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Good Morning

A few months ago, after our morning service, someone said to me, ‘I was struck by the importance of the comma’.  He went on to explain how the practice of pausing at the commas and stopping at the full stops made a difference to how he recited and understood the Creed.

Punctuation helps us to say what we mean.  It’s no longer taught as it was in the good-old-bad-old school days, but it still doesn’t lose its importance.

There’s a world of difference between:

‘I like eating, my family and my pets’ and then, more gruesomely, perhaps,

‘I like eating my family and my pets’.

The comma, the natural pause, changes the meaning of the written and spoken word.  The average reader struggles to comprehend books without punctuation – few have passed unscathed through the pages of James Joyce’s Ulysses! The comma, before we come crashing to an enforced full stop, is just as important in life as it is in literature.  In our busy lives, we can be so focused on reaching the end of the next chapter that we forget to pause at those commas, to breathe, and to reflect. 

Pausing at the commas changes how we control and enjoy our own story too. 

Today as we launch into a new day, a new chapter, let’s take time to acknowledge the commas which punctuate out stories, and be thankful for the opportunities they bring to pause, to notice the God who guides us and those who travel alongside us.   It may write a slower story, but it could have a much better ending.

God of beginnings and endings, teach us to make time to pause, to look back with thanks and to look forward with hope, as we live in each moment. Amen