Monday Spot (16 June 2008)
A few weeks ago British breakfast TV carried a feature on memories. One person in particular remembered, as a child, singing the Beatles song ‘Eleanor Rigby’ in the car on long journeys.
The statue of Eleanor Rigby in Stanley Street, Liverpool
This statue was sculptured and donated to the City of Liverpool in 1982 by Tommy Steele as a tribute to the Beatles. The casting was sponsored by the Liverpool Echo newspaper. The plaque behind Eleanor reads “Eleanor Rigby..dedicated to ‘All the lonely people’…..”
Whilst munching steadily through my Crunchy Nut Corn Flakes that morning my mind went back to a day, nearly 20 years ago, when my wife and I found ourselves in the town of Franz Joseph, on the west coast of the South Island of New Zealand.
The Main Street
All we knew about Franz Joseph was that it had a major glacier nearby which we wanted to visit. So, early in the morning, we took a helicopter flight up the river valley and over the glacier from bottom to top and back again. Magnificent! There’s no other word for it.
The Franz Joseph Glacier
So impressed were we with the beauty of the place that we felt we wanted to see it at ground level and perhaps even walk on it. So we found the Information Centre and booked ourselves a 4 hour coach excursion to the glacier that very afternoon. At the appointed time we set off, with a number of other people in a ramshackled old coach, in search of ice. An hour later we disembarked the coach and were told we had to walk the rest of the way, perhaps 30 minutes further.
As we walked we noticed that one couple were walking hand in hand. Not surprising you might say, that’s what people do. But when we reached the foot of the glacier we were told we had to climb the pile of rocks which had been deposited by the huge ice flow and then, and only then, could we walk on this wonder of nature.
Walking to the glacier
It was then that we discovered that the male half of the duo was blind and had no possiblity of climbing up to the glacier. Our guide had no alternative but to ask him to sit quietly on the rocks and await our return. As we walked left him behind and began our exploration of God’s handiwork we could not help but think how lonely he must have felt and how frustrated.
Blue Ice Cave
The ice was beautiful, the crevasses deep and the silence breathtaking, broken only by the sound of the ice moving and cracking beneath us. What an experience our friend was denied because of his blindness. In due course our guide, who had been watching carefully for any possible danger from the ice (the sudden appearances of a new crevasse is not uncommon) called time and we returned, slowly and reluctantly to the bottom of the ice wall.
Our man was patiently waiting. The guide suggested we started to walk back to the coach park whilst he ‘tidied up’ and so we set off in that direction. Before many moments had passd one of the group turned for a last look at the glacier. What he saw brought tears to his eyes and to all of us as we watched what was happening just a short distance away. Our humble guide, quite unannounced, was lifting the blind man’s feet, one by one, and placing them on firm rock so that, gradually, he could achieve his objective of standing on the ice. Never has silence been so deafening as we all prayed that this man would triumph over his difficulties and attain his goal (which he did).
On his return the guide was treated like a hero and was keen to play down what he had done. But I saw something that day that, sadly, some others may have missed. I saw an image of Jesus, lifting a man from his despair and loneliness to the ultimate triumph over his infirmity. No longer was our friend lonely. He was among friends, none greater than his superb guide who showed real Christian love in his actions.
So, thank you BBC for your piece on memories, thank you Beatles for Eleanor and thank you Tommy Steele for remembering the lonely people.
But, more than all, thank you Jesus for your love which surrounds everyone of us if only we can overcome the blindness which prevents us from seeing it.