Once upon a time school-children learned to write copperplate with a dip pen and blotting paper at the ready. There was an approved way of holding the pen and little patience with left-handed people who found this onerous. Today every man and every woman takes up a ball-point as an individual. Some hold a pen as they hold a cudgel or a hammer. Some take up a pen as though it were a dart on its way to a dart-board. Water-colourists have a similar, delicate approach to handling the tools of their trade. Bricklayers and plasterers have a heavy-duty approach to tools requiring palms and fists used with precision. Spanners and torque-wrenchers impose their own demands on users’ hands.
Writing long-hand is an accomplishment that is falling into disuse. We tick boxes instead – or use a pass-word. The typewriter key-board did its bit in knocking out chirography. It served to introduce the digital age. But the same cannot be said of other tools, the table tools, the knife, fork and spoon. They have traditional grips and we can hardly do without them, but again received table-manners are being superseded by individual preference.
The art of turning over pages of a book is less practised today than it was. Why hold a heavy book when it is possible to read a Kindle? Here is a modern parallel with the great change that took place when readers switched from roll to codex.
But getting a grip goes wider than a man’s hand. We talk of getting a grip on an untidy situation and restoring its order. We get a grip on a new piece of technology – say, an air-purifier – and we mean understanding how it works and how we control it. We may say we get a grip on a new ideology but we remember that Paul said God had taken a grip of him (Philippians 3.12). This is a reminder that for every grip there may be a greater grip. We need to keep a weather eye open.
Do we need to get a grip on our worship? This is also a two-way matter. If it is true that we have to make an effort to grasp immensity, it is also true that worship may get a grip on us, ensuring that the service is not greater than the God. There is no greater effective agent of evangelism than a public acknowledgement by Christians of the character of God. Sunday morning is a good time for this.
BRADFORD SOUP RUN
The Bradford soup run has been going since 1984. The year found it provides bedding etc for the homeless. ‘Soup run’ is something of a misnomer. The menu shows an imaginative approach to serving those in need. Each Christmas the organisers mount a ‘choc ‘n’ sox’ campaign to comfort stomachs and feet.
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