God’s Spies

My friend John quoted the Shakespearean phrase ‘as if we were God’s spies’. I discovered it comes from King Lear.  Lear is speaking to his daughter Cordelia about their future together in prison:

…so we’ll live,
And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh
At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues
Talk of court news; and we’ll talk with them too-
Who loses and who wins; who’s in, who’s out-
And take upon ‘s the mystery of things,
As if we were God’s spies;

Musing… being God’s spies… detached observers looking on and reporting back…

Lear spoke of corrupt political power… This weekend Canterbury MP Rosie Duffield resigned from the Labour Party, writing in her resignation letter:

‘The sleaze, nepotism and apparent avarice are off the scale. I am so ashamed of what you and your inner circle have done…’

My constituents care deeply about social issues such as child poverty and helping those who cannot help themselves….

…I was elected as a single mum, a former teaching assistant in receipt of tax credits. The Labour Party was formed to speak for those of us without a voice… I saw decisions about the lives of those like me being made in Westminster by only the most privileged few…

…Reflecting on Judith Durham singing ‘The Lord’s Prayer’…

‘Our Father who art in heaven…’ God’s spies, watching over the world? We’re also God’s children, in relationship with our heavenly Father.

Give us this day our daily bread… Recognising humanity, the daily needs in Lear’s prison, Duffield’s child poverty, caring for the helpless, voiceless and powerless..

Forgive us our debts… The corruption in Lear’s world, replicated in Duffield’s world… in my world, in my heart… humbly asking for forgiveness, praying ‘Deliver us from evil…’

‘For thine is the kingdom…’  seeing beyond, and offering an alternative to, Lear and Duffield’s political corrupt powers.

With Lear I muse on ‘the mystery of things’… as God’s spy and God’s son… helped by Rose Duffield’s letter and Judith Durham’s prayer…