Thanksgiving Day

My joke has always been that Hornington is a bit like Trumpton and it felt particularly Trumpton-like on Monday as I took part in a thanksgiving service for NHS and social care workers, myself and Jack the Salvation Army bugler moving backward and forward in and out of the Market House in the town centre like the figures on the Trumpton Town Hall clock. Telling the time, never too quickly, never too slowly.

I found it quite hard to put together the prayers. The NHS is a human institution and much as we in the UK load on it the ideals of charity and self-sacrifice we tell ourselves we believe in, it's nothing more than that. My family and friends of mine have suffered from mistakes it has made, structural shortcomings that have nothing essentially to do with resources, and, though I shudder at the resentment Jasper expresses at the NHS and all its works, you don't have to be a hardline anti-vaxxer to find some of its pro-vaccine propaganda a bit awkward and weird and wonder at how much it cost. 

There was recommended CofE liturgical material available for the day, but meek endorsement of whatever middle-of-the-road majority opinion is at the time is standard CofE practice so I didn't feel completely comfortable with it. I ended up focusing very much on the people who work in the NHS (and other care settings) with a single line referring to the 'vision and tenacity' involved in its founding. At least I felt I avoided the idolatry of structures and mainstream beliefs. Next stop the monarchy.