An interview with Dr Rowan Williams, sometime Archbishop, July 2015

the humility of Rowan Williams is cause for tearful joy...

It is rather touching hearing Dr. Rowan Williams speaking about his younger days and his own family. I am 16 years older than Rowan and I tend to have had an upbringing somewhat like his father's side. When young, not a single one of my secular, religious teachers and even my own parents, ever informed me that I could go to a University, so all I heard was, skills and trades and having to work with hardcore tools, shaping raw material for a living. I had an indentured apprenticeship where, from Malta, I went to Chatham, HM Dockyard, so young and so alone. It was just before Chatham Dockyard closed, that one old gentleman informed me that I could go to University. I was going to Durham but was directed to Newcastle upon Tyne. I used to visit Oxford and Cambridge very often and students used to take me punting. Same at Durham. Taking up engineering, I preferred my God to be more practical than the Poetic Divine God Dr. Rowan Williams talked about when he was faced by Richard Dawkins, with whom I do not agree in his style of behavior. I believe in an Engineering Energy God,-like Albert Einstein, a God that can transform himself into engineering useful products to be with us, in our homes, on earth all the time, in the form of energy and mass, based on this equation E= mc^2, an equation which I do understand in its physical and nonphysical makeup. Dr. Rowan Williams says that God and Religion are not meant to be about explanations and they have to be treated more like an extraordinary gift that came to us with a richness beyond our imagination. My God does not push me beyond the limits where I do not feel comfortable and thrown into the unknown depth when I am asked to explain my beliefs. I was touched when Rowan spoke of this mother and father at 1:10, as when I was at Newcastle I used to go down mines and at about 1960 I saw pit ponies which were blind with the coaldust that entered their eyes. I used to speak with the coalminers and I was allowed to work the coal face. There was a coalminer at Southmoor by the name of James Hughes who worked the mines for over 60 years and he was very religious. He would speak to me for many hours telling me about the black spots he had all over his body due to working in the coal mines and he had volunteered to be researched upon, at the Newcastle General Hospital. I believe they were black arsenic spots that the hospital could not understand. Now knowing his background, I can fully appreciate why Dr. Rowan Williams chose to live and make a career close to a Poetic Divine God, while I chose to accept a practical Energy God that through E= mc^2 can transform from Energy to mass, then evolve, as nature meant it, and then even resurrect back to Energy. I associate myself with practical miners and practical farmers, with the real engineering difficulties they meet, more than I do with a Poetic, Divine, Perfect Spiritual God. My destiny was to be born in a practical field, in which I had to roam silently with manipulating hardware tools in my hands, rather than reading books and preaching with my words. To me, as an engineer, it seems that modern families want to host my engineering God in and outside their homes. He comes in the shape of comforts and mobile phones and internet and videos, and cars and airplanes and food and shelter and protection and medicine and surgical equipment and hospitals. Modern families do not frequent Cathedrals to hear about a Poetic Divine Perfect God, who seems to want to stay outside the universal space-time domain. The two most marvelous, God's intruding to earth, were the Virgin Conception of Jesus and later the Ressurection of Jesus. The birth and death of Jesus were insignificant to these two transformations of Energy to mass ( earthy evolution) to Energy. Many people celebrate Christmas, the birth of Jesus but in engineering terms, the use of the transformation equation E= mc^2, this engineering activity on which the Christian Religion structures itself is structured. * The Virgin conception of Jesus when Energy changed into Matter, and after 33 years. * The Resurrection of Jesus where Matter was transformed into Energy. and also when all the teaching of Jesus was launched and projected to roam the world in vociferous and written/ scribed form. If E is regarded and depicted as being Electromagnetic Energy as light, where it was said, " Let there be light!" then when this light Energy from the sun falls on leaves and plants and grass and branches, it turns into a mass to feed the animals and humans, and they all evolve, and when they die, their mass, even when wood and coal burning to produce electricity, all matter will eventually resurrect and resorts back to Energy form. That is the main reason I respect the miner and farmer families of Dr. Rowan Williams as, like my own family, they dealt and worked directly with an Engineering God to earn a living and to sustain their family, whereas my own parents, after they died, returned and resurrected to be part of the Energy God, to roam the universe in Electromagnetic field form on which Energy I made all my career and which is now sending all I wrote to be seen all over the world. This E=mc^2 transformation is all there is to know to explain the contents, " I am a son of God " and " We are all made in the image of God!" In spite of all the wonders and comforts the Engineering God can provide in every home and modern family, many people still prefer to deal with a Poetic, Divine, Spiritual God who is not part of our universe and seemed to have intruded on earth only twice and in such a spectacular manner, but probably using the relations E= mc^2 as Einstein suggested and Curl(Elect)=d(Mag)/dt as James Clerk Maxwell suggested. In the nave of Westminster Abbey is a memorial stone for James Clerk Maxwell, the eminent physicist, and mathematician. Deservingly so, as both Maxwell and Einstein knew the Energy God more than any other King buried in any Cathedral, and any religion that came about to obey a King rather than. a God as the Energy God. .

I could listen too him all day, he’s voice is very soothing it sends me to sleep. A great man and very knowledgeable.

A lovely, lovely man. I have the utmost respect for him.

Very bright and equally humble man. A highly perceptive intellectual.

A lovely spacious interview with great insight into Rowan Williams life and ideas. Some of his writing is complex and tricky to understand but his more recent books more accessible. He comes across with wisdom and humility

What a magnificent gift to the Church of God. Different class.

A remarkably profound theologian, philosopher, mystic, and spiritual light in a world where religion - of whatever Christian denomination - are full of ego, idols, and delusion. It's a shame he's so far beyond the appreciation and comprehension of so many - myself included at times.

I always find Rowan inspirational and I absolutely love his sense of humor. Peace and Grace to you.

Pure class and wisdom with such humility and presence. A life lesson.

Rowan Williams: the Anglican Gandalf.

My first memory is of the National Eisteddfod too. 1984 in Lampeter - the whole town became a city of culture for a whole week, and the excitement was palpable, even to a very young child. All four of my grandparents were in the choir, my dad did about six competitions and stewarded, and I can vividly remember my mother in full Welsh national costume - a scarlet coat, bedgown, shawl and white apron - in a folk dancing competition.

Many thanks for this, both of you

When and where were you born? In Swansea in 1950... That’s very precise... Well, you did ask!

A lovely warming man.

thanx Archbishop for good work in spreading the holy word of GOD in the Anglican community world wide .more visits in Africa zimbabwe

A little know fact about Rowan is that these days he is also a keen practitioner of Karate, who has won over 35 bouts.

I wouldn’t mind listening to the interviewer he sounds very relaxing 😌

Obviously well educated and his voice is very relaxing though his eyebrows are probably the most un devine and rebellious thing about him!?

Love his calm, soothing voice.