Are you proud of your people, your country, your Church, your homeland? I hope so. Are you saddened by those who spoil our images of ourselves by their prejudices and hatreds?
Yourself – are you aware of the faults you have, the animosities you bear, the dislikes you feel, besides the good you have in your love, loyalties, generosity, understanding?
Do others see you as you see yourself? I would guess those who love you see more good in you than you do, but that sometimes you dislike yourself as some others do.
This musing is caused by what we have seen happen in our beloved country and our much admired parliament in the last week.
Would you do to anyone what Gove and Johnson did to Cameron and then Gove did to Johnson? Would you stand firm as Corbyn has done or accept that your family/community see you as a liability?
Democracy is fine when we win, it is ruinous when we lose. We have seen that in the Middle East and its religious and political upheavals. The West thought it could impose democracy – impossible in a tribal or divided religious setting. People vote for their own – as we see the patterns.
Who expected immigrants and refugees and asylum seekers to be sent home last week? Many hateful people have made clear they did. We knew before the Referendum that years will pass before any social changes can happen. The only immediate effect, we were warned, would be economic. But the hate messages tell us of a poison in our society, and the political instability reminds us that our system depends on ambitions and cliques.
You and I would have to work hard to be accepted as candidates (ever tried it?) before we then asked the public to vote for us. I admire people who can take the insults, challenges, deceit, ignorance – and still are willing to serve.
Whatever we hope and plan for includes human nature – likings and loathings, loves and hatreds, loyalties and betrayals. We are watching it happen as the first fruits of Brexit. But it was all there before, simply hidden. Now it is open and Europe and the world watch. So does God. Will God bless us with a parliament of integrity?
Fr John
(3rd July 2016)
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