I can see from the window a telegraph pole and a lamp post which are wonky in opposite directions. I could take a picture, but it would have to include other people’s windows, which is intrusive.
It is still raining: the weather is improving, so I think this must be a warmer, more drizzly kind of rain.
The Bambi is still a non-runner, but Janet has some plans about how to get it going. Meanwhile, preparations for her walk continue, assuming fixed accommodation for at least the first quarter.
There is a kind of logic that goes: if you do right, you will be rewarded, and if you do wrong you will be punished. Therefore if you are doing well, it must be because you are doing right, and if things are going wrong for you, it must be because you are doing wrong. Jesus takes a sledgehammer to this logic in the Luke reading. It doesn’t work like that. The Galileans were all wrongdoers, even the successful ones. Actually, reading elsewhere what Jesus is reckoned to have said (e.g. according to Matthew 5:48 – “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”), we are all wrongdoers. We hurt other people, we hurt our planet, we are part of a network of hurt. God’s dreams for us are so great, and we just haven’t got the oomph to fulfil those hopes. We have to change our ways, seek forgiveness and offer forgiveness. The good bit is that forgiveness is possible – it is always possible.
It feels as if Jesus is talking to the Galileans en masse. We are all individuals, yes, but we also share in the messed-up nature of all humanity, and of every group and organisation we are part of. What would a new beginning look like? I am white, West European, male – what would it look like if people like me could relate better to the rest of the world? I was never a fan of Brexit – but I do remember the misgivings I had when we first joined our European partners … it felt like dumping the Commonwealth. Maybe now will be an opportunity to make the Commonwealth a thing again, a thing that does what it says on the tin: dream on, Bob!
Thank you God for Lent,
a time for turning,
a time to think again,
reconsider,
to get the first intimations of change
in the grey world:
a time when all things
become possible.
Also, I lay awake in bed for a bit last night, thinking maybe there I things I should do that I’ve never done before. After about fifteen minutes’ deliberation I decided against Marmite in porridge.