I was hailed by Wendy O’Dell and her husband as I walked from Waitrose car park into the centre of Abingdon this afternoon. We were level with the District Council offices. It turns out that their house sale has fallen through. Their purchaser was in a chain of 5 the chain has collapsed. Wendy’s frustrated because they had made an offer on a house in a village where she wants to live and not many houses come on the market. The house they want is back on the market. The O’Dells are also kicking themselves for having waited a fortnight before putting their house back on the market, in the hope that their purchase might be able to come through with the money.

I told them that we’d accepted ?400,000 for our house, having started at ?430k. She said they’d done the same.

Mr O’Dell commented how stressful buying and selling houses is. Yea, verily!

I gave the following presentation yesterday at a meeting of the National Spirituality and Mental Health Forum. The meeting took place at the London Central Mosque, Regents Park.

The Bah??? Faith is a religion born in the modern age. Bah???s follow the teachings of Bah??u?ll?h (meaning ?the Glory of God?), whom Bah???s recognize as a ?Manifestation? of God. Bah??u?ll?h, born in Persia in the 19th century, taught that all the great faiths come from one Divine Source ? what we call God ? and that humankind?s great spiritual adventure has been guided throughout history by prophets, teachers, Manifestations of God, such as Abraham, Moses, Christ, Muhammad, and Bah??u?ll?h Himself. Bah??u?ll?h refers to these great prophets as Divine Physicians. Of course, Bah???s recognize that there is a great diversity of religious expression, and that is only to be expected, given the different times and places in which the faiths have originated.

Service in love for mankind is unity with God. He who serves has already entered the Kingdom and is seated at the right hand of his Lord.

The Bah??? Faith places great emphasis on the importance of the family as the foundation of society and on building welcoming and nurturing communities.

A while ago I was at a chaplaincy conference at which part of the chaplaincy team (a Buddhist, a Christian and a Muslim) and a service user (a Hindu lady) from the Maudesly spoke about their experiences. We were allowed to be part of a conversation that this group had been having for some time about spirituality and mental health. The service user said she was quite happy to talk to any of the chaplaincy team, regardless of their specific faith, about her spiritual questions. In fact, she found it easier to talk to the chaplains than to the psychiatrists. It showed that service users (like all of us) need to deal with existential questions, questions that often transcend particular religious traditions. I found this conversation a particularly moving, almost spiritual, experience.