This reflection is from the actor, Michael Palin, when he was starring in The Life of Brian which had just been launched in England and was being criticized by conservative groups and labeled blasphemous. He was preparing for an interview that evening with Malcolm Muggeridge and the Bishop of Southwark on BBC2's Friday Night Saturday Morning Show. Michael wrote:“As I work in the afternoon on committing to paper some of my morning thoughts, I find myself just about to close on the knotty question of whether or not I believe in God. In fact I am about to type, ‘I do not believe in God’, when the sky goes black as ink, there is a thunderclap and a huge crash of thunder of epic proportions. I never do complete the sentence.”
Michael Palin Diaries 1969-1979: The Python Years (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2006, 594. A review of this book can be found at Reviewing Books and Movies.
Image: “When the sky goes black as ink, there is a thunderclap and a huge crash of thunder of epic proportions.” Rolling thunderstorm (Cumulonimbus arcus) photographed on July 17, 2004 in Enschede, The Netherlands. Photo by John Kerstholt.
