Fully Human

This week I speak at Abbey Summer School, Edinburgh whose theme is Fully Human. Loren Wilkinson and Mary Ruth Wilkinson give three addresses on the richness of, and challenges to, being human in the 21st century: ‘Animals, Angels, or Machines: What Are We?’;‘Feeding, Feasting, Fasting: Problems and Pleasures of Eating’; ‘Bodies, Souls, and Screens: Living with the Internet’. I speak on the need for a ‘rule of life’ to integrate our humanity and on soul friendship as a means of deepening it. Workshops are organised into five ‘streams’—Pilgrimage, Ordinary Life, Art, Spirituality, and Prayer/Bible Study.

Three days before that Sam Simpson of Cork gave me the honour of a visit. I am his uncle. He has recently returned from the Bethlehem Bible College conference on conflict resolution between Palestine and Israel. He has been inspired by Brother Andrew's book Light Force which records his dialogues with Israelis and Palestinians from three faiths. Sam met some of these heroes in Bethlehem - and my old friend John Drake who once led Norwich YMCA.