Pause for Thought

Jonathan Simon, Church of the Sacred Heart and St Aldhelm, Sherborne

In January I celebrated my 69th birthday. I know that it used to be said (based on a psalm in the bible) that a normal life span is 70 years; so it is definitely reasonable to describe me as an old man. I have noticed that in the last few years I have been remembering a lot more about my early life. The world has changed quite a lot in that time. Most of the memories are just about small things from day-to-day life as a child in the 50s and 60s, but added together, they give a picture of a world that was very different from today.

In many ways, if we could go back to that time and place, it would seem like a foreign country. Different ways of speaking, different styles of clothes, and very, very different technology - no computers or mobile phones.

In 2020, after Covid-19 led us into a world of wearing masks, working from home where possible, queueing outside shops, and living with lockdowns, we started to talk about ‘the new normal’, as if what was happening then was going to be happening forever. Now that we have inoculations and boosters our expectations have changed again, and we find it less easy to accept restrictions on our social lives than we did two years ago.

Some of us have lived fairly calm lives, with few great dramas or tragedies; others have witnessed immense change – moved to live in different countries, been caught up in wars or natural disasters like famine or earthquake. All of us have lost friends and family at some time in our lives.

The simple reality is that life is change, and what seems different today becomes ‘normal’ tomorrow. Then, of course, things change again. As we increasingly face the effects of climate change, of international tensions, rising prices, or whatever else comes our way, we can sometimes become fearful or depressed about the future.

Every day, we are living in yesterday’s future, and even though some things are different from yesterday, we are living through variations of the same experiences that millions have lived through before. None of us can control our lives – if we try hard to do so, we just end up restricting ourselves; shutting ourselves off from the unexpected, means shutting out the unexpected good.

My memory tells me very clearly that the best things in my life have come unexpectedly, have come as surprises – making new friends, falling in love, finding faith in God. We cannot always make good things happen to us, but we can choose to respond with hope and enthusiasm to new opportunities.