A Welsh proverb

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A spiritual comment and prayer to start the day with the Very Revd Dr Sarah Rowland Jones In the Welsh mediaeval collection of stories and myths known as the Mabinogion, there's a well-known saying: a fo ben, bid bont, which roughly translates as ‘whoever would be a leader, must be a bridge’. This advice is just as relevant today, where polarisation seems ever increasing, especially as technology and its algorithms all too easily promote exaggerated binary positions. Of course, this is not new. W B Yeats famously wrote that ‘Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold’ and that ‘The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity.’ Sometimes we struggle to know how best to respond to such negative and destructive influences in politics and society. We don't want to lack conviction, nor become sucked into feeble compromise. But it can be hard to know where or how to take a stand. For Christians Jesus Christ, being both fully God and fully human, is the ultimate bridge between heaven and earth – and our ultimate leader too, as Lord and Saviour. Yet there is compromise or dilution between his humanity and divinity. It's a different sort of bridging than searching for some sort of mean between extremes, or a lowest common denominator shared position. So, I'm trying to root my integrity in the example and teachings of Jesus Christ – and look to his insistence on good news for the poor, the marginalised, the powerless, rather than being overwhelmed by the loudest voices shouting through the most powerful megaphones. Lord Jesus Christ, help us to know how best to follow in the pause of prosperity and peace you set before us. Amen