Last Sunday the services I heard on radio and TV referred to the passage from John's gospel in which the disciples are “together, with the doors locked, for fear of the Jews.” I am not going into a “sermon” about how the disciples got out of their own lockdown – those happened on Sunday via whichever media anybody chose to use.
But it made me think about our own lockdown.
Maybe our doors are not locked with a key all the time but most of us are locked out of our usual activities or limited to our own homes for our own safety – for fear of what this virus might do. This is a limit on our bodies. Our body has to stay indoors or at least two metres from others. But nobody can limit our minds or our “daydreaming” and if my mind and imagination take me for a trip outdoors that's not damaging anyone.
Recently on BBC Idris Elba has been doing a voiceover of the poem “Don't give up”
Towards the end of it an elderly man, a war veteran, says “My mind is free, I can be anywhere” and I find myself saying “Hear Hear and so can I”. Been escaping that way for years!!!
I find myself sitting in a chair, coffee to hand and slippers on, climbing mountains in my head or doing the long walks I used to be able to do twenty years ago before the joints got the better of me. I don't even get out of puff.
It was suggested to me last year that I wrote down my memories for the family history folder as some others have done before me. Recently I have begun to do that in my head. It's fascinating – I've yet to get beyond those third of a pint bottles of milk we were given at school in the 1950's.
It looks like many of us will be physically locked down for many a week or month yet and even then we will have learnt to be cautious.
I've plenty to think about. Have you?
"Don’t Quit."
When things go wrong, as they sometimes will, When the road you’re trudging seems all uphill, When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh, When care is pressing you down a bit, Rest, if you must, but don’t you quit.
Life is queer with its twists and turns, As every one of us sometimes learns, And many a failure turns about, When he might have won had he stuck it out; Don’t give up though the pace seems slow– You may succeed with another blow.
Often the goal is nearer than It seems to a faint and faltering man, Often the struggler has given up, When he might have captured the victor’s cup, And he learned too late when the night slipped down, How close he was to the golden crown.
Success is failure turned inside out– The silver tint of the clouds of doubt, And you never can tell how close you are, It may be near when it seems so far, So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit– It’s when things seem worst that you mustn’t quit.
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