Some musings

I’ve not seen much cricket this season. 

Apart from one day of the pre-season friendly against Gloucestershire, I’ve only seen Somerset play three times – their loss to Glamorgan in a T20 group phase game, their semi-final defeat at Finals Day, and Day 3 of the recent championship game against Essex when they took just three opposition wickets and made a draw seem the likeliest outcome in a game they subsequently won – but only when I was absent from the ground.

Which is why, yesterday, for the good of the team, I worked from home. 

Not that I believe such superstitious nonsense, you understand – but it’s not worth tempting fate when it comes to our chances of winning the four-day competition this year – something that I’ve got my fingers crossed you all believe too! 

Luckily – and I say this lest the boss should ever read this – those in hand were largely mundane administrative tasks allowing me to free up some of even my limited cognitive capacities to have the livestream running alongside the Excel spreadsheets and Word documents that were open on my computer. So don’t anyone jump to any irrational conclusions about my work ethic!

Especially as, so absorbed was I in composing a number of emails, it was a little after 11.15am before I realised that the game had begun. And my stay away policy seemed to be working when Josh Thomas reached his fifty. Sadly, though, he was out shortly after but, rather than blaming my tuning in to the broadcast, I like to think the blame lies fairly and squarely on Pete Trego’s jumper that livestream viewers were ‘treated’ to during that short phase of play. 

This seemed a much more likely cause of Thomas’s downfall – and all the more so when, moments after Trego left the commentary box to ‘rethink his fashion choices’, Tom Lammonby reached his half-century and Somerset looked pretty comfortable on 125-1.

With my being gainfully employed this evening, and therefore having to leave the house before we normally eat, I was forced to have my dinner at lunchtime. As far as I’m aware this shouldn’t have had any cosmic consequences but just to be sure I mitigated any risk by eating with my lucky knife and fork – a precaution seemingly well worth taking given how Somerset passed Glamorgan’s first innings total having lost only two wickets – Goldsworthy, significantly, having fallen whilst I was away from my desk.

Not that it has anything to do with the game being played in Taunton, but whilst discussing the matter with my domestic batting partner, we were reassured that the holiday cottage we’re staying in next week is further from a major thoroughfare than our own peacefully located home which is just 44.739 cricket pitches away from the M5 – a fascinating fact that astonishingly meant nothing to her! 

And it was then that my increasingly inconsistent worldview was momentarily turned upside down.

Because seconds after Trego took up commentary again, still sporting his eye-catching knitwear, Lammonby, now in his 90s, was given out leg before wicket – only to be reinstated when a no ball was called as a result of the fielding side having three men behind square on the leg side. 

But having for a second doubted the malevolent influence of lurid pullovers, and being forced therefore to rethink my own culpability for Thomas’ earlier dismissal, I decided that the cause of Lammonby’s good fortune was indeed my absence from the ground.

Which seemed a reasonable conclusion when Lammonby again escaped when he was caught behind off another, more conventional, no ball.

But, as we all know, bad things come in threes, which probably accounts for why, still five runs short of a century, Lammonby fell – caught and bowled by Dan Douthwaite. 

After all the excitement, and the subsequent wicket of Nicholls – sorry, I failed to find a four-leaf clover in my back garden during the lunch interval – the afternoon session continued with me sending more emails than Rew and Abell scored runs as they reached their fifty partnership. But not, I confess, as many as the 76 they’d put on by tea. 

Meanwhile, a long, long way from where I sat, something remarkable was taking place in Headingley. For it was there that Yorkshire women, chasing Somerset Women’s 130, went from 121-5 to 125 all out – a Somerset victory every bit as remarkable as the one secured by the men at the same ground earlier in the season. 

And it should be noted that the turnaround, brought about by Craig Overton’s heroics, took place whilst I again was at work – entering the church I was speaking at with the team seemingly having no chance of victory, only to emerge a couple of hours later with the win and a place in T20 Finals Day secured.

After tea, Rew completed his half-century, before Abell was out five runs short of his, and Archie Vaughan was as fortuitous as Lammonby had been previously when he too was caught off a no ball. And then Rew was out – a little ‘unluckily’ according to the ever-so-cosy Trego who remained seemingly oblivious to how he was almost certainly accountable for the young wicketkeeper’s downfall. 

At which point I had to leave for my evening meeting, but I set off confident that with Craig O at the crease, and me driving even further away from the ground, nothing could possibly go wrong. And as I found out later very little did – with the team narrowly missing out on full batting points when, with a first innings lead of 247, Vaughan was last man out for an excellent run-a-ball 68. And the cherry on the already iced cake was Glamorgan losing one of their openers off the very last ball of the day!

All of which leaves me on the horns of a particularly spiky dilemma – because having done so well with me watching from afar, I really would love to go to the game today and watch the team play live. But with the weather set to be a little cooler, and Trego liable to need to wrap up warm, perhaps it’s best if I stay at home.

Because as I say, it is just possible that the boss will indeed read this!

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Other cricket related posts:

Cricketing blogs from 2026

To read ‘A quiet day at the cricket’, click here

To read ‘Why the unimportant matters’, click here

To read ‘With four-day cricket in mind’, click here

To read ‘The true meaning of cricket’, click here

Cricketing blogs from 2025:

To read ‘The Untold Story of Finals’ Day’, click here

To read ‘Only A Day Away’, click here

To read ‘No smoke without fire’, click here

To read ‘Importantly, why cricket doesn’t matter’, click here

To read ‘I Spy Somerset’s 150th Anniversary Season’, click here

To read ‘A Spring Watch’, click here

Cricketing blogs from 2024:

To read ‘Reasons to be cheerful’, click here

To read ‘First of the Summer Wine’, click here

To read ‘Safe and Sound at the County Ground, Taunton’, click here

To read ‘Is Cricket Amusing Itself to Death’, click here

To read ‘A Purr-fect day at the cricket’, click here

To read ‘Worth Every Penny’, click here

To read ‘The Somerset Cricket Emporium – 2024’, click here

To read ‘One Fine Day’, click here

To read ‘WWFD – what would Freddie do?’, click here

To read ‘A Shady News Story’, click here

To read ‘The Abolition of County Cricket’, click here

Cricketing blogs from 2023:

To read ‘20 Things we have learnt this summer’, click here

To read ‘When rain stops play’, click here

To read ‘Only a game’, click here

To read ‘The Hundred: is cricket amusing itself to death?’, click here

To read ‘The Somerset Cricket Emporium – 2023’, click here

To read ‘for the third time of asking, CRICKET’S COMING HOME…surely’, click here

To read ‘Twas the week of the final’, click here

To read ‘Sharing the important things: on introducing your grandchild to cricket’, click here

To read ‘Somerset v Nottinghamshire T20 Quarter Final 2023’, click here

To read ‘Breaking News’, click here

To read ‘Lewis Calpaldi – Retired Hurt?’, click here

To read ‘Cricket: It’s All About Good Timing’, click here

To read ‘Bazball, Bazchess, Bazlife’, click here

To read ‘Online criticism: it’s just not cricket’, click here

To read ‘Cigarettes, Singles, and Sipping Tea with Ian Botham: Signs of a Well Spent Youth!’, click here

To read ‘A Historic Day’, click here

To read ‘Cricket – through thick and thin’, click here

To read ‘Stumpy: A Legend Reborn’, click here

To read ‘my love is NOT a red, red rose’, click here

Cricketing blogs from previous years:

To read ‘A Cricketing Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story’, click here

To read ‘Scooby Doo and the Mystery of the Deseted Cricket Ground’, click here

To read ‘Brian and Stumpy visit The Repair Shop’, click here

To read ‘A Tale of Two Tons’, click here

To read ‘A Song for Brian’, click here

To read ‘A Somerset Cricket Players Emporium 2022’ click here

To read ‘A Cricket Taunt’, click here

To read ‘A Song for Brian’, click here

To read ‘At Season’s End’, click here

To read ‘A Day at the Cricket’, click here

To read ‘The Great Cricket Sell Off’, click here

To read ‘On passing a village cricket club at dusk one late November afternoon’ click here

To read ‘How the Grinch stole from county cricket…or at least tried to’. click here

To read ‘How Covid-19 stole the the cricket season’, click here

To read ‘A Cricket Tea Kind of a Day’, click here

To read ‘Life in the slow lane’, click here

To read ‘Frodo and the Format of Power’, click here

To read ‘If Only’, click here

To read ‘I’ve got a little CRICKET list’, click here

To read ‘Eve of the RLODC limericks’ click here

To read ‘It’s coming home…’, click here

To read ‘A Song for Ben Green’, click here

To read ‘Enough Said…’, the last section of which is cricket related, click here

A Jack Leach Trilogy:

To read ‘For when we can’t see why’, click here

To read ‘WWJD – What would Jack Do?’, click here

To read ‘On Playing a Blinder’, click here

To read ‘Coping with Disappointment’, click here

And to finish – a couple with a theological flavour

To read ‘Somerset CCC – Good for the soul’, click here

To read ‘Longing for the pavilion whilst enjoying a good innings’, click here

Last week was one in which death was never far from the headlines.

First came the announcement that Dolly Parton, the much-loved singer, songwriter, and philanthropist had died. Then came the tragic news that a flash flood had killed hundreds, if not thousands, in Nepal. And then, finally, we were informed how a 41-year-old had lost his life after a sign fell on him at what is billed as the UK’s largest Christian festival.

So what can we learn from all this? Well, nothing, perhaps, that we didn’t know already. That death comes to us all – and often unexpectedly – to the rich and famous every bit as much as the largely unknown multitudes, and to those who profess Christian faith as surely as those who don’t. 

And whilst Dolly Parton’s death might be easier to accept, coming as it did at the end of a long life well lived, all deaths are equally heartbreaking. Let nobody think that the death of a believer is somehow more worthy of grief than the deaths of those in Nepal who, with their bodies still missing, have yet to be named. 

But still the question arises. Why would a supposedly sovereign God of love allow so many to die so horribly?

It is, of course, a fair question – but before we are tempted to answer it, we would do well to humble ourselves before Almighty God and, recognising our own need of repentance, accept our own limited understanding.

Because if we do, we will guard against two erroneous claims that I have seen widely made on social media platforms – specifically with regard to the death at last weekend’s festival – a death which, whilst no more tragic than those  in Nepal, is even more difficult to understand given how, as a Christian, he had put his trust in the God who appears now to have let him down.

The first has been made by some who have even seen fit to mock the death of a man who, irrespective of one’s beliefs, was both a husband and a father to those who now have to go on without him. The reason they give for the man’s death is that the God he believed in does not exist. But in truth it is only the God they think he believed in – and perhaps would like to believe in themselves – that doesn’t exist – one who guarantees that nothing bad will happen in this life but who, when it does, should bear full responsibility for it.

But that is not the God of the Bible – nor the God who really is there in all his often unfathomable magnificence. For he is one who, on occasions at least, has been shown to work through suffering and, what’s more, to bring unimaginable good out of what appeared unimaginable evil. 

Which brings me to the second mistake I have seen being made by those who have evoked Satan as the one who caused the sign to fall on the man and imply, therefore, that the devil was able to act beyond God’s control, leaving God somehow powerless to prevent him.

But that is not the devil of the Bible – who is portrayed there as one who, whilst truly fearsome, is very much on a lease – able to do only what the Lord permits him to do according to his often inscrutable will.

So having said just a little about what the events of last week shouldn’t be taken to mean, how about hazarding a guess as to why they did happen. 

But therein lies the problem – for it would have to be just that – a guess – and a pretty foolish one at that. And so I prefer to follow Job who, knowing more than most about what it is to suffer, never got an explanation for why he lost his family, his possessions and his health. Because whilst those who read the account of his great misfortune discover something of what lay behind it, Job himself had to be content with mystery. He suffered despite being blameless in the sight of the Lord he too believed in – and never discovered why. But he came to accept that God, being God, can be trusted – no matter how incomprehensible his actions might sometimes be.

For his ways really are higher than ours – and all the better for being so too!

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Related blogs:

To read “Suffering- A Personal View”, click here

To read ‘Luther and the war in Ukraine’, click here

To read ‘When our joy will be complete’, click here

To read ‘When Bad Things Happen’, click here

To read ‘Weeping with those who weep’, click here

To read ‘Still weeping with those who weep’, click here

To read ‘All’s Well that Ends Well’, click here

To read ‘on the FALLEN and the FELLED’, click here

To read ‘What becomes of the broken hearted? Sorrowful yet always rejoicing on Palm Sunday’, click here

To read ‘Why do bad things happen to good people? Sorrowful yet always rejoicing on Good Friday’, click here

To read ‘Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things? Rejoicing, though temporarily sorrowful, on Easter Day’, click here.

To read ‘T.S. Eliot, Jesus and the Paradox of the Christian Life’, click here

To read ‘Monsters’, click here

To read ‘On Sleeping like a Baby’, click here

To read “Hope comes from believing the promises of God”, click here

To read ‘Reflections on the death of Leonard Cohen’, click here

Having visited my bank and retrieved the Romanian lei that I’d previously inadvertently tried to pass off as pounds sterling, I arrived at the County Ground in Taunton eagerly anticipating what would be my first full day there this year. 

A week ago I was travelling along the Transfăgărășan – the long and winding road that weaves its way across the southern Carpathian Mountains – but today I was hoping it would be the turn extracted by Leach and Vaughan that induced nausea – and only in those making up the Essex batting line-up.

The sky remained a deep blue colour but had seen fit to make room for numerous cotton wool clouds that hinted that this summer’s heat was finally waning. And so, with autumn fast approaching, it seemed I’d been right to discard the shorts I have been making uncharacteristically good use of these past few months in favour of longer-legged attire more suitable for the shady confines of the Marcus Trescothick stand. 

It was, though, Jake Ball who struck first – clean bowling the redoubtable Paul Walter, who departed having added a further 43 runs to the 48 he’d made in the first innings.

Soon after I heard the first encouragement of the morning from Tractor – his voice sounding somewhat muted because, positioned as ever beneath the Gimblett Hill scoreboard, it was my left and temporarily nonfunctioning ear that was ineffectually pointed in his general direction.

With just over an hour played, and with Essex looking comfortably placed at 117 for 1, Leach replaced Miguel Pretorius at the River End and opened his spell with a maiden over. A few similarly economical overs followed, during which I mused to myself how, whilst the cricketers I once enjoyed watching were three or even four times my age, now I am undoubtedly old enough to be their Dad – and, for one or two at least, quite possibly their grandfather.

I was woken from my reverie when Dean Elgar, someone whom I remember watching rescue Somerset in a one-day game against Surrey, was out. Whilst his being caught behind would once have been a disaster, today it was nothing of the sort – and neither was the dismissal of Westley in the following over which, leaving two batsmen on nought at the crease, heightened hopes of a Somerset victory today.

During the lunch interval I enjoyed the sparsely filled tuna pittas that I’d pre-prepared for myself. Perfectly sufficient though they were, and unusually augmented, for me at least, with thinly sliced cucumber, they nonetheless came a poor second place to the sarmale that I’d enjoyed in Bazna earlier this week. 

But graced as it is by its delicious local cuisine, that small Romanian town remains largely ignorant of cricket – despite my recent attempt to explain to some of its residents the joys of the four-day game.

The afternoon session began with our new overseas player, Henry Nicholls, fielding at second slip. And I couldn’t help wondering how long we’ll still need him, how long we’ll still feed him, now he’s 64*. But perhaps that was simply the effect of the sun finally getting to me – for, having reached its zenith, it was now beaming down on my uncovered head. 

Moments later the aforementioned Nicholls collided with the boundary boards directly in front of me as he valiantly tried to stop the ball crossing the rope. Fortunately he was unhurt and was able to reassure Josh Thomas that he was fine – as indeed were the boundary board and, even more importantly, my coffee cup that was precariously positioned upon it. 

With Vaughan and Leach bowling in tandem, James Rew was changing ends more frequently than Craig Overton will have been changing nappies following the birth this week of his baby girl. And just as congratulations must go to Craig and Asha, so too they must go to the pair of spinners who, despite remaining wicketless in the afternoon session, drew as many oohs and aahs from the close fielders as were no doubt being uttered by the newly doting parents. 

And then, with the score on 232 for 3, and not even the most optimistic of supporters envisioning a Somerset victory within three days, it was the all-important tea interval – one that came with a rare opportunity to enjoy the simple pleasure of wandering on the outfield.

And so the final session of the day began – the shadows now encroaching on the Somerset stand where I repositioned myself, partly in the hope that my moving might somehow precipitate an avalanche of wickets, and partly, with him now positioned over to my right, to better hear Tractor cheering the team on in his broad West Country drawl.

But other than the over rate peaking at +10, not a great deal happened to excite Somerset supporters after tea. Allison reached his century, and Critchley completed his second fifty of the match, but not a single Essex wicket fell – and this despite my eating the overripe banana I’d had the foresight to bring for just such an emergency. But even though Somerset’s chances of winning the game were less at the end of the day than they had been at its start, it was nonetheless an enjoyably slow and pleasingly quiet day at the cricket – one that I never once considered leaving early. 

And for that I’m grateful and say, as might my new Romanian friends, a sincere ‘mulţumesc’ to everyone concerned.

[*For those who don’t know, the squad number that Henry Nicholls wears is 64]

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Other cricket related posts:

Cricketing blogs from 2026

To read ‘Why the unimportant matters’, click here

To read ‘With four-day cricket in mind’, click here

To read ‘The true meaning of cricket’, click here

Cricketing blogs from 2025:

To read ‘The Untold Story of Finals’ Day’, click here

To read ‘Only A Day Away’, click here

To read ‘No smoke without fire’, click here

To read ‘Importantly, why cricket doesn’t matter’, click here

To read ‘I Spy Somerset’s 150th Anniversary Season’, click here

To read ‘A Spring Watch’, click here

Cricketing blogs from 2024:

To read ‘Reasons to be cheerful’, click here

To read ‘First of the Summer Wine’, click here

To read ‘Safe and Sound at the County Ground, Taunton’, click here

To read ‘Is Cricket Amusing Itself to Death’, click here

To read ‘A Purr-fect day at the cricket’, click here

To read ‘Worth Every Penny’, click here

To read ‘The Somerset Cricket Emporium – 2024’, click here

To read ‘One Fine Day’, click here

To read ‘WWFD – what would Freddie do?’, click here

To read ‘A Shady News Story’, click here

To read ‘The Abolition of County Cricket’, click here

Cricketing blogs from 2023:

To read ‘20 Things we have learnt this summer’, click here

To read ‘When rain stops play’, click here

To read ‘Only a game’, click here

To read ‘The Hundred: is cricket amusing itself to death?’, click here

To read ‘The Somerset Cricket Emporium – 2023’, click here

To read ‘for the third time of asking, CRICKET’S COMING HOME…surely’, click here

To read ‘Twas the week of the final’, click here

To read ‘Sharing the important things: on introducing your grandchild to cricket’, click here

To read ‘Somerset v Nottinghamshire T20 Quarter Final 2023’, click here

To read ‘Breaking News’, click here

To read ‘Lewis Calpaldi – Retired Hurt?’, click here

To read ‘Cricket: It’s All About Good Timing’, click here

To read ‘Bazball, Bazchess, Bazlife’, click here

To read ‘Online criticism: it’s just not cricket’, click here

To read ‘Cigarettes, Singles, and Sipping Tea with Ian Botham: Signs of a Well Spent Youth!’, click here

To read ‘A Historic Day’, click here

To read ‘Cricket – through thick and thin’, click here

To read ‘Stumpy: A Legend Reborn’, click here

To read ‘my love is NOT a red, red rose’, click here

Cricketing blogs from previous years:

To read ‘A Cricketing Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story’, click here

To read ‘Scooby Doo and the Mystery of the Deseted Cricket Ground’, click here

To read ‘Brian and Stumpy visit The Repair Shop’, click here

To read ‘A Tale of Two Tons’, click here

To read ‘A Song for Brian’, click here

To read ‘A Somerset Cricket Players Emporium 2022’ click here

To read ‘A Cricket Taunt’, click here

To read ‘A Song for Brian’, click here

To read ‘At Season’s End’, click here

To read ‘A Day at the Cricket’, click here

To read ‘The Great Cricket Sell Off’, click here

To read ‘On passing a village cricket club at dusk one late November afternoon’ click here

To read ‘How the Grinch stole from county cricket…or at least tried to’. click here

To read ‘How Covid-19 stole the the cricket season’, click here

To read ‘A Cricket Tea Kind of a Day’, click here

To read ‘Life in the slow lane’, click here

To read ‘Frodo and the Format of Power’, click here

To read ‘If Only’, click here

To read ‘I’ve got a little CRICKET list’, click here

To read ‘Eve of the RLODC limericks’ click here

To read ‘It’s coming home…’, click here

To read ‘A Song for Ben Green’, click here

To read ‘Enough Said…’, the last section of which is cricket related, click here

A Jack Leach Trilogy:

To read ‘For when we can’t see why’, click here

To read ‘WWJD – What would Jack Do?’, click here

To read ‘On Playing a Blinder’, click here

To read ‘Coping with Disappointment’, click here

And to finish – a couple with a theological flavour

To read ‘Somerset CCC – Good for the soul’, click here

To read ‘Longing for the pavilion whilst enjoying a good innings’, click here

We’ve all felt it – the rather flat feeling that follows a particularly enjoyable time – a wonderful holiday perhaps, an event that we had long looked forward to but is now in the past, or some other pleasurable occasion that, once over, reminds us that nothing good lasts forever. 

In his poem ‘Dry Salvages’, T.S. Eliot touches on similar themes when he describes how we have experiences but miss their meaning – referring to how the things that we can, and should, enjoy in life reveal the ongoing sadness that lies beneath them all. Things aren’t as they should be and even those things that are turn out to be only temporary – just as our current health serves as a reminder that our death is not as far away as we would perhaps like.

All of which might suggest that it would be foolish to make the pursuit of happiness our ultimate goal – because, if we do, our endeavours will always end in tears. 

But be that as it may, we nonetheless keep trying to obtain the unobtainable, denying the futility of our quest whilst at the same time creating a constant stream of amusements to distract ourselves from what deep down we all know to be true – that life in this fallen world isn’t all it’s made out to be. For most of us it is, at best, ordinary, whilst for many others it consists of nothing but one impossible sadness after another.

No wonder then that the writer of Ecclesiastes suggests that the dead are better off than those who are still alive – but better off still are those who have yet to be born. For they have yet to experience the evil that is done under the sun which daily results in fresh forms of often unfathomable and seemingly pointless misery for those who are promised only a place in the ground when their time on earth inevitably comes to an end. [Ecclesiastes 4:2-3] 

But that’s not all – because the author of the book which makes up part of the Bible’s wisdom literature, goes on to write that the day of death is better than the day of birth, that it is better to go to the house of mourning than the house of feasting, and that sorrow is better than laughter for by it the face of the heart is made glad. [Ecclesiastes 7:1-3]

But how can such counterintuitive things be part of the scriptures which so many rightly claim to contain wonderfully good news?

Well perhaps the answer lies in realising that death teaches us something that all of us need to come to terms with. That we are not the masters of our fate and, no matter who we are and what we achieve during our all too short lives, we all end up the same.

Dead. 

Our lives then are temporary and the pleasures we experience, however real and good, are only ever transient. And so whilst appropriately enjoying what we can we would do well to focus our minds on pursuing what’s genuinely important – which is not so much happiness as becoming the people we were created to be and developing the character for which we would like to be remembered.

Voltaire once said that the best is the enemy of the good – and those of us who are killing ourselves trying to be perfect might understand where he’s coming from. But having recognised the brevity of our lives, perhaps recognising our ordinariness is good for us too – freeing us up to do what we can without imagining that we are something more than we are. 

Because knowing that we can’t solve all our problems would of course be beneficial for us too – enabling us to stop our anxious minds from constantly agonising over how we can put right what we are unable to correct and instead accept that what life sometimes throws at us is both difficult and unavoidable. For without advocating a fatalistic passivity, being content with what we have is very often better than constantly worrying about what we think we want.

But we shouldn’t conclude that all we can now look forward to is spending our days nihilistically eating and drinking in the light of our impending demise. Because the writer of Ecclesiastes elsewhere speaks of how God has put eternity into the heart of man. [Ecclesiastes 3:11]. 

Here then is a glimmer of hope since his assertion suggests that there is more to life than what we manage to cram into the three score years and ten that some might be fortunate to be given. 

And given that scripture is very clear that God’s plan for all his people is to make them more like Christ, perhaps the trials we experience are not simply things we have to endure, but things God can use for our good, forming in us the character of the one who, on the cross, endured suffering unimaginably worse than that experienced by any of us.

Because, as a result of his sacrifice, Jesus has reconciled us to God and, in so doing, guaranteed for us what we could never obtain for ourselves – not just fleeting happiness, but fullness of joy and pleasures for evermore that can only be experienced in his presence. [Psalm 16:11] 

We will though have to wait patiently – perhaps for a lifetime – before that sure and certain hope is fully realised. But because Christ has defeated death, it is nonetheless something that we can look forward to now with absolute confidence, sustaining us in our sadness until the day that really is coming when our every tear will be wiped away and death will be no more. [Revelation 21:4]

And so the desire for happiness isn’t perhaps foolish after all. It’s just that we need first to be made ready for the happiness that will be provided for us. And when God has completed the good work he has begun in making us ready, not only will the wait have been worth it – we will see that the pain we have experienced along the way was worth it too.

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Related blogs:

To read ‘T.S. Eliot, Jesus, and the paradox of the Christian life’, click here.

It’s not every day that village league cricket makes it onto the BBC News at Ten, nor indeed creates a worldwide media storm, so when it does the story making the headlines must be important.

And so it turns out to be because the furore that is taking place surrounds allegations of cheating in a game played in the Yorkshire and South Durham Cricket League.

What appears to have happened is that a member of the Saltburn Second XI, fielding at first slip, clicked his fingers at the precise moment the ball passed the outside edge of an opposition batsman’s bat, the sound fooling the umpire into giving the batsman out caught behind. 

And that’s just not cricket.

But before we burn not only the bails but all six stumps – and the perfectly risen Victoria sandwich that formed the centrepiece of the afternoon tea – and, whilst presenting their charred remains, declare the demise of sporting behaviour in the game that, above all others perhaps, is supposed to epitomise a sense of fair play, let me tell you of another, less widely reported cricketing incident that also occurred recently. Because it suggests that news of its death has been hugely exaggerated.

It took place in a game played between the, to my mind, ludicrously named Trent Rockets and Birmingham Phoenix. Taking a risky second run, Mitchell Santner had to dive to make his ground at the non-striker’s end and was judged to have done so successfully by the umpire. But Santner was not so sure. And so, despite the decision going unchallenged by the fielding side, he himself asked for it to be reviewed. Which it was – the result being that he was given out and so had to make his way back to the pavilion where he subsequently watched his team lose.

Now it would be easy for me to make a snide remark about how, given that Santner was playing in ‘The Hundred’, the result was of absolutely no consequence – but I won’t because it is heartening indeed that a competition that I and many others see as nothing more than a commercial enterprise designed to maximise monetary gain has nonetheless retained, in one individual at least, a sense of fair play.

Because irrespective of what our rogue slip fielder from up north thinks, cricket should be played for the joy of playing cricket – not merely for the joy of winning. And it should be played fairly too. Because quite apart from the fact that a victory brought about by cheating is hollow in the extreme, if we limit ourselves to the momentary pleasure of our fleeting triumph, we will simultaneously deny ourselves the enjoyment to be had in playing in games that we lose.

And something similar could be said about life. Because if all we are interested in is what we are able to achieve, if all we are concerned about is what we come to acquire, our pursuit of the extraordinary will leave us dissatisfied with the everyday.

Life then should be lived for the joy of living – irrespective of whether we come out top. And it should be lived with integrity too. Because quite apart from the fact that success at the expense of others is no success at all, if we limit our enjoyment to what we manage to accumulate in our three score years and ten, we will discover that our happiness will be far less than we’d imagined and shorter-lived than we’d hoped for too.

Cricket then – like all sport – is able to teach us how to live well. Its importance lies in the fact that, whilst the game itself doesn’t in the least bit matter, the way it’s played does – and all the more so in a world where, as the BBC also reported, there is much going on that is of far greater concern than the outcome of a game played by those hitting a variably coloured ball with a piece of wood. 

Because if we can’t play fair when nothing of real significance is being played for, how will we fare when the stakes are very much higher?

The all too obvious answer is: very badly indeed. Which is, in turn, a very great shame – in a world that would be a good deal happier if those who inhabit it cared more about how they lived than whether or not they won. 

---

Other cricket related posts:

To read ‘With four-day cricket in mind’, click here

To read ‘The true meaning of cricket’, click here

Cricketing blogs from 2025:

To read ‘The Untold Story of Finals’ Day’, click here

To read ‘Only A Day Away’, click here

To read ‘No smoke without fire’, click here

To read ‘Importantly, why cricket doesn’t matter’, click here

To read ‘I Spy Somerset’s 150th Anniversary Season’, click here

To read ‘A Spring Watch’, click here

Cricketing blogs from 2024:

To read ‘Reasons to be cheerful’, click here

To read ‘First of the Summer Wine’, click here

To read ‘Safe and Sound at the County Ground, Taunton’, click here

To read ‘Is Cricket Amusing Itself to Death’, click here

To read ‘A Purr-fect day at the cricket’, click here

To read ‘Worth Every Penny’, click here

To read ‘The Somerset Cricket Emporium – 2024’, click here

To read ‘One Fine Day’, click here

To read ‘WWFD – what would Freddie do?’, click here

To read ‘A Shady News Story’, click here

To read ‘The Abolition of County Cricket’, click here

Cricketing blogs from 2023:

To read ‘20 Things we have learnt this summer’, click here

To read ‘When rain stops play’, click here

To read ‘Only a game’, click here

To read ‘The Hundred: is cricket amusing itself to death?’, click here

To read ‘The Somerset Cricket Emporium – 2023’, click here

To read ‘for the third time of asking, CRICKET’S COMING HOME…surely’, click here

To read ‘Twas the week of the final’, click here

To read ‘Sharing the important things: on introducing your grandchild to cricket’, click here

To read ‘Somerset v Nottinghamshire T20 Quarter Final 2023’, click here

To read ‘Breaking News’, click here

To read ‘Lewis Calpaldi – Retired Hurt?’, click here

To read ‘Cricket: It’s All About Good Timing’, click here

To read ‘Bazball, Bazchess, Bazlife’, click here

To read ‘Online criticism: it’s just not cricket’, click here

To read ‘Cigarettes, Singles, and Sipping Tea with Ian Botham: Signs of a Well Spent Youth!’, click here

To read ‘A Historic Day’, click here

To read ‘Cricket – through thick and thin’, click here

To read ‘Stumpy: A Legend Reborn’, click here

To read ‘my love is NOT a red, red rose’, click here

Cricketing blogs from previous years:

To read ‘A Cricketing Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story’, click here

To read ‘Scooby Doo and the Mystery of the Deseted Cricket Ground’, click here

To read ‘Brian and Stumpy visit The Repair Shop’, click here

To read ‘A Tale of Two Tons’, click here

To read ‘A Song for Brian’, click here

To read ‘A Somerset Cricket Players Emporium 2022’ click here

To read ‘A Cricket Taunt’, click here

To read ‘A Song for Brian’, click here

To read ‘At Season’s End’, click here

To read ‘A Day at the Cricket’, click here

To read ‘The Great Cricket Sell Off’, click here

To read ‘On passing a village cricket club at dusk one late November afternoon’ click here

To read ‘How the Grinch stole from county cricket…or at least tried to’. click here

To read ‘How Covid-19 stole the the cricket season’, click here

To read ‘A Cricket Tea Kind of a Day’, click here

To read ‘Life in the slow lane’, click here

To read ‘Frodo and the Format of Power’, click here

To read ‘If Only’, click here

To read ‘I’ve got a little CRICKET list’, click here

To read ‘Eve of the RLODC limericks’ click here

To read ‘It’s coming home…’, click here

To read ‘A Song for Ben Green’, click here

To read ‘Enough Said…’, the last section of which is cricket related, click here

A Jack Leach Trilogy:

To read ‘For when we can’t see why’, click here

To read ‘WWJD – What would Jack Do?’, click here

To read ‘On Playing a Blinder’, click here

To read ‘Coping with Disappointment’, click here

And to finish – a couple with a theological flavour

To read ‘Somerset CCC – Good for the soul’, click here

To read ‘Longing for the pavilion whilst enjoying a good innings’, click here

Imagine you knew for certain that one day something would take place that would alter forever every aspect of your life. Would you, I wonder, live in the light of that knowledge or pretend that the future event would never actually occur and act all surprised when its imminence could no longer be denied?

The reason I ask is simple – we are all in just such a situation. 

We are all going to die – and the day of our death is nearer than we think – even for those of us who do manage to make it to a ripe old age. 

Take me, for example. I’m just a few months short of 60 and will therefore be 80 before I know it – in no more time than has elapsed since Twitter was launched. And still more frightening perhaps, I’ll be 90 in the same number of years that have passed since the Spice Girls burst onto the scene with the release of ‘Wannabe’. Which I’m not sure is something that I really, really want! 

But how do we live in the light of our inevitable death? 

Recently I’ve been reading the book of Ecclesiastes, whose author famously wrote ‘Vanity of vanities! All is vanity’ and ‘There is nothing new under the sun’ to convey how transient everything in this life is and how, for the time being at least, nothing ever changes. The sun rises every morning only to set again each evening, the seasons change as predictably as they always have, and the tides come and go with monotonous regularity.

And people are born, grow old and die – after which they are soon forgotten.

It is a sobering thought that in a hundred years’ time, for most of us it will be as if we’d never lived. I couldn’t even tell you the name of my great-grandparents, let alone what they did in their lives. And so it would be foolish of me to imagine that my great-grandchildren will care very much about what I managed to achieve in my lifetime.

Because I can no more make my fleeting life permanently significant than I can alter the course of the planets that move through space like clockwork. I’m simply not that powerful—or that important. 

Which leads to another question. Why on earth do we try?

The answer, I think, lies in the fact that, as the writer of Ecclesiastes reminds us, God has put eternity into our hearts.[Ecclesiastes 3:11]. Our desire for significance is not, therefore, in itself wrong. On the contrary, it is God-given. The problem, though, is that we look for it in the wrong places – in ourselves, in who we are and what we’ve done, rather than in God – in who He is and what He has done.

And so we are prone to ignore God’s eternal power and divine nature that has been made plain to us by what He has created. [Romans 1:20] Instead we seek our satisfaction in relationships and experiences, in what we achieve and what we have managed to understand. But wonderful though these things undeniably are, they cannot satisfy us fully – not in the way that the Giver of all that is good can.

So then, knowing that we all will one day die, how do we live in the light of that fact? 

Well, rather than spending our lives ‘chasing after the wind’ [Ecclesiastes 1:14], seeking satisfaction in what cannot possibly provide it, we need instead to recognise the transience of our lives and our relative insignificance. And we need to look instead to the One who is both eternal and of infinite worth.

Because our significance comes not from within ourselves, but from the One in whom we are placed. ‘In Christ’ we belong to the One who is of infinite significance, the One who loves us deeply, despite how superficially we think about Him, despite us imagining that God is of no importance and that this world is all there is. 

And so we need  to trust Jesus, even as we seek to follow Him, for all that we are not: for the salvation we cannot achieve, the righteousness we do not possess, and the significance we’ll never create for ourselves. We need to hold onto the eternal significance that we already have in Him despite the transient and, therefore, seemingly futile nature of our present lives lived ‘under the sun.’ And we need to eat and drink and find enjoyment in our toil, knowing that none of what we currently experience will last for ever, but will one day be replaced by an everlasting and perfect rest in the presence of God, where there is fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore. [Ecclesiastes 2:24, Psalm 16:11]

Only then will we know both the newness of life and the eternity that we all so long for, and, whilst enjoying all that we do gladly possess, discover that life is not ultimately vain at all. 

---

Related blogs:

To read ‘Heading Home’, click here

To read ‘Luther and the war in Ukraine’, click here

To read ‘When our joy will be complete’, click here

To read ‘When Bad Things Happen’, click here

To read ‘Weeping with those who weep’, click here

To read ‘Still weeping with those who weep’, click here

To read ‘All’s Well that Ends Well’, click here

To read ‘on the FALLEN and the FELLED’, click here

To read ‘What becomes of the broken hearted? Sorrowful yet always rejoicing on Palm Sunday’, click here

To read ‘Why do bad things happen to good people? Sorrowful yet always rejoicing on Good Friday’, click here

To read ‘Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things? Rejoicing, though temporarily sorrowful, on Easter Day’, click here.

To read ‘T.S. Eliot, Jesus and the Paradox of the Christian Life’, click here

To read ‘Monsters’, click here

To read ‘On Sleeping like a Baby’, click here

To read “Hope comes from believing the promises of God”, click here

To read ‘Reflections on the death of Leonard Cohen’, click here

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

These are the words with which King David began Psalm 23. It is perhaps the best-loved and most familiar of all the psalms – one that has brought deep comfort to millions and been read at countless funerals.

But taken at face value, they are words that also raise an important question – because of the very simple fact that there are many things that I still want. The answer comes, though, when we realise that ‘I shall not want’ should be taken to mean ‘I shall want for nothing’ – which is why some versions of the Bible translate this verse as ‘nothing shall I lack.’

That is to say that those led by Jesus, the good shepherd, will be provided, not necessarily all they want, but all they need – a truth beautifully conveyed in the verses that follow that speak of his sheep being made to lie down in green pastures and walk alongside still waters. 

But even more beautiful is the assurance that, in Christ, we have one who restores our soul as he leads us along paths of righteousness. Which means that we are being changed – being made more like the one we follow – not only for our good but, more importantly, for his glory. For, as verse  3 makes plain, the change in our direction is ultimately for his name’s sake. 

But to affirm wholeheartedly that followers of Jesus now lack nothing is not to endorse a so-called prosperity gospel. Not at all. Rather it suggests that whatever we currently do not possess – be it health or happiness, money or one of so many other good things – it is, we can be sure, because these are things that God has lovingly – albeit sometimes both mysteriously and  painfully – determined we do not actually need. 

Not for the time being, at least.

Because if, having sent Jesus, he did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also, with him, graciously give us all things? [Romans 8:32]

All things, that is, that we need.

Which is why the Psalm can continue as it does – with its second emphatic assertion. I shall fear no evil – even whilst walking through the valley of the shadow of death. Not if Jesus is with us – leading us on our way.

Make no mistake, he has gone before us – as the good shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep [John 10:11] – suffering death for us so that we needn’t die – not in any ultimate sense. For whilst Jesus, hanging on the cross, cried, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”, all who trust in him need never fear being abandoned by God.

Perhaps that’s why David speaks of the valley we walk through as only the shadow of death – rather than of death itself. Because whilst we will all one day die, those of us in Christ can nonetheless look forward with sure and certain hope to the resurrection and the eternal life that will undoubtedly follow, when, as Psalm 23 concludes, we shall dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

Because, having been led through this life by Jesus our Shepherd, and having been followed by his goodness and mercy, we shall discover there the place he has prepared for us.

One that, overflowing with good things, not least his own divine presence, will more than compensate for anything we might have been lovingly asked to go without in this life.

Which means it’s true what the apostle Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 4:17 – that our current afflictions really are light when compared to the weight of glory that they themselves are preparing for us.

And indeed only momentary – when set against the everlasting joy we’ll experience there in our eternal home. 

---

Related blogs:

To read ‘Luther and the war in Ukraine’, click here

To read ‘When our joy will be complete’, click here

To read ‘When Bad Things Happen’, click here

To read ‘Weeping with those who weep’, click here

To read ‘Still weeping with those who weep’, click here

To read ‘All’s Well that Ends Well’, click here

To read ‘on the FALLEN and the FELLED’, click here

To read ‘What becomes of the broken hearted? Sorrowful yet always rejoicing on Palm Sunday’, click here

To read ‘Why do bad things happen to good people? Sorrowful yet always rejoicing on Good Friday’, click here

To read ‘Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things? Rejoicing, though temporarily sorrowful, on Easter Day’, click here.

To read ‘T.S. Eliot, Jesus and the Paradox of the Christian Life’, click here

To read ‘Monsters’, click here

To read ‘On Sleeping like a Baby’, click here

To read “Hope comes from believing the promises of God”, click here

To read ‘Reflections on the death of Leonard Cohen’, click here

My shepherd Lord, he is my soul restoring,
I know that he, good care of me will take
And so with him, I surely shall lack nothing
He leads me for his own name’s sake

He gives me rest, and offers hope eternal
He is my rock – and he’s my fortress too
And though sometimes I walk in vales of darkness
I know that he will bring me through

If you’re for me, who can be against me?
If you’re with me, I will fear no ill
You have promised never to forsake me
And so I know you never will

He is the one on whom my eyes I’m fixing
For on the cross, it was my place he took
He is my Lord and he’s my Saviour also
And so to him I’ll always look

Jesus is Lord, and at his name I’m bowing
He is the one I gladly now confess
The King of glory – worthy of all worship
For now he is my righteousness

If you’re for me, who can be against me?
If you’re with me, I will fear no ill
You have promised never to forsake me
And so I know you never will

Now I know that one day I will see him
Only because of his amazing grace
And so I’ll dwell forever in his household
Where for me he’s prepared a place

If you’re for me, who can be against me?
If you’re with me, I will fear no ill
You have promised never to forsake me
And so I know you never will.

If you’re for me, who can be against me?
If you’re with me, I will fear no ill
You have promised never to forsake me
And so I know you never will.

With his ASBO still in force, Hector was disappointed that he was unable to travel with me to Edgbaston this morning. But eager to play his part in supporting the team, he’s written a song.

Originally the lyrics he penned were meant to be sung to the tune of Oasis’ Wonderwall – after all, if it’s good enough for the England football team, it’s surely good enough for Somerset.

But anxious about incurring the wrath of the Gallagher brothers who, picky about copyright issues, are apparently big Lancashire fans with the ear of the fearsome Lanky the Giraffe – not literally! – he thought better of it.

So instead he’s renamed the piece ‘We are Somerset’ and, having spent yesterday in the recording studio with some musician friends, has produced the following for your listening pleasure.

And, credit where credit’s due, as a bass baritone, he does remarkably well at hitting the high notes.

Hector says he hopes you’ll enjoy the song as you travel to the ground and that we’ll all perhaps be singing it from the stands as the players celebrate victory later this evening.

So click below to hear the world exclusive from “Hector and the Powerplay” performing ‘We Are Somerset.’

👀👇

https://suno.com/s/7hx8jDVsfFmc76nq

And for when you need to singalong later, here are the lyrics…

Today is gonna be the day
that we’re gonna bring it home again
By now, you should have somehow,
realised the trophy we’ll retain
I don’t believe that anybody feels the way we do about you now.

Craig O, now everybody knows,
The fire in your heart’s ablaze
We saw, what we all knew before
How you can all of us amaze
I don’t believe that anybody feels the way we do about you now.

And all the team are equally terrific
With Riley Meredith now bowling so quick
There are TKC and Banton and of course Will Smeed
The Rews both J. and T.
But then maybe
It will be Goldsworthy
With Louis Gregory
And don’t forget
We are Somerset!

They said, get it out your head
You ain’t gonna qualify
But hey, you know how to play,
And so you can the odds defy
I don’t believe that anybody feels the way we do about you now

And Daniel Sams he used to play for Essex
But now with Jakey Ball will enjoy success
There are others too like Leach and Vaughan and Shaw
Perhaps Tom Abell too.
But then maybe
It will be Goldsworthy
With Louis Gregory

And don’t forget
We are Somerset
And don’t forget (And don’t forget)
You’re gonna be the ones that win it
And don’t forget
We are Somerset
And don’t forget (And don’t forget)
You’re gonna be the ones that win it
(win it)
You’re gonna be the ones that win it
(win it)
We’re gonna be the ones that win it
(win it)

AND A POST MATCH LAMENT

When I arrived home last night, Hector was there to greet me. He’d been following Finals Day on the telly but had taken time to get the band back together for one last time – to record a farewell track that, surprising for one so emotionally unintelligent, I suspect captures what we all are feeling

Take it away Hector…falsetto please!

https://suno.com/s/7L2hh7FybBNehxV7

There is a ground in Birmingham
It’s known as Edge-Blast-ton
Where sometimes dreams, they don’t come true
Though watching still is fun.

Cos there’s a team that we support
One known as Somerset
That e’en on days when things go wrong
We still will love them yet.

Our bowlers they did do us proud
Our batsmen did their best
And so though Northants won the game
Our love still stands the test

One forty-three it seemed a score
That we would soon surpass
But wickets fell too often and
We just could not, alas

When Craig O he walked out to bat
We all of us still hoped
But then he was so finely caught
Despite clearing the rope.

There is a team that we cheer on
And when all’s said and done
They are the team that we’ll support
Until the setting sun.

---

You can read how Hector got his ASBO in ‘Before and After’ by clicking here

Other cricket related posts:

To read ‘With four day cricket in mind’, click here

To read ‘Ode to Brian’, click here

To read ‘The true meaning of cricket’, click here

Cricketing blogs from 2025:

To read ‘The Untold Story of Finals’ Day’, click here

To read ‘Only A Day Away’, click here

To read ‘No smoke without fire’, click here

To read ‘Importantly, why cricket doesn’t matter’, click here

To read ‘I Spy Somerset’s 150th Anniversary Season’, click here

To read ‘A Spring Watch’, click here

Cricketing blogs from 2024:

To read ‘Reasons to be cheerful’, click here

To read ‘First of the Summer Wine’, click here

To read ‘Safe and Sound at the County Ground, Taunton’, click here

To read ‘Is Cricket Amusing Itself to Death’, click here

To read ‘A Purr-fect day at the cricket’, click here

To read ‘Worth Every Penny’, click here

To read ‘The Somerset Cricket Emporium – 2024’, click here

To read ‘One Fine Day’, click here

To read ‘WWFD – what would Freddie do?’, click here

To read ‘A Shady News Story’, click here

To read ‘The Abolition of County Cricket’, click here

Cricketing blogs from 2023:

To read ‘20 Things we have learnt this summer’, click here

To read ‘When rain stops play’, click here

To read ‘Only a game’, click here

To read ‘The Hundred: is cricket amusing itself to death?’, click here

To read ‘The Somerset Cricket Emporium – 2023’, click here

To read ‘for the third time of asking, CRICKET’S COMING HOME…surely’, click here

To read ‘Twas the week of the final’, click here

To read ‘Sharing the important things: on introducing your grandchild to cricket’, click here

To read ‘Somerset v Nottinghamshire T20 Quarter Final 2023’, click here

To read ‘Breaking News’, click here

To read ‘Lewis Calpaldi – Retired Hurt?’, click here

To read ‘Cricket: It’s All About Good Timing’, click here

To read ‘Bazball, Bazchess, Bazlife’, click here

To read ‘Online criticism: it’s just not cricket’, click here

To read ‘Cigarettes, Singles, and Sipping Tea with Ian Botham: Signs of a Well Spent Youth!’, click here

To read ‘A Historic Day’, click here

To read ‘Cricket – through thick and thin’, click here

To read ‘Stumpy: A Legend Reborn’, click here

To read ‘my love is NOT a red, red rose’, click here

Cricketing blogs from previous years:

To read ‘A Cricketing Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story’, click here

To read ‘Scooby Doo and the Mystery of the Deseted Cricket Ground’, click here

To read ‘Brian and Stumpy visit The Repair Shop’, click here

To read ‘A Tale of Two Tons’, click here

To read ‘A Song for Brian’, click here

To read ‘A Somerset Cricket Players Emporium 2022’ click here

To read ‘A Cricket Taunt’, click here

To read ‘A Song for Brian’, click here

To read ‘At Season’s End’, click here

To read ‘A Day at the Cricket’, click here

To read ‘The Great Cricket Sell Off’, click here

To read ‘On passing a village cricket club at dusk one late November afternoon’ click here

To read ‘How the Grinch stole from county cricket…or at least tried to’. click here

To read ‘How Covid-19 stole the the cricket season’, click here

To read ‘A Cricket Tea Kind of a Day’, click here

To read ‘Life in the slow lane’, click here

To read ‘Frodo and the Format of Power’, click here

To read ‘If Only’, click here

To read ‘I’ve got a little CRICKET list’, click here

To read ‘Eve of the RLODC limericks’ click here

To read ‘It’s coming home…’, click here

To read ‘A Song for Ben Green’, click here

To read ‘Enough Said…’, the last section of which is cricket related, click here

A Jack Leach Trilogy:

To read ‘For when we can’t see why’, click here

To read ‘WWJD – What would Jack Do?’, click here

To read ‘On Playing a Blinder’, click here

To read ‘Coping with Disappointment’, click here

And to finish – a couple with a theological flavour

To read ‘Somerset CCC – Good for the soul’, click here

To read ‘Longing for the pavilion whilst enjoying a good innings’, click here

SMELLING VICTORY – THE MORNING BEFORE

It’s all very well them saying that, in this hot weather, if the temperature outside the house is higher than that inside, you should keep your doors and windows open – but trust me, when your black Labrador has eaten all the gooseberries in the back garden – again – you really need them open. 🐕💨

That said, Hector and I are both looking forward to the big match today. With the team just one game away from Finals Day, we can both smell victory – or, at least, I think we will be able to, once the air has cleared!

Because Somerset must surely be favourites to beat Yorkshire in the quarter-final of this year’s T20 cricket tournament.

And it was kind of the powers that be to bring the start time forward – presumably so as not to clash with the meeting I’m at this evening. Even so, it’s just as well that Glamorgan are out of the competition, as, speaking as I am in South Wales, had they still been involved, it might have affected attendance.

Come on Somerset!

Because it’s not coming home…it’s staying home…just where it’s been this past year!

THEY THOUGHT ‘TWAS ALL OVER, IT AIN’T YET – THE MORNING AFTER

Regular readers will remember how this time yesterday, Hector and I thought we were smelling victory. Well, despite it seeming for a moment that our olfactory senses may have been out of kilter – when Yorkshire appeared to be cruising to Finals Day – it appears we were right!

But the match that seemed lost as I entered the church that I was speaking at turned out to be an incredible and improbable win for Somerset – brought about, I should add, without a request being made for the divine intervention that seemed necessary.

Which means that one of us hopes to be heading to Edgbaston on Saturday. It would, of course, have been both of us, but Hector I’m afraid is no longer welcome at the ground – not after his fracas last year with a steward who threw him out of the Hollies Stand for not realising that the squirrel he chased and, uncharacteristically caught and ripped apart, was in fact some chap who had dressed up as a woodland creature for what was meant to be a laugh. Which, to be fair, it was for some – not least Hector, who still finds it funny now!

But Somerset’s epic triumph wasn’t the only reason that yesterday was so joyous. There was another reason too – one brought about by the fact that getting older causes you to think about things in ways you didn’t when you were younger.

Specifically, I have in mind the enormous pleasure that one approaching 60 is afforded by buying a brand new rotary washing line.

And no, it isn’t that I’d chosen it as a gift for my wife on our upcoming wedding anniversary – that, dear reader, will instead be the much cheaper spike that you have to buy separately in order to secure its position in your back garden!

But more unsettling than a belligerent Craig Overton in the eyes of a hapless Yorkshire death bowler are the thoughts that arise when you come to realise that, with our previous garment drying device lasting us over 30 years, this new one is likely to see us out!

Mind you, if on Saturday Somerset produce another heart-stopping performance like yesterday’s, I very much doubt I’ll make it through the weekend.

Unlike the unfinished box of Cornflakes in our kitchen cupboard – which will almost certainly see me out too.

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To read ‘We Are Somerset -A Song For Finals Day’, click here

Other cricket related posts:

To read ‘With four day cricket in mind’, click here

To read ‘Ode to Brian’, click here

To read ‘The true meaning of cricket’, click here

Cricketing blogs from 2025:

To read ‘The Untold Story of Finals’ Day’, click here

To read ‘Only A Day Away’, click here

To read ‘No smoke without fire’, click here

To read ‘Importantly, why cricket doesn’t matter’, click here

To read ‘I Spy Somerset’s 150th Anniversary Season’, click here

To read ‘A Spring Watch’, click here

Cricketing blogs from 2024:

To read ‘Reasons to be cheerful’, click here

To read ‘First of the Summer Wine’, click here

To read ‘Safe and Sound at the County Ground, Taunton’, click here

To read ‘Is Cricket Amusing Itself to Death’, click here

To read ‘A Purr-fect day at the cricket’, click here

To read ‘Worth Every Penny’, click here

To read ‘The Somerset Cricket Emporium – 2024’, click here

To read ‘One Fine Day’, click here

To read ‘WWFD – what would Freddie do?’, click here

To read ‘A Shady News Story’, click here

To read ‘The Abolition of County Cricket’, click here

Cricketing blogs from 2023:

To read ‘20 Things we have learnt this summer’, click here

To read ‘When rain stops play’, click here

To read ‘Only a game’, click here

To read ‘The Hundred: is cricket amusing itself to death?’, click here

To read ‘The Somerset Cricket Emporium – 2023’, click here

To read ‘for the third time of asking, CRICKET’S COMING HOME…surely’, click here

To read ‘Twas the week of the final’, click here

To read ‘Sharing the important things: on introducing your grandchild to cricket’, click here

To read ‘Somerset v Nottinghamshire T20 Quarter Final 2023’, click here

To read ‘Breaking News’, click here

To read ‘Lewis Calpaldi – Retired Hurt?’, click here

To read ‘Cricket: It’s All About Good Timing’, click here

To read ‘Bazball, Bazchess, Bazlife’, click here

To read ‘Online criticism: it’s just not cricket’, click here

To read ‘Cigarettes, Singles, and Sipping Tea with Ian Botham: Signs of a Well Spent Youth!’, click here

To read ‘A Historic Day’, click here

To read ‘Cricket – through thick and thin’, click here

To read ‘Stumpy: A Legend Reborn’, click here

To read ‘my love is NOT a red, red rose’, click here

Cricketing blogs from previous years:

To read ‘A Cricketing Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story’, click here

To read ‘Scooby Doo and the Mystery of the Deseted Cricket Ground’, click here

To read ‘Brian and Stumpy visit The Repair Shop’, click here

To read ‘A Tale of Two Tons’, click here

To read ‘A Song for Brian’, click here

To read ‘A Somerset Cricket Players Emporium 2022’ click here

To read ‘A Cricket Taunt’, click here

To read ‘A Song for Brian’, click here

To read ‘At Season’s End’, click here

To read ‘A Day at the Cricket’, click here

To read ‘The Great Cricket Sell Off’, click here

To read ‘On passing a village cricket club at dusk one late November afternoon’ click here

To read ‘How the Grinch stole from county cricket…or at least tried to’. click here

To read ‘How Covid-19 stole the the cricket season’, click here

To read ‘A Cricket Tea Kind of a Day’, click here

To read ‘Life in the slow lane’, click here

To read ‘Frodo and the Format of Power’, click here

To read ‘If Only’, click here

To read ‘I’ve got a little CRICKET list’, click here

To read ‘Eve of the RLODC limericks’ click here

To read ‘It’s coming home…’, click here

To read ‘A Song for Ben Green’, click here

To read ‘Enough Said…’, the last section of which is cricket related, click here

A Jack Leach Trilogy:

To read ‘For when we can’t see why’, click here

To read ‘WWJD – What would Jack Do?’, click here

To read ‘On Playing a Blinder’, click here

To read ‘Coping with Disappointment’, click here

And to finish – a couple with a theological flavour

To read ‘Somerset CCC – Good for the soul’, click here

To read ‘Longing for the pavilion whilst enjoying a good innings’, click here

There are, I think, at least three types of people who visit the beach on hot summer days.

Firstly, there are those who stutter into the water – inching their way incrementally in, freezing for a moment every time the coldness of the water causes them to pause their advance. Eventually they make it in, but only once each rarely exposed area of flesh is startled by the executive decision of the part of the body that is always last to suffer its consequences. 

Secondly, there are those who, less ‘all at sea’ in the waves, are wholeheartedly committed to enjoying themselves. They race into the water and then, seemingly oblivious to any potential downsides to their enthusiasm, dive headfirst beneath the waves only to emerge laughing uncontrollably.

And thirdly there are those who, like me, spend far too long watching the antics of the other two types from a safe distance. They consider themselves too grown-up to indulge in such childlike behaviour but, even as they do so, they can’t help but feel a little melancholy as they watch others so obviously enjoying themselves messing about in the water.

Longing to experience the same happiness, yet desperate to remain on dry land, they persuade themselves that they’re simply being rational. Too proud to look foolish, too tired to make the effort, and too self-conscious to risk embarrassment, they remain too stubborn to venture in despite, perhaps, deep down wanting to. 

Which is not all that different from how some people approach faith in Christ.

Some are hesitant at first but soon discover that they relish the experience every bit as much as those who plunge straight in. Others remain far off – commenting on something they don’t really understand, having never experienced it fully for themselves.

Perhaps they too would do well to taste and see that the Lord is good. [Psalm 34:8] Because, having eventually tiptoed in myself, I’ve found that, once you’re in, the water really is lovely.

A question that philosophers like to ask goes like this: if there’s nobody there to witness it, when a tree falls in a forest, does it make a noise?

But I’m more interested to know if anybody cares. 

All of which leads me to tell you something that you almost certainly won’t know – that Joanna Mellow died in 1625. And, according to the engraved slate slab in Talland Church, so too did the baby boy she gave birth to.

Which might leave you wondering: ‘So what? Why should that concern us today?’

Well that’s precisely the question I found myself asking as I continued my walk along the Cornish coast path. Does it matter that 400 years ago a young woman died in childbirth? After all countless waves have washed over the nearby beach over the ensuing centuries and, despite how deep the grief that must have been felt by those who loved her at the time, I very much doubt if anyone alive today gives her a second thought. 

Even so, I am inclined to think that her death should remain a matter of concern. Because if it doesn’t, then it means that ultimately our lives don’t matter either – that at best they have only a passing significance –  for the very simple reason that in 400 years’ time it’s unlikely that anybody will remember any of us.

Of course there may be some who say that at the time, to those intimately associated with Joanna and her son, her death did matter – but now, after all this time, it no longer does. But if that is true then wouldn’t it mean that something only matters if there is someone to whom it matters – if there is someone who continues to remember.

And what would that mean for those whom the world has forgotten?

But here’s the thing. There is someone who cares about everything. Someone who cares for everyone – and especially those for whom nobody else spares a thought – no matter how alone or seemingly forgotten they may feel.

Because God not only cares, he remembers.

He remembers not only those who know him as Father – those who, confident that he cares for them, cast all their anxieties on him (1 Peter 5:7) – but also those who continue to reject him, those he would, if they were willing, gladly gather to himself, just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings (Matthew 23:37).

So then, I think Joanna Mellow’s death does matter – every bit as much as our lives do.

To God.

Who not only hears the tree that falls unseen – but remembers and cares for those the world forgets.

Mrs Spratt, her first name Jean,
It is well known, could eat no lean
And though her spouse consumed no fat,
They still got on despite of that.
‘Cos appetites once satiated
And having cleared all they had plated
The one the other, not berating,
They saw no need for separating.

Until Jack’s sweetheart did things wrong
Every time she ate a scone
Firstly insisting ‘twas a scone,
(And no, it’s not each to their own)
But worse than that, compelled I am,
To tell you where she placed her jam
Because, alas, unlike the Queen
She put it underneath the cream.

To eat thus is, of course, uncouth –
That might sound harsh, but it’s the truth –
As even Debrett’s doth agree
It crosses lines of decency.
Unable then to go through life
Yoked to such an unseemly wife,
Her teatime choices not endorsing,
Jack soon his Jean will be divorcing!

Whether it was the overpriced, chicken-flavoured, bone-shaped treat that I gave him last Sunday I don’t know. Maybe he didn’t feel that the two minutes it took him to devour it was sufficient to mark the third anniversary of his birth. 

Or perhaps, having now stripped all but the most out-of-reach apples from the tree in our back garden, he wanted to lay his paws on a few more for what I can only assume is an attempt to challenge Thatcher’s dominance of the West Country cider market. 

Either way, he’s been at it again, departing the house in a way that I suspect would impress Airey Neave – though, to be fair to the former prisoner of war, the punishment awaiting Hector almost certainly pales into insignificance compared to that which would have been meted out on Neave by the German Wehrmacht were they to have thwarted his escape from Colditz.

Which brings me, admittedly somewhat tangentially, to my having been water-boarded this week. This was, as you can probably imagine, a novel experience for me because other than that now infamous incident involving a Henry hoover, a bowl of custard, and a one-time member of Taunton Deane Borough Council who, perhaps inevitably, ended up with egg on his face, I’ve never upset the authorities to such an extent that they felt justified in employing a form of torture prohibited under international law.

And yet there I was. Forced by my two interrogators to lie supine, with my head tilted back, a cloth draped over me, and absolutely prohibited from crying out whilst one poured water into my mouth and the other attacked me with a distinctly pointy electrical device the like of which I’d never seen before. 

Admittedly it was kind of them to provide me with protective eyewear – which is, I guess, why we all ought to be grateful for both the Geneva Convention and the General Dental Council. 

Not that either of these august bodies seemed anything but powerless to limit the fee that these denizens of dentistry saw fit to impose on me for enduring their merciless ministrations – a sum that was, ironically, more than enough to set my teeth on edge.

But throughout my ordeal I didn’t squeak…much. Other than the moment when one of them probed, a little too aggressively I fancy, into an area around a particularly sensitive tooth, I gave them nothing but my name, my date of birth, and an update on my recent medical history. And this despite them then trying to bribe me with a fun-size tube of toothpaste and a couple of complimentary interdental brushes. 

That said, suffering perhaps from a form of Stockholm Syndrome, I parted company with my white-coated assailants with a smile and a promise to return in a fortnight’s time for more of the same. Because let’s face it, there’s nothing more fun than being asked to ‘have a little rinse’ before being afforded the opportunity to spit what you had briefly gargled into a receptacle of free-flowing fluid that somehow manages to maintain the illusion that everything that’s just taken place was perfectly normal and clinically appropriate. Even if, with mouth still numb, most of it dribbles down your front. 

But be that as it may, it’s time now for a glass of Hector’s Hooch – a uniquely flavoured brew which, at an ABV of 23%, he promises me, as well as acting as a highly effective oral anaesthetic, might just be enough to make me, if not forget his latest bid for freedom, at least no longer care!

So, we’re all set for yet another Prime Minister – our seventh in the last ten years – an indication, if ever there was one, of how dissatisfied we have been with those who have sought to lead us. Which says as much about us, of course, as it does those we so quickly find wanting. That said, if as it seems likely, it is to be Andy Burnham, I wish him all the very best in a post that, let’s face it, isn’t easy no matter what the political persuasions might be of the one who holds it.

The problem of changing leadership is not, however, a new one. Back in Old Testament times, Israel also looked to a change of leadership in order to restore their fortunes. For years they had been led by a series of flawed Judges, the last of whom was Samuel. And when he grew old, and the sons he’d appointed as his successors were clearly not up to the job, the elders of Israel asked him to appoint a king instead – a move that would bring them into line with how the nations around them were ruled.

That is to say, they wanted to be like everyone else.

And therein lies the problem. Rather than retaining their distinctiveness as the people of God, they wanted to become indistinguishable from the nations around them.  Which was wrong of them – and all the more because, in asking for a king at all, one who would fight their battles for them, they were in fact rejecting the king they already had, the one who had just defeated the Philistines on their behalf. That is to say, they were rejecting God himself.

That said, their misguided rejection of the one who had looked after them so well ever since he’d brought them out of Egypt would not have come as a shock to God, who had anticipated their action many years previously when back in Deuteronomy 17:14-20 he had said this:

‘When you come to the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and you possess it and dwell in it and then say, ‘I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me,’ you may indeed set a king over you.’

God, therefore, had anticipated exactly what was going to happen.

But lest you think the words above suggest that God is giving His approval to the idea of a king, God predicting that someone will one day ask for something, in no way endorses that request – and neither should his conceding to the request be taken to mean it was a good one.

Which becomes even clearer in Romans 1 where God, surprisingly perhaps, manifests his righteous anger by giving those who did not honour him as God exactly what they wanted. Three times we read there that God gave them up to the lusts of their hearts, to dishonourable passions, and to a debased mind.

Which is a sobering thought isn’t it – for those of us who have ever assumed that God approved of our prayers merely because he granted our request? Because the degree to which our prayer is a godly one, is the degree to which it lines up with the will of God, as revealed to us in scripture, and not the degree to which the thing that we prayed for came about.

But more importantly still, perhaps, is the fact that, according to Deuteronomy 17:15-20, the only King that God is prepared to permit the people to have is one that He chooses himself – one who is an Israelite, who multiplies neither horses nor wives, does not accumulate excessive wealth, and, most significantly of all, fully obeys the law of God.

Which is not the sort of manifesto that many stand on today when it comes to seeking election. Not that we would be able to identify such a one if they did, given how easily we are fooled by outward appearances. Which is precisely why we should allow God – the one who looks on a person’s heart – to choose who will rule over us.

So then, when God tells Samuel to give the people the king they want, rather than being a benevolent act on his part, it can in fact be seen as an expression of his righteous judgment. But in urging Samuel to solemnly warn them of the consequences of what they are doing, by having him lay out in detail what they are letting themselves in for, even in judgment, God is being patient with them, giving them an opportunity to change their mind and showing how, as the apostle Peter will one day put it, he is not wishing that any should perish.

So how does God say the wrong type of King will treat the people? Well in short, he tells them, the King that they chose for themselves will be one who makes them his slave. [1 Samuel 8:17]

But thinking that they knew best, Israel didn’t heed the warning they were given, they continued to insist that they would have a king of their own choosing, in order that they could be just like the other nations. And rather than a king who would fight their battles, ended up with one who wouldn’t, one who, rather than being willing to serve them, would always put himself first.

God, then, gave them over to the consequences of rejecting his own perfect rule.

But it is not a fate that we need to suffer ourselves – not if we make a different decision, not if we are content to have Jesus as King, not if we are prepared to bow before him as our sovereign Lord.

Because unlike any fallen leader – be they those who remain in power for decades by oppressing the people they rule over, or whether they are here today and gone tomorrow, replaced, seemingly, on the whim of a people who are foolish enough to think that substituting one failed leader for another will put things right – Jesus is God’s chosen King, the one Israel should always have been looking out for.

Which is not to say that political leaders are all necessarily worthless. Not at all. Because it is possible to have godly leaders and by God’s grace good leaders who profess no Christian faith. As Martin Luther once said, ‘I’d rather be governed by a competent Turk, than an incompetent Christian.’

Furthermore it is possible for there to be good kings. For whilst the request of the elders was, as we’ve been considering, an evil one, it was one that was ultimately used by God for good. Because his granting of a king to Israel, whilst an act of judgement, was at the same time, part of his saving plan.

Because as would one day be the case again on Calvary, God’s sovereign plan and the people’s evil intention are, paradoxically perhaps, not at odds with one another.

Because after King Saul came King David – chosen by God having been recognised by Him as a man after his own heart.

But even David was a flawed leader. He was both an adulterer and a murderer – proving that an even greater king was required. One who, being both fully God and fully man, had a heart that was completely in tune with God.

For only such a one as he could ever fulfil God’s criteria of what a good King must be. An Israelite. One who did not multiply horses but entered Jerusalem on a humble donkey. One who did not multiply wives but remained single all his life. One who, without a place to lay his head, lived a life of poverty rather than accumulating excessive wealth. And most significantly of all one who lived according to God’s law, from the day he was born in poverty till the day he died on a cruel Roman cross.

That’s why Jesus is uniquely qualified to be the Christ – God’s anointed King!

And isn’t he the kind of King we want? A good king, a gracious king, a merciful king. A king who loves us, who really will fight our battles for us – as indeed he already has by defeating our greatest enemy, even death itself, by suffering and dying in our place and, in so doing, bearing the punishment for our sins so that we no longer need to bear it ourselves.

And isn’t that the kind of King we should be willing to follow. Just as he calls us to do – albeit by taking up our own cross and, if necessary, being prepared to suffer too?

If so, we must follow the same path as he did. Because it’s not just leaders who are called to follow the path of righteousness. Proverbs 4:27 urges us all to be obedient when it says: ‘Do not turn to the right or to the left and to keep your foot from evil.’

Which is a theme that continues on into the New Testament when Jesus cautions us by saying, ‘Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, [but] the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life.’ 

So, it’s not easy being a follower of Jesus. Like he was hated by the world, so too sometimes will we. But until the day Christ returns, we must be prepared to be a part of a church, a body of believers that unlike the elders of Israel wants to be distinct from the world. We need to be those who remain faithful to God and are content to walk in the way of the Lord by endeavouring to follow the path of righteousness illuminated as it is by the light of God’s word.

Sadly though, this is not always what some parts of the church seem to want – those that, desiring to be just like the nations, sometimes affirm what the world takes pride in even when it is clearly contrary to the word of God. And once that broad path is started down, one finds that it only gets broader – meaning that, when the church refuses to be salt and light in a dark and decaying world, the world only gets darker, and all the more rotten too.

But know this. Despite the challenges he knew the church would one day face, despite knowing those who would one day be a part of it – which includes me, and perhaps you as well – Jesus said that he would build his church and the gates of hell would not prevail against it.

So then, let’s resolve to be distinctive, let’s commit to be the ‘peculiar’ people of God and let’s endeavour to live as the people he wants us to be. Let’s be those who are joyfully content with the God who is, rather than miserably manufacturing a god who is content with us.

Let’s do the hard thing. Let’s be honest enough to ask ourselves how we may be turning aside from God’s word and, having recognised where we are falling short, let’s repent of our sin and ask the Holy Spirit to help us put that part of ourselves to death.

And let’s remember that 40 days after his glorious resurrection from the dead, and moments after commissioning his followers to go and make disciples of all nations Jesus ascended – not just to heaven but to a throne.

From which he continues to reign today.

And so, whilst we await confirmation of who our new Prime Minister will be, and whilst we should pray for him and honour his office, let’s not forget who’s really in control. Let’s not forget that Jesus is King – irrespective of whether the world recognises the fact. And let’s not forget that it is he who has been chosen by God to reign over us – in an everlasting Kingdom where one day, every tear will be wiped away, and death will be no more.

 

It’s hard being not okay – irrespective of the reason – whether it’s sickness, sadness or some other form of suffering.

Because they’ll be those who say you look okay, and assume therefore you are. And those who’ll like to insist it’s okay to not be okay, which it isn’t – not for you at least – not in practice, even if it is in theory.

And then they’ll be those who, no doubt trying to be helpful, will say that you’ve got this – whatever ‘this’ is – and so can make everything okay. Only you haven’t, and you can’t – and are therefore only made to feel worse as a result.

So what’s to be done?

Well perhaps you could try hanging out with the one who once hung on a cross.

The one who is no more okay with how things are than you are; who won’t underestimate the not okay-ness, won’t trivialise it by suggesting you can fix it, and won’t criticise you for not doing more to help yourself.

Because having once experienced a not okay-ness even greater than yours – only to come out the other side – he holds both you and your not okay-ness in hands that are far bigger than yours.

For he can carry what you cannot, and delights in what he will one day deliver – a day when every tear will be wiped away and death will be no more, when everything will be more than okay, because everything will be just perfect.

The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. [Psalm 34:18]

A bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench. [Isaiah 42:3]

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Related blogs:

To read ‘Luther and the war in Ukraine’, click here

To read ‘When our joy will be complete’, click here

To read ‘When Bad Things Happen’, click here

To read ‘Weeping with those who weep’, click here

To read ‘Still weeping with those who weep’, click here

To read ‘All’s Well that Ends Well’, click here

To read ‘on the FALLEN and the FELLED’, click here

To read ‘What becomes of the broken hearted? Sorrowful yet always rejoicing on Palm Sunday’, click here

To read ‘Why do bad things happen to good people? Sorrowful yet always rejoicing on Good Friday’, click here

To read ‘Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things? Rejoicing, though temporarily sorrowful, on Easter Day’, click here.

To read ‘T.S. Eliot, Jesus and the Paradox of the Christian Life’, click here

To read ‘Monsters’, click here

To read ‘On Sleeping like a Baby’, click here

To read “Hope comes from believing the promises of God”, click here

To read ‘Reflections on the death of Leonard Cohen’, click here

‘No thank you – life’s too short’

That was my response to the very friendly barista in Coffee #1 when he asked if I’d like to start a loyalty card for that particular chain of caffeine dens that I found myself in this week.

To be honest with you, I’m not sure why the words spilled out of my mouth. Having done so, however, I felt obliged to reassure the poor chap that I was in no way suggesting that my state of health was so fragile that it was unlikely that I’d live long enough to imbibe the ten hot – or cold – beverages necessary for me to claim a free Americano. 

That said, now that I’m approaching sixty and my enthusiasm for unnecessary excitement is beginning to wane, were I ever to acquire a terminal diagnosis – something I suppose I ought to get round to organising before it’s too late – I suspect the goal of attaining such a drink-based reward would be just the kind of thing I’d likely put on my bucket list. 

Only I might opt for a macchiato – because, let’s face it, you only die once.

And so I was left wondering what I should make my primary goals for the few remaining months, or perhaps years – let’s not be pessimistic – that I have left. By which I don’t mean the writing of a will – I’m not that boring – but rather, for example, whether, on discovering I’d come out without my Waterstones card, I should dash home and return with it to make sure any points earned by my purchase of a book could be immediately added to my tally. I’m joking of course – that would be ridiculous – but in the unlikely event of my buying ‘War and Peace’ – or ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ come to that – it would be good to know if the points they’d accrue could be used to posthumously swell those I’d already collected!

And whilst we’re on the subject of how commercial enterprises deal with their deceased former customers, does anyone know whether those Sainsbury’s Bags for Life are transferable? Because if they’re not, I’m blowed if I’ll be buying any more!

This week I also had cause to buy a new lawnmower – the previous incumbent having ended its days through neglect rather than overuse. It came with a two-year guarantee which may or may not see me out, but what I am now looking forward to is the inevitable phone call offering me complete peace of mind – something it will no doubt be claimed can be mine simply by my paying to extend the length of the warranty. But if added years come at a cost, I’m minded to ask for a refund in the event of me not needing the full use of the 24 months my new purchase came with. 

Quite why I bothered with such garden equipment though, I really couldn’t say as I’ve recently been investing time and effort in trying to rewild my back garden. Well I say effort, but the truth of the matter is that none is required and, more pertinently, the beauty of the scheme is that after my death, it will continue on apace without me.

So at least I now know what my legacy will be. Which is just as well, as these days, much like an acceptable cause of death, you can’t die till you’ve got one to leave behind!

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Related post:

To read ‘A Dead Good Day’, click here

Imagine there was something of infinite value – a precious jewel that, though only just out of reach, could only be obtained if you were able to give your complete attention to a simple task that would make it yours to keep. 

Would you, I wonder, be able to claim the prize?

Because according to ‘Stolen Focus’, the book by Johann Hari that I’ve been reading this week, it seems likely that most of us wouldn’t. Why? Well, because of our ever-decreasing attention spans that are the result of us now being constantly distracted – principally by the electronic devices that so many of us have become so dependent on.

By which I mean addicted to.

The book gives a fascinating insight into what we are allowing to happen to our brains – one that is both sobering to read and something of a wake-up call for those of us who, with the latest smartphone in our pocket, believe we’re living the dream but are in fact sleepwalking into a more disaffected tomorrow. Because having promised to connect us with the whole world, what they have delivered has left us only more isolated and alone.

And in case anyone was wondering if I’m pointing a finger, I most certainly am. But first and foremost at myself – someone who is very much aware, not only of how I am more easily distracted than I used to be, but also of the obvious irony that, in the unlikely event of anyone reading as far as this, they have almost certainly done so on a social media platform – one of the increasing number that are, perhaps, most responsible for our growing inability to concentrate that, if we care to notice it, many of us are currently experiencing.

Last week I heard Grayson Perry and, if memory serves, Michael Rosen on Radio 4. They were being asked about the effects of the proposed social media ban for under 16s. And, interestingly, they both spoke of the importance of boredom as a stimulus for their own creativity – how taking time out allowed them to think and, in so doing, gave opportunity for original ideas to emerge.

All of which leads me to wonder if, in our desperate attempt to remain constantly amused – a word meaning ‘entertained’ but which might equally be taken to mean ‘without thought’ – we will lose what it is to both produce and enjoy art in all its many forms. And whether that will inevitably result, not only in us leading less interesting lives, but in becoming increasingly diminished ourselves.

In stark contrast to our relatively superficial thought life, Hari talks in his book about what he calls ‘flow’ – by which he means that blissful feeling we experience when we are ‘in the zone’ – fully focused on something that we are more than happy to give our full attention to. 

But in order for us to find ourselves in such a sublime state, Hari, referencing the work of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, says there are three conditions that need to be met. Firstly we have to have a single goal – because multitasking as a means of greater efficiency has now been shown to be a myth which, rather than increasing productivity, actually achieves the complete opposite. Secondly that goal that Hari suggests we require is one that we must find meaningful. And thirdly, the thought that we are engaged in has to stretch us a little, taking us into areas of understanding that might be new to us and in which we might not normally feel comfortable.

And so the question inevitably arises: what, if any, of our life goals might come anywhere close to meeting these suggested requirements?

The possible answers to that question are no doubt many and varied, differing according to each individual’s particular interests. But for me, and perhaps you, one of the more obvious would be cricket – specifically the four-day county game which includes periods of play that are sometimes slow but which, far from tedious, allow time for variation and, as a result, make matches much more interesting.

Furthermore these are games played by players you are familiar with, those who, for the most part, have been part of your team for years. And so they are games played by people you care about. This is in stark contrast to franchise competitions whose truncated games tend towards homogeneity and where the team you are encouraged to support, despite largely having the same name each year, are made up of a markedly different set of players.  

You are therefore less invested in ‘your team’ and, as a consequence, less likely to stick with them through thick and thin. More than that though you are hard pressed to give any individual game your full attention, such are the distractions that you’ll quite literally be bombarded with – be that the music that incessantly spews out over the public address system, the big-screen crowd games designed to amuse (there’s that word again) or the prospect of a promotional T-shirt being thrown in your face, in all probability whilst a camera is being pointed directly at you. It’s almost as if the promoters of such tournaments have no confidence in what they would no doubt call their ‘product’ – it’s almost as if they know the format they’re espousing needs to be concealed with colourful but ultimately meaningless sideshows, due to its own inherent lack of depth.

There are of course more significant things than even county cricket – and I’m not talking here of Test matches which, for me at least, have become less interesting as a result of games no longer being shown on terrestrial television, and players rarely now playing for their counties. The result of these changes has been the ordinary supporter rarely has a chance now to watch international players in action – a ‘development’ that I would suggest has been ultimately detrimental to the sport as a whole. 

But be that as it may, at a time when genuinely important events are ever before us, when global conflicts and natural disasters wreak havoc in the lives of millions, and our own individual lives are themselves fraught with difficulties and distress, it seems a shame that the future of county cricket should continue to be threatened by those who are only interested in how much money can be made from it.

Because in these days when we have much we need to think about, pay attention to, and concentrate on, the opportunity afforded by the four-day game to practice these essential skills might just be of more value than most people appreciate – making county cricket a precious jewel that we can’t afford to let slip through our fingers. 

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Other cricket related posts:

To read ‘The true meaning of cricket’, click here

Cricketing blogs from 2025:

To read ‘The Untold Story of Finals’ Day’, click here

To read ‘Only A Day Away’, click here

To read ‘No smoke without fire’, click here

To read ‘Importantly, why cricket doesn’t matter’, click here

To read ‘I Spy Somerset’s 150th Anniversary Season’, click here

To read ‘A Spring Watch’, click here

Cricketing blogs from 2024:

To read ‘Reasons to be cheerful’, click here

To read ‘First of the Summer Wine’, click here

To read ‘Safe and Sound at the County Ground, Taunton’, click here

To read ‘Is Cricket Amusing Itself to Death’, click here

To read ‘A Purr-fect day at the cricket’, click here

To read ‘Worth Every Penny’, click here

To read ‘The Somerset Cricket Emporium – 2024’, click here

To read ‘One Fine Day’, click here

To read ‘WWFD – what would Freddie do?’, click here

To read ‘A Shady News Story’, click here

To read ‘The Abolition of County Cricket’, click here

Cricketing blogs from 2023:

To read ‘20 Things we have learnt this summer’, click here

To read ‘When rain stops play’, click here

To read ‘Only a game’, click here

To read ‘The Hundred: is cricket amusing itself to death?’, click here

To read ‘The Somerset Cricket Emporium – 2023’, click here

To read ‘for the third time of asking, CRICKET’S COMING HOME…surely’, click here

To read ‘Twas the week of the final’, click here

To read ‘Sharing the important things: on introducing your grandchild to cricket’, click here

To read ‘Somerset v Nottinghamshire T20 Quarter Final 2023’, click here

To read ‘Breaking News’, click here

To read ‘Lewis Calpaldi – Retired Hurt?’, click here

To read ‘Cricket: It’s All About Good Timing’, click here

To read ‘Bazball, Bazchess, Bazlife’, click here

To read ‘Online criticism: it’s just not cricket’, click here

To read ‘Cigarettes, Singles, and Sipping Tea with Ian Botham: Signs of a Well Spent Youth!’, click here

To read ‘A Historic Day’, click here

To read ‘Cricket – through thick and thin’, click here

To read ‘Stumpy: A Legend Reborn’, click here

To read ‘my love is NOT a red, red rose’, click here

Cricketing blogs from previous years:

To read ‘A Cricketing Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story’, click here

To read ‘Scooby Doo and the Mystery of the Deseted Cricket Ground’, click here

To read ‘Brian and Stumpy visit The Repair Shop’, click here

To read ‘A Tale of Two Tons’, click here

To read ‘A Song for Brian’, click here

To read ‘A Somerset Cricket Players Emporium 2022’ click here

To read ‘A Cricket Taunt’, click here

To read ‘A Song for Brian’, click here

To read ‘At Season’s End’, click here

To read ‘A Day at the Cricket’, click here

To read ‘The Great Cricket Sell Off’, click here

To read ‘On passing a village cricket club at dusk one late November afternoon’ click here

To read ‘How the Grinch stole from county cricket…or at least tried to’. click here

To read ‘How Covid-19 stole the the cricket season’, click here

To read ‘A Cricket Tea Kind of a Day’, click here

To read ‘Life in the slow lane’, click here

To read ‘Frodo and the Format of Power’, click here

To read ‘If Only’, click here

To read ‘I’ve got a little CRICKET list’, click here

To read ‘Eve of the RLODC limericks’ click here

To read ‘It’s coming home…’, click here

To read ‘A Song for Ben Green’, click here

To read ‘Enough Said…’, the last section of which is cricket related, click here

A Jack Leach Trilogy:

To read ‘For when we can’t see why’, click here

To read ‘WWJD – What would Jack Do?’, click here

To read ‘On Playing a Blinder’, click here

To read ‘Coping with Disappointment’, click here

And to finish – a couple with a theological flavour

To read ‘Somerset CCC – Good for the soul’, click here

To read ‘Longing for the pavilion whilst enjoying a good innings’, click here

Imagine there was something of infinite value. Something that, though only just out of reach, could only be obtained if you were able to give your complete attention to a simple task that would make it yours to keep. 

Would you, I wonder, be able to claim the prize?

Because according to ‘Stolen Focus’, the book by Johann Hari that I’ve been reading this week, it seems likely that most of us wouldn’t. Why? Well, because of our ever-decreasing attention spans that are the result of us now being constantly distracted – principally by the electronic devices that so many of us have become so dependent on.

By which I mean addicted to.

The book gives a fascinating insight into what we are allowing to happen to our brains – one that is both sobering to read and something of a wake-up call for those of us who, with the latest smartphone in our pocket, believe we’re living the dream but are in fact sleepwalking into a more disaffected tomorrow. Because having promised to connect us with the whole world, what they have delivered has left us only more isolated and alone.

And in case anyone was wondering if I’m pointing a finger, I most certainly am. But first and foremost at myself – someone who is very much aware, not only of how I am more easily distracted than I used to be, but also of the obvious irony that, in the unlikely event of anyone reading as far as this, they have almost certainly done so on a social media platform – one of the increasing number that exist and are, perhaps, most responsible for the cognitive decline that, if we care to notice it, many of us are currently experiencing.

Last week I heard Grayson Perry and, if memory serves, Michael Rosen on Radio 4. They were being asked about the effects of the proposed social media ban for under 16s. And, interestingly, they both spoke of the importance of boredom as a stimulus for their own creativity – how taking time out allowed themselves to think and, in so doing, gave opportunity for original ideas to emerge.

All of which leads me to wonder if, in our desperate attempt to remain constantly amused – a word meaning ‘entertained’ but which might equally be taken to mean ‘without thought’ – we will lose what it is to both produce and enjoy art in all its many forms. And whether that will inevitably result, not only in us leading less interesting lives, but in becoming increasingly diminished ourselves as well.

In stark contrast to our relatively superficial thought life, Hari talks in his book about what he calls ‘flow’ – by which he means that blissful feeling we experience when we are ‘in the zone’ – fully focused on something that we are more than happy to give our full attention to. 

But in order for us to find ourselves in such a sublime state, Hari, referencing the work of  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, says there are three conditions that need to be met. Firstly we have to have a single goal – because multitasking as a means of greater efficiency has now been shown to be a myth which, rather than increasing productivity, actually achieves the complete opposite. Secondly that goal that Hari suggests we require is one that we must find meaningful. And thirdly, the thought that we are engaged in has to stretch us a little, taking us into areas of understanding that might be new to us and in which we might not normally feel comfortable.

And so the question inevitably arises: what, if any, of our life goals might come anywhere close to meeting these suggested requirements?

The possible answers to that question are no doubt many and varied, differing according to each individual’s particular interests. For me, for example, they would include cricket – specifically the four-day county game which I find meaningful, not least because, devoid of the distractions inherent in short-format franchise competitions, it includes periods of play that are sometimes slow but which, far from tedious, allow time for variation and, as a result, ultimately make matches more interesting.

But the summer game is just my personal passion, and what gets you up in the morning is likely to be very different. But be it carpentry, kayaking, or carnival, whether it’s ballooning, bellringing, or badminton, I’d wager a small coin that the level of satisfaction you derive from it is directly proportional to the time you are prepared to commit to it, and the effort you are willing to make to know more about whatever it is you’re in to.  

But for all that diversity of interests, I nonetheless wonder if there is another goal worthy of us all pursuing, one that is both greater and more unifying than any other, one that has the potential to satisfy every single one of us and give meaning to the lives of everyone.

Because if there is, might not the dissatisfaction that so many of us are currently feeling, be the necessary incentive for us to go looking for it?

Well I believe there is such a goal – one that, interestingly, satisfies all three of Hari’s conditions. Which suggests, to me at least, that in pursuing it, we might go some way towards being freed from the ennui that threatens to overcome us, and instead experience something of the joy that we all can’t help but think – or at least hope – we were made for.

So what am I referring to – what is the big idea I have in mind that might just be enough to satisfy us all?

Well simply but ineffably this – the knowledge of a transcendent yet immanent God.

Jeremiah 29:13 records the words spoken by just such a God who says to us as he once did to the prophet, ‘You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.’

God then is the one we are encouraged to go after even as He comes after us. And we are to do so single-mindedly, undistracted by lesser concerns, absolutely convinced that knowing him is what gives life its meaning. As Jesus himself said, ‘This is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.’ [John 17:3]. Furthermore, scripture encourages us to go beyond a superficial understanding of our creator, to ‘leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity.’ [Hebrews 6:1]

Because He is beyond our understanding, and because His thoughts are far higher than our own, He is a God whom we will never fully comprehend and therefore never become bored of.

But God isn’t just interesting – he matters.

Instead we need to do something somewhat harder. Rather than focusing on the faults of others, we need to concentrate on our own. Rather than blame others for our difficulties, we need to reflect on how we may be contributing to them ourselves, and so take responsibility for all that we think, do, and say, as a result of our own inner restlessness that is made manifest by our all too apparent distractibility. 

That is to say, we need to take responsibility for the flawed people we are ourselves.

And having done so we need to turn to the One who really is of infinite value, as near to us as His word which is readily available to us and will, if we would only attend to it, teach us all that we need to know.

We need then to fix our eyes on Jesus – the author and perfecter of our faith who, for the joy set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame. We need to look to the One who, suffering and dying in our place, became sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God.

But more than receiving Him as our saviour, we need to accept Him as our Lord. For He is the only leader we will ever need, the only one who can be trusted, and the only one who guarantees that all that is currently wrong will one day be put right.

And that includes the wrong within us – not just our propensity to sin, but our restless and distracted inattention.

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Related blogs:

To read ‘Contactless’, click here

To read ‘On not remotely caring’, click here

To read ‘On contentment’, click here

To read ‘On permanence – and the search for stability’, click here

To read ‘Me, myself and AI – interacting with the ghost in the machine’, click here

To read ‘Keeping it real’, click here

It’s almost certainly an apocryphal story but it’s one that I like just the same. Two pastors are chatting and one tells the other that he’s recently been diagnosed with cancer. To which the other replies, ‘Congratulations!’

Now I’m aware there is a time and a place for everything, that the process can be painful, and death brings with it a great deal of unhappiness for both the one dying and those who are left behind, but I hope that when I receive my terminal diagnosis, assuming that is, that I’m not taken unexpectedly, that I receive the news in the same spirit as our no doubt fictional ministers.

Because as a Christian, one who believes the Bible when it says that ‘to die is gain’, [Philippians 1:21] and that, notwithstanding the sadness of the perhaps one or two who might conceivably miss me a little, where I anticipate ending up is better by far than where I am now, surely I should at the very least not be wholly against the idea of shuffling contentedly off my mortal coil.

But I wonder if there is more we might learn from the apostle Paul’s positive view of death — and here I’m thinking, not simply about physical death, but the Christian concept of dying to self.

And the reason I ask is that, were that to be the case, then to follow one’s heart, to be true to yourself, and to pursue your ‘best life now’ might in fact be very bad advice indeed.

Recently I’ve been thinking about what is often referred to as the unconditional love of God – something that, up to a point, I wholeheartedly believe in. Now, whilst that might sound contradictory, my apparent double mindedness is in fact simply a consequence of considering it important, when making such a statement, to define carefully what exactly it is that we mean.

So let me do just that.

I am fully persuaded that God loves me unconditionally – that whilst he delights in my obedience and grieves over my wrongdoing, there is nothing that I can do to make him love me more or less. And nor is there anything he can do either – because his love for me, as well as being absolute, is not dependent on me, but him. It is a reflection of his never changing nature rather than a function of my constantly fluctuating behaviour.

He loves me then, not because I’m lovely – but because he is loving.

But there is at the same time something else I believe, something far less palatable and far harder to swallow, something that you may find as shocking as I myself still find unsettling — and that is that God hates sinners.

But hold on a minute. Surely, I mean to say that God hates the sin but not the sinner?

Well yes — and no.

Because whilst that is true, it is, at the same time, potentially misleading – for the very simple reason that it is not wholly supported by scripture. For as well as announcing God’s love for mankind, his unwillingness for any to perish, [2 Peter 3:9] and his sending Jesus into the world with the express purpose of saving sinners, [1 Timothy 1:15] the Bible also teaches us something that none of us, least of all me, should find comfortable to hear – and that is that God hates evildoers. [Psalm 5:5; 11:5, Hosea 9:15]

But rather than turning away, stay with me a while as I try to make sense of what I know will be deeply troubling for some – especially those who have already been made to feel wretched by a world quick to condemn and slow to show mercy.

Because I genuinely believe that sense can be made of what seems nonsensical – of an all loving God who hates.

But first we’ll need to understand that words in the Bible aren’t always used in the same colloquial fashion that we use them in the twenty-first century. 

And so, whilst there is certainly a tenderness to God’s love for us [Matthew 23:37], it isn’t merely some sentimental feeling he experiences when he thinks about us. Rather his love for us is a consequence of his deliberate decision to set his favour on us. Similarly his hatred is not an uncontrolled and unreasonable antipathy towards those who displease him. Rather than a capricious God who enjoys nothing more than coming down like a ton of bricks on anybody looking like they may for one minute be about to enjoy themselves, his hatred for evildoers is a settled opposition against all that falls short of his perfection.

Because our actions are always a consequence of who we are – what we think, feel, and believe – you can’t separate the sinner from their sin simply by asserting it.

And that is why the aforementioned well-worn saying that suggests that sinners are nothing more than loveable rogues, those who sometimes make what might euphemistically be called mistakes, is one that is overly simplistic. As indeed is that other all too commonly used expression – the one that states that God loves us just as we are, which, whilst true, is too often taken to mean that he’s content for us to remain that way.

So then what is the reason? Why does God hate sinners? And why ought he therefore, but for his grace, to hate me – on account of the evil that sadly I have been guilty of doing too?

The answer is not only because, as a holy and just God, he is the one who, knowing and defining what right and wrong is, knows most fully how my actions have sometimes both hurt others and spoiled the world that he perfectly created. That he is righteous and therefore necessarily abhors all that is evil, all that takes away from his glory, is of course part of it, a very big part of it – but in addition, I think, he hates sinners, because in behaving badly, they fail – both to honour him and be the better and happier people that, loving them so completely, he longs for them to be.

So here’s the thing. If God loves sinners – and he hates sinners – then it follows that God must love those he hates. Indeed, since he is opposed to what they’ve become, one might even say that God hates sinners because of how much he loves them! Which again is not a contradiction – but another of the many paradoxes that we can’t help but come across if we read the scriptures carefully.

And it’s one that can only be resolved by considering another paradox – specifically that God, in his infinite mercy, sent his beloved son to die in the place of those who he both loves and hates – and that on the cross, by laying on him the due penalty for all our wrongdoing, he dealt with all that he hates in us in order that only what he loves would be left.

Only because of the cross is the sinner separated from their sin. And only because of the cross can it be truly said that God loves us unconditionally. Because it was only on the cross that our sin was removed from us and laid on Jesus – the one who then bore the due penalty for it, even as we were credited with his perfect righteousness. [2 Corinthians 5:21]

All of which means that sin matters – to God as much as you and me – both when we are guilty of it and when we are those who come to harm as a result of the wrong actions of others. And that whilst God does, right now, because of Christ, love us unconditionally, [Romans 8:1] he isn’t interested in leaving us unchanged. [Romans 12:2]

There is then what might almost be considered a condition to his unconditional love – one that he will certainly fulfil as he goes about the often painful process of changing us from what we are now, into what we will one day be – that is, the people we were always meant to be.

So how does that transformation come about? Is it something he does – or something we do?

Well it’s wholly down to him. But, having now got used to the idea of there being paradoxes within the Christian life, you won’t perhaps be surprised to learn that our transformation is also something that we must battle to bring about ourselves.

And so having been saved from sin and death, having been positioned, by God, ‘in Christ’ – the only place that we are safe and loved by him without any accompanying hatred – we are, by the power of the Holy Spirit working in us, to put ourselves to death by denying our sinful nature. [Romans 8:13]

And if, as God’s much loved children, we do – if, having already been adopted into his family, we make Christ’s death and subsequent resurrection the template for our own life’s journey, and if we daily deny ourselves, take up our cross, and seek to follow Jesus, [Luke 9:23] – we will discover that, in stark contrast to the pleasures of sin that whilst real, are at best only ever fleeting [Hebrews 11:25], possessing new life in Christ – which is both eternal and wholly satisfying – is infinitely preferable.

Because whilst sin promises freedom, it does in fact enslave. And holiness, whilst seemingly costly, is ultimately both liberating and joy inducing. [Romans 6:6] Which is why dying to self is the way to become fully alive. And why self-denial, far from being an expression of self-hatred, is in fact the way we find true fulfilment. [John 8:36]

And here is some more good news wrapped up in yet another paradox.

Whilst any progress we make in this life may not be as marked as we would like it to be, the good work that God has already begun in us, will be completed on the day of Christ. [Philippians 1:6] And on that day, having spent a lifetime working out our salvation with fear and trembling, we will discover, when we are finally perfected, that God has been working in us to will and to work to his good pleasure. [Philippians 2:13]

And that having died, and been born again to eternal life, God will have made us what, in Christ, he has already declared us to be…just like Jesus.

That then is the benefit of death. For all of us – no matter how healthy we may be today.

And I for one can’t wait!

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Related blog:

To read ‘Luther and the war in Ukraine – On becoming a theologian of the cross’, click here

Today is Pentecost Sunday, which is celebrated by many as the church’s birthday. It’s the day when Christians remember how the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, was poured out on the disciples just as Jesus Himself had promised immediately prior to His own ascension ten days previously.

So then, given how Jesus had said they would receive power when the Holy Spirit came upon those early believers, and Christians today believe they too are filled by the Spirit, why does the church so often appear weak and insignificant? Why do Christians continue to suffer as much, if not more, than non‑Christians? And why do those who claim to follow Jesus so often fail to live the way that both He, and they, desire?

The answer, I think, is because of the paradox that lies at the heart of the Christian faith, and which Paul expresses so perfectly in 2 Corinthians 12:9. There we see how Paul struggled with a thorn in his flesh – one that grieved him greatly, yet became the means by which he learnt that Christ’s power was made perfect in his weakness – as indeed it is in ours.

This is a core feature of genuine Christianity, demonstrated supremely by the One who brings about our salvation by allowing Himself to be crucified: an act considered so weak as to make it a stumbling block for Jews looking out for an all‑powerful Messiah, and foolishness to those who, along with most of the world, consider self‑promotion rather than sacrifice as the order of the day. [1 Corinthians 1:23]

So how does recognising this help us answer my earlier questions?

Firstly, why does the church so frequently look weak? Well, because rightly expressed, it does not seek health, wealth, and prosperity, but seeks rather to give itself in the service of others. The Gospel – that seemingly foolish message of a dying Saviour – is a treasure that we hold in jars of clay, “to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.” [2 Corinthians 4:7] This is a message that is as unpopular today as it was in the first century. And so it is one that, unless the Holy Spirit humbles the proud by renewing the minds of those He irresistibly calls, will never prove popular. 

Secondly, why do Christians suffer?  Partly because they are called to do so for the sake of the Gospel, by putting the eternal needs of others before their own immediate concerns. [1 Peter 2:21; 2 Timothy 1:8] 

But they suffer, of course, for other reasons too – just as unbelievers do – experiencing what some have referred to as the ‘severe mercy’ of God. And so it is that, through the work of the Holy Spirit, who sustains them in their affliction, the tested genuineness of their faith – more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire – may be found to result in praise and glory and honour at the revelation of Jesus Christ. [1 Peter 1:7]

And thirdly, why do Christians continue to fall short of the standards set for them by the One they say they love? Well, simply and sadly, because they are not yet what they are already declared to be.

The righteousness they are already counted as having by faith in Christ is in stark contrast to the unrighteousness that they all too often continue to display. And here too, the Holy Spirit is active: for whilst He does indeed come alongside us in our battle to put to death the deeds of the body, making us better than we otherwise might have been, [Romans 8:13] He also reveals the truth by pointing us to Christ and convicts us of our ongoing sin.

And so we become those who increasingly long to follow Jesus but, at the same time, possess a broken spirit – a broken and contrite heart – which, making us always dependent on Him, the Lord will not despise. [Psalm 51:17]

So Jesus was right when He said His followers would receive power when the Holy Spirit came. But the power He provides is more than just the strength to speak truth and serve – it is also the willingness to appear weak – to be humble, to endure, and to confess one’s sins, all the while relying on the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ which, being sufficient for even me, is more than sufficient for everyone else as well.

And it is the reason why, like Paul, we can boast in our weaknesses – so that the power of Christ may rest upon us – and say, also with Paul, that when we are weak, then we are strong. [2 Corinthians 12:9-10]

Because that is how the world is renewed, how Christ uses His church to make a difference today, and how, because of His own suffering, we can be sure that what for now is oh so wrong, will one day be made oh so right. 

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Related posts:

To read ‘Pentecost and the war in Ukraine’, click here

To read ‘Speaking in Tongues’, click here

To read ‘Permanence – and the search for stability’, click here

To read ‘The Day that Never Ends: An Easter Reflection’, click here

To read ‘Good Friday – Good for those who know they’re not’, click here

To read ‘A Warm Welcome Awaited: From Hosanna to Hallelujah’, click here

To read ‘Visions of Blue: Echoes of Grace’, click here

To read ‘Minding the Gap’, click here

To read ‘And not just because baked beans get in the way’, click here

To read ‘The Kindness We Don’t Needand the Truth We Do’, click here

To read ‘No Ifs or Buts’, click here

To read ‘Hope in the Ashes: Why Sin Remains But Does Not Reign’, click here

To read ‘Twenty Four Reasons for Hope this Christmas’, click here

Earlier this week I was asked if I’ve ever successfully completed a cartwheel, to which I had to answer ‘No’ – unless that is you consider the placing of one’s hands on the ground whilst simultaneously lifting both feet into the air, however briefly, sufficient to be deemed a success. Which, in my book, it doesn’t.

All of which prompted me to ponder why I am so physically inept. Is it, perhaps, the consequence of my genetic makeup, such as is the case for those who are born without the ability to roll their tongue? Because if it is, might it not also explain my inability to run a sub 4-minute mile, change a tap, or contribute meaningfully to a round-table discussion on the finer points of quantum theory.

Either way, of course, there are some things that, not being adept at, make life altogether more problematic. Which brings me to the book I finished reading this week: ‘A Normal Family – Everyday Adventures With Our Autistic Son.’

Written by Henry Normal and his wife Angela Pell, it’s an honest account of their ordinary experiences bringing up Johnny, who at the time of writing, was a 19-year-old with a diagnosis of severe autism.

The book is a hugely helpful and wonderfully worthwhile read, one that is funny and uplifting in places, yet desperately sad in others. I don’t mind admitting that some of the passages I attempted to read out loud to my wife I wasn’t able to, not because of some genetic inability, but because the words were just too tear-inducing.

Despite the authors’ occasional doubts about writing the book, I’m glad they did. And, should you read it, I think you will be too. Likely as not, though, Johnny won’t care what you do. He’ll not be turning cartwheels either way. But it’s nonetheless good to be reminded that for some the spontaneous sharing of a potato snack really is an achievement to be celebrated every bit as much as achieving a top grade in a GCSE. And not just because it might actually be more important. 

Whether autistic traits are genetically determined, the result of other factors, or as perhaps seems likely, a combination of the two is not fully understood. Indeed, the origins of the condition remain as mysterious as the world can seem for those who live with the realities of autism, and as uncertain as the future is for both them and their parents – those who carry the very real concern of who will continue to look after their grown-up children when they themselves inevitably get older and, because of frailty or death, are no longer able to care for them as they would wish.

But what isn’t in doubt, as this book so beautifully demonstrates, is both the inherent value of autistic individuals – no matter how severe the difficulties their differences cause – and the love that they deserve to be shown. 

Her name was Fiona – the bride that is, who it was suggested should now throw her bouquet to see who among the single ladies attending her wedding might next be married. Not that we were at the evening reception you understand – it was simply that as we walked along the sand at Perranporth, we couldn’t help but hear both the excessively loud music and the protestations of the DJ coming from the hotel that overlooked the beach.

It was, if I’m honest, a little intrusive – not that I’d begrudge the happy, and in all probability now severely deaf, couple their evening of celebration. Besides, the noise it generated was unable to draw my attention away from the impressive waves that continued to pound the shore unhindered. Furthermore, whilst the next morning the party, if not the honeymoon, was over, the waves remained – a constant to be relied upon in a world that can never stand still.

But here’s the thing – the brash and out of place music was both tame and temporary compared to the wildness of the never-ending waves. Which is something that could also be said about much of what seeks to distract us each day – the words of the supposedly powerful that are shouted today but forgotten tomorrow, the news events that generate headlines that are soon replaced by those heralding something still more cataclysmic, and the trivialities that those of us foolish enough to engage in social media waste countless hours scrolling through – the thoughts they generate as transient as the sandcastles that are washed away with each successive tide.

And even the genuinely significant and oftentimes very painful circumstances that, as C.S. Lewis suggested, act as God’s megaphone to wake a sleeping world, are light and momentary when compared with the weighty and eternal matters of God. 

For he is from everlasting to everlasting, his steadfast love never ceases, and his mercy never comes to an end. His never-changing word endures, his purposes stand forever, and, as we remember particularly today, Jesus’ ascension was not just to heaven, but to a throne from which he continues to reign, and so his kingdom is one that will never fall.

Even so, as C.S. Lewis also observed, God, while good, is not safe. And just like the sea at Perranporth is dangerous — as I discovered some fifty years ago when its infamously treacherous tides dragged me out of my depth and I had to be rescued by the RNLI — so too is the living God.

For the One whose love can buoy us up and bring immense delight is also infinitely holy. And so, conscious of our wrongdoing and subject to his justice, we ought to tremble before him and respect him as surely as we should the perilous sea. 

Which is where Jesus comes in. For just as the RNLI rescues those who disregard the advice given as to where it’s safe to swim, so Jesus, lovingly sent by his Father, saves those who have paid scant regard to God’s law and done whatever seemed good in their own eyes. Only more so. For not only has Jesus atoned for our sin, enabling us to be justly forgiven, he has also provided us with the perfect righteousness that we need to stand guilt-free before the one who wholly accepts and wonderfully welcomes us into his family as his much-loved children.  

And this salvation, as well as being complete, is permanent. Because those who, quite apart from their own efforts, find themselves reconciled to God – through the life, death and resurrection of the one who is the same yesterday, today, and forever – will never be lost again. 

And the celebrations marking their homecoming, and the discovery of the stability they’ve longed for, will be more joyful still than those of even the most exuberant wedding party.

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Related posts:

To read ‘The Day that Never Ends: An Easter Reflection’, click here

To read ‘Good Friday – Good for those who know they’re not’, click here

To read ‘A Warm Welcome Awaited: From Hosanna to Hallelujah’, click here

To read ‘Visions of Blue: Echoes of Grace’, click here

To read ‘Minding the Gap’, click here

To read ‘And not just because baked beans get in the way’, click here

To read ‘The Kindness We Don’t Needand the Truth We Do’, click here

To read ‘No Ifs or Buts’, click here

To read ‘Hope in the Ashes: Why Sin Remains But Does Not Reign’, click here

To read ‘Twenty Four Reasons for Hope this Christmas’, click here

I wonder if I might make a recommendation: ‘Sam and Ade Go Birding’. I have thoroughly enjoyed the Channel 5 series which is clearly hoping to piggyback on the success of the BBC’s ‘Gone Fishing’ but instead of Paul Whitehouse and Bob Mortimer messing about on riverbanks we have here Sam West and Ade Edmondson being friends whilst hiding away in Cornwall, North Norfolk and, best of all, the Somerset Levels.

Personally speaking, my interest in birds is only marginally more than it is for fish and, like Ade Edmondson, I can no more tell apart a lesser spotted woodpecker from those that I imagine are forever on all of the nation’s bird tables. But as with Gone Fishing, it’s not the hobby that’s being engaged in that matters, but the warmth of the evident friendship that the shared interest provides a setting in which it can be enjoyed.

But as well as enjoying eavesdropping on their sometimes deeply personal conversations and being genuinely impressed by Sam West’s knowledge of all things ornithological, what struck me most was Ade Edmondson’s obvious delight in robins – how he would be content to take pleasure in this common, but nonetheless always welcome, garden visitor whilst his companion went anxiously and often disappointingly in pursuit of more elusive avian encounters.

Which reflects, I think, a tendency of too many of us to no longer be content with the commonplace – those of us who, having believed what we were all too often told, that everything is awesome and we ourselves are special, can no longer delight in the ordinary, now that the every day everyday always disappoints.

And it’s a problem that’s becoming ever more pervasive. Recently I’ve become aware of an educational establishment whose tagline boasts that ‘Excellence is only the beginning.’ Which, whilst sounding aspirational, is in fact one more instance of the toxic positivity that only succeeds in placing excessive demands on those who, it would seem, can no longer be content to even excel – but must remain in the relentless rat race until, presumably, they eventually collapse having still failed to achieve the potential imposed on them by somebody other than themselves. 

And that, as well as being unrealistic and unfair, is unhelpful. More than that, it’s cruel. Because to be extraordinary is by definition unusual, to be exceptional is to be an outlier, and to be excellent is to exceed what’s generally expected.

Having undue pressure put on people is, of course, nothing new. What might be, however, is how we go about coping with it. Because whereas once we would, if we were wise, recognise the foolishness of what was being asked of us or, if we weren’t, become bitter and burnt out, now we are encouraged to lie. Or as it’s framed these days, curate reality and hold to the alternative truth that we create by writing a better story than the one that we’re actually living.

Because it’s not just the exaggerated narratives that we are sold by politicians and media outlets that we can no longer believe – we can no longer trust the stories that we now tell each other. Furthermore, so discontent have we become with how things actually are for us, we now willingly suspend disbelief and wholeheartedly accept the misinformation we tell ourselves – or allow our so-called artificially intelligent companions to.

And so, cocooned within our own private world, defined by our own personal truth, we become ever more alone. And as well as feeling lonely, we feel sad – because the stories we tell ourselves, no matter how idealised we make them, are false and, lacking any substance, cannot provide the one thing we all desire most.

And that’s a happy ending.

No wonder then that so many of us feel disconnected. No wonder we hanker after authenticity. And no wonder programmes that are principally about friendship are as popular as they are.

And no wonder too that ancient wisdom tells us that ‘godliness with contentment is great gain.’ [1 Timothy 6:6]

So then, rather than our ever more frantic attempts to create a world that doesn’t exist, one that, not being real, can never fully satisfy, perhaps we should open our eyes and step out into the world that is already out there, waiting for us to discover. The world described in the greatest story ever told, which, though not ours, were we to accept our invitation and become a part of it, would guarantee us the future we long for – one that’s both genuinely happy and never ending.

And with that, I’m off to say ‘Hello’ to the friendly little robin that daily frequents my back garden. 

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Related blogs:

To read ‘Contactless’, click here

To read ‘On not remotely caring’, click here

To read ‘Me, myself and AI – interacting with the ghost in the machine’, click here

To read ‘Keeping it real’, click here

what if
the words we said
we meant –
would they be
what’s needed
to close the
widening gap

what if
the truth we held
was not ours
alone
but shared –
would it be
sufficient
to unite
us

what if
the ordinary
was our
everyday
enough –
would we
be
altogether more
content

or is that
simply
impossible
now

as we
continue
to individually pretend
by writing
our own
better stories

which have
no happy
ending

---

Related blogs:

To read ‘Contactless’, click here

To read ‘On not remotely caring’, click here

To read ‘Me, myself and AI – interacting with the ghost in the machine’, click here

To read ‘Keeping it real’, click here