Thought for the Week

‘Something wicked this way comes,’ uttered a witch in Macbeth.

Well something wicked has indeed come amongst us.

Who would have thought our freedom would have been threatened by something we cannot even see?

Who would have thought we would be in a state of almost global lockdown in 2020?

We are living in scary times and the uncertainty lends anxiety, worry and confusion.

Strange that a small virus can bring the world to its knees. Not even the greatest armies in the world can do that, not even that multi-billion pound waste of money, Trident, can do that. Yet here we are grounded and captured by a virus.

This virus has no favourites, no exceptions – it strikes all races, colours, creeds, genders. It can attack the homeless – and the Queen.

It respects no-one.

And if we here in the healthy and wealthy west suffer, what will it be like for those in Syria, in Yemen, in Gaza, in Afghanistan?

What resources will they have to sustain them?

In the midst of this awful situation I wonder if we might learn something.

Might we really realise that we are indeed one people, a global village whose residents and citizens suffer in the same way, with the same concerns, the same grief and the same humanity?

We don’t have time to fight now, we don’t have time to worry about Brexit or petty party politics – we have to concentrate on keeping people alive and safe, regardless of their religion, their politics, which football team they support and how much money they have.

At the end of this, I pray that we will not revert to type, but that this crisis will have made us better human beings.