Last week I travelled to Manchester to spend a few days with my sister. (It’s when I managed to upload Alicia’s photographs. I don‘t think the lap top I work with at home can manage it!)
Anyway, arriving at the airport I was faced with three possible ways of getting into the city centre. By rail, bus, or taxi. Because I was in no hurry I decided to take the bus, not realising that it was a public service bus and would be stopping at every bus stop to let passengers on and off. In the event the journey took much longer than I thought it would, but at least it gave me some time for thought…. and not a few tears when I realised it was going along the road in the Fallowfield district where Alicia was living when I first saw her!!
Perhaps it was that which cast me into such a reflective frame of mind.
The point is that as you drive into Manchester from the airport you pass through a variety of areas inhabited in the main by ethnic communities; Chinese, Middle Eastern, African, each with their own distinctive cultures and,…yes,…. faiths. In each of these, as we passed through, the pavements were full of people going about their daily lives. Pushing prams, shopping, or just meeting and talking with friends. Singly, in couples, or in groups. Young and old, all in different costumes, of different colours, but all living out their lives as well as they could. Hundreds of them…. No. In the space of that one journey, thousands of them….Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, even those who would say they had no faith at all; and it occurred to me that each one of those individuals was a unique, unrepeatable life experience. In some ways all the same, but in so many other ways totally different to every other life being lived out around them.
And what’s more each of those lives was being lived because the Eternal Creator, ( whatever title you care to ascribe it, or however you care to comprehend it,) simply wished that life to be, and in so wishing, caused each one to exist.
Multiply that concept by the number of streets and towns that currently exist in this world, or have ever existed since the beginning of time… or will ever exist until time as we know it ceases to exist, and what you have is an uncountable number of unique, and varied lives willed to exist by the Creator.
As a Christian I choose to call that creator, God…. but then I asked myself a question.
Am I really to believe that having willed so many incredible, beautiful, and unrepeatable lives into existence the Eternal Creator is only really interested in those who conform to my narrow set of beliefs? That the only ones He is prepared to share His eternal happiness with are those who go to mass every Sunday, say the rosary and have reverence for the man in a white cap and cassock who lives in the Vatican.
Am I really supposed to believe that God is that narrow minded?
No I don’t believe that, any more than I believe Alicia isn’t enjoying the wonder and variety of heavenly ‘street life’ …. and waiting for me to enjoy it with her!
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