• Home
  • About
  • Blog
  • The Ship
  • Press & Reviews
  • Events
  • Contact

Antonia Honeywell

Writer

  • Blog
  • Publication & Beyond
    • Countdown To Publication
  • My Reading & Reviews
    • Baileys Prize 2015
    • Bailey’s Prize 2014
    • Man Booker Prize 2014
    • Man Booker Prize 2013
    • Other Reading
  • Any Other Business
    • Advent 2018
    • Advent 2016
You are here: Home / Advent 2018 / Advent – December 8th

Advent – December 8th

8th December 2018 By Antonia Honeywell 2 Comments

Day 8

Clever people don’t believe in God. I learned that long ago, from a father who had been brought up Catholic and lapsed spectacularly, for excellent reasons. He was – and is still, I’m sure – an atheist with all the passion of a convert. It wasn’t enough that he should be atheist, he needed the world to be atheist with him. We visited a lot of cathedrals and churches when I was little, and at the entrance of every one, he would stand and shout, ‘Strike me down, God!’ and walk in with an air of triumph.  It didn’t occur to me to ask what drew him to religious buildings, or what he was triumphing over if God didn’t exist. The church were wrong and he was right. There was no God, because it was manifestly impossible that there should be a God, and when he showed me a piece in a newspaper that argued that God was made of blotting paper soaked in minestrone soup, I laughed and then lived for years on his pride in my reaction. I was too clever to believe in God, and I non-believed as hard as I possibly could. Believing in God meant being told what to do. It meant having no ideas of your own. It meant despising people who went like sheep to church every Sunday; it meant wittily explaining to any adult who asked that if Hell contained all the things that God didn’t want me to do, then I couldn’t wait to go there.

 

Most of the very clever people I know are atheists. Some of them are strangers who write books; others are people I know and love deeply. Some of them are going to be very surprised if they read these posts, because my faith is not something I shout about. After a very public and distressing altercation, I don’t go to church any more – http://www.antoniahoneywell.com/a-cautionary-tale-for-justin-welby/comment-page-2/  – I’ve tried and failed to find one that marries my thirst for traditional hymns and sacred music and fancy copes and the rolling glories of the King James Bible with my support for equal marriage and feminism. I don’t have a sticker of a fish in my car and most of my conversation is about putting your PE kit in the wash, learning your scales and no you can’t miss orchestra this Saturday or indeed have a sleepover when you’ve been too ill for school all day and what on earth am I going to cook for dinner. I’m usually too tired to examine my own beliefs, let alone interfere with anyone else’s. And I don’t know anything. I don’t have answers. I only feel the comfort that a bedrock gives me.

 

You don’t have to believe in God to get joy from singing Jerusalem or the Harold Darke arrangement of In the Bleak Midwinter, or to be kind to strangers or to feel awe in Saint-Chappelle or to be overwhelmed by the Matisse chapel in Vence. And you don’t have to be an atheist to find organised religion utterly repellent. Atheism is concerned with people; so is faith. My faith, anyway. Faith in something that is fed by kindness, that gets greater and stronger with use; that heals and nurtures and mends. Faith in love. And you don’t have to believe in God to believe in love.

 

There’s just this: if every human being was loved by another human being, maybe I’d have stuck with atheism. If every child had just one person in their life who thought them as wonderful and joyous as I think my children; if every human being was valued equally by every other human being; if the structures mankind has put up for itself worked to encourage and support mankind in all its diverse and glorious beauty, then I’d be an atheist too.

 

Filed Under: Advent 2018, Blog

Comments

  1. Elizabeth says

    8th December 2018 at 10:39 am

    Thanks, again, Antonia. After a life time of yearning for a regular spiritual practice I am finally welcoming it in more fully and finding wonderful resources like your advent blog to nourish me.

    Reply
  2. Elle says

    8th December 2018 at 9:21 am

    I love this post. And I know this isn’t really the point of it, but if you ever want to come to the church where I sing (which is in Hammersmith, so not totally convenient for you, or indeed for me)… there’s social justice in every word of the sermons, and the copes are to dieeee for.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Follow Antonia

  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Latest Tweets

  • .@LostboxUK @tfl @tfllostproperty Left on a Santander bicycle, at the Chapel Street/Marylebone Lane station, near W… https://t.co/7QVJv93qkR 30th January 2023 10:01 am

Most Recent Posts

  • An invitation to my birthday 2nd May 2021
  • An alternative vigil for Sarah Everard 17th March 2021
  • Decompression Day 19th June 2019
  • Arriving in Entebbe 5th June 2019
  • Out of Office – Uganda 4th June 2019
  • Writing and failure 9th April 2019
  • Andy Murray Is Not Dead 11th January 2019
  • Day 24 24th December 2018
  • Day 23 23rd December 2018
  • Day 22 22nd December 2018

Categories

  • Blog
  • Publication & Beyond
    • Countdown To Publication
  • My Reading & Reviews
    • Baileys Prize 2015
    • Bailey’s Prize 2014
    • Man Booker Prize 2014
    • Man Booker Prize 2013
    • Other Reading
  • Any Other Business
    • Advent 2018
    • Advent 2016

Copyright © 2023 · Antonia Honeywell
Joanna Craig Website Design