A Four-legged Friend with a Two-legged Name!

If the bedside alarm wakens me in the morning, I'm greeted by either some classical music, the traffic bulletin or the news headlines.  A few weeks ago I awoke to the news that the road I needed to use that morning was closed because of an accident and I had the opportunity to plan an alternative route should I need it.  Fortunately that proved not to be necessary.

Like many others, on Thursday morning this week, the first thing I heard was the shocking - but realistically not unexpected - news of the Russian incursion into Ukraine.  I was stunned by the violence, saddened that diplomatic efforts had failed, angry at the Russians for taking this action and sympathetic to Ukrainians whose whole world had been turned upside-down.

At times like this, whether international or personal, I find it helpful to remember something happy and peaceful.  Luckily, I didn't have to turn back the pages of memory very far.  Last weekend, I seemed to have started a cold and decided that it would be socially preferable to keep my snuffles to myself.  Instead of taking my usual drive to worship, I made a cup of coffee and settled down in the sunshine of my lounge.  Instead of my usual armchair, I made myself comfortable in what I call 'the Maureen chair', facing in the opposite direction.

You might think it strange to give a name to a piece of furniture; you could be forgiven for thinking that perhaps it was given to me by someone called Maureen.  But you'd be wrong; in point of fact I passed it sitting by the roadside one Saturday morning as I drove to make a delivery.  When I returned with an empty van, it was still there, bearing a conspicuous notice, "Free - please take me".  I'd had the second half of my outward journey and the beginning of my return to think through whether or not I wanted it, and what I could do with it so, having examined it and found it to be undamaged, I loaded it into the van, muttered a prayer of thanks to the householder who had put it there, and the rest, as they say, is history.

In the settled days pre-Covid, I was in the habit of leading a regular Bible-study meeting and every fortnight or so, that chair was occupied by a charming, diminutive octogenarian named Maureen.  Because for the remainder of its time the chair rested in my bedroom as a 'dumping place' for my clothes, rather than somewhere to sit, Maureen was the only person who ever sat in it.  She has been happily married to John for over sixty years.  

They've had their ups and downs, like any other couple, but, so far as I know, they've faced everything together in a positive manner.  When there were disagreements, these were, it seems, accepted and eventually reconciled.  Life has taken them to a variety of homes in this country and for short periods elsewhere in the world.  To see the two of them together - let alone to converse with them regularly - was to be infected by their love, peace and understanding.

As I sat in my armchair with my early-morning cup of tea on Thursday, I remembered the time I'd sat in the other chair only a few days before and, inevitably, thoughts of the chair led me to recall its regular occupant, and the sense of peace that those thoughts brought me set me up for the rest of the day.