You'll never swim alone

It's not exactly the sweet, silver song of a lark that has got me thinking of that most inspiring of tunes from Rogers and Hammerstein's Carousel today. Nor am I chanting from the digital terraces of the antics and indiscretions of England's beleagured football manager, Sven Goran Ericsson, who perhaps wishes right now he'd never stopped selling mobile phones in the family business ( I jest, of course).
Something more profound and primeval brings me to my blog today, as the thoughts and attention of the nation have at least for a few hours been diverted from the life- mocking twaddle that has so dominated the scandal sheets these first few weeks of a new year, to the pitful fate of a juvenile cetacean whose death wails if inaudible to the ears, at least filled the hearts and no doubt emptied the tear ducts of readers and viewers across the world this weekend.

The drama all started around rush hour on Friday morning, when a passenger on board a train on London's Waterloo railway bridge said he thought he was hallucinating but he'd seen a whale in the River Thames below him. Understandable reaction, but not caused by any magic mushrooms on this occasion but a fact. An eighteen-feet long (six metres, for the benefit of those not schooled in imperial measures), Northern Bottle-nosed whale had apparently taken a wrong turn at the Thames estuary at Southend-on-Sea and, instead of following his mother to the cold, deep waters of the Artic, found himself stranded in the shallow tideway of London's river, next to some of the most well-known sites in the world.

The image of this magnificent young beast attempting to stay in the swim to find his way home, is in marked contrast to the Church Times- sorry, I mean News of the World causing another would-be political leader to drown with its scandalous revelations about his private life this morning. Mark Oaten, MP for Winchester, must at least be grateful this Sunday that he has been displaced on most other front pages by an animal whose species frollicked in the world's oceans centuries before man even feigned to beach lives on the questionable altar of 'truthful' journalism.

London's whale's fate could perhaps have been foreseen from the moment he raised his awe-inspiring head above the waters of Old Father Thames. His natural fountain as he spouted salty water skyward, offered a more magnificent sight to watchers on the London Eye observation wheel than anything nearby Trafalgar Square could offer. These giant mammals were created to swim in deep waters, enjoying those dark, vast depths still largely unexplored by us. Though pursued, persecuted and exploited by its only real enemy, Greedy Man, for centuries, at least in these environmentally sensitive times the whale has been given a fighting chance of survival as human beings finally recognise the folly of their careless and senseless exploitation of the natural world.

But river-journeying tourists they are not. The shallows of London's waterway could never support a mammal weighing in excess of seven tons (metric or imperial) for very long. This poor animal never even got given a name, as so often we have a tendency to do, and yet his care and his loss was followed and sadly mourned by the thousands, perhaps even millions, who had followed his attempts to survive even when precedent and circumstance made this seem an unlikely outcome. The noble efforts of divers, vets and mariners to return the baby whale to deeper waters on the back of a barge seemed to have brought out the best in people who so often want to see the worst in others.

What a peculiar, almost obscene, species we can be. Yet what beautiful acts and compassion we are yet capable of. Why this paradox, this constant stasis, in the human condition? A writer I am currently reading, Gerard W Hughes, suggests in his book God in All Things, that it's because of the heats of our desires, or rather the conflicts of them. What St Paul I guess referred to as the conflict between what I "know" I should do, think, feel and what so often I do instead. I should be compassionate, caring, selfless, my mind set on people -even marine mammals- beyond myself. Yet so often, I am reduced to gloating at or criticising the failings of others. Surely such miserable creatures as we are deserve the wrath of God and to meet our ends without pity! Yet thanks to Amazing Grace , as written in the words of one-time slave ship captain John Newton, the sweet sound I hear this afternoon is not of larks, heavenly though their sound may be. It's instead a sweet sound that saves a wretch like me- for I'm no different to any other reader of this blog, I'm a miserable sinner, let's make no whalebones about it!
Maybe the fate of this whale, and our hopes for him, awakened in many the longing for a connection with a long-drowned past, when nature was at one with her maker. Some have likened it to our fascination with dinosaurs, but for me there's an obvious connection with the story of Jonah and the "whale" portrayed in the Bible. Some commentators point out this is a story teaching about obedience, willingness of spirit, gratitude and compassion, together with God's patience and mercy.
Was God merciful to a beast who died at Gravesend, despite the best efforts of bargemen and specialists to save him? Quite plainly, yes. Jesus said (quoted in chapter 10 of Matthew's gospel and also in Luke's account that sparrows -now also rarely seen in London, sadly- were sold for two a penny, making them almost worthless in human terms, yet not one falls to the ground without God's knowledge. So when many worry about life and what the future holds, whether anyone cares any more anyway, maybe a beast of ancient stock should tell us that we are safe and have no cause to worry, whether we flail in the shallows or are overwhelmed by the depth of our troubles. Our father loves and cares for us as he does for the sparrow and the whale, and most certainly the lark, whose heavenly song will be heard again in the summer. These creatures matter to God. But we are far more precious to him than any of them. We need not sink or swim, but fly on eagle's wings into his loving arms. Now that's something worth singing about!