Me and you both Bonnie

I need a hero 
I'm holding out for a hero 'til the end of the night
He's gotta be strong
And he's gotta be fast
And he's gotta be fresh from the fight
I need a hero
I'm holding out for a hero 'til the morning light
He's gotta be sure
And it's gotta be soon
And he's gotta be larger than life
Larger than life

For those who have the sterling pipes of Bonnie Tyler in their heads now, I am sorry and yet I am not. In a very Welsh way Bonnie, I think is all of us, needing, as she does, a hero. RANT INCOMING.

This week Bobby Charlton died. Bobby Charlton was a great footballer (and I mean great). Fast, gifted, with two excellent feet and a shot like a cannonball. Yet he defined himself in a different way. On February 6th 1958, the plane he was on - along with the rest of his Manchester United teammates, members of the press and coaching staff, as well as other passengers, crashed trying to take off from a snow-covered runway in Munich. 23 people died. When he regained consciousness, Charlton was out of the plane, still strapped in his seat, on the runway. Next to him was the body of a teammate. He recovered from his injuries and went on to win the World Cup and the European Cup, among many other trophies. No less important, was his fulfilling life with family and friends and the input he had to the team and those around him. Yet, he thought about his friends on the plane every single day  - sometimes only briefly and sometimes overwhelmed by sorrow and he wondered why he was spared and determined to make something of himself. Sometimes it feels like all the classy people are slipping away from us.

Apropos of nothing in particular. Ex-Prime Minister Boris Johnson MP got a new job this week. He is going to present something or other on GB news. Now I don't have a problem with someone who loses a job needing a new job. Although, I believe he already has a job - the clue is in the two letters after his name surely? Aside from having to listen to his opinions/wisdom about the world etc., especially as the Covid enquiry seems to be pointing to systematic fraud and incompetence - on his watch.  It's just...is this the best we can do? 

I'm not asking for perfection. Jimmy Carter. Ex-President of the USA. Not considered I think the best they have ever had but - you know - swings and roundabouts. On losing the election, he founded the Carter Centre, a non-profit which worked alongside the World Health Centre to eradicate Guinea Worm Disease in Asia and Africa. He was building houses in places that had been hit by hurricanes, well into his nineties. He won the Nobel Peace Prize and also left the Southern Baptists when they announced a ban on women priests. 

The Labour Politician Gordon Brown renounced the non-contributary pension he was entitled to as an ex-prime minister and he only receives the pension of a government minister. The money that he and his wife Sarah have received for speeches and other work - amounting to over £4,000,000 has been donated to charity and research. Never entirely comfortable under the gaze of the media, something that has sometimes been attributed to his sight loss which made autocue and reading speeches difficult, since retiring he has taken roles as an unpaid advisor to the World Economic Forum and a United Nations Special Envoy on Global Education. 

By contrast, in the Covid Inquiry, the ex-senior aide to Boris Johnson, Martyn Reynolds or Party Marty as he is known, explained that in 2021 he had turned on the disappearing messages function in a PM updates group - he can't recall why. Anyone like to help him with that? What we do still have is his staff invitation to a Bring Your Own Booze party in the garden at Downing Street at the height of the pandemic. Yay!

I am in a mood, as you can tell and I'm sorry to do that to you. We all want to be popular I think - it's a bit weird to want to be unpopular - and we want to be comfortable and as happy as possible. What I'm wondering, is what effect it has if those things are the sole drivers of our lives. Especially, the chase for money. Jesus was quite clear that to have any kind of lasting effect for good we would need to take up a cross. It would be hard work to make a decent mark. I'll be honest, I'm not sure I have it in me to arrange the Kinderstransport like Nicholas Winton or to lead slaves to freedom like Harriet Tubman or even be like Thor when he led all the people of Asgard to safety on a spaceship. (That last one may not have happened). But we know that the things worth having mean working out proper value systems - often tied to some sacrifice. We have to work out what is really worthwhile. A couple of quotes to finish. One is from Jesus in Matthew 16 cutting to the quick of the reasons for our existence and the next is from Marge Gunderson in the movie Fargo on confronting the murderer when she finds a dead body in a woodchipper. It's slightly less profound but still affecting I think. Have a good week.

"What kind of deal is it to get everything you want but lose yourself? What could you ever trade your soul for?"

"And for what? For a little bit of money. There's more to life than a little money, you know. Dontcha know that? And here ya are, and it's a beautiful day. Well, I just don't understand it."