Dipping into Life

By Alan Hilliard

Foreword by Dr Tony Bates

Using the format of his earlier books Dipping into Lent and Dipping into Advent, Alan Hilliard again opens up a space for us to engage with our emotional and spiritual response to what life throws at us. The loss, fear, isolation, and fragmentation of 2020 causes us all to pause and take stock of what really matters in our lives, so Dipping into Life comes at the perfect time to help us do this.  All of life is in these pages – absence and presence, loss, grief, laughter, believing, forgiveness, enchantment, distraction, gratitude, cousins, freedom, pints and play.

Alan has the rare gift of opening out our everyday lives and considering these in light of the wisdom of the religions, of literature, poetry, music, sociology and common sense. As we dip into this book, opening a page at random, Alan helps us to find the deeply religious in the everyday and take time to ‘cultivate reverence and recognition for what is already present’. There is an honesty in these pages that this is not always easy to do. Dipping into Life invites us to be enchanted by the complexity and beauty of our own lives as it is here that we encounter God.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Messenger Publications
• Release date: Jul 19, 2021
• ISBN: 9781788123501

Book preview

Introduction

I spend a lot of my time with people who may not believe what I believe. They may not know the God I know. Church may be far from their lives … and that’s okay. It’s on me to treat with respect those who believe differently to me and to enjoy their company. There is a goodness in humanity that sometimes takes on a religious frame of reference and at other times takes on another frame of reference. Whatever your view, no one can claim to be better than the other.

A few years ago, I read something written by Timothy Radcliffe. To paraphrase him, he said that going to Church and believing does not make you better than anyone else. Why then do people do those things? His explanation was that you attend Mass, pray, and meet because you believe in a story that is worth keeping alive. This book is a small effort on my part to keep what is an unbelievable story alive. The story of God among us is a story that shines a light on all of life including the moments of sickness, suffering and death. This is not the whole story either – there are moments of joy, wonder, awe, and delight that must be shared.

Thank you for the feedback from my previous two books Dipping into Lent and Dipping into Advent. A constant word from you was that those books could be applied to the whole of life and not just the seasons they marked and so Dipping into Life was conceived.

When I set out writing this book pandemics were the things of movies and novels. Now they are a reality that have made people see the world and their very being differently. Despite the loss of control, people are learning, reflecting, growing, thinking and even praying more. I hope these reflections help you as you reflect, grow, think and pray during crises, difficulties and