Without a vision...

Yesterday, I had a late clinic appointment, so I went into town and took more photos of the St Davids House demolition. A big bucket excavator was at work clearing the mound of rubble and loading it into a lorry to take off to landfill. The site area is too confined for the demolition machine to work at the same time. Lorries park tightly in a cordoned access area where the pavement used to be, next to the site, and buses turn part the site a couple of meters away on a road used in the routine city centre bus turn around. There's scant margin of error for drivers and operators involved in this dance of heavy vehicles.

This morning I celebrated the Eucharist at St Catherine's and straight afterwards was picked up and driven to Thornhill Crem for the funeral of a 92 year old lady, attended by just half a dozen. She was a young back office clerk during the war, helping to keep the airmen operational in the Women's Royal Air Force, so I wore my Royal British Legion chaplain's scarf to show my respect.

Parliament still fails to agree a plan to leave the European Union. As another deadline extension is reached, another delay is being sought. Some eurosceptic politicians and media brexit advocates are starting to admit to misgivings about making it happen, because of the complexity of the process and its impact. Polls indicate that a majority now favour remaining in the EU. As knowledge of the real consequences of the rupture is absorbed, I believe people are realising how misled they were by simplistic rhetoric, downright lies and a failure to envision future relationships between the EU and Britain after brexit.

A former EU diplomat on the radio reflected on the success of the separation of Czech and Slovak republics into separate nations. This was done swiftly and efficiently without disturbing incident and both countries remain EU members. Having acknowledged the peoples' call to undo the legacy of a state created by the secession of two distinct regions from the Austro-Hungarian empire in 1918, the 

negotiations were preceded by discussions about what both regions valued about their heritage and wanted to take with them into the future. 

In other words, they began from a vision of the future, not from a present sense of grievance generated by things they resented and rejected. If only Britain had been so constructive, envisaging a post brexit future! But maybe it's impossible anyway. The European project was born from a desire to create a shared environment in which post-war reconciliation and peace-making could flourish. I cannot understand why this hasn't featured in the brexit rhetoric of the past few years. The persistent idea that 'we won the war' unaided is a fantasy, an illusion. We are as we ever were, 'members of one another'.