Things Unseen

For most people in the UK, Easter means extra days off work, family time and chocolate eggs. So how can its message be heard afresh through nature and astronomy, stories and art? With Fr Christopher Jamison, a Benedictine monk, writer and Abbot President of the English Benedictine Congregation; and Bonnie Lander Johnson, a writer and Cambridge academic with a love of stories, history and nature.

The Prophet Muhammad was 40 when he began to receive the revelation of the Quran. In this podcast, journalist Remona Aly is joined by three guests in their 40s to discuss the deeper meaning of maturity in Islam, and how the ‘age of revelation’ is best lived - through innovative approaches, the love of walking, life-lessons and personal legacies.

Kintsugi is the Japanese art of mending broken bowls with lacquer and gold, which often makes the restored object more beautiful than the original. As a result, kintsugi has become a symbol of how human brokenness can lead to a new sense of inner wholeness and beauty.

What draws people from other faiths – including Hindus, Buddhists, Jews and Muslims – to sing in Christian choirs, even at Christmas? In this festive podcast, Zubeida Malik meets some of them during carol rehearsals to find out.

Writer Susie Stead describes how her 20-year friendship with Stephen, a man with profound mental health issues, challenged her perceptions about mental health and her own Christian faith. She also reveals how her decision to write a book about Stephen was to convince him that his life “did matter.”

Why is the Russian Orthodox Church supporting Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine? Are the Russian President’s alleged religious motives genuine, and has the church’s endorsement of the war tarnished Russian Orthodoxy beyond redemption? Lucy Ash discusses with guests Fr Cyril Hovorun and Lord Harries, former Bishop of Oxford.

When Christ’s bloodied body was taken down from the cross, his followers took very good care of it. Looking after the dead body of a loved one was normal then. So why is it, Mark Dowd asks in this Holy Week and Easter podcast, that we’ve become so squeamish about it?

Is there a clash between the generous hospitality that’s customary during Ramadan, and the self-restraint and solidarity with the poor also expected during the Islamic holy month? Remona Aly hears from Muslims who are trying to have a greener and simpler Ramadan.

The writer and broadcaster Mark Dowd throws fresh light on a question which has troubled people of faith down the ages and remains ever topical in times of Covid, wars and natural disasters: why does a loving God allow good people to suffer?

The Gospels tell us little about the actual birth of Jesus. What would it have been like for a young woman, probably a teenager, to give birth for the first time far from home, with no medical help, in a stable or cave? Rae Duke and two midwives discuss. With Tina Beattie.

Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang in China face serious restrictions during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, including a ban on fasting. Here, Uyghurs in exile in the UK recall what Ramadan was like back home and how the Uyghur Ramadan customs of their childhood form a bridge to loved ones.

The Easter story is perhaps the ultimate rollercoaster narrative. And it has its fair share of heroes and villains, praised or condemned down the ages. But what about the behind-the-scenes Easter? Could that make us think again? Moving between the present day and the 1st century, Patient 13 fills in the gaps of the Gospels in an intriguing look at the events of Holy Week.

Nearly one in five women in the UK are now childless at 40, many involuntarily. Among them was the writer and teacher Blanche Girouard, and she desperately wanted a baby. In this audio diary, she charts her journey from the decision to have a child from an anonymous donor, via IVF treatment in December 2019 and her pregnancy during the Covid-19 lockdown, to holding her miracle baby in her arms for Christmas this year.

Sarah Niyazi was pleased to get her husband, Arif, home from hospital in February, following treatment for a severe autoimmune condition. Within days they were both ill, but her husband was worse. Struggling to breathe he went back into hospital, one of the earliest UK cases of COVID-19. Mark Dowd hears from Sarah about how the following days played out, and from Muslim hospital chaplain Rehanah Sadiq, who was ‘like an angel sent by God’, Sarah says.

Journalist Remona Aly speaks to Islam scholar Abdal Hakim Murad, also known as Dr Tim Winter, about how to navigate the very different kind of Ramadan experience that Covid-19 brings – including how to cope with having to abandon traditional rituals and customs, and how to find spiritual meaning in a global pandemic.

In self-isolation at her new home in Virginia, former BBC religious affairs correspondent Jane Little reflects on whether the coronavirus pandemic could be a portal to a new world: one in which the poor and marginalized will finally get their fair share.

With churches closed and the coronavirus lockdown firmly in place, the UK faces a very different Easter this year. More and more people each day experience the sudden loss of a friend or family member. Others fear deeply for loved ones who are elderly or vulnerable. So how does the Easter story of death and resurrection help at this traumatic time, indeed does it help at all? Emily Buchanan talks to two remarkable women who have survived terrible sudden bereavement.

Among the saddest stories to come out of the coronavirus crisis so far is that of 13-year-old Ismail, who died without seeing the loving faces of his family around him. In this short reflection, Mark Dowd, a Catholic, considers the importance of seeing a loving face when you are close to death. Even Jesus on the cross saw his mother Mary standing and gazing up to him in his agony. So what hope is there in the Christian message this Easter time, with the families of the sick in lockdown?

Former BBC correspondent Mike Wooldridge has reported first hand on many of the world’s worst disasters of the last few decades, from the famine in Ethiopia to the AIDS epidemic in Uganda. In this short reflection, Mike draws his own lessons for the coronavirus pandemic: we should place the African concept of Ubuntu – a strong sense of our common humanity - at the centre of our response.

It’s there on almost every Christmas card featuring the scene of Christ’s birth, and in almost every school Nativity play: the donkey, or ass. But look at the gospel accounts of Christ’s birth, and you may be surprised: there is no donkey! So how has this much-loved seasonal character entered Christmas lore, and why has the donkey remained a Christmas favourite ever since? Jane Little goes in search of the Christmas donkey and its real-life descendants today.