Thought For the Day 3rd October

Thought for the Day
Saturday 3rd October
Rob Marshall
Good morning
So now we know. London will hand over the Olympic torch to Rio De Janeiro as the host city of the 2016 Olympics.
How contrasting was the euphoria of the first South American city to host the games and the disappointment of Madrid – and the surprise and excitement of when London won 2012 came flooding back.
Just before yesterday’s vote, one IOC representative briefed the media saying :”if they win, they will be under pressure for seven years until they deliver the games.”
London will be able to give help and advice as the reality dawns as to what lies ahead for Rio: as TS Elliot warns us –“Between the idea and the reality; between the motion and the act, falls the shadow” and that shadow is all those things which we simply can’t possibly take into account when with every good intention – we agree to take something on.
A bishop who I once worked for used to say to me with increasing regularity – “why on earth did I agree to do this? Why did I take this on?” And, in the cold light of day we all have those times, when we look back at the moment when we accepted responsibility for something and then realised that the delivery of it might just be a little different to what we had imagined.
Unfortunately, for some people, this happens with a new job. Others find that a property they have bought was too big, too large. Even more emotionally and spiritually draining is a relationship, taken on without really thinking about what the long term effects might be.
When Huxley said “Hell isn’t merely paved with good intentions, it is walled and roofed with them” he confirmed lots of pastoral conversations I have had as a priest with people and with organisations.
The books of both the Old and New Testaments form a framework for my own understanding of human nature and this crucial idea of good intention, wanting to succeed and win, often in the face of unimagined and surprising obstacles figures prominently in Christian theology.
St Paul sums this up in Olympic fashion, urging people to live as if they are running a race – but sticking rigidly to pre-set goals of faith and hope whatever stumbling blocks come their way.
The main thing to avoid is cynicism: it’s too common and too easy to say “I told you so” when we see other people’s dreams collapse and the grandest of schemes fail.
It is a very human thing to want to succeed, to win the prize. The reality of experience is that the delivery of the goods is rarely without fraught moments and disappointments.
This is where faith in human nature and in what we ultimately believe in, comes to the rescue even if what we are really feeling is “why on earth did I agree to take this on?”

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