‘Well, I was a right wally,’ I told myself. I had got the date for a medical appointment wrong. It was, shall we say, a misunderstanding. I was a silly-billy.
Life is full of them – misunderstandings, I mean. We’re not concentrating. Something else is on our mind. And the combination of half-attentive hearer and a novice at the call-centre can be deadly.
Did I say deadly? I remember an occasion with a shot-gun when a misunderstanding about a cartridge came as near having my head blown off as might be. They say that God looks after fools, drunks and the United States of America. Bismarck is suspected of having thought that one up – but there is some sense in recognising providential care that protects the unseeing and accident-prone in their daily risks.
Bring on the clowns. The principal of New College, Oxford, William Spooner, was immensely capable but made misunderstandings a part of academic life. He died in 1930. He told one student: ‘You have tasted a whole worm. You have hissed my mystery lectures. You will leave by the town drain.’ Conducting a service of worship, he invited his congregation to remember the Kinquering Kongs.
A more serious event following a misunderstanding was the collision of two Royal Navy warships (Victoria and Camperdown) in the Eastern Mediterranean in 1893. Eager to polish their skills, the commanders of the two ships followed fatal orders that had two lines turning inwards with less than enough sea-room.
God’s providential care saves us from our follies and our shortcomings. We act like idiots and get away with it when we deserve worse. Maybe we were short of sleep. Possibly we were over-stressed. Perhaps a colleague has come to the rescue. Perhaps a change in the weather solved the problem. We should avoid the delusion that with God as our protector we can afford to take unacceptable risks. Christianity is not a safety first religious faith but it takes us through our time on a planet beset by dangers, many being of our own making.
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