Holiday Pics - No 2 The Old Country

The weather isn't very British; the shrubs aren't very British; but what's that?  Nothing could be more British than a red telephone box!

I saw this one in Malta and there were plenty of others there - here's two . . .

Of course we still see them in Britain.  Occasionally.  They are strategically left for tourists to take pictures of them, or rather of themselves beside them.

Perhaps it is a strange thing that places that in other ways have gladly shed their connections to Britain have kept connections with things that Britain has itself abandoned.  If it isn't the telephone boxes it is a random London red double-decker of a kind almost untraceable in London today.

It illustrates how differently we choose to keep rooted or at least referenced.  In London we don't keep red telephone boxes or open back buses, in former connected countries they don't keep the Queen's head on stamps and currency.

In church worship you are more likely to sing an old evangelical hymn during a High Mass or prior to a liberal Bible-denying sermon in a church that kept the hymnbook but gave up trust in the Bible than you are to sing such a hymn in churches that have kept their simple trust in the Bible but given up the hymnbook.

"Pardon?"

The telephone is a boon to people who are deaf, I've been told.  I know friends who find a voice on the telephone easier to hear than one in real life.  But there comes a point where this is no longer true because the deafness is profound.  I had to give on on such a call this past week and it brought to mind one of the most difficult pastoral conversations I have ever had.

Few if anyone who reads this blog would ever have met the lady but I'll call her Mary.  Mary lived on her own but had a son David living locally who never came to our Church.  I had never seen her there either but I had met her in hospital and her husband when he'd been alive so had kept, so to speak, in touch.  She had another son, John, in South Africa.  And that's where the call headed:

"Hello, Mary"

"Hello.  Hello, who's that? Is that you, John?"

"It's John Roberts from the Church"

"How are things with you, then?  I hope everyone's well"

"Yes, thank you.  But how are you?"

"Yes, the leaves are falling here.  What's the weather like there?"

"IT'S JOHN FROM THE CHURCH, MARY"

"It's getting colder now too.  The night's are drawing in.  I expect it's warm there already, is it?"

"I'M JOHN ROBERTS FROM THE CHURCH, MARY, I'M RINGING TO SEE HOW YOU ARE."

"Yes, it will soon be winter now.  The leaves are beginning to fall, you know.  How is everyone anyway?"

(Giving up) "We're fine, thank you"

"David's very good, you know.  He does all that needs doing" (Oh dear.  Was that a pointed comment?  I didn't know.  I didn't like being a surrogate telephone son).

The phone call eventually ended - though that wasn't easy to achieve given that I was cast in the role of ringing from South Africa to check on my mother.  I hoped that John's wife and family were indeed alright as I had answered for them! 

And I realised what my prayer times must seem like from heaven's perspective.