This week’s Prime Time message is from Shelagh Godwin
Hello, I’m Shelagh, that small woman who is sometimes to be seen seated at the organ at Busbridge or Hambledon Church, but currently restricted to practising on a Wednesday afternoon!
I don’t know about you, but at the beginning of lockdown I felt particularly useless. All the diary engagements I’d been looking forward to were suddenly stripped away in the matter of a week, leaving my calendar empty, except for reminders to take pills and to attend essential if routine medical tests. And then I’d been told that I was ‘one of those people who’. Yes, one of those people who need to take longer cleaning their teeth, attending to their ears, or skin, or keep their tummies in! And all these things take time. And, in these strange times, time is something we all have more of! Many people have spent it doing DIY. I’m not a DIY person. Or gardening: no, I’m not a gardener either. Others have spent it having a clear-out. Or sanitizing their metal door handles EVERY DAY. Boring perhaps! And when it comes to routine, repetitive tasks, I can complain about them. Or I can use them to develop that wonderful spiritual gift of patience, and perhaps pray for people as I do them. That in itself makes it worth while.
At the beginning of lockdown I was thanked by many people for simply staying at or near home. And, what joy it was in the spring to walk along quiet roads, rejoice with nature as I heard birds (yes, even the cuckoo on several occasions), and find out the difference between a speedwell and a ragged robin. Easy, that one, one is blue, the other pink. Finding out these things made me feel less useless, an antidote to being told that because of my age or my health there were things I wanted to do to help others that I couldn’t do. But what joy I have had in having conversations over the phone! (And – yes, I’ll confess, we both do zoom and What’s App.) Jim has been able to sing with one of his choirs, in small groups, in a garden.
Then there’s the joy of creativity. Many poets and composers and artists have come out of the woodwork as a result of having more time to explore their creative muse. In Busbridge, a new hymn of praise, based on two psalms, is in preparation, and will soon be available on the YouTube services.
But suppose you don’t feel you have anything to offer? Does that make you useless? Most certainly not! I read not long ago, and found much comfort from an article I read about apple trees. Yes, they bear fruit, and often the fruit is eaten and enjoyed. The pips go back into the soil and in time develop into more apple trees, given the right conditions. But what of the fruit that just falls off and lies on the ground? That fruit is also useful, in feeding and fertilizing the soil it falls into. So never despair: you are, in the eyes of God, something of value!
And if you want to sharpen that grey matter, try this link to the August Prime Time quiz!
Answers to the questions posed last week by Di:
The rowan is also known as the mountain ash.
Amazingly enough, Edinburgh is west of Bristol.
The Brothers Grimm wrote Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
As I say when I see people: do take care, and may God bless you.
Shelagh Godwin