Foreword

‘The desert dreams’

Nothing in the affairs of humankind is by its very nature as ambiguous as religious faith. And no doubt every religious person should ask: ‘Where, exactly, does my faith come from?’

Is it a mere outgrowth of ‘herd morality’? In other words, essentially a matter of belonging-together with other people more or less like myself, in mutual self-congratulation and perhaps mistrust of the wider world. Is this, secretly, what has shaped my mental picture of God?

Well, here’s the story of someone whose faith quite clearly doesn’t come from that source! Rachel is someone to whom not much else that’s human is alien, but where’s the herd that she could belong to? It certainly isn’t to be found within the Church of England, where she’s ended up. Of course, there are a number of different herds around within the Church. But none that could include someone like her.

Sceptics often assume that religious faith springs from a desire to be comforted: at bottom, mere self-pity, a yearning for heavenly sanction and for consolatory reassurance from on high. Rachel’s is, amongst other things, a tale of many misfortunes. But observe: it’s told here without the slightest trace of such self-pity. Superficial readers may be incredulous of this – and project onto the text the self-pity they’d be tempted to feel in her situation. Indeed, it’s virtually impossible for a writer of autobiography to preclude such