THOUGHT FOR THE DAY - 12th December 2007

The Rt Rev James Jones, Bishop of Liverpool

Spare a thought for Jamie Thomson. He’s facing a charge of £213. His crime? Spending too long eating his burger and chips in a drive through car park! This gastronomic experience had taken him about one hour whereas the allotted time was apparently forty five minutes! Several weeks after his leisurely lunch break he got a letter from a car parking company with a bill for £125!

Now he’s been threatened with court action,. got a letter from a debt collection company and the charges are mounting up. Understandably, he and his family have vowed never to DRIVE through that particular burger chain again!

My sympathy was grabbed by Mr Thomson’s inability to get anybody to treat him like a fellow human being. The whole thing seems so unreasonable! Like so many aspects of modern living our humanity is squeezed out of the frame either by some buck-passing more-than-my-job’s worth official or by some legal nicety turned nasty. Or by some computerised procedure.

How many times have you stood in front of some operative. They have all your details - your card and numbers - and begin a transaction in your name with the computer. You try talking to them – a stony silence except for the sound of clicking keys. Any question or offer of help – ignored! Till in the end the operative speaks: ‘No’.

No explanation. No reasoning. No opportunity to appeal. No humanity. Just ‘No’.

The unreasonableness of these modern encounters exposes something fundamental about what it means to flourish as a human being. To be give space to explain yourself and to be understood is the oxygen of life. To be denied this is to suffocate. And , in extreme cases it feels like drowning, like when you’re falsely accused and denied your liberty.

One of the sayings in the Bible that I’ve always loved is from the Prophet Isaiah ‘Come let us reason together,’ says the Lord ‘though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.’ What moves me is the invitation from God to ‘reason together’ Here is no ill considered ‘rapid rushing to judgement’. Here is God ready to hear me, to listen and to understand. This understanding is also the oxygen of faith. Treating people reasonably lies at the heart of a society at peace with itself.

So I hope today somebody will at least listen to Mr Thomson before his debt soars into orbit; and that those of us in a position to listen will do so to any who feel frustrated by their inability to make themselves heard.