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There is something reassuringly familiar about the map of the London Underground. Its neat lines in their bold colours somehow seem to represent the city underneath which the trains rumble - colourful, cocky and yet organised. Even David Booth's take on it as an advert for the Tate Gallery in 1986 was only gently mocking.
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David Booth's version
of the classic tube map
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Today, however, it might be that a Jackson Pollock painting might better represent how we feel about the city and its underground passages - a confusing miasma of insecurity and menace.
All sorts of things are unfamiliar now. Where once we had IRA 'active service units' now there are hidden terrorist 'cells'. Where once we had 'radical preachers', now we have 'radicalised' listeners. Where once there were policemen in their faintly silly but iconic helmets, now there are Kevlar-suited apparitions with machine pistols.
On the roller coaster of emotions to which London has been subjected in the last month many familiar things seem to have fallen out of the pockets of those who cling on for the ride. When the ride is over we cannot find our keys, or we pick up an unfamiliar set and find ourselves unable to open the door on old certainties.
Not surprisingly, it is in moments of crisis that faith rises to the surface of our hearts. Those who have never prayed find the name of God on their lips, and those who have rarely prayed turn to it more often. Should we be nervous of a rise in faith, when we are told that the bombers threatening London do so because of their religious beliefs? Surely not, for if we do then terror really has the upper hand, and even good things are turned sour.
In moments of crisis, true faith, as opposed to fanaticism on the one hand, or thinly disguised ambition on the other, will always show itself. Like King David of old, surrounded by enemies and clinging on for dear life, the song of faith emerges "there is a river whose streams make glad the city of God…God is within her and she will not fail".
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