Pause for Thought for Remembrance 2019
Reach out and connect….
“How hard it is to reach out and compromise….”
In the last few years, the phrase “to reach out” has become trite and devalued by overuse in business emails. But its earlier meaning was more than just contacting someone: there was the implication of initiating a relationship, with the aim of being helpful or supportive, often making an effort and crossing a divide. A meaning with a long history…
Nearly two thousand years ago, a Samaritan woman saw a Jewish man sitting by a well. To her surprise, he asked her for a drink of water. It was a startling request because Jews then did not associate with Samaritans and men did not address women unknown to them in public places. But millennia before the term “Equality and Diversity” had been coined, the man, Jesus, simply crossed the boundaries of race and gender, using his thirst as a way of introducing the woman to the living water of faith in God.
Exactly eight hundred years ago, at the time of the fifth Crusade, St Francis of Assisi crossed a similar divide when he met the Sultan of Egypt. We know little of the encounter, but we can discern that Francis’s motives were peaceful and that a rapport was struck.
In this month of November, we have ample opportunity to remember the devastating consequences of failing to reach out and communicate in this way. Here in our village of Whittlesford, we commemorate the 100 men who left to fight in the First World War and think of the millions more who lost their lives in that and subsequent conflicts.
Remembrance is important but more may be required of us in the coming months. We live in a divided country and in a world where there are many divisions. We may be called upon to reach out in the unhackneyed sense of the words, to communicate honestly, to listen to the other side of an argument with respect. Using another phrase, the meaning of which has drifted from E. M. Forster’s original intentions, “only connect”.
Lionel Ginsberg
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