I have not had a haircut since last November and so my hair is really rather wild and unruly. So much so that recently as I was taking my prescribed essential daily perambulation I caught sight of a wild looking figure reflected in a shop window. I jumped. Was this a mugger? (Tough luck if it was as I am clergy and thus not worth mugging I can assure you!)
However, a moments calm reflection (pun intended) revealed that this wild, hairy unkempt individual was no other than me myself! Hmmmm.
A few days later my letter box rattled. (It is quite old so it rattles). A letter flopped on the mat. It was embossed with the NHS logo and marked as being important and not a circular.
For a moment I wondered if I had contracted some horrible ailment and was being notified of it before remembering that I have not seen a doctor face to face for about two years. I opened it with trepidation. It was a letter inviting me for a COVID vaccination.
Actually I had already had the said vaccination but there were other matters of interest in this communication. First of all it included a leaflet entitled ‘Covid vaccination for the elderly’. Second the letter itself was in very large print as presumably the elderly cannot afford to own a pair of glasses.
Elderly??
Well I think in strictly technical terms, as I am in my 61st year I am now a geriatric. But an elderly person?
Again - Hmmmmm. I still feel as if I am about 30.
This caused my thoughts to turn to the Scottish National Bard - Robert Burns. In his poem ‘To a Louse’ he writes “O wad some Power the giftie gie us to see oursels as ithers see us!” In other words ‘if only we had the ability to see ourselves as other see us’. We have an image of ourself. Others see the images of ourselves we wish to project. But God alone has the ‘gift’ to see us as we are.
Perhaps to live honestly and decently we should ask God to share his view of us with us - and then seek to transform ourselves into persons we can look at in the mirror and be content with our own reflection.
Shalom,
David
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