BBC Radio Leicester Thought for the day
© John Denney 10 March 2004
Have
you noticed? The days are getting noticeably
longer. The crocuses are up, with the
daffodils not far behind. My lawn needs
a cut. Yes, it’s Spring. We all know what a young man’s fancy turns to
at this time of year, but men of all ages, beware: a woman’s fancy turns to
Spring Cleaning! Our cat and I have
learned to keep out of the Memsahib’s way at this time of year. A misplaced teacup; a carelessly placed
document; a crumb of cat food on the kitchen floor; all these provoke a
doubtless deserved sigh followed by that meaningful look. You know what I mean.
Spring-cleaning
is obviously good and necessary. (My
wife told me to say that.) But there is
a sort of spring weirdness not confined to the Mad March Hare. Here’s just three odd pieces of news in the
last couple of days.
·
A Beatles fan
from Hong Kong has reportedly paid £2,442 for a single lock of John Lennon's
hair.
·
A woman wearing
an £8000 mink coat walked into an Austrian bar and asked what the smell of
burning was. She didn’t realise that a
protester had set fire to the garment, which was totally destroyed by the time
firemen arrived.
·
Historians have
just discovered that in 1379, a Yorkshire father named his daughter “Diot Coke”.
There’s
far more serious news though. Civil
Servants are planning to strike over pay.
Iraq remains a country in turmoil.
Palestinians and Israelis kill each other in never-ending tit-for-tat
violence. Haiti remains unsettled. Despite the release of some U.K. detainees
into British custody, many prisoners remain at Guantanamo Bay, with no certain
plan for dealing fairly with them. Global
warming and climate change, and genetically modified organisms crop up
constantly as bad news.
Truly,
humankind is in chaos. We live in a
disordered world. As individuals we have
little influence on world affairs, or even local politics. But God knew this is how it would be. He gave us a promise and a proposal for
action through the prophet Jeremiah:
For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans to
prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray
to me, and I will listen to you. You
will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
[Jeremiah 29:11-13]