7th June 2024

Have you noticed that virtually every month/week/day has now been appropriated by some charity or campaign? The National Trust is keen to bring them to the attention of volunteers each week. Otherwise, I would not know about most of them.

So far this year from February I remember LGBT History Month, Blossom Month, Mental Health Awareness Month, Autism Week, Dementia Week, Multiple Sclerosis Week, Deafness Awareness Week, Neurodiversity Celebration Week and have forgotten some more. Obviously, some of these overlap.

(We have not got as silly as USA which has a Pepperoni Pizza Day.)

Some of these causes will be of more interest to some people than others, but this continual drawing of our attention to what are mostly very worthy concerns becomes wearisome as we are supposed to bounce from one to the next and in some way respond to them. It is unclear what these charities/campaigns expect us as individuals to do other than say “Oh! Well yes.”

The church calendar has now quietened down after Easter, Pentecost and Trinity Sunday. The liturgical calendar just counts Sundays from Pentecost or Trinity and calls it “ordinary time”. If we try to celebrate each Sunday as if it was Christmas Day, Easter Sunday or Pentecost it would lose significance. We cannot live all our lives at a raised pitch of emotion. We need the ordinary “lets get on with it” days so that when feast days come round they are days that are really noticeable high spots.

So thank you to whoever thought of and arranged the Pentecost streamers on the ex-Christmas tree cross.

Margaret Clements