Beyond Consolation by John Waters

It can be found on Amazon 

I found myself struggling to decide what I thought about this book, I went through moments when I found it profound and insightful, but also others when I can only say I found it trite.

The book begins powerfully with its engagement with Nuala O'Faolain radio interview where she admits that she is terrified of death (a death that was fast approaching her due to inoperable terminal illness). But not only did she admit to fear but also despair which was a blight on that life that remained to her. Rather than living every last day “to the full” she was in an abyss.

It is in the face of this darkness that Waters proposes that the only rational response is hope, and perhaps there is too big a jump from the darkness to the hope. But this is really only a spring board for him to then go on to explore what he understands by “rational”.

This way of looking at the “rational” is summed up in the following quote:

“Reason belongs not just to the head, to logic and proof, but to the heart also, to the fruits of experience, to feeling, intuition, instinct. When we recognise this, faith becomes not merely reasonable, but an acknowledgement of what is – expecting nothing, postponing nothing, ascribing nothing to chance. Our culture's prevailing reduction of reason leads us to deconstruct not just out beliefs but also our capacity to trust and hope.” (page 212)

I think the trouble was there was something about his rhetorical style that grated with me, because these conclusions are very much my own thinking.

For example, I couldn't agree more with this next quote:

“Many religious people annoy me tremendously with their pat assumptions about what the idea of my believing implies. I resit with every fibre of my being the clubbability of what is called faith, and the sense believers often give off that all this is obvious. To me it is not obvious. To me, in the culture I must live in, the idea that there is no God is more 'obvious' that the idea that there is. But this is my problem: this answer does not satisfy me, at any level of my humanity.” (page 214)

Certainly despite being an active Church member I am aware that actually there is a significant part of me that is deeply distrustful of “religious people” - I think this is because we tend to wear are piety on our sheaves while we hide our doubts. I expect that most other people would read me as much in that way when I think that is rarely how I feel inside – “barely believing” is usually about as certain as I get.

Finally I will share another quote, it is I think an image of life:

“Imagine yourself in an old, disused building, perhaps the ruin of a church. You are looking around when you hear a noise overhead. You look up and see, flying among the rafters, a bird. He has blundered in from outside, perhaps through a broken window, and now cannot get out. You watch him for a while. Sometimes, he flies about, seemingly without a pattern, swooping low into the belly of the building. Sometimes he rests, looking about him curiously. Sometimes he tries to get back outside, making lunges at the light he sees blinking through the cracks in the roof. Then he reverts to flying. In the end he gets away, perhaps through an open door, and is gone.” (Page 224)

However, while I like this image, our existence here is but a shadow, there is a world beyond where we will soar – but it is not a particularly hopeful image, is life only so much aimless flapping about?