The Guild

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
Summer 2006
Monday 10 July
Politics is a funny business. Half the time those involved in it seem to be given to mantra-like utterances that allow no room for engagement or debate. “Read my lips, no new taxes” ; or even more famously, “there is no alternative”.  And the rest of the time it’s impossible to pin them down to any kind of definite statement at all, despite the best efforts of Paxman and co to get a straight answer to an important question.

Somewhere between the mindless trading of slogans and the smooth evasion of debate is the place where the real hard work of weighing things up and figuring things out is done – and not just by politicians.  We all come up against the hard decisions and tough choices about  the issues of the day – and if you’re anything like me, it’s a long and tortuous journey before you arrive at a settled view.  Even then painful experience or persuasive argument can send me back to think again.

So it was a comfort to me to be reminded by an article in the religious press that it’s Ok to have more questions than answers. Someone with a good search engine has discovered that Jesus was asked some one hundred and eighty three questions in the course of the gospels and hardly ever gave a straight answer to any of them.  More often than not he responded by telling a story, using a visual aid,  or asking another question.  The result was that people had to go away and think things through.  It’s tough, especially when a firmly held principle  comes up against the reality of personal circumstances. 

People who share the same faith can hold very different views about ethical and moral issues, but that shouldn’t mean  they stop listening to each other.  Finding the common ground on which to hold the debate is the key.  One question  Jesus did answer unequivocally was “What’s the greatest commandment ?” He said “Love  the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind, and after that, love your neighbour as you love yourself.”  - not a bad place to start.


Monday 3 July
I don’t hold to the view that the only thing we learn from history is that history teaches us nothing. I think that history teaches us a great deal – eventually.  I say eventually because somehow distance lends perspective in the same way that experience bestows wisdom,  and we need that perspective if we’re to deal wisely with the past and minimise the risks for the future.  

Which is why this weekend’s 90th anniversary was a good time to think again about the battle of the Somme.  Historians argue still about whether or not the appalling sacrifice of troops was necessary and whether or not the generals were indeed donkeys leading lions. But what speak more directly to us now are the individual human stories of fear and courage and terror and loss.  The people who joined up with their pals and died with them - just weeks later; of streets and factories and football teams hollowed out and stripped bare of life and joy and hope. 

Stories which emerge from the gathered memories of letters, photographs, poetry and those jerky newsreels, carry a message that we hear more clearly now than was possible in the immediate aftermath.  Later iconic images from other wars also grow in potency with the lengthening years – the liberated skeletons of Auschwitz, the Dresden firestorm, Hiroshima, My Lai.  We’re still debating the rights and wrongs of  later conflicts - Srebrenica, Rwanda  the twin towers and Iraq. In another few decades those who come after us will simply shudder at the pity of it all.  

Ultimately the questions are less about who was right and wrong than they are about  who suffered and who cared and who will remember. There was little thought of winners and losers on Saturday as children scattered poppies at the rim of a bomb crater . The lessons learned by those  taking part in the long march to the Somme these last few weeks, remembering their great grandfathers, will be just as significant as any conclusions of the military historians..