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Good morning. One of the most memorable Thoughts for the Day for me goes back to the early 1970s. It was by the well-known Methodist writer and broadcaster Dr Colin Morris. How much better our lives would be, he said, if our communication with others more often contained these three short phrases: ‘I don’t know’. ‘I’m sorry’. And ‘thank you’.

Three phrases which express that essentially Christian virtue of humility.

A virtue that is out of fashion at the moment. Instead we are told we should take pride in who we are and what we stand for, talk up our achievements and deny or skate over our failures.

So many of our human problems boil down to an insistence that we know what’s what, that we are right about it and that we owe no one anything let alone our thanks. And so we plough on through life, apparently confident and sure of ourselves, and so on. But also disconnected, anxious, lonely. Lack of humility leads to problems in our closest relationships. And it is also a problem between nations and within societies. FLUFF AND RETAKE HERE Who, in the Middle East, who, between Ukraine and Russia, who in the American Presidential election is ever likely to say: I don’t know. I’m sorry, Thank you. National pride seems to depend on never being wrong. And in our corporate and institutional lives there’s a whole industry of publicists, reputation managers and lawyers to help keep self-righteousness intact. We huff and puff and its never enough.

Yet just think what a difference it would have made if the Post Offices bosses or the heads of Fujitsu or the Ministers responsible had been able to say, ‘I don’t know’ to questions about the software. It might have made for a better investigation. And an early and more sincere expression of ‘I’m sorry’ might have prevented the cruel mistreatment of those who were innocent all along. The current apologies are just too little and too late. And then, thank you. Where there is justice and reparation it is good to express gratitude. When faults are admitted, owned and repented of gratitude seals the deal. Another example of humility. Perhaps we should speak up for humility – it can’t easily do it for itself! Actually, and to illustrate his point, I’m sorry if I’ve remembered Colin Morris’s thought wrong. I don’t know exactly what he said fifty years ago but thank you to anyone who does.

His point remains though. These little phrases puncture our pride and enable the flow of human communication. They may just be the most important things we ever say.

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