Domino Effect

As a child I remember placing a row of dominoes upright, a small distance apart. I pushed the first domino, the next domino in line was knocked over, and so on. It was a good game…

‘Domino Effect’: the cumulative effect produced when one event triggers a chain of events…

Yesterday I had lunch with Geoff. It was his birthday last week; his brother and sister-in-law took him out to a posh restaurant for coffee and cake. They had a lovely time together until it was time to pay the bill.

Sister-in-law said: ‘I’m sorry; I’ve forgotten my purse.’ Brother said: ‘I never carry money.’ Geoff said: ‘I guess I’ll have to pay then!’ Geoff had to pay for his birthday treat.

Celebrating Dominoes.

For several days now protesters have closed parts of the M25 motorway.

The campaign group ‘Just Stop Oil’ is calling on the government to take steps to address climate change and tackle what they say is a dependence on oil. Multiple police forces are out on key stretches of the road minimising disruption.

On yesterday’s news they interviewed a devastated Tony Bambury; the disruption and delays meant he had missed his own Dad’s funeral…

Protesting Dominoes.

The news also included an item on nurses voting on strike action. Nurses were interviewed. They described their feelings of being under pressure, under-valued and under-paid.

The interviewer asked one nurse: ‘Have you thought about the effect it will have on patients?’ She talked about her desperate situation and desperate feelings that gave her no alternative but to take desperate action.

Nursing Dominoes.

In ‘We Make The Road By Walking’ Brian McLaren writes about these words:

‘More than ever before in our history, we need a new kind of personal and social fuel. Not fear, but love. Not prejudice, but openness, Not supremacy, but service, Not inferiority, but equality. Not resentment, but reconciliation. Not isolation, but connection. Not the spirit of hostility, but the holy Spirit of hospitality.’

Loving dominoes.