Credo 2

The most-read post in this history of this little blog was this one. Written almost twenty years ago, it began with the words 

I regret that I have no religious faith.

To my surprise that regret has gone. Not because I have resigned myself, but because I am, once more, a Christian. Hence, this post is entitled “Credo 2”. 

When the late Mrs P. became a Roman Catholic, her church tried for a little while to make it a “twofer”. I had various contacts with priests and took a course in Catholicism at my local church. Not because I planned to join, but because I wanted to understand what the late Mrs P had done. This, after one of my daughters said she no longer knew what her mother would have thought about her life because: 

I knew mum well, but I don’t know Catholic mum at all.

I thought the course might help me tell my daughters what “Catholic Mum” would have thought at critical points in their lives. It was interesting and the other participants were lovely – an advertisement for their church by their personalities and behaviour –  but didn’t draw me in at all. I kept my initial promise not to evangelise for atheism, but to listen quietly. I only lost control of my tongue once, when the priest told us that God is so merciful that;

While we are certain there is a Hell, it is perfectly possible that it’s empty.

At which, I blurted out;

What?! Not even Stalin made it?!”

I won’t be a fire and brimstone Christian. I sincerely hope that everyone makes it to Heaven, but one of the attractions of religious faith is surely the hope of justice? Stalin’s life was a complete success from his point of view. He died of natural causes without ever facing (thanks to his ferocious handling of potential enemies) even the fear of retribution. It’s hard to imagine him rubbing shoulders in Heaven with the souls of his victims.

The other participants were nice Catholic ladies of a certain age. They empathised with my grief in widowerhood. I became a distraction, not because I was in any way disrupting the course, but because – once they got to know me – they spent a lot of time trying to bend their theology to get me into Heaven. When we parted, they promised to pray for me. Who knows? Perhaps their prayers were heard?

That said, I am not (yet) becoming a Catholic though the last contact I had with that church was – I think – the catalyst for what has now happened. Some 14 years ago, my Catholic friend the Navigator proposed a weekend outing to Oxford. The plan was to have a meal and a drink at the Eagle & Child pub there, where Tolkien and CS Lewis (who called it “The Bird and Baby”) had read the manuscripts of the Lord of the Rings and the Narnia books to each other over pipes and pints. 

On the way there, he’d asked me to turn into the driveway of an old house on the river as there was someone he wanted me to meet. The someone was Father Andrew of Opus Dei. I sighed but went along with it. Father Andrew was – as has been every priest I’ve met in the wake of the late Mrs P’s conversion – intelligent, articulate and thoughtful. At the end of our conversation, I’d said essentially what I said in that long-ago blog post. I knew I owed the civilisation I lived in to Christianity. I could see how it was deteriorating as faith died. For myself I’d love to believe again as I had as a child, but I just couldn’t get past the idea of faith – of belief without evidence.

He said to stop trying. He said (paraphrasing from memory after a very long time);

Get in the water and paddle about. Don’t worry about evidence, just pray.

On the basis of Pascal’s Wager, I took that advice. For years I have been (and only my Catholic friend knew this) a “praying atheist”. I have found it a useful exercise. I don’t know what, if anything, my prayers meant to God. I do know that they changed me. 

You may say, gentle reader, that daily meditation might have done as much. That taking time out to focus on the truly important is good for mental health. You may think, and you might be right, that I have self-administered a form of therapy. Perhaps. I don’t know. I can only say that it didn’t feel that way. 

For ten years, I noticed no effect at all. In the past few years, I began to see that the nature of my prayer was changing. I had begun in full Stephen-Fry-meeting-God mode. He famously said once that, if he was wrong in his atheism, and eventually met God, he would have a lot of issues to raise with Him. My prayers consisted largely of an (on reflection) incredibly-arrogant critique of how God “If You Exist” was doing His job. 

Apart from the obvious points made by atheists about injustice, poverty, war, childhood cancers etc., I had very specific criticisms to offer. Why was I held to the test of faith, for example, when it seemed He was quite happy to call young Spanish and French virgins to sainthood by having the Virgin Mary appear to them in person? 

After a decade of this narcissistic nonsense, I began to pray thankfully. My life, by comparison with most humans alive today – and still more with most humans who have ever lived – is what the woke call “privileged”. I was given gifts of skill and intellect that allowed me a rewarding and entertaining career. I have seen more of the world than all the members of my family in history combined. I had a loving upbringing to begin with, I had my health (despite taking no care of myself). I have been loved by fine people, I have splendid friends and above all I have my daughters.

In short, I had many reasons to be thankful and no-one to thank. I found myself – while still not believing in His existence – thanking God. Again, you may just say I’d self-therapised myself out of depression and was seeing the bright side of life. Again, I’d just say you might be right but that’s not how it felt to me. 

A few short weeks ago, to my entire surprise, I began to pray as usual and found that by the time I said “Amen” something in me had changed. What my Catholic friend called “The God-shaped hole in my life” was filled and a huge burden lifted from my shoulders. Please don’t get me wrong, I have heard no voice from Heaven. Nothing has been “said” to me in words. I simply feel different and better. 

This world is no closer to how I’d like it to be but somehow it’s a relief to feel that Someone somewhere has a plan I just can’t grasp. I no longer have to feel responsible for everything that’s wrong.

I have been breaking the news slowly to the people I care about. I still haven’t told my daughters and must give some thought to that. 

My most atheist friend, after his initial shock, made the thoughtfully kind point that – if I don’t join a specific church – I will miss out on the benefit of fellowship, which in my lonely widowerhood might be a great advantage. I shall take my time over that. The Catholics began this process and I am grateful. There is much about their church that is appealing, but – unlike my late wife – I am still more Armani than Versace. The gilded glamour of Catholicism and its graven images is all a bit off-putting. As, more importantly, is the interposition of the priesthood between God and people.

I have been given only feelings. I’ve received no words of advice. I know nothing that suggests God has any positive feelings about any one Christian church over another. It would feel very odd to visit all the Christian churches around me, comparison shopping, as if I were putting my soul out to tender.

It’s just too soon, I think. It’s taken almost fifteen years for the seed planted in Oxford to take root. It may take a while longer to see precisely which tree is growing. I can only say for now that I am happy to be of the same faith as my ancestors; the faith that made our civilisation what it is. The faith that spoke to – and in their books through – Tolkien and CS Lewis.

I don’t know where I go from here, to be honest. But a turmoil in me that I have lived with for decades has stilled. I am no longer afraid and for that I am thankful. If you are that way inclined, gentle reader, please pray for guidance for me. If my news has disappointed you, I am sorry and will pray for you.