A Statuesque Reminder

There are those, and the author of this particular article is clearly one of them, who themselves originating in the high culture and civilization of the big city enjoy nothing better than to denigrate publicly, and most volubly, the honest but simple lives of countryfolk.

I can discern nothing exceptional about the author's writing or commentary, but perhaps it is I who is at fault; except for infrequent, and mostly reclusive, periods of education, my life has been spent here in this village and I know little of the concerns of city-dwellers, so it is likely that nuances of meaning and subtleties of style escape me. If so then we - and by we I mean countryfolk generally, for I am certain that I am not alone in my failing, though equally I am certain there are many undeserving of such inclusion - are mocked justly for our ignorant rural ways.

The article in question was no different in style - and, indeed, little in content - from other examples of the journalist's work. It was one of a series, a regular weekly column placed obscurely at the bottom of a page and, as usual, towards the end of the newspaper, just before the Sports section and dwarfed by the adverts that seem to encroach upon almost every aspect of our lives these days. It is probable that, as is often the case, my eyes would have skipped over the article, dismissing it as insignificant, were it not for the rather poetic title: `A Statuesque Reminder'. At once, and without a shred of doubt, I knew exactly what I would read, that the traditional opening line, `This week I happened to pass through such-and-such a village,' would refer to none other than my own village; and thus it was.

The matter has gone unremarked for so long now. How strange that it should be this echo of a stranger's passing visit that has caused me to reflect once again on the occurrence - one that ought to have had far more profound consequences than a paragraph of newsprint.

I blamed myself at the time - how could I not? I watched it happen and failed to react, watched as the congregation turned to stone before my eyes, convinced then, and long afterwards, that the cause was my lack or eloquence, or possibly my lack of belief - an unpardonable sin for a man of the cloth.

Why have I been so reticent? I chose my career not because I believed in God but because I wanted to, yet in all these years I have come no closer to that goal; I have grown complacent in my failure, despite witnessing the miraculous. But in this sinful lack of ambition I am, alas, not alone. We all find a comfort, albeit a cold comfort, in the idea of godlessness, in the idea that there is no one to judge us, no one to hold us responsible. I am ashamed to reveal that this regretful attitude pervades even the Church, and at all levels; witness the reply, which was a long time coming, from the very highest temporal echelon: `Although we acknowledge that this unprecedented petrification took place on Church property - indeed, in the house of God itself - nevertheless it is against our policy to accept responsibility for what, to all appearances, was an act of God.'

In a way I am grateful to the author of this article, for he has prompted a long-overdue period of reflection and I have, at last, concluded that I am not to blame. Indeed, to have assumed, as I did then, that I was the cause of so momentous an event was unforgivably arrogant.