Monday 1 June 2009

If you're grinding slowly enough past the roadworks anything is interesting, don't you think? It might be the old election poster still clinging to a tree months after the voting's over. It could be the bicycle with one mangled wheel on its side in a driveway, or even the two cats staring each other down across a garden fence. But its not often the roadworks itself, is it? Unless its something really spectacular like a hole the size of St Paul's Cathedral in the middle of the road, its probably not that interesting. Roadworks are just a nuisance decorated with orange tape and a few red signs.

In this instance it was the red sign which caught my eye though. It looked very official, in that bog standard red with the white writing on. But this is what it said "materials curing" What? What materials were curing? And where? And why at the side of the road? Was this an emergency roadside leather-tanning shop, or could I wind down the window and ask for some freshly cured ham as I crawled past? Even a major bit of ogling as I drove by failed to explain what the sign was all about.

Maybe now I know how people sometimes feel driving past those angry day-glo posters outside churches. They're intended to be eye catching in quirky kind of way, but all too often they end up being irritating in a churchy kind of way. They're not meant to be, of course. People put them up because they really care about the motorists who drive by or the pedestrians who walk by. But somehow it ends up leaving them feeling puzzled, or irritated, or both.

The thing is, the Christian faith is all about relationships. It's about God looking us in the eye, and us looking Jesus in the eye, and everyone seeing each other more clearly. Reducing it to a slogan, even a clever one, just doesn't work.

To return to my roadsign for a moment. I think if it was about roadside bacon curing, all my frustration at waiting in the queue would have evaporated on the spot if someone had handed me a fresh bacon butty for my troubles. Perhaps churches should hand those out, instead of putting up posters.

In the meantime, next time I'm stuck in a queue caused by the tar on the road drying (or curing) I'll just have to close my eyes and dream of free roadside bacon butties ...