When I was a child my friend Ian had an electric trainset in his loft. I used to go round to his house and we would play together. I longed to have a trainset like his. I asked for one for Christmas.
At Christmas I was given a trainset – but it was clockwork. We set out the track, wound up the engine. It went round and round… like clockwork. It wasn’t as good as Ian’s.
At yesterday’s ‘Singing for Well-Being’ group I was reminded of the old song, ‘The bear ran over the mountain’. In the ‘summer camp’ version, learnt many years ago, successive verses went:
The bear ran over the mountain – and what d’you think he saw?
The other side of the mountain – and what d’you think he did?
He ran back over the mountain – and what d’you think he saw?
The other side of the mountain…
It went round in circles – totally reliable, like clockwork.
Yesterday we went took grandson-Luca to the Hippodrome, Great Yarmouth. Built in 1903 it’s Britain’s only surviving total circus building. We enjoyed the impressive show – acrobats, jugglers, aerial acts… dancing girls that become synchronised swimmers… Johnny Mac’s mad comedy…
Their summer season is from July to September. Throughout the Summer holidays there have been two shows a day, seven days a week. Same stunts, same jokes, same show – spectacular, disciplined, totally reliable… regular as clockwork.
This morning I read the story popularly known as ‘Daniel in the lions’ den’. Elderly civil servant Daniel is now serving King Darius. Other government officials wish to discredit Daniel, but he is ‘trustworthy and neither corrupt nor negligent.’ …a good model for politicians and government officials!
His ‘crime’, for which he received his ‘lions’ den’ sentence, was openly praying to his God three times a day. He’d been doing it for years – unspectacular, disciplined, totally reliable, regular as clockwork.
Musing… Daniel’s spiritual habits… faithful to his God, unspectacular, disciplined, totally reliable, regular as clockwork… praying that I will be like him.
malcolmsmusings.org 