Last night we watched Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s statement. ’The tidal wave of Omicron’… ‘the race between the vaccine and the virus’… ‘let’s get boosted now’. The message is ‘Get Your Booster’ – your third covid vaccination.
I remembered watching ‘Bleep and Booster’…
This morning I read 1Thessalonians. St Paul starts with prayer for his friends’ ‘work produced by faith… labour prompted by love… endurance inspired by hope.’…
I looked up ‘booster’ – it’s a ‘device that supports, assists or increases… force, power or effectiveness’.
Musing whether…
- the broadcast itself had been a booster – increasing some people’s fear.
- St Paul would say that prayer’s a ‘booster’ – increasing our power or effectiveness
- the England cricket team, Norwich City Football Club or Lewis Hamilton needed a booster last weekend to increase their power or effectiveness
Last night we watched ‘Cliff Richard Live’ on his 80th birthday tour. He sung his old hits – ‘Living Doll’, ‘Summer Holiday’, ‘The Young Ones’… He’s the only recording artist to have hit records in 8 successive decades! He looked and sounded very good.
Get your booster? I’m not sure what he’s taking but I want some!
I’m reading Philip Yancy’s ‘Finding God in Unexpected Places’. 10 Jews, 10 Muslims and 10 Christians, met together to discuss: ‘Can people with fundamentally different truth claims live together without killing each other?’ He quotes Gandhi’s observation: ‘the logic of ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’ cannot sustain itself forever; ultimately both parties end up blind and toothless’.
Yancy’s experience with Jews, Muslims and Christians meeting together didn’t bring world peace, but it did change those who attended… focusing on similarities and not differences… increasing mutual understanding.
Get your booster? Sometimes I need to increase my tolerance and understanding…
St Paul concludes 1Thessalonians with ‘Be joyful always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances.’
Get your booster? For that to be true we all need it – Boris, Cliff, Philip… and me.
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