Unfortunately (or perhaps not) this was my last Thought for the Day. A new set of young producers had been brought in, and it quickly became clear that what was expected of me had changed. It now seemed as though what was necessary was for me not to choose a subject, but write about what my new producer wanted, and further than that, not even say it the way that I wanted, but to rewrite and rewrite it following directions until I was somehow saying it the way that she wanted it said (though I must admit that perhaps the acrimony was due to my intransigence, as she certainly never did get what she was trying so hard to get me to say). Anyway twice was enough of that kind of hassle for negligible money, so I dropped out of the typing pool, and haven't been back there since, and surely God is the All-knowing and All-aware.

Well, it would have been nice not to have to talk about the war, but I’m afraid that at the moment the news leaves us little else to contemplate apart from its distant view of largely anonymous battle statistics. But now a young man from close to home, a member of the Black Watch, has died in combat, and as a lot of the Black Watch come from Fife (where I used to live), that brings the war quite a good bit closer.

Of course, death is always closer to home than that, and for all our fears of war and terrorism, death tends to approach us in ways that are much more mundane if equally profound. Last March I was watching my mother die of lung cancer, laughing and joking and partying ‘til the end. Then, even closer to home, last year there was my heart attack, my very own personal ‘Hello’.

There I was, having spent so many years talking about death from a religious perspective, facing this momentous event that comes to us all, an event that challenges our faith and our understanding of the purpose of our existence, the transition point, caterpillar to butterfly, between this life and the next. But it was just a warning. I stayed a caterpillar.

A warning survived does give you a new outlook on life, however. It puts things into a new perspective. Problems have a different proportion and that change of view can be quite exhilarating. The closeness to the edge makes it scary but exciting. Fear is a companion of excitement, and always makes its life context memorable, but I still prefer to fear God, rather than my fellow man. That way we only put our trust in the All-Merciful.

The Caliph Umar said: “Go to sleep each night as though you will not live to see the daylight. Then face each day as though you will not live to see the night”. As Qur’an says: “Surely God has knowledge of the Hour, sends down the rain, and knows what is in the wombs. No soul knows what it will earn tomorrow, and no soul knows in what land it will die. Surely God is the All-knowing and All-aware”.