Thought for the Day

I don’t really follow football but this past week there seemed to be a lot of it in the news. One of the most contentious stories has been that of Southampton who admitted to spying on their opponents training sessions. They’ve now lost their appeal against expulsion from the Championship play-offs, which they described as `manifestly disproportionate.’ For many of the fans who are hurt it may seem like an unfair and collective punishment.
But while the fallout has been enormous, the issue isn’t really about the consequences for breaking a rule. Football survives mistakes, controversy and questionable refereeing decisions every week. What it can’t survive is the erosion of trust. Once clubs begin believing covert spying and deception are acceptable routes to competitive advantage, the integrity of the sport itself starts to erode. Competition in all areas of life must still have moral boundaries because if winning becomes the only value left, then every other principle gradually becomes negotiable. Whether in football, politics business or our relationships, a culture obsessed purely with outcomes eventually loses the moral language needed to restrain itself. Success begins to justify deception and eventually people no longer even recognise dishonesty because it has become so normalised by success.
But if restraint is important so is the principle of proportionality. The Qur’an says, ` we have made you a middle nation’ a verse which inspired Muslim thinkers to regard balance and equilibrium as a spiritual act. A small wound shouldn’t become a lifelong bitterness, a mistake shouldn’t lead to total exile and justice should always be distinguishable from revenge. This isn’t weakness, its God consciousness contained in the sacred words, `By justice, the heavens and the earth endure.’ When so much of our culture encourages us towards extremes, cutting people off, letting disagreement turn to dehumanising, and destroying peoples reputations, the courage to remain fair even when you’re hurting or angry is a difficult but necessary virtue.
On losing their appeal Southampton issued a statement apologising to their fans and supporters stating that `trust now needs to be rebuilt’ and that they were determined to act with humility and `put things right.” And in the end that is all any of us can hope to do whether in sport or in life in general. All of us carry a relationship we could mend, a trust we can uphold, and while its not always easy, perhaps one of the quietest forms of spiritual maturity is the ability to put something right before time makes the repair impossible.

21 MAY 26

Good morning. “Do not be so open-minded that your brains fall out.” I was reminded of that quip from G. K. Chesterton last week, when I visited The Old Ferryboat Inn in Cambridgeshire, which not only claims to be the oldest pub in England (serving ale since 560AD, apparently), but also to have a resident ghost.
A young woman took her life for love almost a thousand years ago and local legend has it she’s haunted the place ever since, appearing each year on the anniversary of her death: the 17th March. That date also happens to be St Patrick’s Day, which is perhaps not the ideal occasion for sober eyewitness testimony. But it’s easy to be sceptical….
According to a recent National Folklore Survey, more than a third of people in England believe in ghosts, and many like the idea of them too. “A haunted house at the top of your street is fantastic,” said Caroline Gibson from Pontefract in Yorkshire, speaking to the BBC about a poltergeist who is currently trending on social media, after featuring on the paranormal podcast, Uncanny.
The occult does not sit easily with mainstream Christianity. The Church warns against séances, spirit-hunting and attempts to conjure the dead. Yet in an age inclined to explain everything materially, Christianity insists that the world does indeed have a spiritual dimension.
A problem remains, however, of how to discern between spiritual reality versus superstition — or for that matter, between good versus evil spiritual forces.
“Do not be so open-minded that your brains fall out” doesn’t really help us with that discernment, but Chesterton, himself a Christian, followed up with another one-liner that might be more useful. “The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.”
That gets us closer. Open the mind, just not endlessly, to no purpose: open it up to close it again.
The risk of being open-minded is that you may sometimes look foolish or naïve. But there is risk too in being so determined never to be gulled, or seemingly unscientific, that you refuse in advance the richness that comes with leading a spiritual life.
Ghost stories challenge us to believe that there’s more to the world than what we can understand in purely physical terms. Christianity goes further still, teaching that we ourselves are more than merely physical beings.
If a haunted house in your street can be called fantastic, then why shouldn’t a church be called the same – in both meanings of the word? Fantastic in the modern sense of being great, but also in the older sense of being extra-ordinary. A place for open minds to shut down on something solid.

Good morning.
As the sun finally begins to coax flowers into bloom, the Chelsea Flower Show will open its gates today. The Royal Horticultural Society’s annual event sees organisations create beautiful planted spaces, which inspire and educate visitors. With our news headlines full of unremitting contempt and calamity, millions of us will tune into coverage of Chelsea this week for relief. I’d like to think this is more than just a comforting distraction.
Christian writer CS Lewis wrote about his vision of hell in the novella ‘the great divorce’. Hell was a place of continual twilight where people moved further and further apart into infinite space, driven by mutual suspicion and a sense of time ticking down. Paradise, by contrast was a place of colour, fruitfulness, and sunshine – open to anyone bold enough to stay. In paradise, people were unafraid of each other or the future. They sought out newcomers, working to convince them to remain.
The show gardens at Chelsea may be sanctuaries of beauty, but they are also about shared spaces and living well together. Many, like the Trussell ‘together’ garden, are inspired specifically by the way communities deal with hardship – the Trussel Trust’s foodbanks tackle food poverty. Like Lewis’ paradise, communal gardens like this one combat the notion that safety and solace can only be had by building walls and retreating from the world.
John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, wrote a collection of health remedies based on what people could grow or source themselves. Titled ‘Primitive Physick’ and published in 1747 it would run to 23 editions during his life. Although his remedies were of their day, his commitment to people’s access to healthcare and use of what was readily available still bears weight. Today, the rooftop garden of the national Methodist offices in London is planted with herbs and flowers used in Primitive Physick, recognising the importance of gardens to our collective mental and physical well-being.
A reality of life in Britain today is that access to outdoor space is not equal: many do not have gardens. A Christian vision for good community still resists the notion that beautiful outdoor spaces are only the preserve of private wealth.
After the show, all of the Chelsea gardens will find their way out into communities around the country – plants will go to balconies, windowsills and neglected urban spaces, gardens to hospices, schools, and the verges of motorways. They will join many other community gardens schemes, allowing even those of us who live surrounded by pavement, to put our hands in soil and see something grow. These gardens are places of retreat, yes: but also places of truth telling about the quiet work of living peacefully together.

18 MAY 26