years is that the very best bit of all is the possibility that it might actually be true – or at least the One whom ‘religion’ so awkwardly, inadequately tries to represent.
Do not touch me: the wisdom of Anglican thresholds
Occasionally I like to attend Choral Evensong, the Church of England’s evening service, adapted after the Reformation from the monastic hour of Vespers. It is a wondrous phenomenon. Even the word ‘Evensong’ is poetic, and it seems to chime in perfect harmony with England’s seasons: autumn’s melancholy, early-evening light; the merry crackle of winter frost; spring’s awakening, or the lazy, protracted sun strained through the warmed windows of a summer afternoon.
Evensong hangs on the wall of English life like an old, familiar cloak passed through the generations. Rich with prayer and Scripture, it is nevertheless totally non-threatening. It is a service into which all can stumble without censure – a rambling old house where everyone can find some corner to sit and think, to listen with half-attention, trailing a few absent-minded fingers of faith or doubt in its passing stream.
Most religious celebrations gather us around a table of some sort. They hand us a book, or a piece of bread, or speak a word demanding a response. They want to ‘touch’ us. Choral Evensong is a liturgical expression of Christ’s Noli me tangere – ‘Do not touch me. I have not yet ascended to my Father’ (John 20:17). It reminds us that thresholds can be powerful places of contemplation, and that leaving someone alone with their thoughts is not always denying them hospitality or welcome. Furthermore, the singing from the choir involves us yet leaves us free; we don’t have to enter into it if the music has entered into us. The connection is made. It needs no name. We are known. We are accepted.
Heaven’s above
I spend a lot of time on planes. I dislike almost everything about the experience – the enclosed space inside, the vast space outside, the stale air, the inhuman velocity – but I often pray best when hurtling along at 500 miles an hour. With the annoyances of security queues, late departures, lost luggage, rude flight attendants, cramped seats, the inability to sleep, and warm, plastic food, who needs a hairshirt or an all-night vigil?
Once a plane has taken off into the skies we are utterly helpless. It is one of the rare occasions in life (unless we are incarcerated or incapacitated) when we have no control over our physical circumstances. It is a material acting out of the spiritual state of abandonment – putting everything into the hands of God. We can press the button to summon an attendant, but to reach God we do not even need that. An interior glance and we are in touch with the Pilot who is steering everything in calmest skies. When the journey is smooth, and clouds below look like so many playgrounds of fluff, I can feel a childlike gratitude for the simple gift of being alive. In turbulent weather I recall the Gospel passage of Christ in the boat on the Sea of Galilee, asleep on a cushion in the midst of a storm of such severity that all were in danger of sinking (Matthew 8:24).
I often find myself thinking more acutely of the bigger issues in seat 13C. From Mars, Bach would probably still seem of interest, but outside of the Milky Way even he would be an insignificant speck, his sounds over in under a second, his complete works less than one dot of dust. This is good to contemplate, because all life is either worthless or of infinite value. To think that this particular person’s life is not worth living is to fail to see the ultimate insignificance of all existence. Unless we are clinically depressed or natural nihilists, such thoughts should make us value every minute we have. Things do matter – and none more than human life itself, from cradle to grave. The tenderness and vulnerability there in all the greatest art is from the same root as the fragility of one who cannot lift an arm, or a heart.
G. K. Chesterton discovered that
thinking of the smallness of humanity, paradoxically, made him feel more at home in the world. We didn’t choose to be here and then find that our choice was well or ill advised; we found ourselves here, not against our will, but beyond our will. By our own fireplaces we become larger than life. It is wonderful to smell toast or chestnuts on the edge of burning; it is wonderful to see and hear logs splitting into glowing, red shards. I know that the smallest nut or bolt in the plane on which I’m flying tomorrow has its place of importance in whether we stay up in the air or not. And the smallest nuance or rhythmic adjustment in the piece I’m playing tomorrow (micro-seconds, micro-decibels) can turn a good performance into a great one.
But I’m sometimes still fearful and doubting as the plane’s wheels leave the ground. Like the disciples in that Gospel story I rush to wake up the slumbering Christ and, again, hear the gentle rebuke: ‘Why are you afraid?’ Yet it is this very sense of our weakness that enables us to begin our spiritual journey. And we are beginners every day of our lives. To be ‘born again’ is the rising from sleep at the start of each day, and the constant awakening from every stolen nap along the way: prayer, the cup of tea we share with God as we recover the energy to take off again.
Rough Ideas Page 34
