Bill Darlison: Roads for Travelling Souls

  Was Jesus a Mason?   Everybody knows that Jesus was a carpenter. Car window stickers in America proclaim, ‘My boss is a Jewish carpenter’, and Woody Guthrie wrote a song in 1940, recorded more recently by Johnnie Cash, which makes much of Jesus’ humble trade:   Jesus Christ was a man that travelled through this land A carpenter true and brave, Said to the rich, ‘Give your goods to the poor,’ So they laid Jesus Christ in his grave.   Jesus Christ was a man, a carpenter by hand, A carpenter true and brave, And a dirty little coward called Judas Iscariot Laid Jesus Christ in his grave.   Woody Guthrie said that he wrote the song while he was looking for somewhere to stay in New York City, because he wanted to put down on paper what he felt about rich folks and poor ones. Jesus was on the side of the poor, says Woody, and if he were alive today, preaching the same message, we would kill him:   This song was written in New York City, Of rich men, preachers and...

THE TIMES THEY ARE A’CHANGIN’ The man in the street does not know a star in the sky. The solstice he does not observe, the equinox he knows as little; and the whole bright calendar of the year is without a dial in his mind. (Emerson) I n The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy , we read about a race of hyper-intelligent, pan-dimensional beings who build a huge computer called Deep Thought to calculate the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything. And the answer it comes up with is 42. [i]   Numerous theories have been advanced as to why the author, Douglas Adams, chose this number but Adams himself said that he chose it purely at random, because ‘it is a completely ordinary number, … in fact it’s the sort of number you could without any fear introduce to your parents.’ [ii] The authors of the Bible also seem to have favourite numbers but these are hardly arbitrary. The numbers 7 and 12 are almost certainly relate...

A Sudden Gleam Divine Reading:  (From  The Original Vision , (1977), by Edward Robinson , published by the Religious Experience Unit, Oxford.) The Most Profound Experience of my Life The most profound experience of my life came to me when I was very young – between four and five years old ... ... My mother and I were walking on a stretch of land in Pangbourne, Berks, known locally as ‘the moors’. As the sun declined and the slight chill of evening came on, a pearly mist formed over the ground. My feet, with the favourite black shoes with silver buckles, were gradually hidden from sight until I stood ankle deep in gently swirling vapour. Here and there just the very tallest harebells appeared above the mist. I had a great love of these exquisitely formed flowers, and stood lost in wonder at the sight. Suddenly I seemed to see the mist as a shimmering gossamer tissue and the harebells, appearing here and there, seemed to shine with a brilliant fire. Somehow, I ...