Sunday 3rd January

Sometimes one truly does feel helpless in a world seemingly spiralling out of control, or at least out of our control.  Maybe it has always been so, though maybe with our recent inter-connectivity we are simply made far more aware of our situation.  Time was when ordinary people were only concerned with what went on in their own immediate family or village; life trundled on and rumours may have come of Kings and Queens and foreign wars or plagues or floods, but generally those things which did not immediately affect one’s life were of little interest.  But as cities grew larger and sucked more people in there were soon news sheets produced, often consisting of gossip and affairs of the rich, but also politics were discussed, or more likely promulgated from a Whig or Tory perspective.   Then with the advent of Radio and Television we had “The News”, and you could no longer escape knowing at least a little about the state of the World.

We now live in a world of 24 hour news, which often isn’t but is reported as breaking news – as if a wave of facts was pouring into the news desk so fast they could barely report it.  But stories come and go as the whim of the news editors perceive them to be “news”.  We also have the internet and our friends, or too often people we may never have met but have somehow “befriended”, post links to extraordinary stories, which may or not be true, which may or may not be propaganda, which may or may not move us into reading them.  And more and more one begins to feel that too much news is simply too much to take in.  A feeling of helplessness overtakes one; is the world really such a terrible place with crime, corruption, wars, terrorism, disease, famine, hunger and greed all around?  Or is it as it always was?  There is an awful lot going on the whole time but the good things are barely reported, most people live peaceful and productive lives looking after their family and friends, kindness is far more common than cruelty, almost everyone actually wants everyone to be happy.

So, do not shun the news, do not automatically find something less painful to watch; but realise that in our own small way we can begin to make the world a better place. In fact it is incumbent on us to do so.  We may not be able to stop wars, we may not be able to cure disease, we may not be able to feed all the hungry, we may not be able to correct unfairness – but we can be kind to each other, to help where we can, to think of others rather than enriching ourselves.  And we have to hang on to the hope that the inherent goodness in our children will overcome some of the injustices we see around us.

You can relax now, Sunday sermon is over