If you can remember that you are an idiot

I’m placing at the beginning of my Lent the background radio noise to my breakfast yesterday: Eddie Jones, Head Coach of the England Rugby Team, reflected in the sports news on England’s defeat by Scotland last week; I went back to BBC Sounds to listen to it again several times until I was sure I’d transcribed it fully and accurately.

As bizarre as it may seem, these are the weeks where you really enjoy it as a coach.  You got it wrong the previous week.  We’d all love to get it right all the time, but we don’t.  And now you’ve got a chance to atone.  Everyone is in to you.  Everyone knows better than you.  And you’ve just got to remember that you are an idiot.  And if you can remember that you are an idiot, you can look ahead and be optimistic and really confident about the game coming.

At every moment there are the missteps which have brought me thus far.

You got it wrong the previous week.  We’d all love to get it right all the time, but we don’t.  And you’ve just got to remember that you are an idiot.  

I’d love it to be otherwise, but I get things persistently and idiotically wrong.  Lord, have mercy.

At every moment there is the possibility of grace.

Everyone is in to you.  Everyone knows better than you.  As bizarre as it may seem, these are the weeks where you really enjoy it as a coach.  And now you’ve got a chance to atone.

Those who nurture faith know it is not strange that joy and atonement are just here.  Christ, have mercy.

At every moment there are the next steps to take.

And if you can remember that you are an idiot, you can look ahead and be optimistic and really confident about the game coming.

Remembering I’m idiotic dust is what lifts hope towards what is to come.  Lord, have mercy.

Meanwhile, the pictures are taken along and away from the south wall of Haworth Cemetery, a small section behind the top row of marked graves, where, the sister of one of those buried there told me last week, there are more than fifty unmarked babies graves, mostly from the 1960s; she and the cemetery authorities are beginning to explore whether others want o join them in seeking to establish an appropriate memorial.