The day after

So how did last night end?

 I ate half a packet of cheese balls, and felt no better. 

I went to bed and watched events unfold. I had to turn the television off. 

This morning I felt like I did when the referendum result sank in three years ago. 

But like it or not, we have a new government and a Prime Minister with a huge mandate whether we trust him or not. I see in this area essential services being cut in the NHS and schools at breaking point. I see food banks overrun and those on benefit struggling to survive as cruel reassessments judge them not to be as disabled as they make out. I will judge this new government not by whether it gets Brexit done, but by how compassionate it is to the vulnerable. Many will have elected it with hope. Even if that hope is merely “get out of Europe and all will be well.”

 Let us pray for our country at this time, most of all that the polarisation we seem to have at the moment might find a coming together and that everyone can matter in policies and in attitude. And if I still don’t trust those elected, can I make a difference where I am? 

 

I find the lectionary passage for today a challenging one the day after...

Matthew 11.16-19

16 ‘But to what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the market-places and calling to one another, 
¹⁷ “We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;
   we wailed, and you did not mourn.” 
¹⁸For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, “He has a demon”; ¹⁹the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, “Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax-collectors and sinners!” Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.’

Jack Monroe has tweeted this tonight: 

People asking what we do now. We grieve. For a bit. And then we help the most vulnerable in any way we can. We donate to food banks. We campaign for living wages. We fight like buggery for our NHS. We sign every petition that we can get our hands on that might improve something.

When the referendum on whether we leave the EU result came in July 2016, I was in a hotel in Shetland. The result was such a shock I couldn’t leave my hotel room all day.

As the exit poll and actual result of this December 2019 General Election has sunk in, it has been another shock. I think I expected the outcome but not the size of the victory.

 With what shall I compare this generation? People however they voted yesterday wanted hope. Now all of us news to hold those promising hope to account and we need to make a difference by how we live, one word, one action, one day at a time. I am worried about the extremism and polarisation of society and I pledge, the day after, to work for healing in community, in relationships, and by caring where I can. As someone once said, I cannot fix all the world’s problems. If I don’t have a ladder, I can only deal with what I can reach. 

 I am challenged by this I’ve suddenly remembered quoted by the writer Timothy Keller in one of his books: When a newspaper posed the question, ‘What’s Wrong with the World?’ the Catholic thinker G. K. Chesterton reputedly wrote a brief letter in response: ‘Dear Sirs: I am. Sincerely Yours, G. K. Chesterton.’ That is the attitude of someone who has grasped the message of Jesus.” Timothy Keller, The Prodigal God (New York: Dutton, 2008)

 I can’t do much about Boris Johnson except protest or pray now. I can’t do much about the soul-searching that will now happen in the Labour and Liberal Democrat parties as one leader says he will go early next year and the other has gone having lost her seat. I can’t move to Scotland and be independent as it surely will be if Nicola keeps whipping up momentum. But I can change me. Wisdom is vindicated by deeds. A day after sermon!