19th February 2021

I know, as a Christian, I should be concerned about climate change, fossils fuels, war and oppression etc but those are “in the large” and I am living “in the small”, particularly at present.

As children, my sister and I used to make fun of the popular Sunday School hymn “Jesus bids us shine with a pure clear light” with its iteration of “You in your small corner and I in mine”.  Life does feel a bit like that at present. (In fact, she quoted it in a recent phone call.)

George Herbert’s hymn is a help with “living in the small”.

Teach me my God and King

In all things thee to see

And what I do in anything

To do it as for thee.

…

A servant with this clause

Makes drudgery divine;

Who sweeps a room as for thy sake

Makes that and the action fine.

A Bolton couple, David and Christine Bagley were awarded the MBE in the New Year’s Honours for their work in the first lockdown. Their Christian charity, Urban Outreach, provided thousands of meals in school holidays, 1,200 Christmas hampers and had rounded up all 125,000 frozen first-class meals stuck at Manchester airport to distribute to those needing help. In an interview David Bagley said, “The one thing coming out of this is people pulling together. Even if you have only one thing to give, it’s added to someone else’s one thing and together we have an abundance”.

Margaret Clements