She was six years old when, at a family dinner in a local restaurant, her father introduced her to the theory of evolution by telling her that God did not create the world in six days.  She could not remember whether he had gone so far as to say that God did not exist, but there was certainly diatribe rather than dialogue – this was not a gentle education in looking at alternative points of view.

Four years of Church school and the odd bout of Sunday School later, this view had certainly been balanced.  Daily prayers, hymn singing and regular church visits had made her familiar with the cultural undertone of her country. 

In her teens, in Drama class, she and some friends had written a dialogue piece exploring whether God and the Devil were in fact female.  A little controversial at the time perhaps, funny certainly – the very idea!

University with various modules in Feminist thinking fleshed out this background with images of Gaia, and what God means to women and the Church’s general misogyny.

She was married in church, had had her children Christened, liked Midnight Mass at Christmas but accepted Darwin’s theory, and was now in her early – ok mid – forties, no longer sure what she believed about God.  Most days she didn’t even give her much thought.

She couldn’t help thinking that the very idea of the Trinity had been formulated by a desperate early Church seeking to unify those members they wanted to keep whilst denouncing as heretics the troublemakers they wanted to expel.  If the Gnostics had had more clout, would we believe what we now believe about the nature of God?  she wondered, or at least would we have been taught what we had been taught about God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost.

But that was the Church, and did what they teach bear any relation to God?  Well they taught that the Bible was the revelation of God – so the Church at least would argue that it very much did.

The one problem she had was that she definitely believed that if Jesus truly was the son of God, he would not exclude someone because they had not accepted the message of Christianity.  She could not shift her belief that if a supreme and caring being existed, that supreme and caring being would not exclude an individual from its everlasting supremacy and care because the image of the dancing Shiva resonated more than that of a dying man on a cross.   Did that mean she wasn’t really a Christian?

But such theological internal dialogue occupied little of her time.  Her life was packed with the daily routines of lunchboxes and water bottles, ferrying children where they needed to be when they needed to be there, work, the endless laundry and the general moving of stuff from one place to another, whether that be dust, groceries, dishes, toys or the bloody endless laundry.  She’d have more time for God if he would put a pinny on now and then and push the hoover round.

Her mind raced ahead with lists and menus and bills and birthdays, and God lingered on the periphery, making an appearance at Easter and Christmas and Remembrance Sunday Services shivering in the cold.

And yet…

That last cry of a dying man haunted her.  “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?”  “My God! My God! Why hast thou forsaken me?”