Not since Father Ted and Dougal took to the stage with ‘My Lovely Horse‘ have two such eminent clerics joined musical forces!  Richard and I are trying our hand at leading worship at our next Sunday Nights at The Dock on Sun 3rd from 6pm in Dock Cafe.  I promise to lose the sax solo…

We’ll also be hearing from Esther as we continue our series on decisions, decisions… For those of you following through the John Ortberg book (All The Places To Go) with us, we’re on the ‘Door A or Door B?’ chapter… but whether you’re reading the book or not, come along for some inspiration, prayer, space to be still and a great cup of tea!

The topic of decisions must’ve been running through my mind when I was Thinking a Thought (for the day) for BBC radio last week, based on a new word that Joachim the crazy German has introduced to Dock-world:

The word is “futterneid” and it describes a universal emotion. You’re in a restaurant and you make your decision between all the tempting options on the menu. Will it be chicken or steak? After much agonising you choose the chicken and someone else at the table chooses steak, and when everyone’s meal arrives all you can think about is how tender and tasty and delicious the steak looks compared to your boring old chicken. That’s futterneid – literally, food envy – and we all experience a bit of futterneid every time we make a decision, no matter how big or small. As soon as the decision is made beyond the point of no return, we suddenly start to wonder how wonderful life would have been if we’d gone the other way.

My mum was in hospital last week to get a new hip. She tells me that everyone in the recovery ward has the same conversation: have I made the right decision? The op is kinda painful (so I’m reliably informed), the recovery is long and slow. At some point everyone asks themselves: what would life be like, could I have avoided this pain, wouldn’t everything be so much easier if I had decided to decline the operation? But then, everyone who declines the operation (and apparently it happens all the time, even sometimes just a day beforehand) probably constantly asks themselves, what would life be like, could I have avoided this pain, would everything be so much better if I had gone through with the operation? Futterneid: the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.

We are all the products of millions of decisions, big and small – from choosing steak or chicken, to deciding where I live or who I marry, what career I pursue, what I throw my energies and talents into, what I decide to do with my one and only life. My choices have made me who I am, and brought me to where I am and there’s no way to know how things might have panned out in a parallel life where I chose differently.

Wishing or wondering if I would be happier if any of the decisions that I woulda coulda shoulda made isn’t going to get me very far. This is the day that is before me, full of opportunities and challenges, and I have to live the best day I can.

A bit of wisdom from Middle Earth, when all the choices seem to have gone amiss in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings:

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.
“So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”