Royal address

‘Spirituality and the Earth Community: Responding to the Spiritual Challenges Facing People and Planet’. This was former Professor Ursula King’s theme for her Cheltenham lecture last evening. It deserved to be better attended. Possibly the title was what put people off, for after a somewhat analytical start, she took off in the latter part of her talk, and ended with several almost impassioned responses to audience questions. Not for a long time have I heard such a free thinker, open to so many differently stimulating channels of thought! “I was mighty impressed,” as a friend put it.

Amongst challenging questions Professor King herself raised were, “Are modern societies predominantly secular?” (Answer: “Pace Richard Dawkins, no.”) “Does spirituality only concern the needs of the individual?” (Answer: “Again, no.”) And, echoing Indira Gandhi at Stockholm almost 40 years ago, “Will the growing awareness of ‘one earth' and ‘one environment' guide us to the concept of ‘one humanity'?” (Answer: “We must sincerely hope so, notwithstanding the signal lack of progress to date!”) Finally, and she gave no answer to this, leaving us each to take up the quest for a response ourselves: “How do we live a good life?”

"Food for the soul"

Professor Gordon Lynch, of Birkbeck College, in his recent book, The New Spirituality: An introduction to progressive belief in the Twenty-First Century characterises “the new spirituality” as featuring the need for:
• A credible religion for a modern age;
• Religion which is truly liberating and beneficial for women;
• Connection between religion and scientific knowledge; and
• A spirituality that can respond to the impending ecological crisis.

Makes a change from recent writings about fundamentalism and the 'religious right'!

In an article with the above title in The Tablet of 26th April - I have been doing some catching up: oh! the joys of retirement! - the Abbot of Worth talks about our having to learn how to explain our faith in cultural terms that modern spiritual seekers - and there are very many of these who never attend any church - can understand. “This,” he says, “is dialogue and evangelisation, in which the Christian both learns and teaches at the same time… What the whole Church offers to spiritual seekers is beauty and peace. With great credibility we can offer the beauty of our worship and the peace that comes from living justly.”

The photograph? I took it in Minerve, in the Languedoc on 31st December 2000: "La Colombe de lumière" - Jean-Luc Severac's monument, carved in 1982, to the 140 Cathars, burnt at the stake there on 22nd July 1210 upon the orders of Simon de Montfort.