Today I was about to do another post about atheism when I realised that it was probably time for a change of approach. It dawned on me, as it does very occasionally, that there are people out there who don’t have regular updates on my life and are actually interested in what’s happening. Since I don’t use Twitter, rarely update Facebook (although I lurk pretty often) and don’t have time to verbally update everyone in my life, I guess this little blog is a good a place to spread the word.
So 2009 is quite the year. Just over a month ago, I started another job - possibly the most challenging yet and a strangely exhilirating one. This weekend, I move across town to a new and unfamiliar neighbourhood. In a matter of weeks, I’ll turn 28 and get married to the most beautiful, funny, ridiculous girl I’ve ever known. Out of that list, only turning 28 doesn’t feature in the rankings of “biggest causes of stress” - and yet I feel strangely calm.
Perhaps it’s watching all my fears at the beginning of the year turn out to be baseless that has given me a new assurance. There were a lot of fears and absolutely every single one failed to materialise. There’s a lesson in there about always assuming the worst, but it’s one that I’m learning only slowly.
Everyone I know says that they keep expecting their life to simplify and it never does. I think I now know that too - and that the secret is in learning to enjoy yourself and find fulfilment in the spaces between the busyness. They’re not always easy to find, but they are there. A piece of unremarkable wisdom, sure, but one I’ve seen others realise far later in life.
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In the last few years, I’ve been intrigued by the work of British essayist/novelist/biographer A. N. Wilson. Despite being an avowed atheist, Wilson seemed to be drawn to Christians of the past, writing biographies of Tolstoy, C. S. Lewis, Hillaire Belloc, Milton and…err…Christ. His Lewis biography, the only one I have read, is simultaneously admiring and disdainful of Lewis’ belief. The other Wilson book I’ve read, the novel My Name Is Legion, is loaded with Christ metaphors and revolves around a wild-eyed Christian mystic prophet. For an atheist, he sure was a lot more complicated than Richard Dawkins.
But as C. S. Lewis himself commented, a serious atheist can’t be too careful with his reading - or writing. As he has captured in two well-written articles this Easter, Wilson has found himself once again believing all the things he rejected so dramatically in his thirties.
Surprisingly, Wilson now sees his two decades of atheism as his brush with fundamentalism. If anything, he has been encouraged back to Christianity by the intolerance and condescension he saw in his fellow unbelievers. Maybe the side of buses isn’t as good an advertisement as actual humility.
The change-of-heart of one ageing doubter isn’t proof of anything, let alone the resurrection of Jesus, but it does challenge the common narrative of putting away “childish” beliefs with age.
The thing that amazes me most is the bravery it must take Wilson to admit his mistakes so publicly. I can only imagine that he now reads much of his non-fiction work with the kind of embarrassment most of us only experience when seeing photos of our teenage selves. At least C. S. Lewis converted before he made a name as a writer. Wilson is going to have to live with his contributions to the cause he now rejects. And good luck to him.
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