I once had a whim and I had to obey it . . .

As I have already mentioned, one of the nice moments of the Rosary Crusade was seeing, and finally having the chance to talk to, the charming leutgeb : and thinking about it since has reminded me of a song . . . inevitably, perhaps, as she is a French Horn player - something I tried, but failed miserably, to become - and the title of this post is, of course, the first line of the appropriate song !

More to the point, though, pondering that line, for no particularly good reason, made me recognize that there is so much truth in it . . . that for many of us, it is fugitive whims which lead us to do things : and whilst the odd whim about something trivial is undoubtedly not a bad thing per se, we must always give proper thought to significant things before we go off and do them, lest we be led by a whim to do something which is not right for us. (I hasten to add, for the sake of clarity, that meeting and chatting to leutgeb is not in that category !).

In an odd way, you see, it seems to me that doing that is another sort of lukewarmness : being prepared to do significant things without proper thought just shows that we don't really care about the effect of what we do; are indifferent to the long-term consequences . . . which is clearly both stupid and, potentially, disastrous.

So : let us consider our whims seriously before we act on them . . . and whilst I am sure that this will be popular with Almighty God, if it prevents rash purchases in second-hand shops then such prudence may also be popular with our neighbours !