"God-awful"

My ears pricked when I heard this word escape the lips of Adam Rutherford this afternoon: he uttered it in the course of a lecture defending the theory of evolution. It served as a timely reminder for me of my core belief: that God exists, and the more I heard about synthetic biology and energetic disequilibrium, the more sure I became of it.

Our lecturer, aptly-named for a talk on the origins of life, has little time for Craig Venter's Synthia. There was an embarrassing moment at the end, when Adam asked a member of the audience whether he was Craig Venter. "No," came the response. (Perhaps he was a clone.)

Oh, and my claim to fame is that I volunteered to sing (on one note) - becoming part of "the world's first human repressilator circuit." After which I paid a quick visit to Cheltenham's Food and Drink Festival: give me a chocolate heart instead of primeval soup any day.

Cycle 2

Crossing the Trent on Sustrans' National Route 647, along the old railway track, we approached Lincoln without hassle. Only in the immediate town centre does it get at all hairy; and then there's the hill up to the Castle and Cathedral. Happily, we were able to leave the bikes in a friend's back yard, which freed us to explore the historic parts without worry.

We benefitted from two tip-offs. First, the magnificent Wren Library: it would have been easy to miss the stairs up to this when exploring Lincoln's astonishing Cathedral; and secondly the Usher Gallery. This two-site complex was well worth the trouble of a visit, and not just for the excellent view of the Cathedral above from the more modern building.

The Radev Collection was showing: it had been kept together by picture framer, Mattei Radev, a peasant refugee from Bulgaria. Via an extraordinary transformation he became part of the post-War male salon of Eddy Sackville-West and Eardley Knollys. Radev inherited more than 100 sculptures and paintings by 65 artists, a marvellously eclectic assemblage of mainly 20th Century works, only on show to the public since October last.

On the Cathedral front, being used to Gloucester, we found the architectural contrast remarkable. (Caroline prefers Gloucester!) Our welcome in Lincoln today was warm, helpful and well-organised, both at the main entrance and in the Library. The guide in the latter was at pains to stress the glory of God as the motivating factor. God is surely the original elephant in the room - he barely got a mention from our Cathedral floor guide.

Paranormal

I dreamt I had an interview with God. 'So you would like to interview me?' God asked. 'If you have the time', I said. 'My time is eternity. What questions do you have in mind for me?' 'What surprises you about humankind?'

'That they get bored with childhood, they rush to grow up, and then long to be children again. That they lose their health to make money, and then lose their money to restore their health. That by thinking anxiously about the future, they forget about the present, such that they live in neither the present nor the future. That they live as if they will never die, and die as though they had never lived.'

God's hand took mine and we were silent for a while. And then I asked, 'As a parent, what are some of life's lessons you would like your children to learn?'

'That they can't make anyone love them: all they can do is let themselves be loved. To learn that it is not good to compare themselves to others. To learn to forgive by practicing forgiveness. To learn that it only takes a few seconds to open profound wounds in those they love, and it can take many years to heal them. To learn that a rich person is not one who has the most, but one who needs the least. To learn that there are people who love them dearly, but simply have not yet learned how to express or show their feelings. To learn that two people can look at the same thing and see it differently. To learn that it is not enough that they forgive one another, but they must also forgive themselves.'

'Is there anything else you would like your children to know?' God smiled. 'Just that I am here...always.'

From the magazine of a parish situated in the path of the proposed Heathrow Third Runway.