Navigating our way through this current virus-induced catastrophe is not exactly a walk in the park, is it?
I went for an actual walk in an actual park yesterday evening and came across this:
I assume it once protected a path – an entrance to the garden of a long-gone house, maybe. Now it stands by the brook, next to a tree. And it serves no purpose other than to intrigue the imagination and make for a nice photo.
I also wonder if it is the sort of image that casts some light on our current predicament. Reports this morning (especially in the Sunday Times) do not point to a government in any sort of competent control of our national response to the virus crisis. Ideology, ambition and incompetence appear to be the drivers. Which makes the constant repetition of “the government has been absolutely clear” mantra by ministers at the daily press briefings even more bizarre.
The clarity of a message is gauged by how it is heard and received by the audience. The first rule of communication is that what is heard matters more than what is said. Saying we have been clear is not the same thing as actually being clear. It would do no harm for politicians to ban the use of the word ‘clear’ from their lips and use the time gained to work hard at how words might be being heard and understood.
And here is the challenge. There have now been so many flip-flops by government and local authority messaging that it is hard to keep up with what is the latest ‘guidance’. Clarity is sacrificed on the altar of expediency.
The gate in the photo is strong, resistant to the forces around it and clearly once had a simple and single purpose. Now it is a picturesque curiosity – a useless, redundant bit of historical architecture that serves no practical purpose. One can only wonder, in the face of reports of today’s rudderless leadership, whether the UK’s polity is the same.
In the Christian calendar today is called ‘Low Sunday’. Last week we exploded with joyful surprise at the resurrection and its impact on the disillusioned friends of Jesus. Today we settle down to the hard, sometimes tedious, job of carrying on with the journey, trying to work out what it all means for now and the future – for politics and economics, for public and private ethics, for my life and our lives together. The daily challenge continues.
And these questions cannot simply stand as a relic of some past purpose. A faith – just like a political settlement – that points only to some past glory is redundant. It is a mere curiosity – effectively pointless. Even if it makes for a nice photo.
