When faith finally tiptoed into my life it didn't come through information or persuasion but, at least at first, through numinous experiences. These are the scattered moments of awe and wonder that wash over most of us unexpectedly from time to time.
Looking back over the decades, I remember rare transcendent moments at the foot of a mountain in New England at dawn, at Chartres Cathedral in France, looking at images of the distant universe or of a baby in the womb.
One is enveloped by an enormous bliss... Kenneth Clark, who was not religious, had one of these experiences at an Italian church: I can only say that for a few minutes my whole being was irradiated by a kind of heavenly joy, far more intense than anything I had known before.
There was the man who had a similar experience, whom the psychologist William James quoted: For the moment nothing but an ineffable joy and exultation remained. It was like the effect of some great orchestra when all the separate notes have melted into one swelling harmony.
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