man cold alert

I have a cold. It is a man cold. It is only surpassed in seriousness by man-flu!

In order to help me keep on going manfully through the man cold I have been taking various remedies that claim to stop the symptoms while my immune system goes about its business of ejecting the man cold virus. Because it is man cold they are having a varied level of success. Even the ‘Max Strength’ ones don’t do all that they claim.

So yesterday I went to a well-known apothecary named after footwear and asked for something to dry up the man cold. The nice lady behind the counter stopped her alchemy and presented me with a box of magic tablets that would do the job.

I was pleased with this so I gave her some silver coins in exchange for these mysterious morsels of medicine and took one.

The good news was that they did indeed dry out the man cold. The bad news was that they made me feel very sleepy. What do you do when you have to choose between two options like this. Either (and skip this bit if you are a bit sensitive) you have to spend your day with pockets filled with handkerchiefs and endure frequent nasal-powered mucus evacuations with the subsequent problem of what to do with the loaded handkerchiefs afterwards. Or you stop the snot and sleep when you need to be alert and working.

Choices are sometimes not clear-cut but are sometimes about choosing the least-worst option. This is why I get concerned by people who pronounce things like, “It is never right for a man and a woman to get divorced.” (Heard once at a ‘marriage enrichment’ seminar at a Christian Seasonal Gathering at a holiday camp). At the time I was still working as a lawyer and had recently had a client come in after her husband had used her as a punch-bag and I had to get an injunction to keep him away from her. I could not believe that it was ‘right’ for her to stay in that abusive relationship.

In the circumstances when the answer is not obvious, or is ‘least worst’ I try to think of what is most loving and just. They seem to be God’s guiding principles in the Bible. But if the cross was the least worst option, what does that say about how God views the alternative for us?

Today, I am pleased to say, the man cold seems to be abating and has now turned into an ordinary cold.

A young boy called the pastor of a local church to ask him to come by to pray for his mother who had been very ill with the flu. 

The pastor knew the family and was aware they had been attending another church down the road. So the pastor asked, “Shouldn’t you be asking Reverend Simon down the road to come by to pray with your mum?” 

The young boy replied, “Yeah, but we didn’t want to take the chance that he might catch whatever this is that Mum has.”