I apologise, I am very late this month. I have been away almost every week since the beginning of February. I have seen some beautiful parts of the country, even as far south as Cornwall , and more importantly, I have met a lot of delightful people. There is little like travelling to make one appreciate how good most people are. Unfortunately it is usually the sad and ugly things which make the news. 'Road accident – people killed' is news. Got there safely, countryside beginning to blossom, daffodils in the hedgerows and beside the road in sheets of gold' is not news. Is that because it happens every year, or just that we have grown accustomed to the good that we barely notice it any more?
In church today the emphasis in both Relief Society and Sunday School seemed to fall upon joy. Are we the only faith who believes that 'man is that he might have joy', and that is God's purpose for us? Of course it is an eternal purpose, not a short term one that we might simply have a good time. We know this. Joy is a far deeper thing than mere pleasure – but for all that, it is a waste, and indeed a sin, to fail to be happy in the good and the beautiful that is all around us.
To be 'worldly' in the sense of valuing material things too much is a serious problem. But God made the 'world' in the physical sense that creation is marvellous – God Himself saw it and said it was good. There are times when it is harsh, places we have spoiled, but there is still so much that is glorious, we would be so ungrateful not to stop long enough to praise it, and give thanks for it. Every season has its beauty. In the northern hemisphere it is spring. Yesterday was the Equinox, now the days will be longer than the nights again. There is more light, even though there will probably be more snow before summer. But snow is beautiful, and its slow thaw waters the ground.
We have too many flowers out now to name them all, and the wild flowers are blooming all over the place, so many of them gold or blue. Every day there seems to be something more.
Driving down the east coast last week we had one day cloudless from dawn to dusk, and long after. The air shimmered with light, everything seemed green on the earth, and sky and sea melting into each other in blue. So many great trees beginning to come to life again. Birds everywhere. I had forgotten there were so many woods, so many long, rolling hills, so much land.
It's good to go away – it's good to come home.
We begin every journey with a prayer, and always include gratitude for the opportunities that we have been given. Which makes me think, with some soberness of thought this month, of what a great gift it is to be given the chance to do something, to learn something I hadn't known before, see or hear something new, but far above these things, to help, encourage, heal, teach. We are all given chances. We take some and magnify them, we miss others. What we failed in today, we may succeed in tomorrow.
Every so often I take stock and ask more seriously – 'am I moving closer to being the person I really want to be? In church today a close friend of mine spoke of returning home from a trip away to find that her central heating boiler was out and the house was very cold. She telephoned the heating engineer and he dropped everything else and came to see her immediately. She told us what a blessing it was that she needed his help, because he is a man who brought such a spirit of joy and faith into the house that he not only mended the boiler and restored the warmth in the house, but his visit gave a warmth in the heart and the spirit, that she felt a joy at his having been there.
I know the man she speaks of. He is Christian, but not a member of our church. And I know what she means. In the years I have known him, I have never seen him without a smile. He has no need to say that his faith is deep, it is in his every word, in the look in his face when he speaks, even if it is merely to wish you a good day.
That is how I would like to be. I would like to leave everything warmer and brighter than I found it. I would like people to be encouraged after meeting me, their own faith strengthened, their belief in themselves and the purpose and goal of their journey.
If I wanted it enough then it would happen, because it would be at the forefront of my thoughts, ahead of my own needs, my sense of frustration or disappointment now and then, my impatience with stupidity or carelessness, ahead of tiredness or being cold or fed up, or any of the other things that make us less than the best we could be.
Except that they don't make us fail, they only tempt us to. I would be all those things with someone I loved. Perhaps I would be if I remembered that there is a sense in which the person I am speaking to is Christ! There's a thought. 'In as much as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, my brethren, ye have done it unto me'!
That puts a different slant on being critical, contentious, impatient, pointing out faults, contradicting for the sake of it, mocking at mistakes, trying to build oneself up by putting other people down. How would I feel if I blinked my eyes, and when I opened them again the other person were not who I thought I had been talking to – but the Saviour Himself? I need to behave in such a way that at least I wouldn't want the ground to open up and swallow me.
Newsflash – who do you want to be? The priest – the Levite – or the Samaritan? It doesn't matter how often I hear that story, it always gets me. I long to be the Samaritan. Right now I'd be very happy to be the heating engineer – just leave the house and the people warmer because I had been there, willingly, seizing the opportunity.
May your month be filled with opportunities to give, and pray the heating engineer will call when you need him.
