Saturday 12 February 2011

If This Is God, I Might Just Have A Bit… or So This Is How It Starts

I was on a bus recently, at the tail end of the morning rush hour, when an older woman – smart, 60-odd – moved towards the doors to get off.

As she did so, she said in a quiet and casual manner – almost as if she was checking whether this was the right stop for Sainsbury's – 'Jesus loves you all. Whatever you're going through, He loves you and will take your burden off you.' Then she got off, and the doors closed behind her, and the bus moved on.

Nothing new there. Declarations of love on public transport? Many of us have been there. Particularly, I would venture, the females – although it's true to say that these affirmations are less often the honeyed murmurings of a beloved, and more the highly flammable exhalations of a florid-cheeked, dribbled-chinned madman who has chosen you – lucky, lucky you – as his bus date for the duration of your shared journey. Or, not necessarily worse, some dead-eyed, slack-trousered murderer in waiting.

Similarly, many of us have experienced unbidden invitations from strangers to welcome the Lord into our hearts. I, let me tell you, no longer answer my doorbell. Partly because I don't live on the ground floor and I'm quite lazy. But principally because the number of times the caller turns out to be two well-meaning ladies with religious leaflets and a comfy shoe swiftly lodged between door and frame, as opposed to a postmen handing me a parcel I have ordered, is a ratio in which the Lord very much has the upper hand.

But there was something about this particular cocktail of god and good wishes that I found oddly warming. A spiritual mulled wine, if you are a mixologist who also enjoys a laborious analogy/metaphor/whatever.

I think it might have been because the woman on the bus was playing it kind of cool. I liked her 'oh and by the way' approach to spreading the Word. It's no big deal or anything, but I'm just letting you know. Ooh, before I go, I should probably should mention... She was nonchalance carrying a shopping bag. At no point did she thrust a pamphlet against the panes of my glasses or pin me to my seat with the hot, pungent breath of zealotry. She just slipped out of the double doors without a backwards glance, leaving me strangely disarmed.

If you have faith – and I'm not sure if I do – you expect it to find you, to come for you, in your times of high crisis. Those are the occasions when you wait for that thing you believe in to assume the kind of three-dimensional identity that would allow it to push a giant lever in the direction of 'Things are going to be OK'. Some arms, I guess, would be useful in that three-dimensional identity, whatever it is. Or really strong, supple legs.

But in those times of terrible, fathomless darkness, your friends also come for you, and your family. Chances are they're not quite up to performing miracles (and honestly, who is? bad things happen all the time and no one stops them). Still, there they are with their tea and their company and their desperately wanting to make you feel better. But understandably, they don't always come for you on the 185 bus on a Tuesday morning, somewhere around the Denmark Hill area. They're busy people. We all are.

On the bus is where I do some of my best thinking. But it's also where I do some of my worst. Glum, unflinchingly pessimistic state-of-the-Jones-nation thoughts. The rhythmic roll and stop of a journey through the traffic lights of the city often lulls me into exactly this kind of meditation. There is comfort in routine, of course – in bus rides and supermarket shops and the like – but there is also drudgery and relentlessness and you, on your own, trying to get on with things.

And then Ms Public Transport Preacher came along with her guerilla goodwill and made me feel ever so slightly better.

I didn't really think this was the start of Something between me and the Lord. Some salesmanship from a stranger and my pre-existing obsession with Christmas carols does not constitute a conversion. I wasn't seriously expecting Him to relieve me of my burdens. Realistically, He was unlikely to step in and cease the escalating hostilities that were erupting between me and the Penge branch of Homebase at that time, or tell me how to fix the broken lock on my gas meter cupboard which I had learnt was my own responsibility and not that of British Gas, even if you offer to pay them to fix it and ask really nicely.

But like I said, she – and by extension He – made me feel ever so slightly better. And feeling ever so slightly better is no small deal.

7 comments:

jaljen said...

Angel = messenger.
So the lady on the Clapham omnibus performed the function of an angel.

In that case however, what is the message she bears?

It is this. Simple acts can brighten our lives. Assuming that this is something we welcome then should we not all engage in simple acts with the purpose of brightening lives? Not a rhetorical question. The answer is a resounding yes.

God is not without us but within us. We each bear God (for which read /goodness/) within us. We experience God through our dealings with each other. It's just possible we encounter the Devil too.

Look for loving arms in those around you and ensure that you extend your arms to your fellows in friendship.

That is the essence of a godly society. There are many angels. They don't protect us (that's just childish) but they can guide, suggest and encourage us.

Regards
Post-theistic Quaker and apprentice angel (hey, it's a goal - don't knock it!)

Alison Cross said...

I had a long dark tea-time of the soul last night thanks to a bout of (what I now assume to be) gallstones.

I love that this lady just made her statement and got off the bus. That was a very cool thing to do. I'd never have the bottle to even say something like 'Listen to Chris Evans on Radio 2 in the morning' as I stepped off a bus for fear of looking like a mad person.

Respect ;-)

As ever, beautifully written and bloody funny :-)

Ali x

Anonymous said...

Miss Jones, I have those bus journeys/train journeys of which you speak too. Not quite sure how I would've reacted to the lady, but the fact she did it in such an unassuming, polite, considerate and frankly quite cool way is certainly the way that I'd be persuaded.
Mr T x

Ragged Thread Cartographer said...

The number of times I've been hauled out of the ditch of my own stupidity by something which was definitely paying attention for me when I wasn’t, and even my intuition was asleep – I won’t stop to count. It happens. I envisage a mishmash of mythological figures (to cover for the fact I don’t actually know who or what they are) to provide for whatever mood I’m in.

And I don’t answer the door either when it’s … all them botherers...

Also the bit “you expect it to find you, to come for you, in your times of high crisis”. Yep. Struck a chord somehow.

Another perfectly put-together piece by Miss Jones!

Thank you ! – I feel ever so slightly better for reading it!

Kim said...

I really like this post...so well written and it made me really think..guess I'm not alone in my way of thinking.

Anonymous said...

I like your writing and your thinking even more so

Miss Jones said...

Thanks, gang. Very kind. x