In the Absence of God

(L-R) Liam Neeson in October 2009, June 2010, and January 2012

Liam Neeson lost his wife, Natasha Richardson, in a ski accident in 2009. She was skiing in a Canadian resort, and died under the Canadian health care banner. I wrote here that her injuries needn't have taken her life.

Perhaps that is why Liam Neeson acquired that listless expression in the couple of years after her death. There is no doubt that he missed her. I always thought that he never accepted her death. But, being the son-in-law of the formidable leftist Vanessa Redgrave, he didn't have the words with which to articulate his suspicions that her death had something to do with the inadequate medical care she received in Montreal.

Now, three years after the death of his wife, he is contemplating leaving his Roman Catholic God for the god of the Muslims.

Here's today's Sun article on Neeson:

The actor, 59, admitted Islamic prayer "got into his spirit" while filming in Turkish city Istanbul.

He said: "The Call to Prayer happens five times a day and for the first week it drives you crazy, and then it just gets into your spirit and it's the most beautiful, beautiful thing.

"There are 4,000 mosques in the city. Some are just stunning and it really makes me think about becoming a Muslim."

I agree that Islamic mosques, especially the sophisticated types in Turkey and Iran, can be beautiful. But, there must be something lulling and mesmerizing about those intricate patterns and the rhythmic calls of the muezzin that puts its adherents into a trance. The prayers themselves, around whose calls a Muslim's days are constructed, have a rhythmic certainty to them. The genuflections, timed around these prayers, instill a meditative aura. Even the architecture and design in Islamic art act to seduce the believer (the practitioner) toward Allah.

Neeson continues:

I was reared a Catholic but I think every day we ask ourselves, not consciously, what are we doing on this planet? What's it all about?

"I'm constantly reading books on God or the absence of God and atheism.

Neeson seems to have acquired a hardened confidence in his 2012 photo (above). It could be that he's less vulnerable. But, it could be that he has made some kind of spiritual decision. We'll just have to wait and see what he does (and looks like) in the next couple of years. In the absence (rejection) of God, we don't find nihilism (atheism), but a different god, who is ever ready to grasp our souls.

Neeson isn't the only prominent figure to be attracted to this Allah through times of turmoil and angst. Ingrid Mattson was a devout Christian from her childhood to young adulthood. I discuss here her disappointments with God, which led her to finally reject him and turn to another god. She is now an important member of the Muslim world.