Having witnessed the downfall of the lamentable England football team on Sunday, we were left with the unexpected job of comforting our weeping 5 year old who was distraught that ‘we’ played so poorly.

“But Mummy!” he wailed, “I wanted Rooney to score. He didn’t even touch it!” (One feels many pundits and schoolboys alike felt the same.) The following day the lack of ‘Englandobelia’ displayed in our village was pointed. Where once red and white St. George’s flags had proudly flown, suddenly windows and car doors were unmistakably bare. It has made me wonder what it means to ‘be English’ and ‘feel English’ in this day and age.
In today’s epistle, I have been aided immeasurably by the timely arrival in my inbox of my youngest brother’s latest blog from South Africa on this very subject. He expresses himself, somewhat vociferously, thus:

“Being English is about driving a German car to an Irish bar for a Belgian beer, then on the way home grabbing an Indian curry or Turkish kebab, then sitting on a Swedish sofa and watching American sitcoms on Japanese TV’s and still being suspicious of anything foreign. Only in England can you get a pizza to your home faster than an ambulance; only in England do the banks leave the doors open but chain the pens to the counter; only in England do the supermarkets make sick people walk to the back of the store for prescriptions while healthy people get their cigarettes at the front; only in England do unimaginative, unoriginal football supporters travel abroad en mass to intimidate anyone who has the audacity to be born any other ‘race’ but English, singing ‘God Save the Queen’ without believing in God or the monarchy, but just as an excuse to utter the words ‘no surrender’; only the English travel to a nation that taught the world how to overcome racism, but see nothing wrong with singing ‘Britons never shall be slaves’; only the English moan about vuvuzelas and then rely on a trumpet to start every song…
(Dr Joel Rookwood, Soccerphile.com)

My brother’s indictment of those he has witnessed in South Africa, and his fellow countrymen is fairly straight is it not?! We are indeed a bizarre people. We are quick to praise our celebrities and even quicker to tear them down. We idolise our footballers and then moan at how much money we pay them when they can’t seem to kick a ball into a net.

Being English, at least this week, is not so much about a sense of national consciousness but about a shared feeling of ‘Come on Ref! It was clearly over the line!’ Nothing brings English people together like defeat, danger or communal disbelief at someone else’s incompetence. The sense of camaraderie I felt on a night train once when the lights broke, was extraordinary. People went into ‘war’ mentality. Utterly selfish individuals opened their sandwiches (and their minds) to share with the needy. I was unaccountably sad when the lights came back on. People reverted to type. The carriage went quiet and I didn’t get that M and S sandwich after all. (And it was the King Prawn one)

My sense is that the lack of excellence on the pitch this week may well bring out a better standard of conversation with total strangers than if ‘we’ had gone through to the next round. Why? Because we English are a truly funny breed. We almost seem to enjoy not enjoying ourselves.

Jesus was clear that He came to give us life, and life to the full. How is it that so many of us settle for mediocre lives; lives ‘running on empty?’ I want to squeeze every drop out of my life and make every second count. This is why I sometimes come across as ‘intense’. It’s because I don’t like wasting time. I have goals to score. (Unlike a certain sports team, who shall remain nameless.)