It is often difficult to be proud of being a member of the human race. For almost everyday we hear of acts of murder, or terrorism, or abuse of human rights. What appears most alarming about these acts is that often large groups of people seem to know what is going on, but choose to do nothing. Many find it is all too easy to go along with the crowd and accept things as they are.

 

I remember on a holiday visit to Vienna, standing on a crowded railway platform. A train arrived and a great flood swarmed forward. It soon became apparent that few knew where we were going. We were simply swept along, assuming that the other person knew the right direction.

 

At the heart of the Christian story is an idea that Christians do not go along with the crowd. It is quite clear that Jesus got into the trouble he did because he didn’t go along with the crowd, but showed an interest in and cared for the poor, the outcasts and many others in need.

 

Perhaps, what we need to do is to stand back from the crowd and look carefully at what we are doing. There is a Christian tradition which encourages people to spend some time each day praying. What would happen if everyday everybody took five minutes to be still, to take stock?

 

Perhaps there are five minutes sat in a traffic queue, five minutes before your favourite ‘soap’ begins, five minutes waiting at the supermarket check out. Creating moments of stillness may be one way in which we can become defended from doing things that cause other people to suffer needlessly.

 

What the world needs, almost above all else, is men and women who will stop and think about what is going on around them and not rush headlong, with the rest, into the sea of inhumanity to the world in which we live.

 

 

 

By the Rev Charles Powles

Assistant Minister

St Nicholas Church, Bradwell