by the Roberta Topham minister at Christchurch, Ilkley

THERE is a great power in expressing gratitude. That great power can help us in these challenging times. A friend in another part of the country told me a story this week that illustrates this. She is in that age-group of people who have been requested to shield themselves from outside contact because of the coronavirus. At first, like many, my friend found this deeply frustrating and continued to do her own shopping. Gradually as the scale of the outbreak has become clear, she has come to accept kind offers of shopping from neighbours. Neighbours, she hardly knew until the current situation started.

My friend is deeply grateful to one neighbour in particular for help with shopping and wondered recently how she could express that gratitude. Being a great baker, when the neighbour texted this week to ask what she needed from the shops she replied by offering to bake her a cake. The neighbour was delighted, texting back “Wonderful, thank you. It’s my husband’s birthday tomorrow and I have been too busy myself to make a cake, so this is just what we need”.

Gratitude, so often, creates more gratitude. I am reminded of the old folk song “Magic penny” by Malvina Reynolds, in which she writes that love is something that, if you give it away, “you end up having more”. This makes me think of Jesus’s teaching “love your neighbour as yourself” - a version of the golden rule found in so many of the main world religions. Gratitude is an active expression of love that helps love to grow and things to change for the better.

This week, as we remember the 75th anniversary of VE day, we look back in gratitude to those who served our country to win peace and freedom. We also want to express gratitude to those in the caring and service professions. We don’t just want to say “thank you”, although that is important, but also to make sure they have what they need. As we do express gratitude to them, and so many who are going the extra mile right now, we are engaging in a positive cycle that has great power to make more and more good things happen.

With thankfulness for all the love shown in our community and praying peace for all.