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December
Advice
I Love You

November
38. Bald is beautiful
37. Fire
36 Sleep
35 Music

October 2006
34. Stupidity
33. Painting
32. mmm Pasties
31. Built to last
30. Phlegm

September 2006
29. Meetings
28. Crime thoughts
27. Colours
26. Unwanted guests

August 2006
25. Comparison
24. Waterproof Mascara
23. Tasty MSG
22. Helplessness

July 2006
21. Attraction
20. Hair
19. Hero
18. Laughter
17. Factoids

June 2006
16. Voiceless
15. Bruises (ouch)
14. Sunburn
13. Mistakes

May 2006
12. Arms
11. Willow Tree
10. Eurovision
9. Chicken
8. Addictions

April 2006
7. Age
6. Celebrities
5. Language

March 2006
4. Commonwealth Games
3. Decisions
2. Drizzle
1. Trelawney

STUPIDITY 

Some people are really stupid. Not just dumb but incredibly dumb! I mean, I know we all have our brain-dead moments, but there are people out there who never switch their brain on. I may be being a bit harsh, but there are times when “duh” is the only appropriate word! For example, on a nearby road there is a low train bridge. It has just been painted, this bridge, and it is a lovely deep red colour. But what makes this piece of engineering really stand out is the massive neon yellow stripes and big warning sign! The sign clearly advertises the fact that the bridge is lower than 13 feet and so no vehicle over 13 feet tall should go under. To makes matters even clearer, for those especially short sighted drivers who may not notice the sign until they are at the bridge, there are helpful signs proceeding the bridge all the way down the road. On both sides. So we are now happy in the knowledge that you’d have to be either blind (which is not advisable when driving!) or really stupid to attempt to drive a big, over 13 ft tall lorry, for instance, under the small bridge.  

Duh!  

So I guess you can imagine that last week a moron in a tall lorry got stuck under the railway bridge. It took the police, railway engineers, breakdown people and the fire brigade over 2 hours to free the lorry and it’s idiot driver. Did he not see the signs? (oh and yes it was a he – a female driver wouldn’t be so dumb!) Did he think that the rules of the road and bridge didn’t apply to him? Did he think his lorry was smaller? Was he blind? Maybe he thought if he crouched down in the cab of his lorry he’d fit through! For whatever reason he ignored the warning signs, missed the neon stripes and got himself stuck.  

So as I said there are some pretty stupid people out there. There are some ugly stupid people too! (Ha ha, ha couldn’t resist!) Oh am I glad I’m not that idiotic, making mistakes like that, I mean, really…..well ok, maybe I’m not always the smartest. Maybe I have made some cracking mistakes. I may not have got a lorry stuck under a bridge but there was the time I wrote a note slagging off my teacher and then by mistake handed it in for marking! Not my finest hour! (thing is she graded me and told me to check my spelling mistakes! Really, she did – I was understandably mortified) Then there was the time that I decided that a shortcut through a bog was a good idea. Inevitably I got stuck and had to wait for ages before someone found me – for dramatic purposes I would like to say that by the time my rescuer came I was stuck up to my neck, but I wasn’t. It had gone over my wellies though, which is just not as exciting.  

I too, like the lorry driver, had ignored the signs. I knew that it was unsafe, that it was a bog and that I was likely to get stuck, but I somehow avoided thinking about that. It was a short-cut (had I got over it without sinking) and was a more attractive alternative to the long route around the marshy land. It’s not like I didn’t know the risks – I’m a country girl and it wasn’t the first time I’d come across a bog. But for whatever reason the temptation overcame sense and I made a mistake and then paid for it. (I had to buy new wellies!!) It is so easy to stand on the outside and to judge the mistakes other people make, when we are in fact there making mistakes ourselves. Daily. Be they seemingly small inconsequential slip-ups or those big whopping blunders, we all say and do things that get us stuck. Do we not see the warning signs? Have we not noticed the experience from past mistakes? Are we blind to the fact that getting stuck is highly likely? Or do we choose to look away and carry on regardless?  

Perhaps we need to spend a little time opening our eyes and watching where we walk – after all it would save time and prevent potential pain and stuckness in the long run. So I would like to amend my initial sentence. “Sometimes we all are really stupid.”

 This week as I make numerous mistakes and no doubt get stuck more times than I care to admit, I will rejoice in the love and forgiveness of Jesus who helps to get me out of my self-made messes.