Tendring Topics – on line
Good Friday
A friend of mine recently recounted the reaction of her granddaughter – in her twenties and brought up in a different country and culture – on first seeing a crucifix, bearing an almost-life-size figure of the suffering Christ, outside a church. 'That's horrible!' she said, turning away in shock.
And so it is – and so it is meant to be. It is salutary that, from time to time, we should be reminded of the cruelty that humans are capable of inflicting upon each other. The title that Jesus most frequently bestowed upon himself was 'The Son of Man' and his followers believed, and still believe, that he was suffering on behalf of the whole human race.
I don't think that I am particularly squeamish. I have seen violent death on the battlefield and while I was a prisoner of war, and have on occasion narrowly missed it myself. Possibly more to the point I have, as a food inspector, examined for fitness for human food, the heads, carcasses and entrails of just-slaughtered cattle, sheep and pigs – still warm from the slaughter-man's knife!
I am blest though (or possibly cursed) with a vivid imagination. I can imagine the unbearable agony of being nailed naked to a cross, unable to breathe, unable even to brush a fly from my tortured face, in agonising pain and all-consuming thirst. Those three hours on that first Good Friday (short by crucifixion standards) must have seemed like three centuries. And this, of course, was a standard Roman punishment.
Nor, by the standards of the day, were the Romans exceptionally cruel. We learn from the New Testament that among Jesus' own people, the prescribed punishment for 'a woman taken in adultery' was stoning to death. Yes, I can imagine what that must have been like too. Nor of course were our own ancestors any better. Any Roman soldier who had the misfortune to fall into their hands suffered torture and a death that I prefer not to think about. What I find intolerable is not so much the agonisingly painful death of the victims but the fact that that pain was inflicted deliberately, in cold blood, by their fellow men, who then watched – and possibly enjoyed watching – the suffering that they had imposed.
And so it has been through the ages. Christians were no less (though probably no more) guilty than others. Almost two centuries ago Lord Byron wrote:
Christians have burnt each-other, quite persuaded,
That all the apostles would have done as they did.
A poet of World War I (my word, that war produced some bitter poetry!) wrote:
After two thousand years of mass,
We've got as far as poison gas.
Yet, throughout those centuries of cruelty – and despite some of the activities of its own hierarchy – the Universal Church of Christ continued to preserve and venerate the record in the Gospels, of the life and teaching of Jesus, a life and teaching totally at variance with everything that was going on in the world. 'Treat other people as you would like them to treat you …. Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who treat you badly ……Forgive your brother, not seven times, nor seventy times, but as often as he wrongs you……You cannot serve God and Mammon'.
Nowadays in Britain and mainland Europe at least, the days of witch hunting, heretic burning, public floggings and hangings are over. Torture is outlawed and there is no longer a death penalty. Still though, there is a great deal of suffering – much of it due to the selfishness, greed, fear or indifference of ourselves and our fellow men and women.
We still need to look on that suffering face of Christ and heed the leadings of his true light within ourselves, which draw us towards love, forgiveness and the service of others.
Christians at least have the consolation of knowing in their hearts that good will triumph over evil in the end, and that every sad Good Friday will be followed by a glorious Easter Day.
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A Small Local Problem
As a regular shopper at Morrison's, my nearest supermarket, I have noted with interest the controversy about the 'taxi rank' in Old Road, which often expands along the road and into the service entrance of the Waterglade retail park.
I can see that it is sometimes a danger and an obstruction to other traffic but I can also sympathise with the shoppers who have hired a taxi and certainly don't want to have to cross Old Road into Rosemary Road to unload their shopping from the trolley – and then walk back, crossing the main road again, to return the trolley.
One thing that strikes me is that those parked taxis aren't a 'taxi rank' at all. A taxi rank is surely an orderly queue of 'vacant' taxis waiting for a hirer. Those waiting in Old Road, outside the Waterglade shopping park, are not vacant. They have been hired by a shopper who is, while they wait, trundling his or her trolley round the supermarket aisles. They will return, load their goods onto the taxi they have hired, and depart in it to their homes.
Why do these taxis have to wait outside the Waterglade car park?
I am sure that if any customer of Morrisons, or of any other business on the Waterglade shopping park, were posh enough to have their own liveried chauffeur they would instruct him to park the Rolls or the Daimler (or whatever) on the car park and to wait there while they transacted their business.
Surely, the hirer of a taxi is – while using that taxi – in exactly the same position? Why then doesn't the taxi driver take his vehicle into the car park and park there while his hirer gets on with the shopping – just as any other motorist does?
The limited space in Old Road could then be used for what it presumably was intended – a 'taxi rank' for the use of taxis for hire. I doubt if it would then get much use.
Perhaps there is some perfectly sound reason why this can't be done – but I can't see it.
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'It's the rich wot gets the pleasure –
It's the poor wot gets the blame'. Thus go the first two lines of the final verse of a long and lugubrious ballad which begins, 'She was poor, but she was honest……' which may be remembered by some of my generation, especially those who served in the armed forces in World War II! It might perhaps have been more accurate if the second line had been 'It's the poor wot 'as to pay'. That's what actually happens.
Those familiar with the New Testament will recall that the poverty-stricken widow who put 'a mite' (the smallest unit of coinage at the time) into the Temple Treasury was giving more generously than the wealthy Pharisee who donated the first century equivalent of a handful of fivers. He, no doubt, gave very generously and very sensibly all that he could afford – but she gave 'all that she had'.
That poor widow did this voluntarily. Today, there's nothing voluntary about the generous contribution that those who are euphemistically described as 'under-privileged', make to the government in tax and to the suppliers of the necessities of modern life. Everything conspires to ensure that the less well-off you are, the larger will be the proportion of your meagre income that you'll have to part with in taxation and the general payment of bills. In many cases those on low incomes not only have to pay a larger proportion of those incomes for the things they need, but more in actual cash.
Everyone knows that buying food in small quantities is much more expensive than in large ones. Yet that is what people with the least money in their pockets find themselves compelled to do. The comfortably off can make fewer visits to the shops, buy larger quantities of food and put what isn't needed for immediate consumption into the fridge or freezer.
Not for the penniless are direct debit arrangements and on-line payments . For gas and electricity, for instance, the seriously hard up have to resort to pre-payment meters - by far the most expensive way of paying.
Faced with the breakdown of a cooker, fridge, vacuum cleaner or any other modern necessity, those without money problems can simply use their cheque book or credit card to buy a replacement, possibly cheaply 'on line'. Those who can't do that can, if their credit rating is good, find a solution in HP – and perhaps end up by paying twice the purchase price. If their credit rating isn't good, they either go without or – worst solution of all - borrow from a 'loan shark' and find themselves in debt for ever.
Similarly, with government taxation, the switch in the 1980s from reliance on direct taxation (income tax) to indirect taxation (VAT, duties on alcoholic drinks, tobacco, cars and petrol for instance) shifted the burden of taxation from the wealthier to the poorer. The VAT or duty paid on any purchased item or service is the same for the less-well-off as for the wealthy, but is a far higher proportion of their total income.
I have heard it said by politicians, that the great thing about indirect taxation is that payment is a matter of personal choice. You don't have to buy the goods or services on which it is levied. Those who are dependent upon a car – or a bicycle – to get them to work, don't have a lot of choice about getting it repaired or replaced. When tiles have blown off the roof and water is pouring into a bedroom there's not a great deal of decision-making to be done about calling in a builder!
In the same way if someone who is wealthy falls foul of the law, the chances are that they can laugh off a £50 or even a £500 fine. The same sum could cripple a less affluent offender. A few years ago, the government of the time tried to even things up a little by taking into account the income of the offender as well as the gravity of the offence. The scheme was dropped when there was outrage in the tabloid press about different fines being imposed for identical offences.
No, I don't know the complete answer to this problem. A properly graded income tax system would make a difference. So might the development of universally available credit union facilities. It would be a step in the right direction if it were to be generally accepted that the problem exists and political parties resolved, in one way or another, to solve it.
The verse that I quoted in my first paragraph concludes:
It's the same the 'ole world over,
Isn't it a bloomin' shame?
Yes – I think that it is.
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Postscript
The day after I wrote the above words, the first two items on the early morning news reports on radio and tv, were of thousands of homebuyers in danger of being rendered homeless because of inability to meet their mortgage commitments – and of a £24 million divorce settlement which the recipient, although 'not complaining', felt was inadequate. Her daughter who was awarded a separate £35,000 a year (for doing nothing) would, so she said, have to travel second class!
Freedom of the press, radio and tv, does ensure that we all have a pretty good idea 'how the other half lives'!
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