Mercy on the 134 bus

A few stops down the road from us one of London's latest knife attacks took place - on a bus.  The next day I sat on the same numbered bus and all of a sudden a 134 bus felt all bad.

The Curate's Egg is famously used to describe the part-good, part bad.

The wit derives from the curate awkwardly answering the Bishop that his bad egg is good in some parts.  Awed by the Clerical Eminence he is too timid to agree that it is all bad.  But a bad egg is, of course, just bad.

Life is a curate's egg of good and bad.  Only in the bad, such as on my 134 bus, it rarely feels that there's another chunk that is/was/will be good.  Only one organ may be diseased but the whole body seems bad;  only one neighbourhood gang is hostile, but the whole place feels unsafe; only one charge relating to one incident is made in court against you but you feel wholly criminal; only one relative is dangerously ill but the whole family lives under a cloud.  And so on. 

Psalm 23 does this in reverse. 

Goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life. 

Part of life is goodness from God.  And the other part?  Well, others may call it badness, the wrong side of the street, a run of bad luck or the going getting tough.  But for the believer it is interpreted as the place of God's Mercy.  Was my bus ride no longer good?  Then it had become a place, for me, of mercy instead.  But no less divine.

From Mosul with love

London is always full of surprises.

One of our church members was travelling by bus, wearing a Christian symbol.

"Are you a Christian?", a lady asked her.

"Yes I am"

"I am too!  I come from Nineveh, from Mosul, from Iraq.  We must pray.  They have attacked us but we are in London and we are safe now. There are many of us from Iraq and we have a church [in NW London] where we can pray."

You really never know who you may meet in this city.

Two Years In London

There are various ways in which it is now obvious that we have been in London a little while.  Here are a few:

1.  I think that a house costs over £1 million.  If it is a large house it is over £2 million.

2.  I believe that red traffic lights are advisory that something might cross your path as you proceed.

3.  I expect to see a crime committed most months (this month so far it has been a hit and run driver and a bag thief at the supermarket)

4.  There is always a bus coming.  Well, unless you really, really need one.

5.  No meeting of any kind ever starts on time.

6.  Half the population is at school/college.  The other half is their parents.

7.  Jeremy Corbyn is a popular local politician.

8.  A steady job is one that lasts more than eight weeks.

9.  Parking space is more precious than a £1 million house.

10. The countryside is found way up north in the London Boroughs of Barnet and Enfield.  There might be more of it further out but I've forgotten.