Holy Trinity Church East Melbourne

Dear Friends,

Some years ago I was at a restaurant with some friends, we had poured a glass of wine when the waiter came to the table and said in quite a loud voice, ‘get out!’

I said’ ‘excuse me, we have just arrived.’ He responded in an even louder voice, ‘get out! Take your drinks and get out!’ We were astonished and as we were about to remonstrate further he said, ‘get out! The restaurant is on fire!”

Sure enough when we looked up we could see the kitchen being quickly engulfed in flames. We made a hasty retreat to the median strip in Russell Street where we continued sipping our wine whilst watching the fire brigade try to stop the restaurant burning to the ground. It was a dreadful and inconvenient situation as we then had the onerous task of finding another restaurant and could not work out what to do with the wine glasses.

I tell this story as it reflects how easily we can lose perspective and become totally dominated with what immediately affects us. This completely first world problem of finding another restaurant is completely outside any form of true reality. We gave little thought to the poor folks who owned the burning restaurant or their now unemployed staff or even to the millions in the world who never have to contemplate finding ‘another restaurant’ as they are too poor to even know where their next mouthful of food is coming from.

Over the last year we have seen cases of this distorted perspective when people complain long and hard about wearing masks, lockdowns, and curtailing of some activities. My plea is that we could see our current minor inconveniences in light of what is happening in India and other places. We have it pretty good here and we should remain thankful for that each and every day.

So, in the unlikely event that you are told to get out of a restaurant be a little more aware than we were and don’t take it as an insult but rather an attempt to keep you safe from the flames.

GRANT.

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