One Day More

At The Seagull Theatre yesterday actors were rehearsing for ‘Robin Hood’. The publicity says:

‘Take a trip with us to Sherwood Forest this Easter holiday and join Robin Hood and his Merry Men on their adventures through jolly old England. With all the laugh-out-loud moments you have come to expect from the early years pantomime team.’

There will be an improbable plot, conjuring tricks, groan-worthy jokes, singing, dancing… One day more rehearsing… then a good show.

On TV, motor racing legend Sir Jackie Stewart described how Helen, his wife of over sixty years has dementia: ‘Just the other day it was time for dinner… she says, ‘Where’s Jackie?’ That’s the first time that’s happened and that’s only a few weeks ago.’

85-year-old Jackie Stewart was promoting his charity ‘Race Against Dementia’. Funding research aimed at detecting early signs of dementia he’s hoping that others will have ‘one day more’ free from dementia.

The song ‘One Day More’ from Les Misérables is sung by the whole cast, each character is facing a crucial turning point in their lives. Some are facing love’s uncertainties, others are committed to revolution. Each has hopes, fears, aspirations and inner conflicts …with anticipation, apprehension, uncertain future but certain change. It ends:

Tomorrow we’ll discover what our God in Heaven has in store
One more dawn, One more day, One day more.

American poet Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote: ‘Be grateful for each new day. A new day that you have never lived before. Twenty-four new, fresh, unexplored hours to use usefully and profitably. We can squander, neglect or use it. Life will be richer or poorer by the way we use today.’

Germon pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer was tried in a Nazi concentration camp without witnesses, evidence, or defence. Sentenced to death, with one day more to live he continued to preach to his fellow prisoners.

Eighty years ago today, April 9, 1945, Bonhoeffer was hanged. His last recorded words: ‘This is for me the end, the beginning of life.’