Attitude of gratitude

At church this week we began a series of sermons on the Ten Commandments. (I wonder how well they're known now, particularly the first four.... Go on! Test yourself: Exodus chapter 20, verses 3-11.) Anyway, we started at No 10 (not the address, the command): "You shall not covet...", which means not wanting what we cannot have.

It's a very modern commandment, isn't it? So much of the advertising industry makes us want what we don't need or can't afford. Lotteries make us spend in order to gain impossible riches which cannot bring happiness. Credit, which is debt in sheep's clothing, is dangled in front of us to "take the waiting out of wanting".

There were a lot of memorable phrases in Paul's sermon, but a couple I really liked were "People live in one of two tents: con-tent and discon-tent", about which I thought that's it's true that it's a choice we make, where we set up camp mentally. The other was the well-known "an attitude of gratitude". I didn't see much of the London marathon yesterday but I was struck by an interview with a young woman soldier who'd had her leg blown off in Iraq (which is such an easy thing to type, such an unimaginable thing to experience). She wasn't dwelling on her plight. She was actually about to run the marathon (over 26 miles) in aid of limbless servicemen. So positive.

It's very easy to feel sorry for oneself. How quickly the forecasters have taken to talking about "another miserable day/week"! I admit I don't enjoy being stranded in my tantalisingly slow electric wheelchair even under the protection of my poncho when the heavens open, especially when it's hailing on my bald pate! But I recall my father telling of a saintly old man emerging into a deluge from a Cambridge church. When his younger companion complained, his reply went something like, "No, no, my boy. Glorious rain, God's rain!" And in fact, what an answer to prayer all this rain is! As I see another low pressure system with its blue rain smudges sweeping across the country on the weather map day after day I reflect on how lucky we are to leave in a well-watered "green and pleasant land", while most of Africa has its water deep in inaccessible aquifers. There we were a few weeks ago bemoaning droughts and hosepipe bans, and now the lawn is lush green and the farmers can scarcely believe their blessings.

Finally, I thought I'd share this for lovers of the Where's Wally books. If you don't know, they have pages of intricately drawn, densely populated pictures, in which somewhere will be the distinctive Wally in his red-and-white striped jumper. They're a good way to occupy children on wet afternoons. I suppose the cartoon's about how we tend to forget that others are people, with feelings and needs, just like us. Do we really want to know, when we ask, "How are you?" Do we wait for an answer?