Letter to the Parish

Winners & Losers: how do we respond?

If you like sport, it's a bit of a feast this summer! So far we've had tennis from The French Open, Queens, Edgbaston, Eastbourne, Wimbledon – with the Brits doing pretty well so far; the Cricket series against New Zealand; the Ashes Test series just started as I write this; The European Games from Baku, Azerbaijan – which passed me by; England's "Lionesses" finishing third in the Women's Football World Cup – beating Germany…..with a penalty! The Tour de France; the British F1 Grand Prix; not to mention the Push-Ball at the St George's Church fete! And still to come – as I write this: the rest of the Ashes series; the Golf Open from St Andrews and the Women's Golf Open from Turnberry; the Darts from Blackpool; and the Swimming World Championships from Glasgow; and the events at the Sandhurst Primary School fete on the 18th July! And a bit later in the year, the Rugby Union World Cup. "Will it never end?" you'll be thinking if you don't enjoy sport!

One thing that all these events have in common is that people put themselves in positions where there will be winners and losers. We were lucky enough to get tickets in the ballot this year to go to Wimbledon – on the first Wednesday of the tournament - that very hot day, if you remember! The tennis we saw was pretty exciting: fast, physical, powerful, precise, and at times with very deft touches. But always, however much effort both players put in, however much skill they both demonstrated, it resulted in a winner and a loser.

On the television coverage that I've watched of Wimbledon, quite a bit has been made this year of the quotation at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club from the poem "If", by Rudyard Kipling. Above the players entrance to Centre Court is the line from the poem, "If you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two impostors just the same." The poem finishes as you will know - after many "if" scenarios - "Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!" Some are much better at meeting this "if" than others – Roger Federer and Nick Kyrgios being two examples; I leave it to you to work out for yourself which is a good exponent of this!

"If" contains a number of characteristics deemed essential to the 'ideal man'. They almost all express 'stoicism and reserve – the classic British "stiff upper lip." In particular, a man – or woman - must be humble, patient, rational, truthful, dependable, and persevering. Our behaviour in response to harmful events, venomous situations, and cruel comments is important;' (according to the Study Guide of Kipling's poetry) but that does not make it easy to respond in such a way that people say of us, "There is a Man, a man of good virtue". It stuck me this time when I read the words of Kipling's "If", how similar the virtues - the universal characteristics - for all human-beings…. how similar they are to those spoken of by the Apostle Paul 2000 years ago (if you remember back over 18-months to the series that I wrote in the magazine): "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control." (Galatians 5:22&23) It's worth having a reminder of them every now and again. The world would be a better place if we all acted these out….. maybe that's a big 'if' to ask though.

Revd. David Commander
Rector