Time to de-clutter

It's not that I don't have a clue why I'm an Atheist, it's more like I never had a clue why I was religious. I'm pretty sure a need to conform, born out of my being bullied for being "different" is certainly in the mix.

There is a grieving process involved, that's for sure. You are saying goodbye to a part of your life. Having said that, you're saying hello to a new life. It's a bit like going into a new, uncluttered flat. The luxury of being able to, well, find things! It's much easier upkeep, a "minimalist" flat.

You have plenty of people with cluttered flats aspiring to minimalist. Not so many, wanting to aspire to clutterdom.

I saw an interesting  Intelligence Squared Debate on YouTube recently. "Is the Catholic church a force for good in the world?"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kuzYwzGoXw

Speaking for the motion, Archbishop John Onaiyekan and Ann Widdecombe MP. Speaking against the motion, the late Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry.

The Roman Catholic Church uses its wealth to procure a holy clutter not just of artefacts but also religious dogma. A significant part of this Roman Catholic seeks to demoralise and demonise the Gay, Lesbian, Bi-Sexual and Transgendered community. This community, according to the Roman Catholic Church simply do not deserve the same human rights as their faithful.

'Let he who has not sinned, cast the first stone'

The road from Atheism to whatever the Roman Catholic church is, seems to have a bloody great big rock on it.

Chances

Whenever I wake up in the morning, I am always astounded at how different the weather can be. As I was driving to work, the skies were overcast. There seemed to be no sunlight breaking through.

A little further on, I could see the vaguest patches of light whose presence could only be seen because the trees, still clutching on to their summer green, had changed to a different colour.

Clouds, (taken here on a different day), often have the capacity to surprise. Who would have thought that there would be a woodpecker cloud? I've seen countless Poodles, quite a few British Isles and Ireland has been shown on different days too, no doubt sensitive to the Republican cause in Northern Ireland, but riding roughshod over the feelings of the Loyalists.

Today, although you would think it would be very cold, mostly because it's October, (because it's England) and because the Sun is shielded behind these thick clouds, raining down indecisively upon us, it is unbelievably mild. It's also that weather which throws the settings of your windshield wipers into horrible confusion.

I can't help but wonder, how much longer than the 63 years I've already spent on the planet, do I have before it becomes less surprising? 100 years, 300, 500, 1000? I'm also very aware that I spend a lot of time looking up at this odd weather and I'm always surprised at how many other people don't look up. Am I on my own here? Or is it that other people are quieter about it, because they feel it would be a bit odd to talk about it?

Life, generally, is very weird, when you take time out to think about it. It's very much more like that movie 'Sliding Doors' than we often think. I did very badly at school. I had a succession of retail jobs. I drifted. However, I am within months of retiring, having been able to secure continuous employment since August 1965. The choices I'm made, appear to have been brilliantly inspired. I may have been found wanting in that I failed to achieve my dream job, but I came amazingly close.

Now then, coming to how I come to write these words, on this particular morning?

I wonder, I thought, if I can produce an entry on my blog based solely on an idea, that I get from browsing through forgotten pictures on my digital camera? The woodpecker pic was the Genesis. I would not have written this otherwise. That is amazing, isn't it? Hope the Blog is too!