Janet Hopewell on following where we don’t want to go

‘But I don’t want to go to school!’ Words which bring back my childhood. A bit later, in our adult years, we have days when we just don’t want to go to work. And there is a certain inevitability, as we age, that we won’t, or don’t, want to go to the dentist, or the doctor, or that hospital or, as in the case of my late parents, that care home.

Many of us, in the wealthy world at least, will grow to be extremely old, but our quality of life is likely to be impaired by long-term health problems, which will require a reciprocal reaching out, by older citizens themselves, and in return by the national providers of health and social care. Longevity will be our cross. In our final infirmities, we will perforce stretch out our hands, and someone else will take us where we do not want to go. If we’re lucky, we will be well looked after. But our frail bodies and faltering minds will be someone else’s charge.

Then Jesus commands Peter: ‘Follow me!’ An instruction to follow in life, in death and beyond….

Janet Hopewell is United Reformed Church Southern Synod Chaplain

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This is an extract from an article published in the July/August 2022 edition of Reform

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