Littlehampton Churches: Navigating the potholes of life
Littlehampton Churches’ monthly Littlehampton Gazette article – this month’s by Paul Sanderson MBE, Chaplain, The Littlehampton Academy
When Jesus sent out his disciples to listen, be kind and heal, I wonder how many potholes they came across on their journey.
One suggestion about the origin of the word pothole is that it comes from poor pot makers who could not afford clay. They went to the Roman roads and stole clay from the surface, so leaving holes. It has been estimated that, on average, there are currently about six potholes per mile on council-controlled roads in England and Wales.
These same disciples were told that if anyone rejected them and their message of hope, they should shake their dust off their sandals. That symbolic gesture was to encourage them to leave any animosity, anger or rejection behind and move forward.
How often do we carry the dust of revenge or negativity around with us? When Dadarao Bilhore lost his 16-year-old son to a motorbike accident caused by a pothole in a Mumbai road in 2015, grief could have turned him into an angry man.
Instead, a month later, he walked out with a shovel and found a pothole. In the years since, he has filled more than 1,450 potholes by hand – most of them being the kind a rider doesn’t see until it’s too late. His logic: “I have lost my kid; I don’t want you to lose yours.”
What Dadarao built from the worst moment of his life has been a quiet blessing for countless unknown strangers who walk, bike, and drive through streets smoothed over by a father’s love.
How we respond to challenges can be the making of us. Things often don’t go right. There are lots of figurative potholes in our life journey. We can try to avoid them but most often we bump into them and get shaken and sometimes fall.
We can shake the dust off and try and move on, perhaps with help from friends and family. Or maybe, like Dadarao, we can put our pain to use to help others.
When I hit a pothole in life I have people I can turn to. And in my role as Chaplain I look around to see who has hit a pothole and ask: “Is there anything I can do?”
There are a lot of potholes out there, and a lot of resentment, too. Each real pothole I see when cycling or driving I always try to avoid or go slow over. But now I also think about the potholes of life that I and others face – and what together we can do for a kinder world. Safe travels on this road called life!