Too Busy for God's Sweeping

In Tesco's deli section a kid was shrieking. Ermina, at the till, said it was because the parents overfed it.

‘Children never hear “No”, these days, and they get very screechy in here,' she clarified.

Ermina, coming from a Seychelles shanty town, had never had supermarkets full stop. ‘Stalls by the side of the road at best. But feeling gratitude for anything and everything is the Lord’s blessing on us. It is most certainly not on the way, this child’s attitude, to being the person who first thing Sunday in Sunday out gives up their time unquestioningly and with no need of thanks to sweep the church steps.’

I asked Ermina, was she talking about herself? I could see her with a triumphal, praising, blessed sweep parting the dust like God did the Red Sea.

She said, ‘No, not me. I still have things I can do with my Sundays, thanks be to God. I go swimming in Brockley, have an ice cream. Sometimes going overground to Clapham Common to see what the trees are up to. It’s Bettina does the sweeping. But, obviously, not for much longer…’

I didn’t feel I should ask.

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