Celebrate and Remember

Yesterday ‘The Greatest Gathering’ was well publicised. This weekend 40,000 enthusiasts will see 140+ rail vehicles at Britain’s biggest and oldest remaining train factory in Derby. They claim that it’s the world’s largest-ever gathering of historic and modern trains.

It’s part of Railway 200, a year-long celebration, remembering the opening of the Stockton and Darlington Railway on 27 September 1825. From that event, rail was born in Britain, quickly spreading across the world, connecting, shaping and transforming places and communities.

Yesterday’s Lowestoft Journal reported that RSPB Minsmere, nearby on the Suffolk coast, has enjoyed a good summer with sandwich terns…

Site manager Nick Forster explained, ‘We’ve had sandwich terns breeding most years, but never since 1974 with this level of success at 296 pairs of adults nesting and they raised 205 fledged chicks.’

Minsmere is celebrating this year’s success, but remembering that Sandwich terns are a vulnerable species in the UK because population numbers are declining, and they breed at only a few sites.

Yesterday’s England-India cricket included a tribute to former England batsman Graham Thorpe. After a prolonged battle with depression and anxiety he died a year ago, struck by a train; the coroner ruled the death a suicide. Yesterday would have been Thorpe’s 56th birthday.

Thorpe was famous for his white headband. Yesterday players and spectators wore white headbands; the mental health charity ‘Mind’ raised money and awareness for men’s mental health. ‘A Day for Thorpey’ celebrated Graham Thorpe’s life, but reminded us that some things are more important than cricket.

This morning I read Micah, a Jewish prophet who, over 2,700 years ago, spoke to a world that, like today, knew war, injustice, hunger, hatred…

I focused on familiar words: ‘He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.’ We are to celebrate all that is good, and we are to remember to prioritise justice, mercy and humility.