This is the text of this morning’s Pause for Thought on BBC Radio 2’s Chris Evans Show – with Chris just having returned from the Monaco Grand Prix:
Well, there I was at the weekend, listening to some old Bruce Cockburn stuff, when, in one of those coincidences you just can’t plan for, Lewis Hamilton’s face came on the telly while Bruce was singing his epic song Anything can happen.
Basically, Anything can happen simply makes the point that when you go out in the morning, anything can … er … happen. And, as Lewis discovered in Monaco, we can’t control everything all of the time. The best laid plans, and all that… I mean, I’m a Liverpool fan, so I know what I’m talking about.
But, why should this be a surprise? And what are we supposed to do when things don’t go according to plan?
I guess people fall into two camps. There are those who whinge and moan and think the world is against them; and there are those who just get on with it – whatever the ‘it’ is, and however good or bad ‘it’ is. After all, we can’t change the world to make it suit us, and we can’t control other people to make them fit in with what might make us feel happiest.
This isn’t exactly new, is it? You sometimes hear people speak as if you only have to get the formula right (pun intended) and everything will fall into place. Follow these seven steps to success, and you will be healthy, wealthy and wise! But, we know that nothing can be guaranteed and formulae don’t work. There can even be a temptation – for people of faith – to think that if you press all the right ‘God buttons’, life will go well and you will be spared the messiness and sickness and fragility that being mortal brings with it.
But, the reality is that even for the faithful, there are no promises other than that: whatever the world throws at us, we will not be abandoned.
So, anything can happen and anything can happen! No deals, no bargains and no fixes. Frightening? Maybe. Exciting? Definitely. But, the good news is – and I say this through gritted teeth – that you’ll never walk alone…
