7th May, 2006

LIFE’S LITTLE UPS AND DOWNS

“Can I give you a lift?” is usually understood as being an offer to drive you somewhere. If you hear it from me you should understand it more literally – you are welcome to the device that transports us between floors in St. Joseph’s! Take a tip from me – don’t use our elevator unless you really have to! I’m sure Roselyne, our parish secretary, wished on Thursday that she hadn’t. Mind you, she’s used it constantly since she’s been employed here, and this was the first time that it let her down, or rather didn’t let her down – if you get my meaning.

First of all, as the elevator started to descend it began to groan even more than usual. A few clatter-bangs later it came to a full-stop. Bad enough, you might say, but when some smoke began to appear a little bit of panic would have been justified. As it happened, there were only a few wisps, and then the smoke cleared. Time to press the alarm bell. Not a sound! But still no panic. Roselyne has her mobile phone with her, so she rings the church number.

As expected, Venci answers it, and on learning that Roselyne is stuck in the elevator, does the natural thing – goes and presses the button to call it back. Not a good idea! Another little shudder and more smoke for Roselyne to endure. Time to call the elevator people and the fire service, just in case! Fair dues to them, the police and fire brigade were on the spot in a matter of minutes.

To cut a long story short, they proceeded about their business in a very professional manner, and before long had lifted a very relieved, shaken but undaunted Roselyne out through the roof of the elevator – they reckoned it was quicker than manually moving the elevator to the nearest exit-door. While we were greatly relieved at Roselyne’s safe rescue, we were also concerned at all the elements that had gone wrong – no alarm, smoke, difficulty in manually controlling it, etc.

It was only when the elevator man came that much new information came to light. Because they couldn’t install a normal elevator when building the new Church – we don’t have access to the space above the shaft – they adapted a ‘goods’ elevator instead. Hence the noise and slowness, absence of phone, and slow manual control – wine being brought up from the cellar doesn’t complain about these shortcomings! The alarm button was added, but was connected to a buzzer, which works but is practically inaudible. The good news is that there was no real danger of fire, and the cabin can’t plunge to the ground – so it’s very safe, but not very human-friendly.

Our Gospel today refers to some entirely different ‘downs and ups’! It’s a reminder to us that Christ lay down his life for us, in order to raise us up with Him to a new level of living – a level that’s very safe in the care of the Good Shepherd, and a level that’s not just friendly, but lived in the fullness of love.

I still can’t understand why the police refused to leave until they got both Roselyne’s and my dates of birth! Can I expect a card next birthday?