hamstrung

On the way to big church this morning, I stopped to speak with a beggar, sitting at the foot of a long set of stairs. My leading foot hit a slippery patch and was sucked way out ahead of me.

End result - I was lieing beside this beggar, his early morning 'takings' scattered everywhere, and unable to rise to my feet.

Hamstrung is the word, I believe. Either pulled or torn, and the sciatic nerve all stretched.

Crippled is another word.

By the end of the day when big church had debated the case which has been in all of the press, it seemed like my physical condition provided a very graphic picture of the place that I find myself in.

A searing pain in my spirit. And a sense that my movements in furthering the kingdom of God have been significantly curtailed.

The vote at the end of the case last night was hard to stomach. The effect is hard to bear.

Big church has made its decision in a case that's assumed in the eyes of the watching world the notoriety of a 'test case': and in the very next breath, so we're meant to suppose, big church is saying, 'No, we haven't decided anything'.

Commonly called a 'fudge', which cleverly seeks to keep us all 'on side' with all these generous re-assuring words.

Most of us live in the real world, though.

And subtly constructed ecclesiastical distinctions along those lines are lost on a world that hears what it wants to hear (unless you spell it out in quite unequivocal terms - and even then there's no guarantee that it'll do any more than hear what it wants to hear).

A line has been drawn. A choice has been made. A course has been set.

Real world people can figure that out for themsleves.

And it leaves me feeling ... 'hamstrung'.

I must try to get some sleep now with tomorrow's wee church worship coming up.