Victory in Europe Day!
Surprising
as it may seem I am too young to remember victory in Europe day. My parents
though have often spoken about it, the euphoria and the celebration following
on of course from years of suffering. In terms of elections I am of the age
when one day sticks in my memory: Tony Blair’s landslide election: euphoria
again, for some at least! I can even remember the song: Things can only get
better!
This
morning I doubt the country awakes to any real sense of euphoria, I imagine rather
a dull relief that it’s all over, at one level at least. Politics may not be our hope today, nor even
memories of a major war in Europe, so what can stir us?
As a
church minister I regularly remember another historic day. I celebrate
communion, I am in effect remembering ‘Good’ Friday: a day when a remarkable
carpenter was murdered by nailing him to a cross! I realise just as with
politics so our taste for religion and faith differ. Nevertheless, when an
unjust execution is remembered 2000 years later as ‘good’, clearly something
has been transformed. A sign of hope offered, that neither politics or death,
nor even war has extinguished. The day after VE day there was still a hell of a
lot of work to do. Today it’s the same; politics rarely offers a magic bullet
for all our needs. Hope for today and
tomorrow has to begin in our hearts, in our attitudes, in our willingness to
work together for a society where bad things get transformed into good. So
that’s my thought for today. Yesterday was the day to vote, today is a day to
get on with it, and sow some hope into the world by the way we smile and deal
with whatever issues that we face.
