Dietrich Bonhoeffer's fear of death

Another in my (very) occasional series on death. Here's Dietrich Bonhoeffer writing later in life (apparently when he was about 26) about himself as child:

He liked thinking about death. Even in his boyhood he had enjoyed imagining himself on his deathbed, surrounded by all those who loved him, speaking his last words to them. ... To him death was neither grievous nor alien. He would have liked them all to see and understand that to a believer in God dying was not hard, but a glorious thing. [...]

Then one day he had a grotesque idea. He believed himself to be suffering from the only incurable illness that existed, namely a crazy and irremediable fear of death. The thought that he would really have to die one day had such a grip on him that he faced this inevitable prospect with speechless fear. And there was no one who could free him from this illness, because in reality it was no illness, but the most natural and obvious thing in the world, because it was the most inevitable. He saw himself going from one person to another, pleading and appealing for help. Doctors shook their heads and could nothing for him. His illness was that he saw reality for what it was, it was incurable. He could tolerate the thought for only a few moments. From that day on he buried inside himself something about which for a long time he did not speak or think again. His favourite subject for discussion and for his imagination had suddenly acquired a bitter taste. He spoke no more about fine, devout death, and forgot about it.

From Eberhard Bethge:Dietrich Bonhoeffer. A biography. Revised Edition Fortress Press 2000

A vivid account of what Julian Barnes calls le reveil mortel.

(As I am sure you know, Bonhoeffer was a liberal Christian theologian. His opposition to Hitler got him jailed and, for his involvement in the plot to assassinate Hitler, he was executed in 1945, aged just 39. The accounts suggest he faced death bravely.)

Good Friday

I'll be joining the Church of Christ the Cornerstone for the Good Friday midday service in Midsummer Place in the Milton Keynes Shopping centre today.

Good Friday has been an irreducible core of Christianity for me. The thing that remains when I stop believing anything else.

Standing among all the shoppers thinking about the suffering of the world, our - my - material wealth at the expense of other people, the poverty and injustice that need not exist, the destruction of the planet, the mind-bogglingly incomprehensible inequalities. For this and for so many other reasons, being human is, or ought to be, unbearable. I think it would be literally unbearable if we could truly conceive it. Somehow Jesus's death on the cross acknowledges all this, and, well, it doesn't make it OK, but it allows us to acknowledge it and hold on for the hope of Easter.

MK Dons fans are (almost!) the best-behaved in the football league

Hats off to Dagenham and Redbridge, though (or do I mean, damn you Dagenham and Redbridge, for keeping MK Dons off the top!)

Taking the banning-order stats from here http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/crime/football-arrests-banning-orders/fbo-2010-11?view=Binary

and the average attendance from here: http://itv.stats.football365.com/dom/ENG/PR/attend.html

Dividing the number banned by the average attendance (and multiplying by 10,000 to get values above 1) you get the following table.

Hats off to Fulham, too, being by far the best behaved Premiership team, but, heck, I'm glad I don't live in Aldershot!

Rank	Team	Number Banned	Average Attendance	Number banned per 10,000 attendance
1	Dagenham	0	2081	0.00
2	MK Dons	1	8247	1.21
3	Fulham	4	25272	1.58
4	Gillingham	1	5487	1.82
5	Yeovil	1	3898	2.57
6	Stevenage	1	3608	2.77
7	Watford	4	12820	3.12
8	Wycombe	2	5047	3.96
9	Reading	9	18539	4.85
10	Ipswich	9	18344	4.91
11	Brighton	10	18397	5.44
12	Wigan	10	17861	5.60
13	Burton	2	2960	6.76
14	Morecombe	2	2430	8.23
15	Barnet	2	2232	8.96
16	Wimbledon	4	4393	9.11
17	Macclesfield	2	2056	9.73
18	Manchester City	46	47000	9.79
19	Peterborough	9	9057	9.94
20	Charlton	17	16893	10.06
21	Bolton	25	23433	10.67
22	Norwich	26	23549	11.04
23	QPR	21	16913	12.42
24	Preston	15	12009	12.49
25	Accrington	2	1599	12.51
26	Crawley	4	3196	12.52
27	Arsenal	76	59948	12.68
28	Derby	33	25971	12.71
29	WBA	32	24989	12.81
30	Notts	8	6173	12.96
31	Blackburn	31	23172	13.38
32	Manchester United	101	75486	13.38
33	Doncaster	13	9596	13.55
34	Blackpool	17	12547	13.55
35	Sunderland	53	38631	13.72
36	Southend	8	5790	13.82
37	Liverpool	64	44911	14.25
38	Stoke	40	27291	14.66
39	Cheltenham	5	3339	14.97
40	Everton	52	33834	15.37
41	Northampton	7	4396	15.92
42	Carlisle	8	4800	16.67
43	Tottenham	62	36072	17.19
44	Bournemouth	10	5751	17.39
45	Aston	63	34540	18.24
46	Leicester	44	23476	18.74
47	Bristol	25	13307	18.79
48	Leyton	8	4136	19.34
49	Newcastle	98	48484	20.21
50	Coventry	31	14867	20.85
51	Crystal	32	14809	21.61
52	Bury	8	3646	21.94
53	Portsmouth	32	14189	22.55
54	Wolverhampton	52	22572	23.04
55	Nottingham Forest	52	22430	23.18
56	Sheffield U	43	18408	23.36
57	Chelsea	105	41666	25.20
58	Hartlepool	13	5156	25.21
59	Barnsley	26	10154	25.61
60	Southampton	67	25744	26.03
61	Tranmere	14	4963	28.21
62	Walsall	13	4512	28.81
63	Burnley	43	14430	29.80
64	Bristol R	19	6212	30.59
65	Huddersfield	41	13308	30.81
66	Brentford	19	5749	33.05
67	Oldham	16	4823	33.17
68	West Ham	98	29430	33.30
69	Hull	66	18760	35.18
70	Sheffield W	72	19620	36.70
71	Shrewsbury	20	5433	36.81
72	Bradford	38	10254	37.06
73	Scunthorpe	17	4462	38.10
74	Swansea	76	19759	38.46
75	Crewe	15	3873	38.73
76	Middlesbrough	73	18103	40.32
77	Swindon	32	7838	40.83
78	Rotherham	15	3628	41.35
79	Oxford U	32	7449	42.96
80	Birmingham	84	18551	45.28
81	Leeds	106	23409	45.28
82	Plymouth	33	6125	53.88
83	Colchester	21	3874	54.21
84	Chesterfield	36	6624	54.35
85	Torquay	15	2693	55.70
86	Hereford	12	2120	56.60
87	Millwall	65	11177	58.16
88	Rochdale	16	2735	58.50
89	Port Vale	30	4940	60.73
90	Exeter	26	4184	62.14
91	Cardiff	143	22147	64.57
92	Aldershot	26	2961	87.81

A Conversation with Vlatko Vedral | Big Questions Online

A Conversation with Vlatko Vedral | Big Questions Online

Civic Service

I don't always feel 100% behind the Church I attend, the Church of Christ the Cornerstone. But then there are times I think they've got it right.

Today the 'Civic Service' was held there. This is the annual service - sometimes held at the Cornerstone, sometimes elsewhere - when all the dignitaries of the Milton Keynes Council turn up.  I don't know the ins and outs of this, why there's an 'official' Church Service for the Council at all, and I expect there are many that wouldn't approve.  But given that there is and did happen, I thought it was OK.

For one thing there was contributions from several different communities. (Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu and Greek Orthodox - there should have been someone from the Sikh community too, but they weren't there. I don't know why.)

Also, though, among the prayers were these words:

Praise God, whose will is justice and love,
who marks out no-one for privilege
and whose favour cannot be bought. 

Praise God, who redresses the balance
in favour of the defenceless and the poor,
and calls us to do the same. 

Praise God, who loves the foreigner
and finds a home for the stranger
and reminds us that we have all been outsiders.

Those seem to be the right sentiments for a Church to express before the great and the good of Milton Keynes. 

All the beauties I love most are transient

Don Cupitt has just published a new book: "The Fountain: A Secular Theology". I'll buy a copy, but in the meantime there's a review of it in the latest Sea of Faith magazine, which includes the following quote from the book:

We cannot conceive personal life except as temporal, and if I reflect I find that all the beauties I love most are transient, and that it is precisely for their transience that I love them. I cannot coherently wish them anything but transient and the same goes for myself

I remember someone once telling me about "The Sacrament of the Present Moment". Something about the fact that we only ever exist in the present, so our relationship to God is only ever 'now'.

I find these sorts of ideas - combined with a feeling that we have no idea what 'time' is - much more satisfactory than any idea of eternal life, though I have to admit if still feels that I need faith to believe them. They feel right, but there's still part of me that's not quite convinced.

Bike lanes.

As well as death, faith and football, another thing I have strong views on is cycling.

As I once texted to a discussion on Radio 5 Live :-) I think we cyclists are the saints of the transport world and are badly done to.

Here's some evidence: