After the Election

Well, after the election  it will be back to Parliament for everyone in September. One thing that will not have changed there will be all the shouting at each other during Prime Minister’s Question Time. I do wonder what behaviour that models for children growing up; it is OK to shout at each other and never listen and understand other folks!? 

If you have ever visited Wells Cathedral you may well have visited the large round room (50 feet/17 metres diameter) of the Chapter House attached to the Cathedral building. It is a vast echoing chamber with bench seats running all about its  circumference. Here the Cathedral Chapter, at least 40 clerics from around the county would gather in days gone by to decide weighty matters. It is a place built for debate and decision just like the Houses of Parliament.

They, the Houses of Parliament, so the name suggests (Parliament, derived from ‘to Parlen’ [Middle English 1350-1400] to speak) are places in which to speak to one another. The chamber in the Commons however, unlike the Chapter House in Wells, is shaped to enable adversarial sides to face each other in verbal combat.

But the Chapter House in Wells is designed quite differently so folks can speak to one another and listen to what is being said. It is fascinating if you ever go there with a friend to sit opposite each other in one of the stone seats. If you speak, quite calmly you can be heard clear as day on the other side. However, should you stand forward a couple of paces and raise you voice your words find themselves echoed and  disappeared into the high roof space, lost forever, never heard and frankly a waste of breath ever saying them in the first instance. I can’t help but wonder if our society today needs some space in which we can listen and talk with each other in a calm manner, and with respect for difference of opinion.

Through listening I wonder too if we might find that difference; be it of opinion, colour, educational background, or outlook on life, is not something to be feared but celebrated!  Rather than think differences cause our problems might it be that they bring gifts and skills that enable the big problems we face as a nation to be resolved – we need each other!    Jesus sought to teach this to his followers when he described them as being like a body made of many parts.  He emphasized that no one part was greater or loftier than another; eyes need hands and mouths need feet.   More so the eye should celebrate the differences of the foot and appreciate them.

During the recent 80th anniversary of D-Day you could not fail to be reminded that it took the entire nation, the skills of every age and gender, working together to enable everything. I wonder what the children of today might achieve in the decades to come if what they saw modelled by adults about them was community that listens, respects differences, welcomes others abilities and skills?

Blessings

Bruce