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Good Morning. If you didn’t catch sight of Vincent Van Gough’s Study for Worn Out – a similar drawing to the one already housed in Amsterdam’s Van Gough museum –it’s worth seeking it out. This earlier sketch is now also on public display there alongside the finished article until the New Year. At first sight the pencil drawings reminded me thematically of Edvard Munch’s painting The Scream which represents the inherent anxiety of the human condition. But Van Gough’s vivid depictions of an old, baldish, man – his huge hands heavily cradling his cowed head -speak rather of tiredness & exhaustion: a deep weariness rather. My old friend the former Generation Game host Larry Grayson used to start his music-hall act holding on grimly to an old chair for support - before leaning on it and sighing to his expectant audience – “Oh, I’m worn out!” People laughed because they often felt the same. And these Van Gough studies quite literally draw us in the same way because we identify entirely with what is depicted there. Even more so surely after many months of inverted routines: for many of us perhaps amongst the fortunate with something to do, our heads have been down as we’ve battled to achieve our many targets. People frequently talk openly to me of being shattered. Thankfully, as a Christian, the various books of the bible address the spiritual effects of tiredness and fatigue. The wisdom literature, not least the psalms, speak often of sagging spirits and the need to look to God for rest and the recuperation of the soul. The Prophets also talk often of God giving strength to the weary and energy to the weak. But without a doubt, the Van Gough drawings conjure up for me the magnificent story of the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus tells his exhausted disciples to keep watch and alert whilst he prays. Three times he returns to find that they have nodded off. Leading him to declare that the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. So perhaps it’s at least worth considering the Anglican Nun Sister Margaret Magdalen’s antidote to weariness via three simple steps alongside Van Gough’s representations of what it means to be worn out: first, stop rushing about; second, try not to waste your energy; and finally leave some space to be prepared for the unexpected. For none of us knows what tomorrow will bring.