Just another  brief thought about what happened in The Referendum.  I hope you can hear this as a personal, non political thinking out loud type of observation and wondering, rather than hear it as for or against what has happened. As I look back, there are one or two images that come to my own mind faster than other images of the days leading up to the vote. One is of Sir Bob Geldof putting up two fingers and using unseemly language towards fishermen, with what seemed like laughing, well to do cronies around him. I found it a disgusting image. To me it gave the impression of the rich and privileged not caring about the concerns of others. It made it look as though it was easier to care for those in need far away but not care about the anxieties or needs and fears of those we live amongst. Of course that may be entirely different from the truth, the facts, to pick up the theme of my last blog. However this is fact too, that what we see tends to trump any reasoned argument we may read or hear: “I cannot listen to what you are saying, because I see how you are behaving.”  Images are powerful. The other image is of George Osborne making predictions  of what he would do as chancellor in the event of a vote for Brexit, that had the image and tone of punishment and threat about them. No one takes well or kindly to what they perceive as threatening behavior and language and what easier way to strike back than through the anonymity of the ballot box?

I wonder if perhaps more than myself found these images distasteful in the extreme? Helen of Troy was the face that launched a thousand ships so we are told. Perhaps the images I mentioned were images that lost a thousand votes, perhaps multiple thousand votes for the Remain Campaign. It would not surprise me if that were so because as I say images are powerful things. Good reason can be wiped out by a bad image.

Remember believer that you and I are the only bible that most people around us will read. Whatever good things are in that book, whatever good things there are in Christ, well, people can be put off considering them because of a bad image that they see or meet or encounter in those  who claim to follow the Book and to follow Christ.

Image is a powerful concept from the very beginning of the bible. We were made in God’s image. As believers we know we threw away so much of that image but we also believe what the bible says, that in Christ we are being remade in the image of our Creator. What God, what Jesus do people meet as they meet you and I, as they watch us, listen to us, interact with us?

So there it is, just a thought as I look back and think things over….

Kenny