More than two thousand years ago a woman named Mary and her husband Joseph, lived in the city of Nazareth. Mary and Joseph were Jews and although the information about them in the scriptures are scarce, other written sources, but also archeological findings, add to the overall picture. The image that emerges is one of a decent and hardworking family, trying to live the "right ways"; trying to do their best in a tumultuous, fast-changing and dangerous time, in many ways so similar to our own.

She was married to a carpenter and together they raised a family and managed a household; yes, she tended her garden and kept it alive and well. Today, it´s seen as almost certain that she actually existed. And this, most probably, kind and gentle woman with her feet steady on the ground, is now, because of the thoughts and actions of her son seen as queen of the heavens and the earth. Now, that´s something for a working-class woman who lived more than two thousand years ago!

I´m an atheist in the sense that I don´t believe in a personal god, or that some kind of spiritual field of power can take the form of an independent, conscious and reflecting mind. On the other hand, I definitely recognize the existence of a spiritual dimension within the human mind. It´s also obvious to me that the individual spiritual dimensions in a group of people, can, so to say, be tuned in the same key, and, based on that, act as a very strong collective force.

"This common mind" can then be used for meditative and reflective purposes, and/or for actively achieving goals of a more practical nature; we then tend to see these goals as more or less good or bad. Though, to make these "abstract" fields more easy to handle, none-believers like me, tend to animate and personalize these forces; similar to how people in ancient times saw their gods as manifistations of different aspects of nature etc.

The overwhelming majority of people on this earth, I guess, see love in its different manifistations as one of the most powerful emotional and spiritual forces in their lives. As for so many other people, this is where Mary comes in to my life. As I mentioned earlier, I don´t believe in Mary as a divine being, but I lean on her as a warm, steady, yet soft fundament of encompassing love; radiating compassion, mercy, sympathy, and an unconquerable confidence in the good will of people. Now, this is a projection, a personalization of my own thoughts and feelings, an ideal image, a lighthouse for my own way of living, and for what I hope to find in my fellow humans.

It happens that I sneak into a pub after work, buy myself a beer and look for a place in its more remote corners; consciously dressed into almost obscurity. There I pick up Scientific American or some similar magazine from my back pack, take a first sip on the beer and then start to read; for the actual content of course, but also for the beauty of the wordings. Now, how can her press-gangs find me there?

A few moments later they through me onto the newly polished deck of her Majesty´s own battleship; slipping and sliding; swaying and swirling; and the crowd says "What the heck is this? Good for a kelhauling or two." So, there I find myself, this firmly convinced atheist, through some peculiar, wondrous, and concave way, over and over again, enrolled in her Majesty´s secret service.





















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