Making the most of the time ahead.

When I took my driving test 60 years ago I was advised that I should set my rear view mirror slightly to one side so that I had to turn my head to look in it in order to see what was behind me.

This ensured that the driving tester would notice that I had been using my mirror throughout the test.

So today I take a sideways look into the mirror and see my 17 year old self looking back.

My work at the Normeir Garage in Stoke on Trent was described as a Trainee Salesman although in practice it is fair to say that I was a Tyre Fitter (possibly the most responsible job that I have ever had).

I lived close by and so would walk to work and back morning and evening as well as at lunchtime which I took at home. My walking was almost a 'prayer walk' as I reflected on the world around me, struggled with my growing sense of vocation and struggled with the usual turmoils that challenged an average 17 year old's mind.

It was the time of the Cuba Crisis and there was a very real sense that the world might be thrown into a nuclear conflict which would lead to Armageddon. I literally would walk to work wondering if I might be walking back.

Sixty years later the world is once again on the brink of a potential conflict which may well yet escalate beyond Ukraine and bring the whole of Europe into a possible nuclear confrontation with Russia. The prospect of this is truly frightening.

I am currently attending a workshop sponsored by Interdiac a religious group concerned with diaconia, part of the Lutheran World Federation and which has participants from across Eastern Europe meeting by Zoom.

At our last meeting we asked to reflect on the painting Death and Life by Gustav Klimt.

The painting shows death on one side of the picture and on the other men and women in a variety of postures, a woman nursing a child, a man embracing a woman, an older woman lying at the centre of the group, it is a modern dance of death with a strong sense of hope and reconciliation.

We are living in perilous times.

A million people have left Ukraine seeking safety in other countries. I am in contact with one person who has fled from Odessa and is now living in the Czech Republic. Her emails to me reflect the distress, exhaustion and desperation of someone who is literally fearing for not just their life but their sanity.

There is a song by Meatloaf (RiP):

And though the nightmares should be over 
Some of the terrors are still intact 
I'll hear that ugly coarse and violent voice 
And then he grabs me from behind and then he pulls me back 

But it was long ago and it was far away, oh God it seems so very far 
And if life is just a highway, then the soul is just a car 
And objects in the rear view mirror may appear closer than they are 
And objects in the rear view mirror may appear closer than they are 
And objects in the rear view mirror may appear closer than they are 
And objects in the rear view mirror may appear closer than they are 

However we try to gain perspective on our lives and our relationship with others. With the untimeliness of death, whether of strangers or those we love deeply, if we try to maintain a watchfulness through our rear view mirror, it is important to remember that much that has passed may appear closer than it is.

My 17 year old self was largely optimistic about life and about love and both life and love have served me well over the last 60 years. 

There were no nightmares, no terror pulling me back, but nevertheless nations are at war. The peace has been spent. The daily news reminds us that people from theatres of war and conflict are once again 'on the move' seeking a place of retreat where they can be safe and rebuild their lives.

I have no influence only prayers and so I must pray on this Good Friday that we will find ways out of the current conflict, that peace will be restored, that, as the prayer has it:

the leaders of the nations may seek peace.