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Just an Old Hat

 A few weeks ago we returned from holiday in a delightful coastguard cottage near Weymouth, Dorset, overlooking Chesil Bank and the lagoon or “Fleet” it protects. But I’ll always remember it for one thing: I left behind an old friend.

After we arrived home, I found I’d forgotten something. Don’t we always forget something when going on holiday? This time for me, when leaving. It was a hat. Not just any hat, but an old buddy. It had a wide brim and chin cord, Aussi-style (without the corks). Fact is, I’ve been hair-challenged for decades, so the hat was essential protection for my bald head in the sun. It was my companion over hundreds of miles. It climbed with me up Lake District Mountains. We’ve trekked together over North York Moors and Yorkshire Dales. We’ve wandered in Scottish glens, got lost in Irish bogs, lazed together on sun-kissed beaches . . . but we’ll travel together no more. No more shall we share sandwiches at the wind-break on Helvellyn, no more hot chocolate together at the top of Blencathra. 

I admit though, it did get a bit sweaty on hot days. Casting around our Dorset Cottage for somewhere it could dry out, I left it hanging from a lamp standard, in a corner — and of course, out of sight is out of mind. So my old friend got left behind. Missed it too late. Cleaners threw it out, thought it was rubbish we didn’t want. Understandable: it was misshapen, stained, floppy, not exactly shouting “valuable” to anyone else. 

Sometimes I’ve found myself under an unexpected sun without my hat. But I never go out without a handkerchief. So, unlike the hapless pedestrian on Ilkley Moor, a handkerchief knotted at four corners comes to the rescue. Strangely on these occasions, my wife and friends walk apart, pretending not to know me! Yet what an admirable hat a handkerchief makes. Nevertheless, in the interest of marital peace, after returning from holiday I needed to seek out a new hat. I was shocked to find, in the hiking shop, that designer hiking hats are now fifty, sixty, even seventy pounds! Of course, you pay for the label, not the hat.  At those prices, a knotted hanky for me! Fortunately I found, in a secluded part of the shop, perfectly serviceable hats with less trendy labels. I got one for fourteen pounds. It hasn’t got the memories of my old friend, but it’s fast becoming a new friend and we’ll create new memories together.

Ever felt like an old hat? Or worse, a knotted handkerchief? Thought yourself a disregarded relic, not much use, past your sell-by date, needing to be replaced? We all have feelings of inadequacy now and again, though I think when youthful vigour and drive are past, it’s easy to feel life is passing by and we have no part to play anymore. We have a saying, “old hat”, about something that’s outdated, or tediously familiar.

Well, Jesus loves old hats, even knotted hankies. He loves everyone, no matter how inadequate, unfashionable, discouraged, or dispirited — perhaps especially those people. The Sermon on the Mount begins “Blessed are the poor in spirit”, and goes on to mention the meek and the persecuted — in fact the outsiders. Again and again he sought out the rejected and disadvantaged, the distressed and sorrowful. In his love, we are never “old hat” never left hanging in a corner or forgotten, never useless or disposable. In his Epistle to the Romas, Paul testifies:

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
(Romans 8:35,38,39)

There is no doubt whatsoever that no matter how old, how feeble, how diminished by ailment or age we remain persons of consequence in the eyes of our Redeemer. Whether young or old, genius or the slowest dunce, or like most of us somewhere in between, our Father cares for us, our Saviour loves us. No matter what kind of hat we wear, even a knotted hanky, we have eternal purpose and value for our Lord.

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