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Richard Littledale

Richard Littledale's
Views on the News: January 2001

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you'll never know...

"It was a great show, apparently - lights in the heavens, singers flown in from the skies and anthems playing. It was a dazzling display which set heaven and earth ablaze and made one ordinary corner of the earth breathtakingly special for a moment. It was unlike anything else which had come before, and there will be nothing like it again.

"For my own part I preferred to be cautious, to watch from a distance and make careful notes on all that was happening. The others went, packed up and left with unseemly haste for their long journey. I watched them get ready, and saw their precious gifts packed into trunks for their journey - gold, frankincense and myrrh. My own gift lies in the corner still. It is rich and beautiful and entirely pristine, untouched inside its packaging. That is how it will remain until the right moment comes".

Of course the trouble with the right moment is that, rather like tomorrow, it never comes. In its final throes as a visitor attraction the beleaguered Dome used that fact as an advertising "lever". On radio and television the managers of the Dome reminded us that "if you don't go, you'll never know". How right they were. Those who missed out on the opportunity will never see the Dome in all its innovative splendour. The day may come when someone else will point out to them the place where the body used to recline, or sweep their arm in an arc across the ceiling where the space ships used to hover, or point out the corner where transport ships used to leave from Intergalatwick. However, such reported thrills will carry all the appeal of yesterday's meals insipidly reheated for today. If you didn't go, you'll never know.

Some experiences will never come to you, but rather you must go to them. The extravagant claims of Jesus Christ - to bring forgiveness, to enable life to be lived to the full and to taste now the life of forever remain unchanged even in the year 2001. They are there for the taking. However, if you don't try, you'll never know…

Years before Jesus Christ was born David, a man with an appetite for life and a track record of mistakes to match, wrote that we should "taste and see that God was good". Today he would tell us to "suck it and see", but the message remains the same.

 

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