The Vacuum of Absence

 

One of my earliest schoolboy memories is of May Day.  Every year, in the playground, children in my Primary School would hold its ribbons and dance around it.  However, my memory is not of dancing but being one of the three ‘tall and strong’ boys deputised to hold said pole!!  In truth, I think, I preferred it that way, having been born with two left feet!

Folk lore rituals celebrate the arrival of spring at this time of year with Maypoles, Green Men and Jack in The Boxes and out in the garden it feels like a re-awakening after the slumber of winter.

In some ways this phase of the year mirrors the re-emergence of many back into society as the isolation and restrictions of Lockdown ease. 

 I was fascinated to hear a recent Thought for Day as the presenter related their experience of loosing a sense of taste because of Covid.  He spoke of the process of re-educating his taste buds, and for him they seem to be working again.  He described that period when taste eluded him as the ‘vacuum of their absence’.  His great wish now, upon their gentle return, is that he doesn’t take taste for granted but purposely values and savours it.

I sense we have all had this ‘vacuum of absence’ in our lives and we share that desire that as we re-awaken and re-emerge, we won’t speed up life and live it once more in the fast lane, but savour and value what has once again blessed our lives.

I’m conscious of the Parable of The Prodigal Son returning.  He would have missed so much about his old life as he languished in that far country.  Surely, after his own re-awakening, he returned a wiser and more appreciative person – and so, hopefully, will we.