Michael Harding

New16 hours agoWell I began with a reflection on Lough Derg where I went last Easter with a friend for holy water, and then I couldn't resist rambling on about some amazing Buddhist history. I hope you like it, mingling dream, fantasy, faith, and two religions as we approach Easter. Let your faith be fun, and a fuel for your imagination. Or maybe that should be let your imagination be fun and a fuel for your faith. Happy weekend !

Maintaining faith in a God gets difficult in the world we live in. We seem to be facing chaos and darkness and suffering everywhere we look. So I'm delighted to share my personal strategy on it, and why I would bother holding on to this thing called faith. I suppose what perplexes me is Evil and the sense that God could hardly wish all this suffering of War Disease and Death to be inflicted on sentient beings. I find that true, and I have no answer. Unless I change the focus and turn my attention to love as it exists in the universe. Then everything changes. 

Yes. Something very different today. (And in a way a little homage to philosophies of "embodiment, " especially that of Merleau-Ponty. )A simple story of how much my concertina matters to me even though I can't play it. I see it as a secret object, used in rituals whereby beautiful sounds come into the world.  The absurdity of developing a relationship with a musical instrument and the theology behind it. Even though I can't play it.If you're not on Patreon, please consider going to Patreon.com and become a paid subscribe to the Michael Harding podcast. Unlimited access to hundreds of reflections for the price of a coffee. Every week. Go on, you can do it !Body

I know it's a few weeks away yet, but there was always two things that defeated me in the Christian tradition. One is the empty tomb. And the other is the heartbroken cry of Jesus as he died. One concerns a belief that defies science. The other is a cry of despair that defies faith. How do I reconcile them. How do they actually contain the real secret of faith.

A personal take on how I live with my anxiety, and how I use faith sometimes just to lie back as if I was floating on the ocean. This continues our reflections on Buddhist ideas surrounding the 37 Practises of Bodhisattvas.I find the Buddhist idea of detachment a huge help in keeping the mind calm. So I hope you enjoy this sideways approach to the topic of detachment. And happy Saint Patricks Weekend.

This is an extraordinary technique in Tibetan Buddhism for opening the heart to the eternity of love, the ever enduring presence of love and the way in which even enemies are good teachers. It's also beautifully aligned with the idea of Christs' bodily resurrection. Both open the heart way beyond what is possible to think about in mental pictures and they bring us into the vast and infinite dimension of the present moment.