I got three texts quite close together toward the end of last week. Two were NHS reminders about my forthcoming appointment urging me not under any circumstances to forget it. The third was from the doctors’ surgery itself telling me the appointment had been cancelled so resources could be concentrated on the imminent arrival of coronavirus cases. I also had a number of emails on the same day encouraging me not to lose sight of the need to renew a library book, telling me my home contents insurance is due and breaking the news that the football match I wasn’t going to anyway was now off.
We get our messages lots of different ways in these modern times but some things, I found myself pondering on Sunday morning, remain resolutely non-modern. It’s a grey and rainy morning a good half a mile outside the small hamlet of Preston Bagot and the bells of All Saints are being rung loud and long to advise the faithful not to lose sight of their appointment with Morning Prayer. It’s a very reassuring sound, even if I used to hate its intrusion during my younger days when Sunday mornings didn’t really start until well after lunch. I wonder if the pealing of church bells will one day be replaced by the ping of a text reminder - I certainly hope not.
We get our messages lots of different ways in these modern times but some things, I found myself pondering on Sunday morning, remain resolutely non-modern. It’s a grey and rainy morning a good half a mile outside the small hamlet of Preston Bagot and the bells of All Saints are being rung loud and long to advise the faithful not to lose sight of their appointment with Morning Prayer. It’s a very reassuring sound, even if I used to hate its intrusion during my younger days when Sunday mornings didn’t really start until well after lunch. I wonder if the pealing of church bells will one day be replaced by the ping of a text reminder - I certainly hope not.
Of course it’s not just a question of the medium, it’s the message too and this morning’s message is one of faith, compassion and support backed up by simple common sense. As messages go it’s no earth-mover. It’s hardly dramatic and hardly anything we couldn’t work out for ourselves. But boy do we need it.
There are fewer than a dozen here for the early start. Brave souls the vicar calls us. She begins by telling us (with an exasperation only partly-feigned) how, as a person past the age of 70, she’s received calls from members of her family telling her what she should do to avoid the virus. On top of this comes the advice from the government and medical communities, all routinely filtered, enhanced and just plain exaggerated by the news industry. Add to that the rumours we seem to pass from person to person with a far greater efficiency than any virulent bug, and it’s a cocktail of information and supposition guaranteed to bewilder.
Perhaps it’s the natural cynicism of the journalist in me but some of the messages which seem to sweep the nation on a daily basis seem to have a very calculating hand behind them. One well-placed salvo of social media posts results very quickly in another gap on the supermarket shelves. Toilet rolls, pasta, anything with the phrase ‘anti-bacterial’ on it - they’ve all disappeared in the last few days. It’s a pity I can’t get any success with spreading fears over the future availability of the Romany Pie CD; a few boxes of that being loaded into trolleys wouldn’t be a bad thing.
Of course the past masters of the whole ‘terrify them into buying’ thing was always the church itself. Take a look at any history of pre-reformation catholicism and the sight of carbootfuls of Andrex pales into insignificance. In the teeth of such apocalyptic behaviour it’s a wonder the church doesn’t cash in afresh.
Perhaps now is the time for a neo-Victorian bible-thumping campaign warning all to get in line or face the damnation of coronavirus without the Almighty’s help. But it doesn’t and the patient invocation to us to act responsibly and with others in mind is as much a measure of how the church has changed as it is an indication of what we in the pews feel we need to hear.
But at least we’re here to hear the message. It has emerged this morning that the government is on the brink of instructing all those over 70 to stay in their homes and have no contact with the rest of the population. Without being unnecessarily rude I think that would leave this morning’s congregation at just me and the organist. He’ll be busy so it might fall to me to ring the bells.
As a footnote I stopped off at Sainsburys on my way home to buy milk and cereal. The car park was gridlocked, shoppers very stoney-faced and the shelves noticeably sparse in places. Caught up in the maelstrom of mass-hysteria all around me and being swept along by the herd, I panic bought three onions I really didn’t need. These coming weeks will provide many tough trials for all of us I expect.
