Earlier in March, whilst the wife and I were driving to the Trumpet Tea Rooms for a baked potato lunch we listened to Prime Ministers Questions and I was struck by how the politicians spoke of the NHS as though they were standing in front of a medieval King. Their demeanour, tone and obsequies words spoke clearly of a desire to express appreciation whilst also ingratiating public opinion.
I suppose fear of Coronavirus has focussed minds to the extent that they elevate the NHS to the role of personal and social saviour. Folks in earlier times gave that role to religion or to the government, but I do hope today’s readers have not taken a similar view because; in reality the NHS is only a structured way of organising medical services. It is not an ‘organism’ which has its own life, it is an organisation. Everything that matters is carried out by human beings such as Cleaners, Porters, Nurses, and Doctors. Receptionists, etc. In fact, as an organisation the NHS employs 1.2 million people in the same way as does Aldi which employs 30,000.
We all pay taxes to fund the NHS and its managers and most of us have used its services. The medical help and care given to us is carried out by the people who work for it and, in my own case, I have always found the people helpful and professional. In fact most people I have ever dealt with are helpful, with the added bonus that they are also cheerful.
We must not forget however, that systems and organisations do not have human traits and feelings. A Nurse is skilled and dedicated because of who she is; not because she works for the NHS or St Michael Hospice. This thought may explain why I am irked when a Bank advertises that it cares for its customers. An organisation cannot care, and so I would rather a Bank tell me that it was efficient in operation and effective at making sure my money is safe.
Whilst we are being cheerful; lambing this year was over in three weeks and likewise with my friend Martin who used the same Tup which had sojourned with our girls. Although we ended up feeding two lambs, we have them down to two feeds at 7 am and 7 pm. The next major event in our sheep calendar will be dagging prior to shearing in May, though how to manage that this year has yet to be settled.
I noticed that the fruit trees are budding, and the bee colony which survived the winter had young bees bringing in pollen. I put fondant feed in the box just to make sure that they would not starve should a cold-snap leave them short of food.
Maurice from Brand Green has planted his seed potatoes and, as he is the lead for the rest of us to go ahead, I’ve put a row of radishes, beetroot and early lettuce seeds in one of the raised beds…
Every cloud has a silver lining and throughout the recent lockdown it has been a delight not to have to listen to the army of luminaries who, having returned from a South Sea Island Conference then tell us, ‘We’re all doomed”. I really can’t help chuckling that those who claim to know the answers to the distant future somehow missed the doom currently with us. Thank-goodness these woeful futurists have disappeared from our screens and are playing second fiddle to people who have to deal with the here-and-now.
I do however notice a link between the people who think of an organisation as akin to a Saviour and those who look to Nature in the similar way. Do they, I wonder, share the ambition of the early writers of the Old Testament and yearn for two ideal states of being. The first, being pictured in the Genesis account of the Garden of Eden, and the second being that of the lion lying down with the lamb in Isaiah.
Could it be that when people do not believe in God and claim to reject the wisdom and tenets represented by the church, that they unknowingly express them in a different way? Is it possible that they see the NHS as an expression of their hope for eternal life whereas the green movement longs for a return to a personal pre-existent paradise and, as such, a place of safety and indescribable innocent beauty?
From a theological point of view; I do hope the ‘NHS’ and ‘all things green’ are not being regarded as worthy of human worship. If so, the ‘Green Priests are probably selling worshippers short.
But talking of paradise in this technological computer age brings to mind the notice outside a Church in Baltimore that reads:
Adam & Eve.
The first people not to read the
Apple Terms & Conditions
View from the Pew 