All our historic ramblings last week led me to thinking about legacies. We looked round so many historic buildings, which generally only became historic because somebody had the vision and determination to want to leave behind something that would make a difference to the world.
We saw the Roman baths in the city of Bath, an amazing engineering legacy:
We saw the majestic abbey in Bath, a soaring architectural legacy:
We visited the Cotswold Wildlife Park, where a local landowner had the vision to protect and breed endangered species as well as providing education about wildlife to local people (I liked the cute wallaby the best!)
But a legacy is not only something that you leave when you die. In Oxford, there were more modern legacies, such as the beautiful fountain at Christ Church whose inscription reads ‘Let everything that has breath praise the Lord’:
Or the lovely new gardens with fountain created thanks to a donation from a former member at Keble:
We often think you have to be rich to leave such a legacy. But God is interested in our lives and in what we are sowing into other people and into our communities. We might have no financial legacy to leave when we die, but daily we can leave behind good deeds, loving kindness and thoughtfulness. In the film ‘Evan Almighty’, these are called ‘acts of random kindness’. Our very lives are our legacies. What kind of legacy are we leaving?