Lambing is over for another year and I really do think that this will be our last. Lambing is a lot of work whatever the weather and it does not get easier as the years go by. Moreover, every shepherd faces the practical difficulties associated with livestock but also has to deal with their own emotions every time a lamb dies. Sometimes this can cause a feeling of sorrow or even of guilt. However this is usually tempered by feelings of deep satisfaction when a ewe and lamb survive because we have learned the lessons of the bad times.
You just cannot be a shepherd without believing that hope and experience will triumph over fear and ignorance and in view of this, let us hope that the leaders of Europe act like shepherds and use the lessons of the past as a springboard to create a better future for a new generation of children. After all, the world does not stop turning and will not stand still for any nation or group of nations.
Learning never stops for the shepherd, nor does the wonderful pleasure of seeing contented mothers and lambs wandering around the fields and buildings and, although sheep can be a nuisance at times, I like them and am happy to be around them.
Something else that never stops is the attempt by TV pundits and celebrities to bring us around to their own way of thinking. They even try to browbeat us into thinking their way and this tendency of theirs is strongly prevalent in the panellists who appear on Question Time late on a Thursday evening. Their responses to questions are easy to predict and, as the programme is on too late in the evening for me to become wound-up by the boring nature of their answers, I change stations. Frankly, at that time of night I would rather see a film about the last steam train to stop at Adlestrop than listen to a bunch of celebs.
- I confess to being irritated by the folks on Question Time; mind you my irritation is mild when compared to their irritation with me when I don’t vote the way that suits them. They moan to David Dimbleby, hold marches and even petition the courts to rule that my vote should be ignored. What is it they have against me? In sixty years of voting I have never protested against any of their fashionable causes why can’t they just accept my vote and get on with it. In retrospect, and as I write, I do however remember twice going to London about the hunting ban. Nonetheless, they didn’t listen to me before the ban and they haven’t listened since.
Despite their not listening to me, the same cannot be said about my prayers. Sometimes I reckon that I have been heard with good results and sometimes the results have been unexpected but still good. This latter point however has made me realise that maybe I really don’t know what is good for everything, and so probably ought to stick to the things I do know about.
Finally, talking about praying for those things we do know about, reminds me of Dr W.E. Sangster who was once President of the Methodist Conference. He was a prominent theologian in his day, and during one of his sermons he quoted from a prayer found amongst the papers of the 18th century parliamentarian who invented the chest and cough medicine Friars Balsam: But did Joshua Ward MP really know what he was praying about when he wrote the following ……… ?
“Oh Lord. Thou knowest I have mine estates in the City of London and likewise that I have lately purchased an estate in fee-simple in the County of Essex. I beseech Thee to preserve the two counties of Middlesex and Essex from fire and earthquake, and, as I have a mortgage in Hertfordshire, I beg of Thee likewise to have an eye of compassion on that county: …..
….. As for the rest of the counties, Thou mayest deal with them as Thou art pleased.
View from the Pew 