Who is the Bonjela fairy?

Gerd is asking more questions. This time they concern the ways in which my illness has impacted on my thinking about the spiritual world.

But on second thoughts perhaps it isn't about that at all.

Perhaps it's more about the way in which when someone has cancer, a life-threatening illness, and has signalled a willingness to speak of it, this enables the asking of questions that concern each of us the most. Gerd has already said something like this when he comments on the way my blog has been of some use to him in exploring how he might face a similar circumstance (he has had a recent 'health scare'). All of you, of a certain age, have to live with the possibility that it might strike you as well. If we haven't had cancer or aren't currently living with cancer - I guess we are preparing for the possibility of getting it.

So, I accept that it is important to ask these questions and I'm happy to play a small part in enabling this kind of reflection but I suspect that the real answers lie within each of us.

For what it is worth, my thinking about matters spiritual hasn't changed since learning that I have advanced kidney cancer. I have written in an earlier blog that I have experienced a re-ordering of priorities but if this involves anything spiritual (such as a keener sense of being part of the natural world) I guess that the seeds of it were always there, B.C.

Meanwhile I am more than happy to be in receipt of people's prayers. It is important to be 'held in mind', however that is expressed.

Someone, for example, thought about me recently in a very practical manner. He or she posted a carton containing fluid for treating mouth ulcers through our front door. I have tried to discover who this 'Bonjela fairy' might be, but have failed. If you are that person I would like to register my thanks.

Thanks too, to Marian and Diana for walking with me last Friday on the final 8 or 9 mile section of the Worcestershire Way. We started in the village of Longley Green and finished in the Victorian spa town of Great Malvern. In stunning sunlight we crossed yet another ridge (see earlier posts), entered a long valley carpeted with apple and pear orchards before ascending (in my case, with great difficulty) the flanks of the Worcestershire Beacon on the, largely treeless, Malvern Hills. We looked down on the Severn plain, the distant Cotswolds and the town climbing the lower slopes beneath us.

We finally felt compelled to descend to find a cup of tea and to then catch the train to Kidderminster where our chauffeur, John, awaited our arrival.

If there is a God he was with us on that memorable day.