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The Rev. Dr Colin Morris |
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It's part of my job description that I should think well of people, but it's made harder because there's an awful lot of cynicism around, and it's catching. As the Copenhagen Conference approaches a climax, we hear scientists casting doubt on the findings of fellow scientists, leaving the lay person like me wondering whose evidence can be trusted in this row about human responsibility for climate change?
Then there was the fall of Tiger Woods. Coached from the cot to be a superstar, never by a flicker in public revealing a human flaw, marketed almost as a brand of higher being. His humiliation was greeted with relish by a public that seems to delight in seeing a god they have created brought crashing.
Cynicism about bankers and their bonuses has degenerated into a kind of visceral hatred of them, and there was another instalment in the never ending saga of MPs expenses. They're all at it, said a man interviewed on TV, which is not true, although one can only wonder how some MPs would forfeit what's left of public respect in exchange for trivia such as a lawn mower or a packet of crisps.
And predictably, President Obama was accused of hypocrisy for accepting the Nobel Peace Prize after announcing he was sending more troops to Afghanistan.
A certain healthy scepticism is inevitable in putting contentious issues to the test; after all, Jesus said, "By their fruits you will know them", but cynicism is different, it is fundamental negativity about human nature, it's thinking the worst of anyone on principle, and this wars against the highest religious impulse which is generosity of spirit, thankfulness. I love the list of benedictions in the Jewish prayer book where Jews are urged to bless God for everything that happens to them, right up to the moment of death.
Believers have made a choice. This is a good world marred by evil rather than an evil world occasionally challenged by goodness against the odds, so they have more to be thankful for than to disparage, and by gratitude they can restore what cynicism has devalued.
So I'm thankful to scientists for all their work on global warming, for honest politicians who endure hours of utter tedium to improve the quality of our national life, sporting stars who delight us with their genius and statesmen like President Obama who take life and death decisions and have to live with the consequences.
And I'm particularly glad there's someone I can thank that in spite of all its tragedy and challenges this is still for most of us a very good life.