I wonder if anyone has ever said something that made you look at your life in a completely different way?
Recently, I had a work experience student with me for the day. As we walked back from court together (I am a lawyer), she was quiet for a moment, clearly considering her next question. “Do you ever wonder…”, she began. I looked up, unsure of where this was going. “Do you ever wonder what would happen if everyone just behaved themselves? You’d have no more work.”
I am always pleased to host work experience students: I find enjoy their questions and find their enthusiasm infectious. But this was different. I was stumped. There was nothing I could think to say other than to stammer out “You know, I’m not sure I have ever had that thought at all.” It was as if she had held up a mirror: I realised that I had long since lost such optimism and felt ashamed of my cynicism.
In our country’s public life, the last few months have been a particularly difficult time. There is much talk of the need to find new perspectives in the way we address a whole range of issues but apparently little thought given to how we find them.
The story of Jesus’ resurrection is ultimately one of hope. The travellers on the road to Emmaus were surprised and overjoyed to discover they had underestimated their new acquaintance. We, like those travellers, need to search for the extraordinary qualities within our neighbours. Perhaps the time has come to start in the same place as my work experience student: to assume the best, rather than the worst, in everyone.
Frances Stratton
