Being unable to see beyond one’s nose!
Quite near to a past intensive breeding establishment then approved
by a vet who was sadly a leading light in my first parish, a young
lady came to reside. She was quite an attractive young married woman,
but hardly had she asked me to sit down, before viewing herself in a
mirror. Then coming from it she said: “I’m disturbed, rector, by the
shape of my nose.” Well, in all honesty, I could see nothing at
all faulty about it. “I’m going to have an operation to improve it”
she added: “I’ve never really liked it!”
Well, a couple of
months later and I again called to see how my young parishioner was
settling in. “What do you think of my nose now?” she asked. “Well,
it’s very nice” I replied “Well, I don’t think it is” she answered. “I
think I preferred it as it previously was. I’ll go back to the surgeon
to have it put back as it was”. Well, with words similar to these I
was unable to reassure her otherwise; and it was the last time I
visited her. Indeed, such a case was truly sad, if not a trifle
humorous to me, and I had more pressing demands on my time as country
rector of a widespread rural parish. The lady was not without money
and, therefore, it was entirely up to her how she spent it.
The fact is, however, that such folk are so inwardly looking and
centred in self, that they are a marked contrast to the fellow I met
this past year in Rhyl. He had no feet. Stumps were where his knees
should have been! Yet, as he made his way through the shopping
precinct, pushing his invalid chair, with great gusto he also smiled
to everyone he passed. Indeed, his face was radiant with joy. What a
contrast to the lady dissatisfied with her nose! However, that lady is
not alone. In close proximity to a darkened shed in which turkeys were
intensively bred, I sense she never once thought that ‘but for the
grace of God’ she could have been born as one of those horribly
abused, intensively bred farm animals. But then, I wonder, do we?
Go on to
Where, indeed, should a caring pastor draw the line?
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