Proclaimer Blog
Two degrees of separation
We had an early morning phone call this morning – always, you imagine, the bringer of bad news. “Is this Celia?” Now, Celia, for the uninitiated, is the given name for Mrs R. Most of us call her Mrs R. But occasionally some people do call her Celia. So, what was the call? An early morning sales opportunity perhaps? That darn PPI we had forgotten about? No, the caller wanted Celia Hammond and her cat emergency line.
This was a double error. You see our phone number is very close to that of the PDSA (one digit different) and we often get calls asking how Rover is doing. But this caller had called the PDSA mistaking it for the Celia Hammond Cat Whatnot and THEN dialled the wrong number. Double Trouble.
We had a laugh about it (how those breakfasts in the Reynolds household just fly by!). It was unusual – and it took us some time to work out what had gone wrong. You see, when someone phones for the PDSA we can quickly say to them “you’ve got one digit wrong”.
This was more perplexing.
Preachers strive hard to get everything right. That’s how it should be. And this little incident reminded me of two things: first, we’ve got to be careful at every stage. One mistake, one wrong direction, can often lead to another. In other words, there needs to be a consistency in our preparation which gives the same careful attention to every detail. It’s far too easy, isn’t it, to take one step askew, and then another and before you know it, well…. you can join the dots.
But secondly, it’s worth being realistic. We strive hard to get everything right, but we don’t always. Sometimes an issue in our exegesis is so perplexing that it could go either way. I think listeners will always forgive us one rare mis-step. If we serve them faithfully, they should. And the discerning may well be able to spot the missed digit, so to speak. But two steps are harder to fathom and we’ve got to guard against it. So, if in my preparation I am wrestling with a knotty problem and simply have to choose a path (with a little uncertainty), I will never allow myself to make another assumption on top of that one – I could get too far away, and that’s not good.
Celia Hammond cats can be reached on 020 7474 8811.