We were talking my son and I, about actually the life the universe and everything.

“Why am I still here and not there? ” I asked my wise old teenager!

“Well I can give you the nice answer or the straight answer, what do you want? ” He questioned

We discussed the fact that he could give me a lovely fluffy answer or perhaps a unspiritual reason stripped to the bare essential message.

Humans look for meaning in everything. even if the meaning isn’t an obvious one.

Even if it is a meaning you have found in random things like, a feather falling at your feet, repetition of numbers, or a prickly feeling when someone walks into the room.

But  horror of horror what if the unspiritual reason is that there is no meaning just randomness? Whoa, this is too big for my brain to grasp!

The brain always eagerly reaches out and helpfully finds somewhere to perfectly place everything. Unspiritual reasons lead to reasons. I asked my friend what she thought, because I can’t work out the meaning of it all, she  said,

“Don’t worry I’m still trying to work that out too!”

“Even those glamping-insta folk?”

” Yes even them!”

In midwinter (which barely touches the midwinter of folks in the Arctic) here in my island state we hold festivals. We gather around bonfires burning wicker men and asking spring to come. Really in the ungodlike, pagan way,  we kind of come together looking to find meaning together, rather than alone. In the unknown and the uncertain avowed agnostics say things like, “I believe in climate change” when really pure fact tells us that it is real. When did science and faith meet?

For now it is winter in my southern home where mountain and sea meet and I still look for meaning just like all those fabulous swans on FB who are probably paddling madly beneath the waters.

So for now there is, the IS and the AM

I am here because

• My children are here
• My job is here

“Two is enough unspiritual reasons, there doesn’t need to be anymore” He said

I think we make meaning from each other!