Sordid Little Lives
Libby Purves writes the following for the Times in response to a letter:
The accusation of having a ‘sordid little life’ probably hits a more raw nerve today than at any other time in history. For, now that so many of us have given up on the afterlife, we are very touchy about whether we are making the most of our earthly one. The phrases of the age are ‘quality of life’; ‘live life to the full’ and ‘lifestyle’. The worst insult is ‘get a life’. We pore over newspaper day-in-the-life-of celebrities and wonder if we would be better off if we moved to the country, went to the gym, or dressed only in white and ate raw celery. Meanwhile, we are uncomfortably aware that our daily lives are a bit short on intimations of immortality, so we seize on anything which promises a quick glimpse of the beyond. It could be sex and drugs and rock ’n’ roll, an exercise adrenalin high, a dose of sloppy diluted Buddhism… anything to disguise from ourselves the fact that, secretly, most of us are afraid that we do indeed lead ‘sordid little lives’… We are all, when we can spare the time from the mean, coarse, squalid, selfish business of getting through the day, looking for a way out and up.
Sordid?
mean, niggardly; ignoble base; mercenary; dirty, squalid; dull-coloured
Oxford Concise Dictionary
As humans, we are better at applying these adjectives to other people. It is all too easy to dismiss these allegations when sent in our direction, however. Most of our kitchens are best described as squalid, and mine especially requires a few more potent words to complete the description; I would hate to think my life was akin to this mess, however… A girl approached me in Ziggy’s saying “You look like a nice guy,” (an unfortunately rare event) then proceeded to ask for £2 to pay her bar bill. Upon disclaiming all knowledge of the £5 note in my pocket, the words “You mean f**ing b******,” followed, before she moved on to the person behind me. Despite giving little thought to the words at the time (Ziggy’s does not promote profound thoughts), when my mind recovered from the cheap alcohol it wouldn’t let me forget them. Was I mean? Yes it was my money, yes I needed it, but yes, another person needed it more than me. A great Methodist speaker once spoke of a comparable encounter with a street person:
One evening, walking with a friend to the pub, I ran across a street person, requesting money. My friend immediately pulled out a note from his back pocket and handed it to the man, then asked what he would spend it on. The stunned man (having just been handed £20) responded, “On alcohol,” to which my friend said, “Good, that’s all we were going to spend it on”.
Why should we judge a person before meeting their needs; that street person would not have been living in the cold if he had been given the same opportunities and upbringing as most of us are privileged to have had. The life of a homeless person can usually be described as squalid and dirty, but, to shamelessly abbreviate Oscar Wilde’s famous quote: “We’re all in the gutter…”.
We should thank God for the privileges we have, recognize them as privileges and help others to improve their life wherever possible; after all our status, position, fortunes and failures depict but a little of us: our beliefs and actions complete the picture.
Little?
The night train to London has a fantastic variety of passengers. Among the people I chose to talk to one night last year aboard this train, was a very young, drunk, Chelsea supporter who had just screamed to her mates, “I wish — I’ve always wanted to be gang-raped,” and a man who’d seen more of life than we’re supposed to, having been incarcerated in Parkhurst prison for six years then evicted on to the street for supporting his girlfriend’s £60 000+ a year crack-cocaine habit. One naive, one a realist with very little future; both, by media standards, very sordid little lives. But are the newspapers right? If, just by virtue of appearing in a Christis article these people make a difference to our readers, those lives are a little bigger than Libby Purves would have us believe.
Some of us may leave this university to become the next Prime Minister, tabloid editor, or global corporation president. Most, however, won’t, and although we are good at applying ‘sordid’ adjectives to those in power, most of us will agree that we could not do a better job than those who already do them. By stating this, I do not mean to diminish the influence we will have. When we leave this world, our obituaries will be defined by what others saw in us, how we affected or changed their lives. The smallest good deed is better than the grandest good intention; when influencing others it is quality that matters, not quantity.
Lives?
Two weeks ago I almost died. I had been running on the beach at home and had misjudged the tide. The tide came in and I was stranded. Fortunately I was able to clamber up the cliff home and live to bore a few more Christis readers with this article. The value I place on my life varies but it has never been higher than that evening. God has given us all life to do what we will with it. My near-miss with the tide made me question my life, its purpose and what I’m doing with it. This article is a result.
Live life for God and our motives are no longer mercenary, and our life is not founded on an ignoble base. Live life for God and immortality is ours; neither diluted Buddhism nor sex, drugs and rock and roll can possibly match that certainty. When asked “How’s life?”, most of us will respond “Okay,”, or “Good,” without much thought. The concept of immortality demands we question our lives beyond this casual response, then live them to the full.