M is for MIDDLE

I was standing in the middle of the sheuch and the water was up to my oxters. I couldn't move easily for my wellies were stuck in the muddy bottom so I guess I just decided to have a good cry for a few minutes. How had I come to be here? You might well ask, but first a note of explanation for the uninitiated among my three readers. A sheuch is best defined as a deep trench or furrow, which usually contains a certain amount of water, mixed with mud, giving the whole thing a very sticky constituency and not the sort of place you wish to be standing in the middle of. An oxter is an armpit. I think I need explain that one no further. Anyway the sheuch I encountered was particularly deep, though I was only about eleven or twelve years old and not much taller than your average goat, a word I could hear my father shouting in the distance and since we didn't possess any of the wretched animal and he was looking in my direction, I assumed that he was unimpressed with my performance in failing to clear the sheuch and also in making little attempt to extricate myself from the whole predicament. The last thing I remember was using my developing speed to outrun a wayward cow as we rounded up the animals to bring them in from the field. The next moment I'm stuck in the sheuch, the cow, having paused briefly, in amusement no doubt, has fallen into line and I see my dad's paternal instincts buried beneath his desire to get the stock home as he and the herd disappear towards the gate and three of my four foot is under a watery sludge. To be honest I never saw the sheuch, it having been well camouflaged beneath a carpet of grassy looking plants floating on its surface but I could see mother at the top of the hill in the distance probably wondering why I had chosen such a moment to rest when dad needed all the help he could get. There is indeed nowhere worse than the middle of a sheuch for it is as far backwards as it is forwards and all the time, with every step you are waiting to plunge deeper into oblivion. At some stage, I managed to move soggily forward and with one wellie still in place, made a squelching trek back to base, where sympathy was in short supply. The sheuch is long gone since the field was reseeded but I could still take you to the place where I found that the middle is not always a good place to be.

I am in the middle of a real good sleep when the phone rings. It is the middle of the night and wife is lying in the middle of the bed though her sense of symmetry when asleep is not perfect. Somewhere, in the middle of my bedside cabinet I find the phone and press the middle button. It isn't a local accent but I know immediately what he wants, for the only person who knows that I'm asleep at three o'clock is the man who monitors the school alarm. He never apologises for ringing but suggest that someone should find out why the siren is blaring at school. Wife has never been keen to address the situation though I keep reminding her that it is essentially her job, so eventually I emerge into the middle of the room and dress partially before exiting and driving off towards the village. The school is near the middle of the small hamlet but nobody else seems to have been disturbed by the noise except an individual some fifty miles away in Dundalk. I wait for the police backup in the middle of the drive but they never arrive and eventually I break in to the building and disarm the alarm. This has happened on a regular basis and to date there have been three possible causes, a fallen mobile in a classroom, an inquisitive spider crawling over a sensor or a mouse with insomnia. Neither animal appears remotely interested in stealing anything but they have got me out of my bed in the middle of the night and after lengthy phone calls to the alarm company to get the alarm reset, I discover that at night, the middle is not always a good place to be awake.

And I suppose that's generally true of a lot of situations, for to be in the middle is neither one place or the other, neither here nor there, neither starting or finishing. A middle order batsman is too good to end the batting in cricket but rarely good enough to start. To steer a middle course is to avoid anything or anybody that might disrupt. Even to be middle class puts people at neither end of the class spectrum. It can be comfortable being in the middle but rarely is it challenging. In the last book of the Bible, John is told by God to warn the church at Laodicea that to be in middle ground as far as their faith is concerned is to be of no use at all. He writes 'I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.' No, being in the middle is not good, for temptation is always nearby. That's why the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil were both in the middle of the garden of Eden. But those who have chosen the tree of knowledge instead of the tree of life can still make a fresh start. For the tree of life is now the middle cross at Calvary and Jesus waits to quench your thirst.

That's where you discover that being in the middle of God's will is a great place to be.