Welcome
Autobiography
God
in All Things
- Preface
- Chapter
1
Oh God,
Why?
- Preface
- Chapter
1 - 6
Welcome
A
welcome to all visitors to this website. About a year ago, after giving
a lecture in London, Chris Townsend, a director of Telewest Communications,
asked me if I had ever thought of setting up a website as a way of making
my writing more accessible. I told him I was a dinosaur in technology,
but he offered to explain his proposal and to look after the technicalities
of the project. Chris has kept his promise - he has organised and set
up this website.
To begin, we are offering some excerpts from my new book, “God in
All Things” and from the Lent prayer guide, “Oh God, Why?”.
Excerpts from other books will follow in the future.
I
am a Jesuit priest. As a Christian I believe that God really is in all
peoples and in all things, a loving and compassionate presence. ‘God
in All Things’ is an exploration of this truth and of some of the
practical everyday consequences that flow from it. For example, is our
current preoccupation with security, both individual and national, a means
of preserving life, or of destroying it, not only for ourselves but for
all peoples? As I write this, aircraft carriers, warships, transport ships
and planes are carrying thousands of troops, arms, rockets and explosives
to the Middle East, in an attempt to oust Saddam Hussein from Iraq, combating
terror with escalating terror, and so ensuring its continuous escalation.
The root of this violence does not lie in the weaponry, the Pentagon, Ministries of Defence, or in the Armed Forces: the root of peace lies within our own minds and hearts. There can be no outer peace without an inner transformation of our minds and hearts.
My hope is that this website, beginning with excerpts from my own books, will soon become interactive, welcoming all who search for meaning in their lives. I do not yet know how it will develop, but I hope and pray it will enable visitors to the website to discover for themselves the wealth that is in them. The website will offer simple instruction on ways of praying, offer suggestions for prayer, encouraging all visitors to discover their own way of praying, and exploring questions which arise from peoples’ experience of prayer and its connection with everyday life.
To return to ‘God in All Things’, the main value of this book lies in the exercises proposed at the end of each chapter.