Writing in the Dust - Softcover

Rowan Williams was close by when the terrorists struck New York and the World Trade Center fell. In this short meditation, he takes his personal experience of the horror as the starting point for some broader reflections on the feelings of powerlessness which prompted the attacks, and the appropriate Christian response to this rage: understanding where the rage of the powerless comes from is as necessary as air and water in a world that isn't to tear itself apart. If we are to avoid the trap of violence we have to recognise power for what it is and isn't: as what is given us for the setting free of each other, not as the satisfying of our passion for control. There are no easy answers but this little meditation aims to give hope that risk and reconciliation are a new and living way to avoid the relentless spiral downward to more and worse aggression.

Dr Rowan Williams was the Reguis Professor of Theology in the University of Oxford and is now Archbishop of Wales. Author of many books, from the scholarly to the more popular, he is highly respected as a theologian of creativity and integrity. Married to Jane, he has two children.