Dear all,
Today, June 2nd, would have been my mother’s 100th birthday. Although she has been dead for many years, anniversaries such as this often cause us to call to mind those who otherwise might have faded fast from the memory. Wikipedia, and other similar sites now allow us to revisit the past in great detail to rediscover what else might have been happening on a particular day…It turns out the June 2nd 1921 would not have lived long in the memory. The most significant fact about June 2nd 1921 appears to be that it was a Thursday. Indeed, it would seem that the whole month of June 1921 was devoid of any significant events. And so, in desperation, what about the year itself? Well again, not a lot; certainly not anything of sufficient interest to merit inclusion in this letter, other than…
- Tottenham Hotspur won the FA Cup…
- Bill Tilden, & Suzanne Lenglen were Wimbledon singles champions…
- Cambridge won the University Boat Race
- England lost the Ashes in Australia
…It was that sort of year…
…But for at least 3 people the date, June 2nd 1921, was very special indeed – Herbert & Margaret James, proud parents of Lorna May James. – For them, whatever else might have been happening in the world that day, whatever else might have happened in the world during that year paled into insignificance compared with what it meant to them. It would be nice to round off the story by saying that all lived happily ever after but sadly that was not to be the case. But than can wait for another day…
…But then, how is all this possible? One of the unsung heroes of history is the woman/man who invented the calendar, making it possible for us to pinpoint past events exactly, and to understand how they fit in with each other across the years. What we call a ‘timeline’. The banners that hang across the front of the church are in themselves a ‘timeline of sorts’ – beginning with Solomon’s commitment to build a house, a Temple, within which God would be worshipped as One who is present in the midst of the people; fast forwarding some 2,900 years to the building of the church; and then another 111 years to the present day; before finally a representation of the future, an open door, undated, stretching far in front of us; God’s future – and what it reminds us of is this: our own individual lives, the life of the world, as day follows day, turning into weeks, months, years etc., all of this is subsumed into the unfolding drama that is God’s engagement with the world and its people. Sometimes we can be so preoccupied with the immediate, the here and now, the present moment, that we find ourselves wrapped up in ourselves, imposing boundaries on us shaped according to times & dates, controlled by the clock & the calendar, when, if we have the faith to believe it, there is an altogether different way of appreciating time, life, and eternity…