Traffic has Changed ...

SatNav tells me, “Traffic has changed; there is a faster route.”  This even happens in the middle of the night, when I’m quite sure there is no traffic problem on my route.  Over time, I’ve realised that this is a polite euphemism, and the real meaning is something like, “I’ve spotted that you weren’t going my way; I’ve realised which way you might be going; would you like me to tell you how long it’ll take you to get there your way?”  You might call it spin, or a sub-text.  There’s a lot of it around these days.

How do you feel when you realise that there’s a sub-text to what someone is telling you?  Are you annoyed at an attempt to deceive?  Do you simply accept that they are trying to claim undue credit? Or do you, like me, feel a smug satisfaction that you’ve understood what is really going on?

The media seems to deliver a lot of spin these days; famously, much of it comes from politicians.  Take, for example, public expressions of condolence for the victims of tragedy, such as the reading of the latest casualty list from Afghanistan at Prime Minister’s Questions.  I confess to a cynical appraisal of this, wondering just how sincere are the feelings being expressed.  Then there’s the political guest who rudely ignores an interviewer’s question, blindly ploughing on instead with his own policy statement?  It’s as if their acceptance of an invitation to be interviewed is simply viewed as an opportunity to put their message across.

Fundamentalism may be unpopular but, put bluntly, aren’t all these simply bald untruths?  If something is said insincerely, or with an ulterior motive, how different is it from telling lies?  Do these people – politicians or not, for many players in the modern world adopt the same strategies – really think that Mr & Mrs Public are fooled?  If we’re not fooled, but accept this as normal, just an accepted part of daily life, doesn’t that make us accessories?

As in a recent blog, I turn to the Book of Common Prayer for support, this time to the services of Morning and Evening Prayer.  In the introduction to the general confession, we are encouraged, that ‘we should not dissemble nor cloke [our sins] before the face of Almighty God’.  These are old words that are no longer in common use, of course, but the meaning is clear.  ‘Cloke’ is simply an early form of the word ‘cloak’, with the meaning to hide away; as to dissemble, my dictionary comes straight to the point and defines it as ‘to conceal one’s motives, talk or act hypocritically; to disguise or conceal.’

And to go right back to basics, the Ninth Commandment says, 'you shall not give false testimony' (Ex.20:16.)  Whether it's SatNav, politicians, or other prominent personalities ... or even ourselves ... let's join together to comdemn all forms of false testimony that we encounter in the coming month, and see what happens!

Turning Cartwheels

Harvest time is always a difficult one for the preacher.  First of all, it’s not a Christian festival, so there is no obvious Bible story on which to focus our attention.  Then, the ‘traditional’ harvest scene is no longer an integral part in the lives of most of us, as once was the case.  So there is a dilemma: to attempt to re-create something now consigned to history; to introduce a ‘missionary’ element, and focus on the needs of the third world; or to re-define ‘harvest’ in broader terms of God’s bounty which now comes to us in tins and packets from the supermarket shelves.

If you read my last blog, when I recalled accompanying my mum to the cornfield to take my father his tea, you won't be surprised to learn that for me this time always conjours up pictures which wouldn’t be out of place illustrating a Thomas Hardy novel: giving thanks for the corn safely stored in the barn and the straw tidily thatched in the stackyard “’ere the winter storms begin”.

But let me draw you to one fine detail from that idyll of harvest past.  The corn would be conveyed from field to farm on a horse-drawn cart, running on two or four wooden wheels.  In the centre of the wheel is the hub, and radiating from it are spokes, joined together at their ends by a rim of wood, made in four or more pieces, and held in place by an iron tyre. 

I was reminded of the skill of the wheelwright recently when I visited a farm museum near Cambridge.  In a way our lives resemble those spoked wheels, each spoke representing a separate interest or sector of life: work, the bowls club, the church, our family, neighbours along the street, regular social contacts, the pub, and so on.  If you see a cartwheel laying on the ground, you will find that it isn’t actually flat.  The hub is some distance off the ground, supported by the spokes.  The wheel is designed that way so that it can better resist the forces associated with the moving waggon.

Each of those different sectors is an important part of our life.  Together they support us, just as the spokes of the wheel support the hub, and if a spoke is broken, if we have bad feeling with someone or some group, our life - the wheel - is the poorer.  It is easy to focus our attention on ourselves, to see ourselves as the all-important hub of a wheel.  But just turn the illustration upside down for a moment (Jesus often did this in his teaching, didn’t He?).  If the family, the neighbours and all the rest are the spokes of our wheel, doesn’t that mean that each of us is also a spoke of someone else’s wheel?  Doesn’t that place a responsibility on us: a giving, as well as a receiving rôle?

As we sing those familiar hymns once again this year, ask yourself, “whose harvest should I be helping to bring home?”

A Chip off the Old Block

At harvest time, I’m reminded especially of my father.  One of my early memories is of accompanying my mother as she took his tea to him in the harvest field.  On the face of it, I’m not much like my dad.  For as long as I can remember he was a portly fourteen stone compared to my (now admittedly increasing) twelve.  To date I have lived at eleven different addresses, while dad, in all of his eighty years and two days, moved house at the ages of three, six and forty-two, and never ventured at all beyond Norfolk or Suffolk.  I was privileged to spend seven years at the local grammar school.  Dad left school at thirteen or fourteen to work with his brothers on the farm: I collected ‘O’-levels and ‘A’-levels, but had no siblings.

And yet, more particularly as I grow older, I notice similarities: that same set of the jaw when puzzled, displeased or concentrating; the way I put my hand to my face when relaxing with a book.  Like dad, my pen sits in my right hand but, whenever two hands are required for a task, I fit his comfortable Norfolk description ‘left hand a-fore’.

Jesus resembled his Father.  When Philip asked “show us the Father”, our Lord’s response was, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:8-9).  What greater parental resemblance could there be? 

There are other similarities to consider.  Genesis tells us that we were created in God’s own image (Gen. 1:27).  How many common characteristics does that give us with our heavenly Father?  Given that statement, we must accept that at the outset our similarity was 100%, but the influence of the sinful world in which we live has inevitably reduced that.

We are exhorted to “be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Mt. 5:48); Matthew also passes on to us the advice Jesus gave to one young man who sought to comply with this instruction.  “Go, sell your possessions and give to the poor … … then come, follow me” (Mt. 19:21).  Like many instructions, we shouldn’t respond to this one blindly in isolation - after all, selling all our possessions and giving away the proceeds would leave us unable to support ourselves: we would be poor and in need of the give-aways from someone else: an unsustainable vicious circle.

So what are we to do?  Most important is the end of Jesus’s remark: “follow me.”  I have always been inspired by a quote ascribed to St. Augustine: “Love God and please yourself.”  If our first priority is to love our heavenly Father, to read and study His word - metaphorically to ‘sit at His feet’ - then our wishes, desires and pleasures will naturally incline to His will.  As harvest time comes round again, may I suggest you consider what is the harvest of your life.  Are you reaping the abundant rewards of resembling your heavenly Father?

One for me, One for you

It was a busy weekend.  I had spent most of Saturday following up what part of my mind told me was a crazy idea.  I decided that, with my subscription to a renowned family history database, it ought to be possible to compile a fairly comprehensive history of the family we’d stayed with for our summer holidays year after year in my childhood.  Yes, it was possible, but one thing led to another, and it took far longer than I’d expected.

I went to bed on Saturday evening, didn’t sleep too well, and woke up with a little couplet going through my mind.  I don’t think it’s Biblical, but I’ve no idea where it does come from. “We can’t have all we want ... and we can’t keep all we have!”  Some complementary thoughts as I carried on with the task the following afternoon led to this article.

At the beginning of the last century concern was being felt in high places about the growth of our population, and a question was included in the 1911 census that caused quite a bit of consternation.  Its aim was to provide an idea of female fertility, but a century later it’s proved a boon to the family historian.  Every married woman was asked to provide four numbers.  How many years had she been married; how many children had she borne in her present marriage; how many of these were still alive, and how many had died?  (Even more useful to people like me, some widowers provided the same information!)

One of the ladies in my research had answered this question, “9:4:2:2”; in nine years of marriage, she had lost half of her children.  The two daughters still living were now aged eight and seven, but when I compared the birth and death indexes, I found four possibilities for the others, the oldest of which lived only to two years of age.  How life has improved now.  As I wondered just what she must have thought at the deaths of children so young, I realised that this was par for the course.  Maybe the percentage in this example was a mite high, but it was quite common for families to lose a proportion of their children at an early age.  It was as if they were called upon to share their children with God, or death, or the ‘grim reaper’, depending on the depth of their faith.

While these families might have wanted more children, in many cases it was an economic certainty that they couldn’t keep all those they had been blessed with.  I broadened out this thought, and considered how it might have applied to me.  As an only child, I have always struggled with the idea of sharing.  The son of a farm worker, I may not have had all I wanted, but I grew up safe in the knowledge that anything I did have, I would keep!  I now reflected upon Jesus’ story of a rich man (Luke 12:16-21,) and thought of a line from a hymn that I quoted in a recent article, “here for a season, then above ...”; I also recalled one of the many beautiful prayers from the Book of Common Prayer, “... comfort and succour all them, who in this transitory life are in trouble, sorrow, need, sickness, or any other adversity.”

Not for the first time, something had prompted me to look with a wider perspective at my transitory life, and the need to grade what concerns me into the comfortable, the convenient, the important, and the essential; and to realise just how little around me actually originates in the last of those categories!