Living in the British Isles with a maritime climate and never far from the sea it is unwise to predict the weather in advance; doing so is notoriously fraught with the risk of being wrong. Modern weather forecasting is more reliable than ever when looking a few hours ahead but after that becomes more prone to error. The very slightest shift in the trajectory of weather systems makes the difference between one sort of day and another.
The subjects dominating our news are like the weather, changeable and easily shifted from one pattern to another. For two years COVID-19 was the story that dominated all we read and heard. Now we have almost lost sight of that thread as the terrible situation in Ukraine took over and, as I am writing this, the knock on-effects including inflation and energy sourcing are becoming the dominant themes.
In worship I led during Holy Week I encouraged congregations to ask themselves what things may have looked like through the eyes of Jesus. Applying that thought process to our attention span in the context of world news is a bit like the weather; the slightest shift in direction makes the scene change while in fact the bigger picture hardly changes at all.
We risk being seriously unbalanced if we focus on the story or the fashion of the moment. COVID is still going on; Ukraine, tragically, is not the only war zone in the world and this is not the first time prices have risen nor that energy has been a dominant theme.
A prayer
Lord Jesus, this world that you created is packed with signs of blessing and there are many and various needs. Give us grace to be able to see the bigger picture, to see blessing beside pain and not to forget the needs of yesterday’s news when the story changes. Help us to be ever more open and broadminded in our assimilation of all that is around us. Amen.