Month: February 2026

I think most of us can have spiritual experiences if we think deeply enough about the world. For some, just getting through the day is enough to fully occupy the mind — survival can leave little room for reflection (if only they knew the peace that was available). Others are so wrapped up in themselves and their goals that there is no space for anything else. But most of us, I suspect, sometimes stop, look up, and say to ourselves: I am just a tiny part of something much bigger.

It is at this point that we acknowledge that the universe we are part of is well beyond our comprehension. Much of it is chaos, but there is order too. Whether it all came about by accident or there was a creator who brought it into existence feels irrelevant to me when it comes to spirituality.

I happen to be a Christian, but only one of my three most spiritual moments had anything to do with my Christian belief.

The first was in the Highlands of Scotland as a sixteen-year-old, long before I discovered my faith. It was the cliché of being at one with nature, while also feeling utterly insignificant against the vast mountains. To realise that these magnificent peaks that dwarfed me, were only a tiny part of this planet — and that this planet itself was just a speck in the solar system, which in turn is insignificant compared with the vastness of the universe — was overwhelming. I didn’t recognise it as a spiritual moment at the time, but subsequent return trips have helped me understand just how formative it was, and how much that feeling went on to influence my thinking in later years.

Another deeply spiritual moment happened more recently on a trip to the Holy Lands. This was a profoundly religious experience, more in keeping with what some might consider a conventional understanding of spirituality.

The most recent was a trip to Uluru in the centre of Australia. It couldn’t be more removed from my cultural or religious background, but like the experience in Scotland, it was real and powerful. Again, I struggle to describe it without resorting to clichés, but there was a connection — not to any specific piece of soil, as I have no traditional claim to this land beyond my Australian citizenship. No, this connection was again to the earth itself, and to the cosmos.

I have no doubt that spirituality is real. It has substance and power, and those who dismiss it — or who have never experienced it — are missing out. The question for me is how to use it, or even how to make sense of it.

For millennia, human beings have tried to understand this through philosophy and religion, and I have no issue with that. Parables, stories, and theologies are all we really have to help us make sense of it, and our different cultures interpret these ideas in their own ways. Yet time and again, they seem to arrive at similar conclusions.

And then there are the scientists. What would we do without them? Many of the greatest philosophers and theologians leaned heavily on science, and science has done extraordinary things. It has helped us understand the how, but not the why. And for me, the why is the far bigger and more interesting question.

If science is used to harness what is, and to ask how? then it fulfils its purpose. But if it exists to prove that humankind is master of its own destiny, then I fear for our future.

Somehow, though, amid the chaos and the order of the cosmos, we also seem — time and again — to bring ourselves back from the brink.

So, is being spiritual the same as being religious? It doesn’t have to be, I think is more about connection than anything else.

What a mess.

Not that long ago we were looking up the table, wondering if we could sneak into the European places. Now we’re glancing over our shoulder to see what West Ham are doing. That’s never a healthy sign.

And next up? Arsenal. Perfect timing.

I don’t mind losing to a better side as long as its not Arsenal. What I mind is not really knowing what we are anymore. One week it’s a project, next week it’s a rebuild, then it’s transition. After a while it starts sounding like excuses.

Maybe we need some diversionary chaos tactics. Pull something straight out of the Donald Trump handbook. Change the narrative. Redefine success. Tell everyone mid-table was the plan all along.

“Relegation scrap? No, no. Strategic recalibration.”

The trouble is, unlike Trump voters, football fans aren’t stupid. We can see what’s in front of us, confidence is non existent, and Woolwich won’t be feeling charitable.

Still, this is football. It makes no sense half the time. We’ll probably turn up, put in a performance when nobody expects it, and drag us all back in again.

And if we don’t?

I’ll be back next week, checking West Ham’s result.

Again.

Lately, I’ve been having conversations with my father about the state of the world. He’s 85 now, and if you ask him, things have never felt quite this bad. The world feels unstable. The health system is under pressure. Nothing seems to work the way it used to. And somewhere in all of that sits a quiet sadness — maybe even a bit of despair — about where we’ve ended up.

He says, “It used to be better.”

But I’m not so sure.

My dad was born during the Second World War. Not long after that came rationing in the 1950s — years when food and basic necessities were still tightly controlled. The 1960s brought the Cuban Missile Crisis, when people genuinely believed nuclear war could break out at any moment. The 1970s gave us oil shocks, rolling blackouts, strikes, inflation, and the three-day week. The 1980s? Let’s not pretend Thatcher and Reagan were universally calming influences, and that’s before you even factor in the Cold War or the AIDS crisis.

At no point in that timeline does the phrase “a peaceful, worry-free world” really fit.

So where does this idea come from — that there was once a golden age when things were simpler, calmer, and somehow better?

I think part of it is memory. We don’t remember the world as it was; we remember ourselves in it. When you’re young, healthy, working, raising a family, and full of purpose, the future feels open — even if the headlines are grim. The worries are there, but they sit in the background. With age, that balance flips. The world feels louder, faster, and less forgiving, while your own ability to adapt quietly shrinks.

Another part is how we consume news now. Once upon a time, bad news arrived once a day — maybe in the evening paper or on the nightly bulletin. Now it’s relentless. Twenty-four-hour news cycles. Social media. Algorithms that reward outrage and fear. We’re not just informed anymore; we’re immersed. The world hasn’t suddenly become more dangerous — we’re just never allowed to stop staring at its problems.

And to be fair, some things really have changed. Institutions that once felt solid now feel fragile. Health services are stretched. Trust in leadership feels thinner. These aren’t imagined concerns. But they’re also not unique to this moment in history — every generation has watched its systems wobble and wondered if this was the beginning of the end.

The truth is, every era feels like a crisis while you’re living in it. History only looks orderly in hindsight.

Maybe the most honest way to put it is this: there was never a time when the world didn’t need worrying about. There were just times when we had more energy, more optimism, and fewer aches reminding us of our own limits.

I don’t think my father is wrong for feeling the way he does. After 85 years of constant change, conflict, and uncertainty, it would be strange not to feel worn down by it all. Sometimes what sounds like pessimism is really just fatigue — the tiredness that comes from having seen too much, lost too much, and still being expected to keep up.

When he says the world used to be better, I don’t argue anymore. I just listen. Because maybe what he really means is that he felt better then — and that’s something no headline, statistic, or historical comparison can ever quite disprove.

And maybe that’s the lesson in all of it: the world has always been a bit of a mess. We just carry it differently as the years pile up.

Six weeks into retirement, and what do I think of it so far? Well… as usual, things haven’t gone exactly to plan. But there’s no real point in stressing about that. Stress won’t improve anything, and it has a habit of making things worse if you let it.

Debbie is doing well, and that’s the main thing. What’s become clear, though, is that nothing can be rushed. Because of that, my transition into retirement hasn’t looked quite the way I imagined it might. That said, not being at work has meant I’ve been able to be around, to help where I can, and to simply be present. In many ways, that’s been a blessing.

The support from family has been incredible. It’s moments like this that remind you that we did a pretty good job raising our sons. They and their families have stepped up without hesitation, offering practicle help and kindness whenever it’s been needed. That’s something you don’t take lightly.

So for now, I’ll reserve judgement on retirement itself. There’s no rush to label it. We’ll sit tight, stay patient, and let things unfold in their own time.

The real question is this: somewhere between making endless cups of tea and doing the washing, I’m not sure what’s more depressing — watching Trump’s latest antics on YouTube, or watching everyone else out there happily doing their own big lap.