Sadly, today a penny will no longer buy a hot cross bun or a contribution towards a 5th November firework, let alone help an old man when one is dropped in his hat at Christmastime. However, as one of these now nearly worthless coins myself, I’ll do my best to fill the back page of Sofia with a column or two, endeavouring to follow in John Pearson’s inspirational footsteps.
The theme in my first venture is ‘Surprise’. Good ones or bad, they are experiences we have all had at some time. What is common to both is their unexpectedness. At their extremes they can delight or shock. What matters is how we cope with them.
Members of my Bangor Unitarian group came up with some interesting examples at a recent Zoom ‘house group’ that I led. Its purpose was to encourage contributions from all participants and to give food for thought. For some opening music I used a clip from John Bratton’s popular children’s song The Teddy Bears’ Picnic (YouTube: An old recording by Henry Hall and the BBC orchestra), which unsurprisingly evoked nostalgia amongst the group. If you remember, its first line goes ‘If you go down to the woods today, you’re sure of a big surprise’. We discussed how our reaction to these words had possibly changed over the years. For us hard-bitten adults, who have probably watched far too many thrillers where something dark and sinister has happened when the victim has ventured into the forest, an otherwise innocent and pleasurable walk in the woods for a meeting might signal caution!
Ice-broken, the conversation – often awkward and stilted on Zoom – soon flowed freely and thankfully everyone willingly volunteered a surprise of one kind or another to share with the group. We heard from someone who fondly remembered receiving what became a precious plaything from an unexpected source; from someone who won a raffle prize for the first time and from another, on passing a driving test at the umpteenth attempt. In contrast were the painful shock surprises: A long-term partner walking out of a relationship without warning, a husband dying suddenly, the shock of hearing an unexpected medical diagnosis and someone’s shock at not receiving the confidently predicted good exam grades that would have led to a desired university place.
We tactfully quizzed those who had shared these memories to find out how they had coped with their ‘surprise’ – particularly if it had had disappointing or difficult consequences. The group split over whether having faith had helped in coming to terms with their experience. It appeared that most participants acknowledged that it had played little or no part; rather, that the routine of work, distractions of everyday life or the sympathetic ear of a good friend made for the most effective healing and the spur to ‘move on’.
Not unexpectedly, we got on to examples of surprise and suspense in literature. The denouements of detective and mystery fiction came readily to mind, as did well-known biblical narratives in both Old and New Testaments. There is the surprise of Pharoah’s daughter at finding a baby in the bullrushes, the welcome symbols perceived by Noah’s crew at the ending of the Great Flood, Isaac’s last-minute reprieve from death at his father’s hand and David’s victorious sling shot that did for Goliath. In the New Testament there is the surprise for those well-versed in scripture that not only can ten individual Commandments be dispensed with, but the many stipulations of ‘the fence round the Law’ as well. There is Judas’s surprise at Jesus’s reaction to the precious ointment gift, and the disciples’ astonishment at Jesus’s disappearance from the tomb. We reckoned that the surprise and suspense elements of these stories explained why we remembered them so well from childhood.
Boris Pasternak is quoted as saying ‘Surprise is the greatest gift which life can grant us’, and Françoise Sagan, that ‘Art must take reality by surprise’. Discuss! A penny for your thoughts!
Penny Mawdsley is the convenor of the Merseyside and North Wales SOF Group.