Thought for the day 31st March

At the moment I feel well with no sign of Covid 19, but I am suffering like a lot of people from empty diary syndrome. I have some work to do and newspapers and books to read, but I have been a Priest for 34 years and inactivity is hard. This time does however give me some space be philosophical about life in general and how we should live our faith.

When we remember our childhood we often remember the stories we were told or the books that we read. I hope that this will remain so although I do find it hard to comprehend this computerised digital world that we live in. We all know that if we want to know how the latest computer or phone works we have to ask someone less than 20 years old. However I often think that the world today is looking far too much into the future without living in the here and now, whilst trying to learn from the lessons of the past.

I remember my childhood stories of Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, Piglet, Eeyore, Christopher Robin and all their friends in Hundred Acre Wood. They are innocent stories of childhood adventure with a degree of moralising but they are tales of the here and now, not the future and not the past.

For that is where their readership lives, young children have very little past to remember and they have far too much to try to get to grips with now to worry about the future. When we get a little older we do get interested in the future and what we are going to do with our lives. Youngsters get pressured from an early age to decide what examinations they should take to guide them along a career path. When we get a lot older we tend to live a lot more in the past, as the future becomes more worrying.

In the Bible, Jesus does a large proportion of his teaching through stories (parables) and he tells people that they must receive the kingdom of God like a little child. So much for our constant desire to be grown up and serious, and we should also take heed of Jesus when he tells us not to worry.

What a lesson for us all at this time of national and world emergency. We are not to worry, but that does not mean that we should in any way be reckless. We must do what we are told to do by our government and the authorities and with God's help we will come through this situation looking at our lives in a new way.

Winnie the Pooh is just as old today as he was when he was first published in 1926 and will remain so. I have to admit that my spelling has never improved with age, so I will finish with a sentence from Pooh - “My spelling is wobbly. It’s good spelling but it wobbles, and the letters get in the wrong places”.

Live in the now.

Fr.Terry