Jeremy Clarke Jeremy Clarke

Prayer for the day

A social leper tells you of his miserable existence

In church last Sunday, the reading was taken from the first chapter of Paul’s letter to Timothy. ‘Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners — of whom I am the very worst,’ Paul boasts. I’ve never seen eye to eye with St Paul. He rubs me up the wrong way. Here, his bragging about what a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man he was, and how abundantly the Lord has showered him with grace, sounded to me like a newly converted David Brent of The Office.

Glancing further down the page, I read that Paul laid the blame for the Fall fairly and squarely on the ladies, who, in future, he tells Timothy, must ask permission to speak. Before we hit controversy, however, the lesson ended and we thanked God for it. Then the vicar led us in a prayer. He prayed that the Lord would make us tolerant. In my private prayers I usually ask for intolerance, so I signalled to the Lord not to be included in this.

The service was part Holy Communion and part memorial service for Molly Clarke, no relation, who was a guest for four years at the residential home for the elderly my parents used to run. We liked Molly. She had a lot of class, she was very forthright and funny, and she loved men. The happiest time of her life was the second world war. To hear Molly talk about it, it must have been one big orgy. During the Battle of Britain, her job was to mark its progress by leaning over a map of the British Isles and prodding counters about with long sticks. Her time off was spent boosting the morale of as many young pilots as possible.

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