The Cheshire Cat came second to me in a smiling contest yesterday.

Yesterday afternoon, I stood in the church doing my welcoming, as waves of tourists came in, thronging around the church, wandering, wondering, looking, thinking, commenting.  And God’s house was full of people.  And my heart was glad.

Then I heard the cricket being played near our house, packed myself a prawn salad in a lunchbox, grabbed a thermos of coffee and a little luxury drink.  And sat and watched men in cricket whites, engrossed in a game.  There were only 10 other spectators.  One of them, a youth with hair coloured green, seemed very twitchy and kept getting up from the spectators benches, walking down stairs and along a bit, then strolling around and coming back.  Such is my tenuous grasp of sport (and the attention I give to my food) that it was half an hour before I realized that he was changing the score display, below the raised seating, and out of view of the spectators.

Today feels a lot less cheery.

But this is when I realized what I want to share with you: sometimes we can’t see the score in life – but play anyway.  It counts.