"God is the name of the blanket we throw over the mystery to give it shape.”
Winter is approaching - the winter of my life that is. I'm not being gloomy, just pragmatic. With nights lengthening I've more time to explore. I feel it’s time to expand my two-dimensional world and see if I can sneak a peek at the hidden, spiritual one.
My age? Not telling you! Let’s just say I’m a little older than yesterday and the latest tick of the clock saw another second checked off my allotted span.
Albert Einstein said, “Do not grow old, no matter how long you live. Never cease to stand like curious children before the great mystery into which we were born.”
The older we get the more we have to take responsibility. As children we could blame adults for where we were, but as adults we have to own where we are.
It’s easy not to be curious and coast along and stay within our spheres. It’s easy to ask few questions and rely on external stimuli for zero-effort entertainment. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with that, but don’t be upset when someone challenges your comfortable space, or circumstances change and you find yourself in unfamiliar territory, unprepared. Almost universally, we’re not a product of circumstance, we’re products of our own decisions.
Einstein’s name is synonymous with genius. His theories were the mathematical backbone to our understanding of The Big Bang. General Relativity (1915) says gravity isn’t a ‘force’ but the curving of space-time caused by mass and energy. Massive objects like stars or galaxies warp the fabric around them, and things (including light) follow those curves. On a cosmic scale, this applies to the entire universe - which is massive and amazing.
I hear what he’s saying but don’t begin to understand the details. However, brighter people then me, using Einstein’s theories, has enabled our understanding of the universe. In the 110 years since he came up with his best-known theory, and despite rigorous testing by numerous scientists, it still holds up today. His vision was quite remarkable.
In recent years, I have looked more closely at things and seem to have become more inquisitive. Perhaps with age I’ve naturally slowed down allowing myself time for a more detailed look at things, including the things Einstein studied. Of course, compared to him, mine is a tangential, peripheral look. I’m rather star-struck at his foresight and genius. I did find, much later, that I share the fundamental basics of his spiritual beliefs, though I didn’t discover his position till after I’d concluded my search.
To date, I’ve basically existed in one plane, particularly in my head. I’ve turned left or right at the end of each road (or waterway), never up or down, or inside or out there. I want to see if there is anything north of the north pole. (I later had a quick look and even that didn’t prove straightforward, because there are arguably three of them).
I realised my world has been contracting, physically and cerebrally. Without realising it, I’ve hunkered down. The desire to ‘get on with life’ was always strong but subconsciously the wanderlust had been tempered by the instinct to feel safe and secure. Again, it’s an age thing probably.
Recently, my wife and I have been gently exploring our islands and every trip amazes, making us realise how little we actually know about the space around us. In our youth we’d charge blindly forward with blissful disregard for potholes or cliff edges. I smile to myself what I think about cliffs because I recently encountered some horses dicing with death near Land’s End. They were eating grass on a steep slope not fifteen yards from a precipitous tumble onto the rocks at the edge of the Celtic Sea. The offshore wind was howling and I feared being blown over so stayed well back from the edge. I even shouted at the horses, begging them to show some common sense - to no avail.
I really admire some of my more senior friends who push to make the most of every day, despite physical limitations. Others, who we see little of, choose Coronation Street and cocoa over cliff edges - but maybe they are just as content. Jan and I are still getting out a bit, and at times, even get a bit gung-ho. Recently, I was taught a lesson by the fates. Each year we take a festive trip, latterly in the camper, in order to prevent friends and relatives feeling guilty about not inviting us! Prior to this year’s trip, I’d blusteringly told people that, sure, we’re going off in our camper (plumber’s van with facilities) in the depths of winter, ‘but whatever is thrown at us, we’ll get by and have something to remember.’ Well, we did, because I thought Jan might die on Christmas Day after she got alarmingly poorly.
At 6.00 PM on the 25th, just as Joseph and Mary were sitting down to dinner, we were in hospital, isolated and frightened, waiting to see a doctor. We shared the waiting-room with a Grandpa and Grandma and a shrieking infant, weeks old rather than months. They too must have been very frightened. They went in first and were quite a while. The doctor was a huge, kindly man, a former marine actually, with biceps thicker than my torso (which is saying something!). He spoke to us reassuringly and at some length as his turkey congealed back home.
I hope the little baby is OK. We were temporarily reassured.
Yes, that trip was certainly one to remember. Another lesson, if we needed it, that time is fleeting and not to get too cocky.
Mankind, selfish, arrogant and ignorant, is paving the way for its own demise. I’m not even sure the self-centred creatures into which we’ve developed deserve our amazing world. Ultimately, we all turn to dust, and if fate permits, we may become a tiny part of something else in the future, single atoms in a new world. But the things that made our species stand out - our intelligence, ideas and dreams - will play no part. Perversely, it’s these mystical, cerebral aspects of our being that has led us astray. I see the future playing out as a rainbow, bright and magnificent above the rubble of our mess.
Homo Sapiens, modern man, is an evolutionary infant. We’ve been on the planet a mere 300,000 years. The dinosaurs by comparison, 165 million. That’s like dinosaurs having the planet for an entire calendar year, and humans showing up on New Year’s Eve! The earth has been around for about 4.5 billion years. Individually, we can’t really afford to waste our time, which in context is but a single flutter of a butterfly’s wing.
And, by complete coincidence, a bit of magic……….
……… As I write, it’s the 3rd January 2026. 10.00 AM.
Overnight is was very cold - minus five. This morning it is cloudless and beautifully sunny - VERY cold, but lovely. I’ve just written that sentence above, about mankind’s time on earth being the mere flutter of a butterfly’s wing.
Walking down the hall, I hear an unusual sound. There, flapping behind the Venetian blind in my bedroom, is a Red Admiral butterfly. I can’t remember ever having seen a butterfly at this time of year.
Both she and I can see and feel the bright sun through the glass. I open the window and away she flies. How long she’ll live in the English Winter, who knows, but she had at least one more magical flight in the sun.
Amazing.
As I searched, my physical travels were geographically accountable, electronically recorded on App and jpeg. My cerebral wanderings were rather less distinct, but both threw up ideas and conundrums in all sorts of unlikely places. Some of this book appears random, but it all added to MY questions and answers. Such as, how does what we have today relate to evolution, creation, chance, God? Or a mixture, or something else? I didn’t want things to go unchallenged, I felt I owed it to myself to look. Blindly believing in anything is folly. Unless we’re VERY lucky, that will likely lead to disappointment.
The material world aside, many of us (80+%) exist within an enormous, powerful spiritual matrix comprising of God and religion. Whether we actively participate or not, our lives are affected.
“You shall have no other gods before Me.” Said the God of my religion, Christianity, into which I was culturally plunged at a tender age.
Yet somewhere along the line, that God, or a similar one, spawned numerous religions with a bewildering variety of rules, promises, threats, parables, miracles, along with love, hate, hope, compassion and beliefs. Lots more besides I’m sure - but what of the foundations of it? God, the universe itself, what’s it all about?
I’m going to have a look.
This book is NOT definitive, I’m not presumptuous enough to think that my thoughts are any more relevant than the billions of words already penned on the subject over millennia. No, this is my personal trip. What it might do is give you pause for thought - if you’re bothered of course.8