Inside and Out

The readings for this morning’s Mass were from Job 3, in which poor Job curses the day of his birth – ‘Why offer life to those who are bitter of heart?’ he cries – and Mark 9, in which Jesus berates his disciples for offering to call down fire on the Samaritan village that won’t let them stay. In my little homily I talked about suicidal feelings and not judging people by the circumstances of the moment.

On the way home I was crossing the railway line and was puzzled to see a woman standing on the track talking into a phone: unusual thing to do. As I passed she called me back and offered the phone out to me. On the other end was a police receptionist, and in the course of talking to her and the woman I worked out without too much trouble that she’d had a couple of drinks and was threatening to throw herself under the next train, as her sister had a few months ago. There wasn’t going to be a next train, however, because the signalman had already held all the trains further along the line. I kept her talking until the police arrived (in two cars and a van) and bundled her off to the local mental hospital. Of course she called me every name she could think of, but then if you’re genuinely determined on offing yourself you don’t tell anyone about it. I have to say the (all young male) coppers handled it superbly as far as I could tell, very clearly following an established procedure for such incidents. It was a strange synchronicity of the world inside the church and the world outside, and I suppose that had I not been dressed in clerical gear the woman would never have stopped me.