Lanes Sour & Bog

I met with former school colleagues last week and went walking ahead of a superb beetroot soup and cheeseboard lunch. We went from Skipton-in-Craven to Stirton and Thorlby, then along the Leeds-Liverpool Canal back to our starting point. I chuckled at the junction by the old stocks on which Bog Lane joins Sour Lane. Neither sounds terribly pleasant, yet this is a highly desirable and much sought-after location.

“Sour Lane”, I thought. Yes, yes, I know some folk who could move here and well match its name. People who always complain, whose observations are always acerbic, whose characters are vinegary. Then there are those who should conveniently move to Bog Lane; those people who are never cheerful, always glum, regularly putting a damper on others’ joy. Of course, the actual denizens of Lanes Sour and Bog are likely to be rather cheerful and well-to-do, but I wonder if the personalities we display in our homes are litmus tests of the real thing. It is not what our friends or fellow chapel-goers think of us that counts; it is what we are like in the home that gives away our authentic identity. If your home is sour, it is because it reflects your heart and state of mind. God sees through religious habit and our thin coats of external piety; He sees the heart. Inside the whitewashed hypocrite He discerns all that is filthy and unclean; He also detects sincerity and earnestness where they, too, are found.