91Èȱ¬

From Canon Ann Easter, Chaplain to the Queen:

The other day, a young man on the Underground commented on my use of my very modern mobile phone, saying that people of my generation aren’t usually IT savvy – blooming cheek!! I’ve had a mobile since they were bricks cos I’m a great gadget fan, particularly in the kitchen, I’ve got them all; my favourite is my bread maker – it’s quick, easy, smells fab - and in the bathroom I’ve got the thing for firing water through the gaps in my teeth and where would I be without the all singing, talk to me nicely, sat-nav in the car – I’d be still at home, that’s where, desperately trying to work out which way up the map’s meant to go! So I was fascinated to see that, in Austria, Germany and Switzerland, today is Inventors’ Day and I think we should have an Inventors’ Day here in Britain too!

While we can’t claim Mr Biro or Mr Bic as ours, the lovely English Tim Berners Lee inventing the World Wide Web and I reckon he’s well worth celebrating because, as he said ‘Anyone who has lost track of time when using the computer knows the propensity to dream and the urge to make those dreams come true.’ So he not only invented something amazing, he was glad that it offered to other people an unprecedented and almost infinite opportunity to enquire and to question which in turn leads to ever more exciting ideas, inventions and discoveries.

In a very romantic and unscientific way, The Bible tells us how God created the Universe and everything in it and then let us play with it. And I’m happy to believe that principle because it seems to me that discovering things about the Universe reveals the nature of its Creator – and we realise how wonderfully we are made too.

After all, those inventors are actually people who eat and sleep and love, just like us, so, although we might not invent something to rival the universal application of antibiotics or semi-conductors on this Inventors’ Day, I believe God gives us unlimited new ideas, and is just waiting for us to try them out.  Could be an interesting Monday…