Just started reading Kate Atkinson’s latest novel Transcription (just appeared in paperback — whee!) and I come across an epigraph which includes the translation of this Latin inscription in the foyer of Broadcasting House.
“This Temple of the Arts and Muses is dedicated to Almighty God by the first Governors of Broadcasting in the year 1931, Sir John Reith being Director-General. It is their prayer that good seed sown may bring forth a good harvest, that all things hostile to peace or purity may be banished from this house, and that the people, inclining their ear to whatsoever things are beautiful and honest and of good report, may tread the path of wisdom and uprightness.”
“…That the people, inclining their ear to whatsoever things are beautiful and honest and of good report, may tread the path of wisdom and uprightness…”
In the present car crash of British politics: the Brexit referendum, the implosion of the Tory party, the unfathomable triumph of the Brexit Party whose only policy is that they want to crash us out of the European Union even if it means leaving with no deal … I’m wondering if the first Governors of Broadcasting didn’t pray hard enough? Or, more likely, whether it’s ‘the people’ who have simply squandered their precious inheritance of honesty, good report, wisdom, uprightness and faith.
(The title of this post is from Jeremiah 22.29, the prophet’s lament over God’s people’s wilful deafness, refusing to hear and heed God’s message to them: “O land, land, land, hear the word of the Lord!”)
Godspelled 