The Unanswerable Question

There aren’t any obvious unanswered questions from my own life. Lots of what ifs like everyone else as you look back at different events but no family skeletons hanging in any cupboards! My great mystery is the greatest mystery of all. I have been a religious believer, an agnostic and an atheist at various times in my life. It’s something that I was totally convinced about in my teens and twenties and something I was sure was false in my thirties and really from then onwards. Losing my father just as I was going to Japan and then my best friend six months later ended my certainty and since then I have been variously a firm non believer and a questioning non believer.

I am fascinated by the programme Pilgrimage on the BBC, which is probably one of the best recurring series of the last 10 years. In that programme, people from different faiths and people without faith follow Pilgrim trails in different countries, learn about each other and reflect on their own beliefs. It is in depth, challenging and supportive and I always come away from the series questioning my own beliefs or lack thereof. I would be really interested in going on a retreat and may well do because I wonder if it’s in that setting that I might hear that still small voice of calm. I may not hear anything, but even if I don’t I know I will benefit hugely from leaving this increasingly unpleasant and unsettling world we live in behind even if it is just for a few days.