A Trip to Israel

In February 2009 myself and my two sons went on the trip of a lifetime to Israel. Over the previous 10 years or so I had become fascinated with the study of the bible from a historical point of view and to my surprise I was treated to a week in Jerusalem for my 60th birthday. In one sense the timing was good as the war in Gaza was raging and hence the influx of visitors to the Holy Land had considerably diminished allowing us easy access to all the usual sites without them being crammed with visitors like ourselves.

We landed in Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv at about four o’clock in the morning. As it was the Sabbath day, all normal modes of transport were not operating and so we had to take a special taxi from there to Jerusalem. These taxis take about 8 people and they just wait till full before starting their journey. We sat for about half an hour before the final passenger boarded and then we took off out of a very normal looking, modern day airport, back into history. I have to say I felt great excitement and anticipation in this land about which I had read so much. It was here that King David (the most famous of Jewish kings) had killed the giant Goliath (that most famous of Philistine warriors) with a single shot from his sling. Here the Ark of the Covenant had resided until finally lost sometime during the 6th century BC. Here the Jewish people were conquered many times over throughout their history, but especially by the Babylonians. Here in this land their great temple was destroyed not once, but twice. First by the Babylonians in the 6th century BC and then by the Romans in 70AD. It has never been rebuilt. Here we have the complete destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the fall of Jericho (when those walls came tumbling down). The stories of Samson and Delilah, the wisdom of Solomon and the visit of the Queen of Sheba. Some of the stories may not be true and even some of the characters may not have existed, but many of them did. David certainly did and was king of his people whether or not he killed Goliath. The Ark existed and was carried around by the Israelites for many years before finally ending up in the great temple in Jerusalem. The Babylonians inflicted a great defeat on the Jews and brought them into exile for many years. Jericho is a real city, existing today as in the past, although the story of it’s walls crashing to the ground at the sounding of trumpets on Joshua’s order is surely apocryphal. Not to mention the fact that Jesus Christ, the most famous character in western civilization, also walked on this soil.

But no matter, separating history from legend is fascinating and the strange thing is that quite a lot of what is spoken about in the Bible and which many scholars shrugged off as not historical has turned out to be fact. For example many assumed Sodom never existed but now excavations have shown evidence of this ancient city, that at least it existed. In fact, a similar tale can be related about the city of Troy from whence came the famous Helen. Initially it was thought to be a fictional city in the story by Homer, but subsequently was actually found.

Anyway, here I was, in a taxi travelling through the land of Israel towards Jerusalem. Brought to mind the lines from Yeats’ poem “The Second Coming”:

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Then I saw the signs in Hebrew, Arabic and English pointing towards Jerusalem. At this point I knew I was really in this fantastic land. That may seem strange to say, but no matter what way you look at it, my whole Irish Catholic culture, whether as a believer or atheist, comes directly from this place. Maybe it took a slight detour via Rome, but it’s origins are right here.

Then suddenly we were stopping outside our hostel, the YMCA, right opposite the most well known hotel in Israel, the King David, a part of which was blown up by a militant Zionist group in 1946. But we were too tired to care, having being travelling from early morning the day before. We got to our room and crashed out.

However, later that morning we rose, eager to hit the old town of Jerusalem. We couldn’t see it from our window as the King David Hotel was in the way. After consulting our map and finding the route to the old city, we headed out of the hostel and crossed the road. Deftly dodging the taxi drivers touting for business, we made our way round the side of the King David and down a seriously hilly road. At the bottom we were rewarded with a first view of Jerusalem. For this we had come so far. It was magnificent even though we could only see one of the main walls and the Jaffa Gate across the valley. It reminded me forcibly of the woodcut I reproduce above of the pilgrims’ first sight of Jerusalem under the escort of the Knights Templar.

We entered by the Jaffa Gate, which had been built by Suleiman the Magnificent in the 16th century. At this time Jerusalem was ruled by the Ottoman Empire and it was due to Sultan Suleiman that the present walls of Jerusalem were built. So passing through this gate we passed by the original brickwork and mortar built by the Moslems nearly 500 years ago. The first thing we did was to breakfast at a little café inside the old city. So now we had to decide what to do next. There was such a choice, but we thought the best idea was to walk the walls themselves and so get an overview of the city. There are a number of different walks you can do, but we took the route from the Jaffa Gate round by the Damascus Gate to the Lion’s Gate. In hindsight this was the better of the two routes we could have chosen as it indeed gave us a great overview of the old city, including the Church of the holy Sepulchre which contains Calvary and the tomb of Jesus. Also the beautiful golden Dome of the Rock, one of the most iconic sights of Jerusalem, the Islamic shrine built on the Temple Mount.

It was a hot sunny day and remarkably few people were on the wall. We were able to take our ease and take in the sights. At the Damascus Gate we paused, listening to and watching the hubbub of people shopping in the market below. Much to our surprise we also noticed some Irish graffiti on a building “Tiocfaidh ar lá o saoirse”. I don’t know what it means but guess at something like “Our freedom will come one day”. Continuing along the walls we could see the Garden of Gethsemane in the distance across the Kidron Valley and the Mount of Olives, one of the places from which Christ is supposed to have ascended into heaven.

And suddenly right in our path comes a snake. He must have been about two feet long, a big guy. We managed to get one photo of him before he vanished over the edge of the wall.

We came down from the wall at the Lion’s Gate which is close to the point where the Via Dolorosa begins, the traditional path of Christ from where Pilot condemned him to death and ending at Calvary and his tomb. Of course, as modern scholars now point out, this is in the wrong place, but as with most things from the gospels there is more than one place commemorating where these events are supposed to have occurred.

No matter, after passing by the Church of the Condemnation and the Church of the Flagellation (what fantastic names) we came upon an intriguing little sign which simply pointed to the house of Mary, the mother of Jesus. This was at the side of the Church of St Anne which is a beautiful 12th century Crusader church erected over the traditional site of the birthplace of Anne who is the mother of Mary. Descending a flight of narrow steps I arrived in a small grotto type place which is supposed to be the house. A small little place, I guess it could have been anybody’s, but tradition has it as being the house of Anne and Joachim, the parents of Mary.

The church itself is supposed to have been designed for Gregorian chant and the acoustics are so perfect that many pilgrim groups come to sing in the church. We were privileged to be there during just such a performance by a group of black Americans. Their rich voices soared in that place and boy, was it a treat.

The church itself is next to the Bethesda Pool, believed to be the site where Jesus healed a paralytic. Here can be seen the ruins of a Roman temple to the god of medicine and also the remains of a Byzantine church built over the temple as well as the pool itself.

Afterwards we continued along the Via Dolorosa and spotted a group of pilgrims praying the Stations of the Cross. We decided to join them as they would surely lead us directly to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Which is exactly what happened. The present church houses both the Hill of Calvary and the tomb of Christ.

This is a fascinating building with a long history. Sometime after the crucifixion the site became a place of Christian veneration. However, after the Jewish revolt in 70AD the city of Jerusalem was totally destroyed by the Romans. Hadrian then rebuilt the city calling it Aelia Capitolina around 135AD but forbade Jews or Christians to enter it. He even constructed a pagan temple on the site of the present church.

However, all this changed after the emperor Constantine became a Christian. Legend has it that he was exposed to Christianity by his mother, Helena, but it was only before an important battle that Constantine, looking at the sun, saw a cross of light with the words “By this win”. He therefore commanded his troops to wear a Christian symbol on their shields and hence won the battle of Milvian Bridge, which gave him the emperorship of the West. Sometime afterwards he instructed Helena to go to Jerusalem, destroy the pagan temple, begin excavations and build a church on the site. She is alleged to have found not only the Hill of Calvary but also a tomb close by which was declared to be the tomb of Jesus. The church was built on the site but was damaged by fire in 916 and again in 966 during a riot. Finally it was completely destroyed in 1009. However it was rebuilt in 1048. Later the church was renovated and added to in the 12th century by the crusaders and again renovated by the Franciscans in the 16th century. It was severely damaged again by fire at the beginning of the 19th century and to this day is continually being excavated and renovated.

At present the principal custodians of the church are the Eastern Orthodox, the Armenian Christians and the Catholic Church. Others have a share in smaller areas. Unfortunately these groups continue to squabble and fight each other. In 2008 a fist fight broke out when a monk was ejected by some rivals.

However, the day we visited all was peaceful and calm. There is a strange palpable power in the place (perhaps wish fulfilment, I don’t know) and sitting quietly in one corner I noticed several people being overcome with tears. All reason and logic goes out the window and one sits and contemplates. Could it all be true? Was the Son of God really crucified only yards from where I sat? Whatever the theology, a human man was certainly crucified and buried here and whether he wanted to or not, it is because of him that the vast edifice of Western Christianity has shaped our history for more than two millennia. So there is an atmosphere of potent energy within the church, felt by believer and non-believer alike.

After a while I got up and went down some steps which led to the tomb. I queued for a short time as it only holds about three or four people and the priests like to keep things moving. But I was able to remain inside for a few minutes once again immersed in the great questions. After that we headed back to our hotel for a nice evening meal and some scoops.

The next day we decided to take a taxi up to the Mount of Olives and walk back down across the Kidron Valley to Jerusalem where we had a tour booked along Herod’s wall. Even though the driver tried to get us to change our minds and take a trip to Bethlehem instead, he turned out to be a very friendly character, a Palestinian and gave us advise on how to mind our money. I was actually touched when he shook my hand and gave us a blessing as we left his cab. Compared to him the surly curator of the Chapel of the Ascension which we visited first was most unfriendly as we paid our small entrance fee.

As with the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, there is quite a history behind this small round structure, but the present building is from Crusader times. Not an impressive place, the most interesting part is a small stone frame surrounding a rock with the supposed impression of the last footprint of Christ before he ascended to heaven. I have to say, it looked nothing like the shape of a foot to me.

After that we started to walk down the Mount of Olives to the Garden of Gethsemane. On this sunny warm day, the garden looked very serene, belying it’s terrible trauma of the night before Christ died. Today it is fenced off so you can’t walk through it, although you can stretch your hand in to touch the rough bark of the olive trees. Some say that it still contains olive trees which are approximately 2000 years old. But that is unlikely although they probably are descendants of the original trees. We continued our journey visiting the Church of All Nations which is very modern having been built at the beginning of the 20th century using funds donated by many countries around the world, hence it’s name. Being right beside the Garden of Gethsemane, it claims to contain the place where Jesus is supposed to have prayed on the night of his arrest.

From the Mount of Olives, it is possible to take in the whole panorama of the old city of Jerusalem surrounded by it’s walls and dominated by the golden cupola of the Dome of the Rock. The old city is surprisingly small, it’s surrounding walls stretch only for about 2.5 miles. But looking at it stretched out in all it’s glory, the most amazing thing about it is the mass of history it encapsulates and the fact that it is a most sacred city to three of the world’s largest religions: Jews, Muslims and Christians.

We walked down into the Kidron Valley which separates the Mount of Olives from the old city itself. Walking through this valley we came upon some very ancient monuments, more than two thousand years old and it struck me forcibly that Christ must have seen these too as he was dragged to Jerusalem from the Garden of Gethsemane as this is the only route he could have taken.

Entering into the old city, we headed for the Western (or Wailing) Wall. It is the remains of the wall which surrounded the Jewish Temple and is one of the most sacred places for Jews today, as it is the closest they can now get to the Holy of Holies where God himself was supposed to have dwelt before the total destruction of the temple by the Romans around 70AD as mentioned above. One part of the wall is sectioned off for women, while we entered the men’s section (orthodox Jewry being very male dominated, even today). We were given a little skullcap made from cardboard to wear as a mark of respect and were allowed to go anywhere we wished. It is daunting to think that this wall was erected by King Herod the Great about 19BC. Some of the stones weigh up to 8 tons each with one in particular weighing in excess of 500 tons. How the builders moved and positioned them is just incredible. Of course I had to touch the wall itself and again the shear weight of history comes through. And crammed into every crevice were scraps of paper which hold prayers and petitions from devout Jews.

A large part of the wall continues underground and as we had booked a tour of this area in advance, we headed for the entrance to this fascinating historical guide. Suffice it to say that the walk took us through thousands of years of history in the footsteps of Herod, Solomon, David and others. At the end of the tour we exited into the Muslim quarter of the old city. This exit was only opened in the late 1980’s and caused a riot at the time. I remember walking along the street and had been one of the last to leave the tunnel. I noticed a young guy walking quite closely behind me and didn’t particularly feel at ease with it. I stopped and motioned for him to go ahead which he did, although giving me a funny look. Next thing I notice he was in conversation with my sons up ahead, so I caught up wondering what was going on. It turns out he was a member of Israeli security, part of whose job is to make sure that the visitors are safe on leaving the tour. I have to say I didn’t feel particularly unsafe, but I guess nothing is taken for granted in Israel.

Either that same day or the next day, I can’t remember which, we paid a visit to the Dome of the Rock. This is an Islamic shrine located on the Temple Mount one side of which is the Western Wall. This is a magnificent building, octagonal in shape with a massive golden dome on the roof. The gold was added by King Hussein of Jordan in 1993. Unfortunately, due to the Gaza war, we were not allowed inside the building. The Muslim curator explained, almost apologetically, that only Muslims could enter the building at this time. This was a great pity.

Another day we headed out of the old city and went to Mount Zion. Here, besides lots of churches commemorating one thing or another, we found a crusader built castle which houses the room of the last supper. Of course this cannot be the actual site as this was only built in the 12th century, but many scholars say it is probably the correct area. But it’s something for the visitors to see. Coming from this we came to another building which supposedly housed the tomb of David. We were stopped on the way in by a little man indicating that we needed to wear a skullcap, which were available from him for a small fee. We proceeded to enter the room with the tomb of David which a lot of scholars say is not where David rests at all. Anyway, once inside the door we were amused to find a box full of skullcaps which could be borrowed for free. So the little guy had taken us for a ride. Well, we didn’t lose much and it looked like he needed the money. Then he started telling us about the place, and we said we didn’t need a guide but found it difficult to get rid of him. At last when we were leaving he put his hand out for money and I told him we hadn’t asked for his services and he could take a hike. He turned quite nasty and called us filthy people. I just laughed and shrugged my shoulders but he sure as hell wasn’t getting another penny out of us.

Overall in the holy land we weren’t bothered by guys trying to get hired. Mostly we just ignored them and they quickly got the message. A few would persist trying out different languages on us, but we usually started speaking the little Irish we knew and they soon went away. Once I saw a taxi driver really hassling these two old folk and as I passed I noticed that they looked quite frightened. I stopped and said to the man, under my breath, “Just ignore him and walk away”. He took my advice and they walked with me a short way leaving the taxi driver shouting something after us. They turned out to be an American couple and they thanked me for my help. I said it was nothing and advised them to just keep walking if anybody bothered them. I have to add that I found the vast majority of the people we dealt with very friendly and even though there were soldiers walking around with guns hanging out of them all over the place, I never felt safer in a foreign city.

While visiting Mount Zion we also took the time to visit Oscar Schindler’s grave. It is a custom in Jewish graveyards that visitors place a stone on the tomb of people they visit. Schindler’s grave is packed with stones which is a mark of the respect the Jewish people felt for this German “Nazi” who helped so many of their people during the war.

As with many other places in the Holy Land, there is a second site which purports to be the room of the last supper. This time it is inside the old city of Jerusalem. It is not a place you can just walk into and we had to find ourselves a guide. I think our guide turned out to be an Armenian nun and she opened up the place for us. It was a beautiful old church in the Armenian quarter. The nun began to regale us with miracle stories and eventually we had to ask her if we could see the last supper room. She brought us downstairs and turned on the lights, explaining that the street level was lower in those days and while this room was below ground now, in Jesus’ time it was on the second floor. It was a small room, sparsely furnished with some pictures and a small altar. Going back upstairs I asked her if she could speak Aramaic, the language that Christ spoke. She said yes and offered to sing the Our Father in Aramaic, which she did. Although interesting, I would have preferred if she had simply recited it as I wanted to hear what the language itself sounded like, although I suppose I could just watch Mel Gibson’s film, Passion of the Christ, to hear it.

During our week in Jerusalem we hired a car for one day. While tourists are not allowed to drive hired cars in the Palestinian areas, we are allowed to drive on one designated Israeli controlled road through the West Bank. On our way, we were flagged down by an Israeli soldier weighed down with a heavy automatic machine gun. He couldn’t have been more than twenty years of age and asked us where we were going. We told him, Masada. “Okay,” he says, “Can I have a lift? I’m going as far as Qumran which is just down the road.” Well, what do you say to a guy asking for a lift who’s toting a machine gun? I guess you say yes. So he got into the back of the car, hauling his automatic with him. He turned out to be a very nice guy and we chatted in general about Israel and tourism. We thought it mightn’t be a good idea to ask him for a go of his gun!

Having left our guest at Qumran (where the Dead Sea scrolls were discovered) we continued on to Masada. This is a fortress built by Herod the Great and sits on top of a massive rock plateau which rises out of the surrounding landscape to a height of about 1300 feet on the side closest to the Dead Sea and about 300 feet on the other side. It is an ideal place for defence as access is difficult and dangerous. A few years before the fall of Jerusalem in 70AD the small Roman garrison at Masada was overcome by a group of Jewish rebels and their numbers were much enlarged after the destruction of the city by more rebels fleeing from the battle. For about two years these rebels raided and harassed the Romans until Flavius Silva, a Roman general marched against Masada. Well defended and almost impossible to attack directly, Masada held out against the Roman siege. Eventually the Romans built a ramp up the side of Masada and hauled a battering ram up to the walls where they eventually gained entry. However, when the Romans entered Masada, they found all the men, women and children dead. The Jews had decided to commit mass suicide rather than be taken by their sworn enemy.

My two sons braved the hour long walk up the side of Masada along the so called Snake Path. I, on the other hand, took the cable car. The view from the top is stunning, the Dead Sea below (it’s the lowest point on Earth at 1200 feet below sea level) and the land of Jordan in the distance. The remains of Roman siege camps are also easily seen in the landscape below. The basic structure of the fortress can still be seen today, the walls, the remains of the houses and storerooms, the massive water cisterns, and Herod’s palace. Of course the ramp built by the Romans is still there, but it doesn’t look as impressive as it must have done originally as a lot of it looks to have collapsed.

After a few hours walking around the Masada fortress we got in the car and drove to one of the areas where you can take a dip in the Dead Sea. As this is one of the saltiest bodies of water in the world it is impossible to actually swim in it. You simply wade out and sit down. You cannot sink. It is a most amazing experience, as your arms, upper back and legs are pushed above the surface and you can sit quite happily in the gently undulating current. Very relaxing indeed. Of course you are strongly advised to take a good cold shower on emerging as the salt can sting badly.

After this somewhat exhilarating experience we drove to Ein Gedi, an oasis in the Israeli desert, which is also a sanctuary for many types of plant, bird and animal species. It is a wooded hilly area with at least one river flowing through it where we sat and watched the hyrax (rock badger) jumping from rock to rock, sometimes in groups of five or six. Here we also saw the hoopoe, Israel’s national bird, a most colourful character with a beautiful crown of feathers on it’s head. Here it was, in old testament times, that King David hid from King Saul.

On another day, we walked around the more modern city of Jerusalem. Here we visited the Garden Tomb. Because some doubts were raised during the 19th century about the authenticity of the traditional sites of Golgotha and the tomb of Christ, some scholars searched for other possible places. A number of them suggested what is now referred to as the Garden Tomb as a more likely spot. This is situated outside the old city walls near the Damascus Gate. Here was found a rocky escarpment which resembles the face of a skull. A rock hewn tomb was found close by. While this is a beautiful and serene place, the majority of scholars today do not think it is the site of Christ’s crucifixion or tomb.

Moving on we walked through an ultra-Orthodox Jewish area. Visitors to this part of Jerusalem, while welcome at certain times, are asked to respect the values of the people living here and to dress and act appropriately. It was an interesting place to visit as we saw no other tourists there that day and everybody else was dressed in the traditional black coats and hat, with their long bushy sideburns and beards. We didn’t notice any women either.

Finally on one of the days, we split up and went our separate ways. Andrew went to visit the botanic gardens and then the Knesset, the Jewish parliament. Unfortunately for him the Knesset was closed that day so he went to the Israel Museum instead. Daniel went to the zoo and got some great photos. I went to the Jewish Holocaust Museum, Yad Vashem. This is Israel’s official memorial to the Jewish victims of the holocaust and comprises a history museum, a museum of holocaust art, memorial sites, a synagogue, as well as an education centre, a research centre, library, archives and a publishing house. The history museum was very impressive (if you can give such a description to pictures and videos of death). It contained thousands of pictures, film clips, testimonies of survivors including condemnations of those countries (including the Vatican) who stood by and did nothing while the concentration camps at Auschwitz and elsewhere carried on their evil work. One of the exhibits outside in the grounds which affected me most was the Cattle Car Memorial. This is an original working German railway cattle car which actually carried Jewish victims to their deaths in one of the concentration camps. Over a hundred people were crammed into this car so tightly they couldn’t sit down. The journey could last days and they had no food or water. If they needed to relieve themselves they had to do it on the spot. It was hell on earth. I stood for a long time just staring at this railway truck and tried to imagine the horror but could not. What I could conjure up in my mind was indeed horrible, but I’m sure nothing like the pain and terror these people must have suffered. I came away unable to grasp fully how inhumane man can be to his fellow beings. A very sad place, but a powerful reminder of a period of history we should never forget.

Finally, bidding the holy city farewell, we took a train to Tel Aviv, a modern bustling city founded in 1909. Even here you cannot escape the grasp of history as, while strolling on the beach, I came across and read the monument in memory of the Altalena, a ship shelled by the Israeli provisional government in 1948.

And even today Israel is still a troubled land. For more than two thousand years the Jewish people have been persecuted and mostly by so called Christian peoples. For how much longer must that terrible curse in Matthew “His blood be upon us and our children” reverberate and give excuse to anti-Semitism? I pray it won’t be long.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was a French Jesuit priest and scientist who worked mainly in the field of palaeontology (the study of prehistoric life, it’s evolution and environment). He was born in France in 1881 and ordained in 1911. While his initial scientific study was rooted in physics, chemistry and mathematics he went to work in the palaeontology laboratory of the National History Museum in Paris and hence more or less devoted his life to this field in conjunction with a mystical and religious worldview.

While his interpretation of evolution from a deeply religious viewpoint became his life’s main work, he is also remembered for his involvement in both the Piltdown Man and Peking Man discoveries.

Piltdown Man is probably the most well known of these two, because it was later exposed as a hoax. One of the great mysteries of the theory of evolution was the so called missing link, that skeleton which would show the change from our previous known ancestor to the human species, Homo sapiens, today. Anthropologists are still not sure of our exact lineage and our immediate ancestor is not the chimpanzee. He is our nearest relative. Both chimps and humans evolved from the same ancestor but not from each other. In the early days of evolution it was assumed that man evolved from the ape or similar creature and hence a missing link was necessary to bridge the gap. When Piltdown Man was discovered around 1912 in a gravel pit at Piltdown, a small village in southern England, many thought that this might be the missing link. And in fact scientists were fooled for quite a while that this was a genuine find. Although it bred a lot of controversy it wasn’t till the 1950’s before it was finally exposed as a forgery. While the identity of the forger was never discovered some of the main people accused included Teilhard de Chardin himself as well as Arthur Conan Doyle, the man responsible for the wonderful fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes. However the case against Teilhard de Chardin, as is true with all the suspects is very circumstantial and cannot be upheld.

Peking Man, on the other hand, discovered in the 1920’s in China was thought to be an ancestor to humans and was a genuine discovery. However today, he not considered to be a direct ancestor.

I was very much drawn to Teilhard de Chardin’s books because he was the first person who argued strongly that science and religion were compatible. For many years these two disciplines were considered to be at odds with each other. The famous example of which moves in the sky, the sun or the earth sent a number of men to the stake, most notably Giordano Bruno in 1600, although I would think the Church condemned him more for his other views (he was, after all, a practising magician, whose rites often bordered on black magic). Galileo, perhaps, is a better example. He followed the teaching of Copernicus who developed the heliocentric cosmology which basically said that the Sun was at the centre of the universe and the Earth revolved around it. He even went to Rome to try and convince the pope not to ban these ideas. Eventually he was summoned to stand trial on the suspicion of heresy. After all the bible says that the earth does not move, therefore Galileo had to be wrong. The result was that he was put under house arrest where he remained for the rest of his life.

It was only in 1992 that Pope John Paul II apologised for the treatment of Galileo at the hands of the Catholic Church. Far too late, as usual.

And of course the greatest wedge which appeared to be driven between science and religion came with the theory of evolution introduced by Charles Darwin in the 1850’s although he was not the first to suggest such a point of view. This controversy still rages today. Although the Catholic Church at long last accepted the theory, others still do not, including the so called Creationists in the United States. However, that said, evolution, although bolstered up by a lot of evidence, still remains a theory with some holes to plug. For example many point to the lack of transitional evidence, i.e. there are no missing links. Further, life is so complex that there has not been enough time to evolve from random groupings of molecules to the breathtaking wonder of DNA. However, as regards missing links, we just haven’t found any yet, although we have come close (i.e. archaeopteryx, which fossil clearly shows a type of dinosaur/bird). Besides, not every species may have left a fossil record. And the argument that life is too complex can be answered by pointing out that not every possible combination of molecules needed to be formed before something worthwhile was achieved. All DNA is subject to mutation. These changes can be beneficial, harmful or neutral. If harmful then it is unlikely that any offspring will reproduce and the mutation dies. If beneficial it is likely that the offspring will be improved and so reproduce more. It is through reproduction that beneficial mutations spread. This is natural selection at work. Over billions of years all this evolution has led to us, and as the Earth is 4.5 thousand million years old. I think that is enough time.

At the end of the day, religion and science are both searching for the same thing, i.e. the truth. At least that is my belief and in the final analysis, while not everything in religion or science today is necessarily true (a massive work in progress) they have to converge to the correct answer eventually. This does not mean there is a God. I don’t know the answer to that, no more than science or religion does. So it was nice to discover the writings of somebody who did believe that science and religion are compatible and I was glad to read his works. Since those halcyon days I have discovered many others scientists, religious and non religious people who are also convinced of that viewpoint, though not all would concur with Teilhard de Chardin’s view.

Of course Teilhard de Chardin also ran into problems with the Catholic Church, of which he was a member. Luckily, while they had done away with the Inquisition, they still forbade him from publishing his works and from teaching. As Teilhard de Chardin was a faithful member of the Jesuits and the Church, he acquiesced to the wishes of his masters, even though it caused him a lot of pain and anguish. He did consider briefly leaving, to work freely as a scientist, but decided against this course of action.

Why was he so obedient to a stupid decision by men who simply had no grasp nor understanding of his scientific and religious mysticism? I cannot answer that. I can only suggest, not only did he need to belong as a full member to his Church, but even though he regarded it’s ideas as somewhat outmoded, he was still convinced it was the true Church of his Lord, Jesus Christ. He never lost his faith in his own ideas and philosophy, but felt it better to remain within the fold, flawed and all as it might be. Today he may well have left, but this was during the first half of the twentieth century and so he stayed.

His works were only published after he had died, which gave the world a most interesting philosophy to read and digest.

I first came across Teilhard de Chardin from reading the novel “The Exorcist” by William Peter Blatty. For some reason I found this to be a fascinating book, so much better than most of the horror and ghost stories I had read before. Here was a book which took on board the whole idea of demonic possession yet went at it in as scientific a way as possible. For much of the first half there was a lot of doubt that such things could happen in the 20th century in which the story was set. Demonic possession belonged in the 16th century as Father Damian Karras, the priest in the story who is initially approached to perform an exorcism, said. Karras does not believe in the devil and is convinced there is a medical or psychological reason for the victim’s symptoms. The novel is very interesting in it’s discussion of the whole area of the real scientific reasons for seeming possession and although it leaves one in no doubt during it’s second half that demonic possession is real and the girl, Regan, is actually possessed by a demon, it is only a good fictional story. Certainly I do not believe in demons and doubt very much that they exist.

In fact, the film of the same name which was released in 1973 remained faithful to the book and portrayed evil very convincingly. I remember going to the first showing in the Adelphi cinema in Abbey Street. The theatre was packed and people were full of anticipation as this film was supposed to be really scary. And it was. It scared the hell out of us. I clearly remember at the conclusion of the first really frightening scene where the bed was shaking like mad under the girl, strangers turned and spoke to each other out of sheer relief. I certainly recall the guy beside me saying a few words and me replying although I can’t remember what we said. Never before in mainstream Irish films had we been subjected to such sheer evil on the screen. Gone were the Vincent Price type films where the orchestra started strumming up a storm, the violins rising to a crescendo as the hapless character moved closer to where the monster or whatever would leap out at him. But we were ready for that although many still jumped with fright. And then the second even more terrifying scene where the slip of a girl suddenly jumped up, smacked the doctor who was trying to inject her, her throat swollen, her face contorted and growled in a deep and guttural voice, “Leave the sow alone, she is mine”. Or words to that effect. That was a heavy scene, although looking at it today, it is more funny than anything else.

However, the main exorcist in the story is called Lankester Merrin. At one point he quipped that he had been named after a bridge. I discovered somewhere that his character was loosely based on the Jesuit priest, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. This piqued my interest for some reason and I tried to find out something about him. In those days not as easy as today where you can trawl the internet. However, I found that his most famous book was called “The Phenomenon of Man” and I purchased same quite easily in one of Dublin’s bookshops. As part of the blurb on the back, it mentioned something to do with a philosophy which would reconcile religion and the scientific theory of evolution.

Boy, was it a difficult read. I read it with a dictionary beside me and even then there were some words in the book which my dictionary didn’t contain. In hindsight I should have had a dictionary of palaeontology beside me. However, I managed to finish it and became deeply interested in the ideas in so far as I could understand them.

Basically, he regarded evolution as the correct theory for the emergence of mankind. He relegated the story of Adam and Eve to tales made up by men trying to come to terms with the world they found themselves in. Trying to make some semblance of sense of it. However, Teilhard de Chardin saw evolution as gradually moving from the basic cell to animals to humans. The arrival of humankind was a major stage in this development as we could bring our own consciousness to bear upon ourselves. Now a collective consciousness begins to develop as we learn from each other and move throughout the whole earth. He termed this collective consciousness the noosphere. The development of science and technology is one of the enablers of this movement. In those days (early 70’s) I thought that was a heady idea. Today I would say the noosphere smacks suspiciously of the world wide web, so I guess you could say Teilhard de Chardin was ahead of his time. However he went further and thought that evolution would culminate in what he termed the Omega Point. This was a sort of supreme consciousness and his ideas become very mystical from here. Frankly, he looses me here, but he sort of equates the Omega Point with the collective consciousness of mankind and brings it into a Christ-like being synonymous with God himself. And at this point I also think he must be nuts.

However, in his great synthesis he stated that the traditional interpretations of creation in the bible had to be abandoned. This immediately raised grave alarm with Vatican officials for it implied that Adam and Eve never existed. Without our first parents, there could be no original sin. Therefore did this imply there was no need for mankind to be redeemed, no need for Christ to die on the cross? God knows where all this would have ended up and hence the consternation among the cardinals of the Church can be imagined. Although in their usual heavy handed manner, they decided to ban him rather than open dialogue with him.

Of course, many people said his philosophy was mad and maybe it was, but what struck me most forcibly in those days was his insistence on the compatibility of science and religion. This was what I was looking for in my twenties, as I had just decided to become a fully fledged atheist and was struggling with belief. Teilhard de Chardin’s books helped me to make some sense of all of this and I always look on him as a great teacher, at least for me.

An amusing personal anecdote I’d like to relate now involved a Jesuit priest, Fergal McGrath. This kindly man used to come once a year to my parents’ house ever since I can remember. He would arrive around six o’clock in the evening and I would always be warned to be on my best behaviour as Father McGrath was coming for tea. So we sat around the table while the priest intoned the grace before meals and we would always bless ourselves with great solemnity and sanctity. Tea was a light hearted affair where we all chatted amicably. I always remember this as he never ever asked me whether I said my prayers at night or some other stupid priestly question. After tea another bout of holiness descended briefly as the grace after meals was said whereupon the good priest along with my mother and father removed themselves into the sitting room. Myself and my brother were banned from this room for that one evening in the year. God knows what they talked about, but we often heard the strains of an oboe being played, so it wasn’t all talk.

However, as I grew older I was no longer banned from the sitting room, other than by myself as I certainly didn’t want to spend evenings in theological discussion or listening to an oboe. However, shortly after my discovery of Teilhard de Chardin, I sat in the good man’s presence and asked him about the Jesuit who had upset the Church. I genuinely wanted to know what he might have thought about him, but Fergal McGrath was a very conservative, non-confrontational man who only smiled knowingly and refused to be drawn.

Damn! My first serious attempt at dialogue with the Catholic Church failed miserably.

Wrestling with God

There is a story in the Old Testament about Jacob wrestling with God. He was returning from a self imposed exile to the land of his father when he came face to face with a stranger with whom he wrestled all night. By dawn the fight was over, with the stranger having caused non serious injury to Jacob’s hip. However, Jacob would not let him go until he agreed to Jacob’s demand to give him his blessing. According to Jacob, he was in no doubt that the man he fought through the night was God himself. A number of different lessons can be taken from this strange story, but the one I prefer is that Jacob was not prepared to allow God to have things all his own way. Jacob stood up to him and demanded answers. I like to think I do the same.

Of course, being agnostic, you might think that’s hard to do. But Pascal, the French mathematician, physicist and philosopher, had a nice idea. He said that even though God’s existence can neither be proved nor disproved, it would be a good wager to live as though he did exist because then you have everything to gain and nothing to lose. But there’s a flaw in that because if God does exist and assuming he is the blood thirsty fellow of Old Testament times, he knows you are taking this wager and that might not be the best of ideas. However, I’ll take the risk and argue with him anyway.

I’d like to start with looking at the general story most of us were told by our parents and teachers throughout our schooldays and into later life. It goes something like this: God sent his only son down to earth to become fully man as well as remaining fully God. Let’s not get into the theology now, just assume we accept it. Jesus started his ministry (according to the New Testament) in his early thirties. He upset the Jewish authorities by his teaching and actions (he had caused a disturbance in the temple when throwing out the money lenders) and was betrayed by Judas. He was arrested and eventually crucified by the Romans. Three days later he rose from the dead and hence started the greatest religion on the planet.

The human race were quite a bad bunch. They were murdering each other, lying, stealing, blaspheming, committing adultery etc. But because God loved us so much he felt he had to help us to mend our ways. By sending his son down to us and having him die an ignominious and really horrible death, he atoned for our sins and hence redeemed us.

I’m not sure it worked as we are still murdering each other today.

However, the whole idea seems to me to be absurd. Here we have a supposedly omnipotent God who has created the universe and humankind. But something goes awry with his creatures and the only way he can fix it is by killing his son! And then we have to consider the existence of the devil. Apparently Lucifer was a most beautiful angel who got too big for his boots and decided to take God on. But God, being the creator of the universe and everything defeated Lucifer and the angels who took his side and hurled them down to hell. But he didn’t bind them there. He allowed them loose to roam the earth and place temptation in mankind’s way. I ask you what chance did mortal men have? The devil, now renamed Satan or one of his demons comes along and offers you some great deals. You’ve just been chucked out of the Garden of Eden and now have to live by the sweat of your brow and suffer illness and disease and worst of all, death. What are you going to do? You’re a weak mortal and you’re surely gonna accept. So you murder, cheat, lie, steal. But God still has a soft spot for you and still wants to redeem you.

I would have thought that if Satan was the one causing us all to do bad things, couldn’t God have locked him up good and proper? Then he wouldn’t have had to do what he did. But no, he goes ahead with the crucifixion and resurrection idea.

Now not only does he have his only son put to death, but in order to do this, he has to get somebody to betray him. This unfortunate, Judas, has gone down in history as the worst traitor of all time. But it wasn’t his fault! God used him. And if Judas had the guts to say no, then God would have got some other sucker to do his dirty work for him. Why? Couldn’t God have just given the nod to the Romans? And worse, he makes it look like the whole Jewish people are to blame rather than the guys who actually carried out the killing. The Jews were not allowed by their Roman masters to put anybody to death. They could punish people or imprison them, but they had to get the seal of approval from Rome before they could actually sentence anybody to the ultimate penalty. So Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea at the time had to give the authorisation. And so the Jews have suffered throughout history for this crime ultimately committed by God and not them.

Does this make any sense at all? People often say that the New Testament is a great book replacing the blood and thunder God of the Old Testament with Jesus, who came to bring love and peace. But consider that Daddy is still running the show and doles out a horrific death to his son. He is arrested, beaten, spat upon and mocked. He then has a garland of thorns viciously crammed onto his head. He is scourged to within an inch of his life and is then made to carry the crossbeam on his back and walk up Calvary to his place of execution. He falls three times and is then nailed, hands and feet to the cross. He has the mocking sign “King of the Jews” attached above his head and hangs in extreme agony for three hours before he finally dies. This is no quick killing. It is a long drawn out bloodfest. And that is how mankind was redeemed.

I always wonder at the last words of Jesus according to the gospels of Matthew and Mark, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” which means “My God, My God, Why hast thou forsaken me?” Did he suddenly realise his trust in God was to no avail? Strange words to say and as they are not the words one would expect him to say, many scholars believe they are authentic.

The passion of Christ as it is called has since played an enormous role in the spiritual and physical life of the church. We are told we should offer our pain up to God in further atonement for our sins, even though this was already done by Jesus. Because of this suffering by Jesus, a lot of saints and churchmen put a lot of emphasis on suffering, even making it into something that is somehow good. Suffering is not good and is one reason why mankind has laboured since the dawn of history towards trying to lessen or do away with suffering altogether. So not only does God expect his own son to suffer but expects all his creatures on this planet to suffer as well. Now what sort of God is that?

This whole idea of suffering is one reason I find it hard to accept the existence of God. If God exists and is omnipotent why does he allow this to continue. I can accept that adults may suffer a bit because it might be some sort of punishment for wrongs done, but innocent children? This I cannot condone. Assuming the existence of God for one moment, this leads to the whole problem of exactly what manner of God he is. If he is all powerful then why does he not stop suffering? Either he can’t which means he is not omnipotent, or he won’t which means he is not all good. Simple logic? Maybe our minds are not intelligent enough to understand God’s ways and it will all become clear in due course. But that is one hell of a leap of faith to take, surely? Okay, I know many do have this faith, but what about those who don’t? Besides, why do we all come into this world with no choice in the matter, go through whatever we go through and then die? Does this not seem like some sort of perverse alien experiment? Hardly the handicraft of a supposedly all good God.

Some say that maybe suffering can make one strong. There are people who have stated that their suffering in life has actually helped them to understand their place on this earth, become strong and appreciate life much more. But if that is so, then it can only happen in the context of being able to understand the suffering. It surely cannot apply to children or animals. And whereas some people may find comfort in their distress, I think it’s a cop out.

Another way to look at the problem of suffering is to ask the question what is evil about a life-saving operation performed without anaesthetic (as was done not so long ago) such as the removal of a gangrenous leg. This, while horrendously painful did save lives. However today we have discovered how to use anaesthetic. And that was mortal man's discovery. How about what a supposedly omnipotent God can do? Why put us through this life in the first place?

I have sometimes looked at the problem of evil by thinking what is a lifetime of pain compared to an eternity of happiness? Maybe we can learn valuable lessons through evil. But I think that is a bridge too far.

Another factor we should consider is the possibility that God could himself be evil. After all where belief in God exists, it is usually assumed that God is good. That is an assumption. Maybe it is wrong. The world itself is not good, at least many of the people in it are not good. And while earthquakes and other natural events can be considered neutral, they leave a trail of evil behind.

The easiest answer is to conclude that God does not exist. But I find that is too easy. There has to be more to it than that? Maybe that is wishful thinking, but that’s the way I feel about it. Then again, maybe the human race is so bad, we don’t deserve redemption. But, hey, we didn’t make ourselves. So many questions and so few answers.

After the time of Christ, many gospels were written about him. We are most familiar with the four gospels which the Church decided to incorporate into the Bible, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. However, many more were written which were considered heresy by the early Church fathers and hence were banned. Many were destroyed, but luckily quite a few have survived. In some of these the gnostics as they were called (from the Greek word gnosis meaning knowledge) postulated that the God of the Old Testament, which they called the demiurge, was not a very good fellow at all. In fact this guy was downright evil and not only was he responsible for the creation of evil but he was also created the material world which itself was evil. However, above the demiurge is a supreme, good, but unknowable God who was responsible for sending Jesus to instruct us that the kingdom of God was within each and every one of us and that we could eventually return to that kingdom if only we would open ourselves up to the secret knowledge or gnosis. There were other variations on this theme and the above is only a very sketchy example. But as I’ve said before why would a supreme God go to all this trouble in allowing the demiurge to wreck havoc? Why not just bypass him altogether?

Having said all that, I guess we must accept that the Bible and even the Gnostic texts themselves were all written by men. Not by God. And they were written by men simply trying to make sense of the mysterious world they found themselves part of. In those far off days, they did not have the science or an iota of the knowledge we now have, so they resorted to their own fertile imaginations to come up with plausible explanations of the world and their place in it. And even with all our science and progress today, we still haven’t much of a clue as to the meaning of it all.

There are many areas of the Bible (both old and new testaments) which contain a lot of wisdom and if people adopted the teachings of Christ in their day to day lives, this world would be a lot better for it. The idea that Jesus came down to earth to redeem us seems weird to me. I think a better explanation would be that he came to show us that there was a better way to live our lives than the way we were and that the journey through this life is simply some sort of preparation for an afterlife. His sermon on the mount is a beautiful and marvellous call to change our ways for the better and one really can’t go far wrong with uplifting stuff like that. Whether or not Christ was the son of God is a matter for each individual’s faith to address, but whoever this man was, and I’m convinced he was a real and historical figure, he was way ahead of his time.

I guess that this is no better an explanation than anything else, but it gets rid of the “need to suffer” nonsense. Not that it gets rid of the actual suffering, but that is something which we might eventually be able to do ourselves. After all medical science has already drastically reduced pain and distress at various points in our lives. No reason to think it can’t go all the way. And I think the man Jesus would see nothing wrong with that.

So I continue to wrestle. I wouldn’t be so bold as to say I actually wrestle with God himself, but I sure wrestle with the concept of God. And while I don’t expect to win anytime soon or indeed ever, it is an interesting match.

Has Physics Taken a Wrong Turn?

Just before the beginning of the 20th century, physics seemed to be all sown up. Newton’s laws of gravitation showed that the planets in their orbits behaved in perfect accord with his mathematical laws, except for a small discrepancy in the path of Mercury, the planet nearest the sun. And in the realm of the small, the electromagnetic force seemed to account for all phenomena, again except for one small detail to do with blackbody radiation. Whereas physicists expected radiation to vary in a smooth fashion, it seemed to vary in discrete jumps, like small packets. In fact Maxwell (known for his equations describing electromagnetism) said “…that, in a few years, all great physical constants will have been approximately estimated, and that the only occupation which will be left to men of science will be to carry these measurements to another place of decimals”. How wrong he was!

In the early 20th century two giants of physics, Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr came along and totally shattered that illusion. All the problems in physics were not solved at all and in fact are far from solved even today.

In the realm of atoms, Max Planck, a German physicist, towards the end of the 19th century, performed a number of experiments which showed that energy came in little bundles. This is regarded as the birth of quantum mechanics. After Planck came Niels Bohr, a Dane who became a professor at the University of Copenhagen. Bohr made major contributions to quantum theory throughout the course of his life, particularly during the first half of the 20th century. Along with Werner Heisenberg he developed the theory which would become known as the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. This held sway for many years although today there are many other interpretations of the theory.

On the other hand, in the realm of the very big, Albert Einstein developed two theories, the special and general theories of relativity. The special theory dealt with the speed of light (constant in a vacuum) and his famous energy equation (the amount of energy locked in a lump of matter is equal to the mass of the matter multiplied by the square of the speed of light). This simple equation simply says that not only can energy be transferred into mass and vice versa, but as the square of the speed of light is such a huge number, the amount of energy contained in even a tiny lump of matter is enormous. This led eventually to the development of nuclear energy. The general theory dealt with gravitation solving the niggling problem of the discrepancy in Mercury’s orbit.

However, while in the world of the very large (everything from our everyday knowledge of people, tables and chairs to the universe itself) things seemed to knit neatly into place (however see below), it wasn’t so in the world of the very small, the demesne of the atom. For a start, Heisenberg came up with his uncertainty principle which said that you could not measure two related aspects of a particle, for example, it’s position and velocity, at the same time. If you knew it’s position with extremely high accuracy, you could not know it’s velocity with any certainty and vice versa. And this wasn’t anything to do with the accuracy of our measuring instruments, it was something fundamental to the nature of particles such as the constituents of atoms like electrons and protons and perhaps even to atoms themselves.

And further, every particle exhibited aspects of particles and waves. Depending on how you measured it, it could appear as a wave or a particle. The well known double slit experiment showed this clearly and became known as complementarity.

Furthermore, in the quantum world, because of the uncertainty principle, you could not tell when an atom would decay. You could only give a statistical average. If you had millions of atoms, you could predict how many would decay over a certain time, but not which ones.

This led to the story of Schrodinger’s cat. Erwin Schrodinger was a physicist who came up with an equation which described how a system of many particles would change over time. In the tale of the unfortunate cat, a subatomic particle is placed in a box along with the cat. The fate of the cat rested on whether the particle decayed or not (which probability was fifty-fifty). If the particle decayed it caused a phial of poison gas to be broken which killed the cat. If the particle did not decay, no gas was released and the cat lived. Because the box is sealed you will not know what happened till you open it. Naturally this is only a very simple illustration of the paradox and leaves out a lot of subtle technical details. But it purported to show that until the box is actually opened the cat is neither dead nor alive but in a state of entanglement of the two outcomes, a sort of dead/alive cat. This of course was a thought experiment and was never actually carried out. But it served as a good example of the apparent absurdity of quantum physics.

Einstein took umbrage at this and even though he had been involved in the early development of quantum mechanics (wave/particle duality for example), he was a forceful opponent of it. Legend are his many arguments with Bohr on the subject and he was never reconciled to the theory, dying in 1955. However, as the years wore on and more experiments were done, they tended to support quantum theory. Many more theories were put forward to try and explain what was going on in the quantum world. One physicist quipped that there were as many different theories as there were physicists.

One really crazy theory is the Many Worlds theory first put forward by a physicist called Hugh Everett. Referring back to our famous cat above, this theory basically said that when something in the atomic world can go in one of two (or more) ways, it actually chooses all ways. The universe splits at this point and in one universe the cat lives while in the other the cat dies. This leads to billions and billions of universes which in my opinion is like cracking the proverbial nut with a nuclear bomb! It’s nonsense, yet surprisingly many physicists say it is the correct theory.

Another major problem we have is the fact that general relativity theory and quantum theory cannot be reconciled together and hence we have two theories of the universe. One of the very large and one of the very small, a very unsatisfactory state of affairs. One of the reasons for this is that general relativity regards space as continuous while quantum mechanics does not. If you try and put the mathematics together, you get infinities popping up and this is a serious flaw.

So for many years physicists have been working on trying to marry the two theories together. What popped up was string theory which eventually was able to cope with both general relativity and quantum mechanics within the constraints of the one theory. This was great except for one detail. String theory then (it was first muted around 1970) and string theory today has not one shred of experimental evidence to show for itself. It is purely a mathematical theory. While it may be a beautiful piece of mathematics, it nonetheless remains moonshine. Maybe one day, it is possible, we may find some evidence for it. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the biggest particle accelerator in the world, which began operations late last year, will be searching diligently for evidence of strings, but even when it reaches it’s full energy capacity sometime next year, it will still be far short of achieving the energies necessary to show evidence for strings. There may be hints but that is all which can be hoped for.

String theory basically replaces all particles with tiny vibrating strings of energy and depending on their frequency of vibration can reproduce every known particle. This may sound grand, but unfortunately these strings do not exist in normal 3-dimensional space (or 4-dimensional if we add time as a dimension). They exist in 11 dimensions. Other string variants can exist in different numbers of dimensions but 11 seems to be generally agreed. But it doesn’t really matter how many dimensions we speak about because there is no evidence for any of these extra dimensions and besides we are really getting into the realm of science fiction, at least in my humble opinion.

So what is happening? Have we really come up against it when trying to figure out the detailed workings of the universe? Is it too big for us? Can our puny human brains handle it? Since the age of the industrial revolution (and even before) men of science have made great strides in understanding the universe and how it works. They have come a long way in a relatively short time. And the progress has been accelerating all the time. Until now. While great things are still being discovered and achieved in other areas of science, physics seems to have come to a dead stop. The standard model, as it is called, has been with us since the 1950s and 1960s, and while it has been improved and refined, it is still with us. And it only encompasses the theory of the atomic world and does not include general relativity which stubbornly remains outside it’s scope.

The Large Hadron Collider has now been operating for a year or so and has only been ramped up to about half it’s design energy. So far the standard model has been confirmed, but no new physics has been seen. But we will probably have to wait till the LHC reaches it full operating energy next year sometime.

So what are some of the outstanding questions we need to answer in particle physics and cosmology? The usual questions are still with us in quantum mechanics. For example, what is meant by a measurement and does this measurement cause the cat, for example, to leave the dead/live stage and become either dead or alive? Does the act of measurement split the universe into two or more universes (the many worlds theorem)? Is the universe 4-dimensional (including time) or multi-dimensional? Are the smallest items of our universe made of particles or strings? Or maybe something else?

Of course there are also questions still to be addressed in the world of the very large. For example, how did the universe begin? For many years there were two different theories, the Big Bang and the Steady State theories. The Big Bang simply stated that the universe began in a massive explosion from a point millions of times smaller than an atom. Not only was all matter we see around us created in that moment, but also spacetime as well. Before that moment nothing existed, not even time. The joke goes that when St Augustine, one of the early Church Fathers, was asked what was God doing before the creation of the world, he answered that He was preparing Hell for people who asked such idle questions. Of course he didn’t answer so glibly. He actually said that time was a property of the universe that God created when he created everything else, so he wasn’t so far from modern ideas here. On the other hand the Steady State said that the universe always existed and that continuous creation was ongoing to fill out the vacuum left as space expanded. However, this idea was shelved when the radio echo of the Big Bang was discovered coming from every point in the sky.

Once it became generally accepted that the Big Bang was the start of our universe, the questions then became what happened before the Big Bang? What caused the Big Bang? If one Big Bang could occur, where there others? Is there more than one universe? It seems that with every new answer followed a myriad of new questions.

And today, it appears that not only is the universe expanding, but instead of slowing down from the initial kick from the Big Bang, it is actually accelerating. A mysterious substance called dark energy is proposed to be responsible for this acceleration and hence we need to ask what is dark energy. Nobody knows. And to make matters worse, there is also another substance in our universe called dark matter. This is to account for the fact that galaxies should not hold together with the present mass that they contain. At least that we can see and measure, so there must be more mass. This is the dark matter. In fact, our universe as we understand it today consists of 70% dark energy, 25% dark matter which leaves 5% for all the rest, the stars, planets etc. That means we haven’t a clue as to what 95% of our universe is composed of and what’s more, we can’t even see any of it.

And with all our equations, theories etc. there are still many anomalies in our understanding of physics in areas we thought we knew everything about. Like Newton’s laws of motion and gravitation. A pair of unmanned spacecraft called Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 were sent on a reconnaissance mission of the planets Jupiter, Saturn and interstellar space, having been launched in 1972 and 1973 respectively. According to known laws of physics, these spacecraft are not where they are supposed to be. They are falling behind in their projected travel by about 5000 kilometers per year. This needs to be explained and much work is being done to address the problem, including adjusting our present theory of gravitation. However, no answers are forthcoming as I write.

Another interesting anomaly is the so called horizon problem. This is asking the question as to how the universe is so uniform no matter in which direction we look. The microwave background radiation which fills the whole universe is at the same temperature everywhere. As nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, there is no way this radiation could have travelled between the most distant parts of the universe to even out the hot and cold spots created in the Big Bang. One wild solution to this was suggested by a physicist called Alan Guth when he came up with an idea called inflation. This says that the universe expanded incredibly rapidly just after the Big Bang in the order of billions of times in billionths of a second. A hairy conjecture which only opens up more questions as to how this might have happened etc.

So it seems to me that the progress (or lack of) modern physics makes, the weirder the answers become. Many worlds, extra dimensions, dark energy, string theory etc. And many of these are pure conjecture with little or no evidence to back them up. Not that I despair of modern physics, it is a most fascinating subject. But it looks like the days are gone (or at least are in abeyance) when new particles were being discovered regularly and theory and experiment went hand in hand. Now experiment is lacking severely behind the theorists who continue to astonish us with their new forays into the unknown.

I should note that I have only scratched the surface of this amazing subject, there is so much more that I could have mentioned. In the meanwhile, we wait for experiments to catch up with theory and hopefully the LHC will ramp up to full energy sooner rather than later. But will it be enough?

Death

Death. The word smacks of finality. An end to our existence, at least in the mortal world. Books have been written about it. Poems have been written about it. Films have been made about it. But what exactly is it? We can only really speak about it from this side of the grave as nobody has ever come back from the other side to tell us what it was like. Okay, I know plenty of people will feel their hackles rising at this point but I’ll get to all that later.

There are many definitions of death depending where you’re coming from. Medically, it used to be when the heart stopped beating, but today people can be sustained on life support systems and actually recover. However, it is probably when brain activity ceases. From that point on the body becomes paler, the blood settles in the lower portions, the temperature drops, the limbs become stiff and eventually decomposition begins. At this point the body is placed in a coffin and buried or cremated.

All neatly done and dusted and everyone can go home, bringing with them their fond and maybe not so fond memories. Somebody said if the Irish had half the respect for the living as they do for the dead, this would be a great place to live. Well, I agree with that and is one reason why if I didn’t like somebody when they were alive, their death ain’t going to change my opinion of them.

Why do some people fear death so much? Personally I don’t fear death at all, but having said that if I were put up against a wall right this minute with a gun pointed at my head, I’d be quakin’ in my shoes. And who knows, if I ever get to lie on my death bed in the full knowledge that I’m about to quit this mortal coil, I’ll probably be pretty scared too. But at this point in time the only qualms I have are about suffering. Nobody wants to suffer. After all death is a part of life, albeit the final bit. I have no fear of the afterlife (if there is one) either. Being an agnostic, if it turns out that God meets me, I’ve no doubt (due to my belief in science and reason) that such a being is benign and would quite agree with me that it was the mind and reasoning powers He provided me with which led me to my agnosticism.

Another reason I might fear death is the awful possibility of premature burial. Now, that is really scary. Image waking up and finding yourself in a coffin from which there is no escape. Or worse still, waking up as the coffin is about to enter the furnace if you’re being cremated. However, I believe that medical science is sufficiently advanced these days that this doesn’t happen anymore. At least I sure hope so. I remember a woman waking up in the morgue in Dublin in the 1960s. The attendant got as big a fright as she did.

Some fear death because, not believing in anything, just don’t want to leave this world. They don’t want to die into nothing and therefore “rage, rage against the dying of the light”, as Dylan Thomas’ poem expresses so well. But if there is nothing there, they are not going to know. They’ll be dead! And it’s hard to imagine that anybody is so certain that there is nothing after death that it should scare them so. But I guess there are all sorts of folks in the world.

Some fear death, because they haven’t exactly lived a good life and they realise that finally they might meet with some justice. Well, I don’t think they should worry too much as I doubt God is waiting with a big grin on his face to grab their souls and haul them off to Hell. As I don’t believe in the devil, there’s no point even discussing such a nonsense concept. I could be wrong, and at the end of the day if God does exist and allows the existence of such a monster as Satan, then even the good need to be terrified.

Maybe others fear death because it is so unknown. And that’s probably the biggest fear of mankind: the unknown. What’s out there and what can it do to us? But surely, death must be the most exciting adventure any of us can undertake? This is the one time we really are all alone as we step over the threshold. What’s there? If there’s nothing, we’re not going to know. A bit of a letdown really. But how about if there is an afterlife, I mean what kind of trip would that be? Let’s think about it.

If it is like most people in the Western World have been told, then we get to come face to face with God. This incredible powerful being, who not only made the whole universe (just think about that!) but also each one of us. That’s a mighty potent piece of engineering. Then we get to spend eternity doing, I’m sure, very interesting things. I doubt we’ll all be bored out of our minds sitting around on clouds singing songs of praise all day. And I’m pretty sure we don’t have to consider going through a spell in Purgatory. That was something dreamed up by the Church in the 12th century as they couldn’t conceive that anybody might be pure enough to enter Heaven immediately after death and we all had to spend some time getting purged first. And Hell? All I can say if there is such a place, then God is a tyrant after all and we’re all screwed. Which leads to the interesting question as where evil people go. This is a topic in it’s own right and all I can say is with Mahatma Gandhi “love the sinner, hate the sin”. Not an easy thing to do at all and probably something quite impossible to do by anybody but a very, very forgiving person. “Forgive your enemies,” said Christ. Easier said than done. So having said that, I leave this topic to another day.

In my opinion, if there is an afterlife, I would think it unlikely that we are brought full blown into it. I would assume that we enter a spiritual sphere and live a life there, no longer physical but spiritual. And once again we die in that life and move on to an even higher mode of existence. I don’t know for how long this might continue or how many higher levels of existence there might be. Maybe infinite. This might be one answer as to what evil people might face as in this spiritual dimension they would have to face their own evil. But this is getting too speculative.

I also find it strange the number of people who don’t want to discuss death. They think it is morbid or ghoulish. Personally I find it fascinating and like it or not, we are all going to face it one day. And not only that, we’re going to be alone when we do so. Oh, you can say there will be people with you at the end gathered around your death bed. If we go like that, then notwithstanding the fact that there may be people around you, you still go into that good night alone. Nobody else in that room is going to volunteer to come with you. I remember my father on his death bed. According to my mother afterwards he knew he was dying but didn’t want to talk about it. Okay, I accept his right not to speak about it, but I thought it was a great pity. I hope I’m not afraid to speak about it if I find myself in such a situation or the doctor has given me so long to live. It would be a shock, but you get over shocks and hopefully come to terms with it.

Above I said that nobody has ever come back from death to tell us about it. Many people will have something to say about that. I’ll try to give my point of view in what follows.

Of course, the main objection I suppose is religious. We have been brought up to believe in God and if we live a good life here on Earth, we will gain our reward in Heaven. But who told us this? It started with our parents and then our teachers. We were children. We knew no better. We believed everything our parents and teachers told us. We were bombarded with information about God, and how He looked after us, even supplying a personal guardian angel to guide us through our lives. Less emphasis was put on the demon who also accompanied us through our lives tempting us to commit sin. Sin, that awful word, which was bound up (at least in our earliest years) with some mysterious and dreadful deeds more awful than lying or murder. We would be somewhat older before it was equated with sex!

And if we did lead a good life, of course we went to heaven when we died. If the Christian Brothers were to be believed, there were many cases when the souls of the faithful departed did in fact come back to regale us with stories of the afterlife, usually with dire warning to avoid bad companions in this life or face the prospect of an eternity in hell. But these were only stories. Nobody came back to visit me, which doesn’t mean it didn’t happen to others. But I have never come across a definite case where it has happened. Oh, people have told me about their ghost stories and so forth, but when I begin to question them more closely, I can quickly see that is all it is, stories. And if I ask where exactly is the particular house which is definitely haunted and where I’m guaranteed to see a ghost, the answer becomes vague or I’m told the house has been sold and besides don’t I ever take anybody’s word for it. Quite frankly, no, I don’t.

What about séances? Can’t we communicate with the dead? Don’t mediums work? Oh, you’ll get a lot of charlatans playing at this game. But I believe mediums and such have been exposed so many times, it is amazing, at least to me, why anybody in their right mind still believe the garbage that they say. The American magician, James Randi, among many others have shown how mediums conduct their business many times. It is called cold reading. This is a technique easily learned. Next time you attend a session where the medium says they are contacting the dead, or even see it on television, pay close attention. Typically with an audience they might start by saying something like “I’m hearing from somebody called James, does anybody know a James?” Well the chances are that in any reasonably sized audience somebody will have a relative who has died called James, or Jimmy, or Jim. They never say they are being contacted by somebody called Zacharias, for example. “Now this James”, the medium will continue, “died from some illness.” Oh yes, big deal. What else did they die from? Laughter? “I’m getting the word cancer,” they’ll say. And so they’ll continue and when they have narrowed down one gullible in the audience they’ll concentrate on them. “James is telling me to tell you he is happy and not to worry about the money.” Maybe at this point the person whose relative is speaking to them from the other side (the other side of what, I ask cynically) says they don’t know what James is talking about. Watch closely how the medium quickly says something to cover up, like “No, it’s not money. Not in that sense. Did he leave a house?” And most likely they are back on track again. Yes, there was a house. And this goes on till the unfortunate person from the audience is in tears really believing that this shyster is really talking to their relative James. Shame on them. They always get things wrong, but quickly change the subject. What don’t people notice this?

And then again I’ve spoken to people who have visited a fortune teller and they will tell me how many things they got right. But I like to ask them how many things they got wrong. People only remember what they want. It’s human nature, I suppose. The chances are that I can tell somebody I never met before ten things about themselves, and I’m bound to get at least two or three correct. Professional charlatans (or indeed illusionists who tell you they are using trickery and not supernatural talent) have honed their craft well and using a lot of other tricks, like body language etc. will get a lot more things correct.

The great Houdini spent many years going to séance after séance in the hope of being able to contact his deceased mother. After a short while he realised the futility of such an enterprise and turned his talents to exposing these mediums. He exposed every medium he ever examined. He even offered a cash prize to any medium who could show that contact with the afterlife was possible. Nobody ever collected the prize.

Even today, the illusionist James Randi has similarly offered a cash prize which nobody has been able to collect. He has exposed all who tried.

Another proof of life after death offered by some is the Near Death Experience or as the yanks like to say, NDE. I’m sure you are familiar with the scenarios, one of which describes a person who dies on an operating table. Their heart stops and they find themselves floating above the operating room and being able to see their body surrounded by doctors, nurses and medical machines. They see the team frantically trying to resuscitate their heart and seeming to fail. In the meantime they float on up through the operating room ceiling and become aware of a long tunnel at the end of which there is a very bright light. There are various descriptions of this light, but those who experience it feel more strongly than anything they have ever felt before, that they have to get to that light. It is drawing them to itself and they experience a wonderful sense of peace and happiness. Suddenly as they are about to reach it, they are drawn back and find themselves back in their body, the surgical team having successfully revived them. And in many cases this experience changes their lives, they feel closer to nature and God and often end up living a better life, free of mundane care.

However, as with everything else, there are a number of proposed explanations for this phenomenon, including recollection of the birth experience, effects of drugs or medicines, oxygen starvation, a flood of endorphins (a type of morphine) released by the dying brain, and hallucinations among others. Scientific investigation into NDEs has shown that oxygen starvation for example can produce very similar sensations. And the experience does appear to be the same across different cultures implying a common cause (human brain?). However it seems to me that it is not necessary to postulate an afterlife as an explanation when the answer could well lie in physiological or biological mechanisms.

And of course the biggest proof if you like of an afterlife is in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. So if you believe in Jesus and Christianity, you believe in an afterlife. However, it is no proof that an afterlife exists. It is a matter for faith alone and I can’t quibble with that.

But do we always have to demand evidence? Why not just accept it on faith? Many people do so and if that’s what they have decided then who am I to argue. I’m sure they have good reasons, maybe even had a theophany. However, I simply cannot do that. My logical, scientific, rational mind cries out against it. And I have never had a vision or an encounter with a supernatural being (you might like to check out my article below on Ghosts). I have, along with many others, no reason to accept what others say about such an important topic. Surely, if God exists, He knows how I feel and think and would do something about it. I’m not looking for lightning bolts from heaven but maybe a nod in the right direction. I have often gone into a church at times when nobody else is there as I find them places of quiet, peace and solitude. There is an atmosphere which I have not found elsewhere. I sit quietly near the altar and observe my surroundings. Statues and pictures depicting scenes from the bible or representations of Christ or his mother and other saints. A hush hangs in the air imbued with a scent of incense. You can almost hear the silence. A faint sense of mystery beckons. I look at the various pictures and wonder which bible story they are relating. Sometimes I know, other times I don’t. Then I try and blank my mind. I succeed for a very short time and in that moment try to let God in. But then thoughts come crashing through as if abhorring a vacuum. I become aware of my surroundings again. The quiet sounds of a church. And then intrusions of other sounds, a car in the distance, a gentle snap as the building settles, a door opening somewhere. And then the silence falls heavy again. Nothing stirs and I get up and leave.

I guess in this life there is no way we’re going to find out anything about the next one. We’re just going to have to go there and see. And I, for one, am in no hurry.

Christmas

I am one of those people who love Christmas and have done so ever since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. I always feel an atmosphere in the air coming up to Christmas day, especially Christmas Eve. It seems a wondrous time to be alive and people genuinely seem to be more friendly and welcoming.

My earliest memories of Christmas are of my mother telling me (and probably my brother too, these memories encompass a few Christmases together) that it was time to write to Santa to tell him that most importantly I had been a good boy and secondly to inform him what I’d like as a Christmas present. Well, a comic book usually featured along with a toy Noah’s ark, or a fire brigade, or a cowboy gun and holster. Not in those days did we have the ridiculous “we mustn’t encourage violence in our child” crap. When did a gun and holster ever encourage a child to violence? Anyway, my mother sat down at the table with me and wrote the sacred letter. Then she carefully folded it and put it in an envelope which she let me lick and stick. The next step was to light a corner of the envelope in the fire and throw it up the chimney. This was how letters reached Santa Claus in the North Pole. I’m not exactly sure of the physics of it, but I guess the little flame at the corner of the envelope gave it a sort of rocket impetus which blasted it up the chimney on it’s long journey. Apparently it always reached it’s destination as I always got the present requested. Probably even more reliable than the internet!

Then there was the obligatory day in town. Mam (Dad, I guess was at work) took myself and my younger brother into town to visit Santa in Clery’s. We had to queue up outside as the excited line of kids and parents slowly made it’s way along the street and into the great shop. Then through the aisles amidst the hustle and bustle of shoppers and eventually we were able to catch our first delighted look at the magic man himself, sitting in great majesty in his red robes and long white beard.

“And what’s your name, young man?”

“Fergal,” I replied.

“Have you been a good boy for Mammy and Daddy?”

“Oh yes,” says I.

“And what would you like for Christmas?” beamed Santa.

“I’d like a book, and Noah’s ark,” I said, “And some sweets.”

“Ho, Ho,” replied Santa shaking with mirth, “And don’t forget to leave a carrot by the chimney for Rudolph and a small bottle of Guinness for me. It’s a thirsty trip from the North Pole to all the boys and girls in the whole world.”

“I won’t forget,” I promised as Santa put a small blue covered package in my hands.

“Happy Christmas” he said as I hurriedly returned to my mother clutching my little present in my hands.

When we returned to the street outside, it had grown quite dark and time to head off to McBirney’s across the quays to see the fabulous Christmas lights they put up outside their shop every year. We stood in awe on the far side of the Liffey taking in this majestic Christmas sight. There was Santa in his sleigh loaded down with presents, his beard flapping in the wind as he was pulled on his journey round the world by his trusty reindeer, led by the powerful Rudolph. The silent changing of the lights gave the impression of great movement as if we were watching the mystical voyage itself through the starry night.

Next we went to Grafton Street to see the lights there, hung across the street and sending great cheer to all the Christmas people, changing the landscape into a canvass of flashing colours. Finally we made our way to Switzer’s (or was it Brown Thomas’s) window display with scenes from some fairy story told with moving figures. After a tiring but happy day we returned home.

The weekend before Christmas day my father took us to get the Christmas tree. My brother and myself helped him to carry it home from the local shop (we didn’t have a car in those days). But this was part of the fun, carrying it up the street and to our house. Then as my father anchored the tree to the floor somehow, we busied ourselves getting out the decorations and generally giving a helping hand. To be honest my father would probably have done it all in half the time, but he was a patient man. And once the tree with all it’s lights was turned on, it was time to erect the crib. This was a beautiful open cabin which my father had built from plywood sometime in the past and had a door and windows cut in the back through which we could see the three wise men travelling across the land in search of the promised messiah. They were guided by a star in the sky and rode on camels. This was an old Christmas card we had received a few years before and which my father had used as a very effective backdrop to the main activity happening in the foreground. There was the infant Jesus surrounded by Mary and Joseph, a cow and an ass, a couple of shepherds and an angel kneeling for some reason in the back. This my father informed us was the real reason for Christmas.

And so the days hurried on and suddenly it was Christmas Eve. This was my favourite day and night of all. It brought all the hard work and preparations almost to a close. This was the moment of great anticipation for the wonderful day ahead. The only thing I found hard about it was the stink in the kitchen as my mother removed the turkey’s entrails before cleaning it, stuffing it and getting it ready for the oven. It took an hour for the stench to abate and I stayed well away until it was gone. Then the lovely smell of cooking turkey and ham, the plum pudding boiling away in it’s big pot, and the warmth of the kitchen which was quite unlike it’s warmth on normal days. This was like the kitchen knew it was a special event and wanted to join in. This was an extra happy kitchen.

Then sometime after tea Mr Dillon, the man who lodged in the flat above us, came down with a present for me. He was a nice man who I had befriended and often sat at his dinner table eating his discarded potato skins when he came in from work and strangely had his dinner when everybody else were having their tea. But every year he came down to our flat on Christmas Eve. He carried a box which he gave to me and with a shy smile wished me a Happy Christmas.

“What do you say?” prodded my father.

“Thank you, Mr Dillon,” I’d say, “And Happy Christmas”.

Inside the box, which I was always allowed to open when he had gone as it wasn’t a Santa present and so could be opened on Christmas Eve, was either a Mechano set or a Lego set. These were great presents and I was always pleased as punch to receive them.

My mother then got the tall Christmas candle and placed it firmly in a pot of clay. She opened the curtains a good foot or two and placed it on the window sill. Then she lit it telling me that it was to guide Our Lady and St Joseph on their way to Bethlehem where Jesus would be born in a stable. A lovely tradition.

At last bedtime came round and it was a night I was told I had to particularly make sure I went to sleep as soon as possible. I didn’t want to be awake when Santa pushed his way down the chimney and up to my bedroom to leave my presents at the end of the bed, have his little drink of Guinness and then depart as quietly as he came, taking Rudolph’s carrot with him. Funny he never left soot marks on the floor.

I hurriedly got into my pyjamas and got down on my knees by my bed to say my prayers. Then jumping between the covers, I snuggled down for sleep. My mother pinned a sock at the end of the bed for Santa to place some sweets in. Then my parents kissed me goodnight and urged me to sleep saying the Candyman would be along very shortly to sprinkle stardust in my eyes (as good old Roy Orbison sang).

I never had trouble sleeping at any time, but it especially came easy on Christmas Eve. However, it wouldn’t be long (at least to me, although it was somewhere in the middle of the night) before I’d awake with the thoughts of Santa rushing through my mind. Had he been yet? Only one way to find out as I sat up in bed and crawled towards where the sock was pinned. Would it be empty or full? It was always full and with a cry of delight, I’d leap up, turn on the light to find my presents on the floor at the end of my bed. Oh what a thrill as I tore off the wrapping to find exactly what I’d requested in that letter some weeks before which had winged it’s way to the North Pole. Then my brother and I would scramble to our parent’s bedroom to wake them with hollers of delight as we showed them both what Santa had left. Little did I know they knew full well what Santa had left and were only dying to get back to sleep. However, we were never aware of their urgency and it wasn’t long before we were both convinced to return to bed till the morning.

Then the second awakening as the dawn struggled to rise and we were free to get up and dress in preparation for the great day. First, before we could have any sweets or get down to any serious play with our new toys, we had to have breakfast (in later years it was a glass of water as we had to fast before Holy Communion) and head off to mass. During those days of Latin intonation and graveness the priest actually smiled and wished the whole congregation a Happy Christmas at the end of the mass.

Then we came home and were allowed full rein with our toys and sweets. As always my Uncle Raffles (his real name was Charles but everybody called him Raffles) arrived at our house in his car and always gave me a half crown for Christmas. He stayed for about an hour talking and joking and drinking his pre-warmed bottle of Guinness. I like Guinness today, but I couldn’t stand it warm. Ah well, different times, different folks!

Then at around four o’clock in the afternoon my mother summoned us in for dinner. It was the one day in the year I’d be truly starving at the lateness of the hour. We normally had dinner at dinner time (one o’clock) and tea at teatime (six o’clock). This was the normal way of the universe, in our house at any rate.

First we’d get the rich creamy soup. And then the main fare would arrive, the golden cooked turkey, the steaming ham, the brussels sprouts (a particular favourite of mine to this day) and the roast potatoes. My father always gave me a leg of the turkey as he told me this was what a man should eat, even though I’d have much preferred the breast. No matter, it was delicious. And as always we were too full to have any of the plum pudding, although it was duly brought to the table, sprinkled with whiskey and lit, it’s blue flame just discernable in the gathering dusk. Accordingly we left it till later in the evening. I didn’t particularly like the plum pudding itself, but I sure as hell liked the brandy butter. I remember one Christmas discovering the brandy butter already made a few days before and scoffing about half of it. I was very sick that day, I can tell you.

Over the years, Christmas changed little in our house. I grew older of course, and old friends like Santa and Mr Dillon left the scene and a little of the magic went with them. But then my own kids came along and reignited the old memories once again. I attempted to build a crib just like my father had done all those years ago, but not being gifted with my hands, it turned out a miserable failure. So I bought one instead. It was never like my father’s though. And of course Santa came back.

As we lived in one of those new fangled houses which didn’t have a fire place (this hot air central heating thing was all the rage) I had to come up with a new way of getting Santa’s letter to him. So I just got my kids to put it in the local letter box and let An Post worry about it. Fair play to them, they always got the letter to the North Pole on time. I often wonder what exactly they did with those letters as I know I wasn’t the only one posting them. Santa of course had to have a skeleton key which fitted every house which didn’t have a chimney. God, the lies we tell our children!

I think it was my firstborn’s second Christmas when he knew a little about Santa Claus and was able to inform me that he wanted a Space Hopper for Christmas. You remember those things, like a big solid rubber balloon with two ears which you could sit on and bounce around on. So I thought it would be a good idea to blow the thing up and leave it at the end of his bed. That Christmas morning when we awoke we found it strange to find there was not a sound from his bedroom. He should be up and about by now and coming in to tell us what Santa had left. Not a sign. So I had to go to his room and opened the door. There was the poor child, wide awake, sucking his thumb and looking in abject terror at this monster at the end of his bed. I didn’t make that mistake again.

So full blown Christmas was back in our house, Santa, tree, crib, decorations, fantasy and of course the real meaning. And now with grandchildren the whole cycle begins anew.

Have yourself a Very Happy Christmas this year and for all the years to come.