Until recently, I had never heard of the village of Llanymynech, which, as you might guess from the name, is located in Wales, well, almost. What makes Llanymynech an interesting place, is that thee border between England and Wales runs along the A483, North Road, the main street in the village, meaning that residents on the east of the street live in England, while their neighbours over the road are in Wales. For most of the time, I guess that it makes very little difference to the residents and they just got on with their business, until Covid. As the governing bodies of the two countries applied similar, but different rules, the residents of Llanymynech could simply cross the road if they preferred to rules there. The village also had its moment of fame when Wales and England were in the World Cup qualifying rounds, one pub was decked supporting England, the one over the road, supporting Wales.
During the period following the Easter story, the ancient world was divided, there had been Jews and Gentiles and a whole range of different beliefs. Where Jesus had been accepted, he was seen initially as the Messiah of the Jews, but during his ministry, he had crossed social and religious boundaries which had caused a great deal of discomfort and anger. There is a school of thought that if a man had died and returned to life, then surely people would believe, but even this caused further divisions and as the Church of Christ developed, rather than bringing peace and harmony, it brought further disagreements and over the centuries, groups of people have split off and formed new Churches and today the Church is a mish mash of beliefs and understandings.
Life in general has changed with people migrating to other parts of the world bringing their influence and culture with them. I grew up in a village where the majority of my contemporaries had been born locally, our parents worked locally and we would describe ourselves as “white English” even then, there were divisions, you were either chapel, or Church, Parkside, or Calverley CofE school, and other important divisions, like which fish and chip shop you preferred, but that was it. Today, our communities are multicultural, multi faith and I believe that is a good thing, we have an opportunity to expand our horizons, see things for other perspectives and rather than being challenged with our differences, like the people of Llanymynech, we get on with life.
So much energy is lost in the modern world as we try to prove that our way of thinking is right, consequently, somebody else is wrong. There have been many times in my life when I was sure of my own ground and following a discussion in a meeting or face to face with somebody, I have found myself shifting my opinion. There have been other occasions when my view hasn’t changed, and we must find ways to accept conflicting opinions. We will only ever find harmony and peace in the world when we can listen to each other and resolve our differences, then move forward and get on with what really matters.