Acting love

Rowan Williams was Archbishop of Canterbury in 2001.  He was in New York on 9/11 when the World Trade Centre were attacked and collapsed.  He said profound things about the experience then and since.

He noticed one simple thing.  Most of the mobile phone calls made from the hijacked planes and from the twin towers were from people calling family and friends to say ‘I love you’.  Nobody seemed bothered to settle old scores.  There aren’t records of people using the time to transfer money from one account to another.  Few even raged against the terrorists. 

News and rumours about coronavirus quarantine began to circulate a fortnight ago.  It made me think about his remarks again.  It is true there were some negative stories.  First, tales of people emptying supermarket shelves to hoard toilet roll and pasta.  Also, I realise, lots of selfishness, profiteering and political point scoring. 

But most reactions were creative and positive.  Cross Roads village’s Facebook pages were immediately full of people offering to shop for others.  People restricted to their flats in Italy were singing to each other on their balconies.  Most reactions were simply about noticing and loving our neighbours.

When times of crisis come and test me, I realise I don’t always show up as well as I’d like.  And many in isolation today don’t get noticed or loved as they should.  I have a prayer for me and for them.  It is based on one written 471 years ago by the man who was Archbishop of Canterbury then.

Lord, you teach us that without love all we do is worth nothing: send your Holy Spirit to pour into our hearts the supreme gift of love, the one thing which binds peace and virtue around us.  Otherwise our lives might as well be lost.

The words are the Thought for the Week column (which I'm only asked to contribute about once a year) in last week's Keighley News.

The tulips were at a magnificent final stage which we enjoyed as much as when we were given them perfect and new.

The monumental mason part of whose names appears in the previous post was James Greaves of Halifax.