Of Bill Bryson and the Holy Grail

There is a truly inspiring article on the First Things blog by Frederika Mathewes-Green entitled "The World and the Holy Grail". She reflects upon her reading of Bill Bryson's "A short history of nearly everything" and a 1932 essay by Russian Orthodox Fr. Sergius Fr. Sergius Bulgakov titled “The Holy Grail”.

Bill Bryson's book is beautiful and I must say it inspired in me a wonder in the greatness of creation similar to that which Mathewes-Green reports. I especially wondered that given all that wonderment, how could Bryson not acknowledge the Creator?

With regard to the resurrected body, I have been similarly inspired to reflect that what gives us the "continuity" is a "body identity" which is not the same as all the constituent atoms that make up our body. We know, for instance, that after twenty years when we recognise a long lost friend that he or she is the same "body" despite the fact that all the atoms have been "vigourously recycled" in the meantime. I think this is what is behind St Paul's reflections in 1 Cor 15.