"If we are to have a religion..."

In his 80's, John Mortimer (English barrister and creator of Horace Rumpole of the Old Bailey¹) published a sort of last will and testament, titled Where There's a Will. Montaignean² in its wry comment on life and culture, it reads as fresh as any of Mortimer's prose published over sixty years. Given my own current dominant theme, I was delighted by the things he had to say about religion, and I particularly liked this snippet from his final essay, "The Attestation Clause":

The meaningful and rewarding moments aren't waiting for us beyond the grave, or to be found on distant battlefields where history's made. They can happen quite unexpectedly, in a garden perhaps, or walking through a beech wood in the middle of the afternoon. If we are to have a religion, it should be one that recognizes the true importance of a single moment in time, the instant when you are fully and completely alive. [p. 180]

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1. Rumpole died with the passing of the actor Leo McKern (1920-2002), who brought him to life on British television and for me and many others will always be Rumpole.
2. Michel de Montaigne, by some credited with the invention of the essay, published his first collection in 1580.