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Richard Littledale

Richard Littledale's
Views on the News: June 2008

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Who will you cheer for?

Italy flag'If you don't stop squabbling, I'll bash your heads together' - did you ever hear that as a child? Perhaps you didn't…and if you did I don't suppose it ever happened! Even if you did hear it and it did happen, it is unlikely to have achieved anything so far as preventing the squabbling is concerned. You sometimes wonder what it would take to make the family of European nations actually get on with each other. Even when they are prepared to 'play nicely', Britain's island status sometimes make her appear deliberately aloof.

Germany flagWell, now we appear to have the solution. All it takes for us to appreciate the qualities of the Spaniards or the skill of the Italians or the muscle of the Germans or the flair of the French is to lose at football. With no home nation represented in Euro 2008 we are being urged to pick a European nation and cheer for their team as if they were our own. Television adverts feature 'ordinary' people (whoever they might be) extolling the virtues of their chosen team. Who'd have thought it?

Croatia flagAppreciating the qualities of others is not something at which we always excel. Maybe it's the insistent heartbeat of self-reliance. Maybe it's a blindness to their qualities. Or perhaps it just an arrogance which refuses to entertain the possibility of great qualities to be found beyond the end of our nose. In fact, once we do begin to identify…and appreciate the qualities of others both their lives and ours are enriched.

Romania flagWriting to his fellow Christians in the bullish atmosphere of the Roman Empire, Paul urged them to 'do nothing out of vain conceit but in humility consider others better than yourselves' (letter to Philippi). Sound advice, but a pill large enough to stick in the throat of many both then and now- making it hard to swallow. Paul then went on to urge his readers to follow the example of Jesus, who considered the needs of others so far above his own that he gave his life for them. Here is the secret, surely, of appreciating others in the long term. Its all to do with where we rank them in our universe. Do they really matter?

Portugal flagOf course, if Paul were writing those words today, we have no idea who he would cheer for in the forthcoming contest. Would it be Turkey (location of Tarsus, his birthplace), Greece (location of Philippi) or Italy (since he was under Roman guard at the time)? Perhaps his reference to 'pressing on towards the goal' (Philippians 3 v. 14, written in a Roman gaol, is the clue. Go go Italy!

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