Nothing.     I came across a fascinating line this week in a Times article about supermassive black holes. One observatory had been searching a distant galaxy for traces of carbon monoxide—and found none. One of the researchers, Dr Jan Scholtz, commented: “What surprised us was how much you can learn by not seeing.”   The absence itself turned out to be significant. Nothing, it seems, can matter.   This immediately reminded me of a line from Sherlock Holmes. In Silver Blaze

“Hope is hearing the melody of the future. Faith is to dance to it today.” So rejoices Brazilian theologian Rubem Alves. And the good news is that even now we may anticipate a wonderful future — so much so that, in the words of the apostle Paul, the whole of creation is on tiptoe.   There is one word from the New Testament that encapsulates this hope — so much so that it is a strong candidate for the longest word in the entire corpus. Here it is in transliteration:  anakephal

A question for the new year:  what happens when we don’t pray properly? It’s a question I’ve found myself pondering this past week.   Each morning I aim to pray the Lord’s Prayer, usually with Jacqui. It has been part of our daily routine for several years now — something I do almost instinctively, like brushing my teeth or making my porridge.   But one morning this week I suddenly realised that we had reached the Amen with my mind elsewhere. I had said the words, faithfull