This is the script of this morning’s Pause for Thought on BBC Radio 2’s Zoe Ball Show:
Perhaps one of the few upsides of these dreadful lockdowns is the explosion on social media of really funny stuff. The one that made me laugh yesterday was the journalist who got invited to have a vaccination because the NHS had thought he was 62cm tall rather than 6 foot 2 (and seventeen stone), which made him hugely obese.
While I was laughing at that one, a friend sent me a great list of the museums that just have to be visited before I die. Like the Museum of Broken Relationships in Zagreb, Croatia. Or the Museum of Bad Art in Massachusetts and the Museum of Failure in Sweden. And let’s not start on the Dog Collar Museum in Kent.
The thing here is that there is always a place for celebrating the stuff of ordinary life. I like going to places where I can see the evidence of extraordinary achievements, but sometimes it’s just the mundane that captures the imagination. In my neck of the woods you can go to the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford and see televisions and computers that look primitive, but even I can remember them being invented.
The Christian calendar has us now in the season of Lent. But, instead of filling my mind with thoughts of extraordinary feats of spiritual discipline, I am left thinking about how the tweaking of daily decisions and activities can make a much bigger difference. Yes, I might decide to give up booze or chocolate for a few weeks and feel proud of the health benefits; but, I can also choose to give away money to feed people who need it … or give my time to making sure my neighbours are OK. Simple, ordinary, routine, everyday stuff of life. But, one day we might look back and see that it made a real difference to someone.
The image that will guide me through this Lent is Jesus in the desert for forty days, checking how serious he is about what drives him – power, glory or giving his life for others. The Museum of Failure had better keep a shelf for my efforts, but, that won’t stop me asking the questions.
