In January, I referred to Hitler and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as people who want us to live in their idea of Utopia. But they are not the only ones determined to impose a change of values and life style on us.
The same is true of those campaigning groups who whip up a frenzy about their chosen ‘Issue of the Day’. As I write, Parliament has to decide to vote on whether a billionaire American with investments in Scotland should be allowed to visit the UK. This is because 500,000 of our fellow Britons have signed an on-line petition (at no cost to themselves) to ban Donald Trump from entry to the UK.
For those who have not heard of Mr Trump; he is running for the Republican nomination for the Presidency of the United States, and during one of his rallies he suggested that the US could reduce Muslim extremism by banning any more Muslims from entering the country. This galvanised half a million Britons to sign an on-line petition calling for him to be barred from entering the UK.
Personally, I find it odd that the same people who are convinced Trump is wrong to ban others, then vote to ban him. They seem not to understand that if their own logic is ‘right’ and will be ‘effective’, then so too will be his. (At least in principle if not in extent)
However, if we must have a list of folks who should be banned, I reckon we could do worse than use the list devised by WS Gilbert in the Mikado. His list included “All prosy dull society sinners who chatter and bleat and bore,” and I expect that local readers will have their own list of those who are the ‘dull, prosy, boring chatterers’ in today’s media.
Incidentally, shortly after The Mikado premiered at the Savoy Theatre on March 14, 1885, the Japanese Ambassador wrote a formal protest about its ‘misrepresentation of Japanese life’. Nonetheless, the show went on a non-stop run of 672 successive performances.
However, talking of the folks who want to force us to live in their Utopia, reminds me that in early January, some fifty Pauntley folk gathered to enjoy a social evening by re-enacting part of our Christian heritage during the ceremony of the Apostle’s Fires. This tradition originally took place on Plough Sunday for the purpose of seeking a blessing on the newly planted seeds, and our modern re-enactment reminds us that nurturing the ‘soil’ of our culture is as important as nurturing the soil in which we grow our food. We neglect both at our peril.
Last January was the third year that it was to be the last year of lambing. Yes! You read it correctly. This was the third time we have lambed since we gave up lambing or, to be precise, the third time since we said we wouldn’t do it anymore. Why is this?
Country folk know the answer which is, that there is nothing like the sight of lambs at the foot of their mothers or gambolling up and down the headland. Country folk know the joys and sorrows of lambing, and have shared the joy of helping the ewe give birth to a lamb she would have lost, and felt the sadness and shame of losing a lamb because they lacked the knowledge to save it. Despite this; joy and sorrow bring experience, and it is this that will eventually turn us into Shepherds which, in my book, is the highest calling.
Like so much else in life we become what we are, not primarily because of academic or intellectual ‘achievement’, but because of how we deal with failure and success.
Talking of how we deal with success and failure, reminds me that the numbers of people now singing in choirs is rising and that, as well as increasing the length of a singer’s life, this can have unexpected implications for church choirs as is shown on a church notice in Lincolnshire which reads:
| Eight new choir robes are urgently needed. This is due to several new members and the deterioration of older ones. |
View from the Pew 