Don't miss out

I enjoyed Saturday. It was dry, which helped. We'd arranged to meet my college pal, let's call him Murgatroyd, and his partner, I'll call her Annie, in Oxford. It's a long time since I've spent time with him and we'd never met her. We arranged to meet at the Ashmolean Museum. They're architects and he had not seen it since its £ multi-million rebuild. It is a most impressive, if confusing, building. They spotted, before following us to Brown's for a meal, the Vermeer painting on loan there.

Jane and I went to see it after lunch. It's the only painting by the Dutch master in private ownership, Young Woman seated at a virginal, and it's quite small (10 x 8 inches); but it stands out from all the others on the wall. It's very simple, but beautiful. It's in Oxford only until September, when it returns presumably to the wall of a very wealthy and lucky person in New York. You might easily miss it.

Opportunities to renew old friendships and make new ones are precious, and it's easy to miss them. That meal in Brown's was a quite simple sharing of good food and talk. Which is what "companionship" meant originally. But it was more. It was the seizing of a moment. It's all too easy to dwell in the past and so to miss what God may have in store. We've all made mistakes we regret, leaving behind hurts. And yet, it seems to me, that Jesus didn't hold such things against people. He invited himself to their homes for a meal. We've all had experiences which have scarred us. And yet he didn't allow such things to keep a stranglehold on people. He restored them to live life again in the future.

I'm sad to see yet another programme is scheduled on Channel 4 about Tony Nicklinson, trapped by a stroke in an unresponding body. Its title tells us that it will be an emotional tract advocating euthanasia: "Let our dad die". I'm sad because I believe he is actually missing out on what fellow-sufferer, Bram Harrison, said, "I enjoy my rather limited life"- see Bram Harrison's locked-in life. I quote Bram because his life is more like Tony's than mine is, for the moment. However I agree with Bram. It's surprising how much can be made of how little, given the opportunity and a positive attitude.