WORD OF THE WEEK
THE other evening I was out running (once a week max, otherwise my body starts to crumble) and I ran through the Market Place in Ashbourne. As I did I was shocked, excited and a bit embarrassed to see so many people outside the pubs, drinking.
There was noise, laughter and smiles, from ear to ear. It all took me by surprise and I got excited to see a glimpse of “normality” appear.
Then I realised I was a sweaty mess jogging through all these tables and embarrassment hit.
Although I didn’t need to be embarrassed, everyone was so joyful saying hello and even a couple comments of encouragement as I jogged past.
It reminded me of my church, and not of pubs. It reminded me of the community and family feel that church brings.
It didn’t matter if we’d never met before, if we had different views, or if we were from different towns or villages, people were welcoming and wanted everyone to join in on this special act of sitting and sharing life together.
That love and feeling of “we are all in this together.” It felt genuine.
I’m relatively new to Ashbourne, I’ve been here two years, and one and a bit of those years has been a lot less sociable, shall we say, but I’ve never felt that walking past a pub or, in fact, when I’ve been inside them.
But seeing the people outside the pubs felt like I was running outside of a church just after the church meeting had finished. Instead of tea and coffee it was pints of coke and glasses of wine. But the conversations were the same. “How are you doing?”; “How’s the family?”; “It’s good to see you”.
So I suppose my takeaway from all of this is that I don’t want this feeling of love, kindness, hope and togetherness to leave.
So, on the outside, they look very similar to me. But on the inside, the hope, love and kindness that can be found inside a church (more specifically Jesus) is an eternity of that same togetherness, and drastically different to pubs.
Don’t get me wrong, support your local businesses. We need that in Ashbourne.
We also need hope – and family that doesn’t close its doors at 10pm.