As I walked into the city centre to buy the new Doctor Who novel, The Gallifrey Chronicles, (which isn’t officially due out for a couple of weeks, but I got wind on the Internet that the Comic Guru shop has already got copies in, so I nipped down at lunchtime) it occurred to me just how fortunate we are in this time and country compared to most human beings through history and across the world. Many people have lived, and live, on a basic subsistance lifestyle, with little opportunity for much leisure or learning or luxury. But just look at my life – more books than I’ve got time to read, plenty of friends, comfort, the opportunity to spend time studying and learning, and enough spare time and money to get up to all sorts of stuff of my own deciding. How lucky is all that? Or rather, how much God has blessed us!
And to top it all, lovely weather and sunshine to enjoy. It just makes me laugh out loud with joy and pleasure, it really does. Though it might be a bit alarming to other people, seeing me running gleefully down the street for the sheer pleasure of it, laughing loudly out of joy of being alive!
I’m also really enjoying rereading Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. I’m reading a chapter or two each evening in bed, just before settling down to sleep, with a mug of hot chocolate to drink while I do so. Enjoying a good book in this way is one of the small, beautiful pleasures in life.
Yes, the world is full of sadness, injustice and pain, and I’m a very flawed being. Lots of the luxury we enjoy is because we are living beyond our means in terms of the way we treat . That needs to be changed, and I don’t cease to feel that, or want to change that. But life is good, and God is good, and his creation is good, and there are just so many wonderful things for me to enjoy in life, I just thrill with the pleasure of being alive.