The Ferry Boat

When author Michael Tod was thirteen, he looked up at the star-filled night sky and realised that he was just a tiny speck of humanity on a small planet circling a minor sun in a far corner of a vast universe. If God was bigger than the Universe, as he had been taught to believe, then such a God could not possibly be interested in him. With this bleak realisation he abandoned the faith the nuns at his primary school had instilled in him and decided he was an atheist.

Later, when his so-loving mother died of cancer at the age of 52, just as the grandchildren she had longed for were beginning to arrive, his disbelief in any loving, caring and almighty God was reinforced. Reading the work of Richard Dawkins provided an alternative but depressing solution as to why we are here.

However, when at the age of 55, Michael started his writing career, he discovered that he was not an atheist but a seeker. The characters in his novels, both human and animal, seemed to know much more about the real Meaning of Life than he did and he felt that his squirrels, dolphins, whales and elephants were conspiring to enlighten him.

A series of synchronistic experiences, most dramatically the making of rain in the Kalahari Desert, forced him to stand back and evaluate what he had learned; and he became aware of the presence of a benign, father-like but less than all-mighty god here on Planet Earth.

Wishing to share this knowledge with other seekers, Michael has written this book. The Ferry Boat of the title is the vessel that will carry the open-minded seeker across the River of Disbelief when traditional bridges offered by established Faiths have proved impassable.

The author is no fire-breathing evangelist but a quietly-spoken, modest man who has lived an adventurous and challenging life whilst thinking deeply about why we are here. If you too are a seeker of truth, or even just unhappy about some aspects of your present faith, you will find much of interest in this book.