Lionel Blue - the antidote to Anne Atkins

My list of the Top Ten living people, if I ever sat down to write it out, would probably include Rabbi Lionel Blue. The man is just so wonderful and cosy, a British national treasure if ever there was one.

To remind myself how much I like Lionel Blue, all I need to do is to remember the voice of Anne Atkins.

Anyway, Lionel gave a wonderful Thought for the Day a couple of weeks back. It can be read and heard here.

In a couple minutes he summed my thoughts on faith to a tee:

Religious structures look so solid with their soaring spires, office blocks, and over the top titles that we forget how these seemingly solid edifices rest on such see through stuff as what Moses thought he heard in a burning bush, what Jacob experienced in a dream, what Ezekiel imagined in a vision. Why they don't tumble down like Humpty Dumpty is a puzzle.

But they don't because the heart of religion isn't things but an experience you might share if you make the effort. That's more profitable than arguing about whether God exists or doesn't and whether he's a she or an it or a who or a what.

...And that, in my humble judgment, is it. In a few cosy little homespun words, old Lionel has summed up there what I feel about faith.