And so it begins, my 32nd Lent in a row; increasingly a time of contemplation rather than just self-denial. Giving up alcohol and meat for six and half weeks has become easy; a matter of routine. My practice of publishing daily blog posts throughout Lent began in 2020 with the Build Your Own Religion series; a demanding discipline, which I intend to continue this year.
The overarching theme of much of my writing on the subject of human spirituality is about reconciling the scientific with the spiritual - physics with metaphysics; our everyday reality on our human scale with the fundamental reality of the subatomic and the Cosmic.
And key to this is the nature of Consciousness, that underlies the essence of human existence. We all feel it; neither biology, physics nor philosophy, however, can pin it down with any degree of precision.
This year, I intend to look at some specific themes that I have puzzled over since last Lent.
One is spirituality and neurodiversity. How many of us are truly 'neurotypical'? And how many of us display mild behavioural symptoms of one type or another of psychiatric disorders - and what relationship does that have with the way we consider matters spiritual or metaphysical? Does our neurodiversity as a species mean diverse ways to define and find God?
Going further afield, beyond our Solar System - beyond, indeed, the Milky Way: are we alone? If so, what does that fact mean for our understanding of why the Universe came into being? And if not - and there are indeed alien civilisations across our galaxy and beyond - how do they define God and purpose in a spiritual cosmos?
I also want to take a close look at human intuition, how it differs from instinct, and how it could serve as a conduit to the future, a portal of causality - the role of intuition in guiding our thoughts and actions.
Another is the question relating to religious practice vs religious belief; indeed - to what extent should we anchor ourselves to any one religion, rather than seeking answers across the wisdom of all religions, looking for a highest common factor? How important is practice in terms of conscious experience that renders us more open to communion with the Eternal and Infinite? Becoming calm and metaphysically alert - can practices, such as meditation, help us optimise the state of consciousness in which we find ourselves?
A recurring theme on this blog is the role of gratitude and will when it comes to forestalling misfortune, staving off illness and moving forward on one's spiritual path.
These questions and random others that might pop up along the way will appear on my blog each day in the run-up to Easter Sunday.
Over the years, I've written a fair body of Lent-related texts (over 300), and outside of Lent, another couple of hundred more texts on human spirituality. I have yet to index these in any systematic way, other than applying simple labels (see panel to the left); each Lent builds on the previous ones, and so the next 45 blog posts should also act as an updated synthesis of my current thinking upon these areas.
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