“I know humankind has wondered if it is alone for millenia, but isn’t it the greatest mystery? If we cannot answer why intelligent life is silent or non-existent, we cannot silence the superstition and anthropocentric view that has hampered progress for so very long.”
If we take the first homo sapiens as living in Morocco around 315,000 years ago, and define a generation as spanning 25 years, then our ancestors have been born, spawned and died about 12,600 times.
That’s a lot of lives culminating in us and a humbling and slightly vertiginous thought.
If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans
I’ve missed the opportunity to break a ride with a pint and a bag of crisps, the chance of finding a sticky carpet and indifferent landlord (never was an expensive date;)
Christ’s resurrection to life eternal is for many, a leap of faith too far, most notably the Jews with their harsh but straightforward Old Testament God.
This plague has been like a mini extinction event, a dark line drawn in the layers of history.
But that’s not to say there haven’t been some good bits.
What a strange twelve months it’s been. After a year of Covid I’ve just been notified of my vaccination appointment. Thankfully I don’t know anyone who’s had their ventilator switched off, only to die shortly afterwards under heavy sedation, isolated from loved ones. But many do.
If nothing else, Lockdown’s been a time to read and write, so I hope this short story inspired by the work of a good friend offers some alternative to the Book of Revelations we seem to be living through (13:0).
THE SHORTEST DAY by Susan Cooper
Water is the softest and most yielding substance.
Yet nothing is better than water, for overcoming the hard and rigid, because nothing can compete with it.
Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching
Something about boys 