I've come across this word applied to God in a book by Julian Barnes but I don't understand it.
And perhaps God doesn't mind being addressed only in emergency. It may
seem to bystanders that any sensible deity ought to be offended by
such spotty, self-interested attention.
But He might view things differently. He might, modestly, not want to
be a daily, occluding presence in our lives. He might enjoy being a
breakdown specialist, an insurance company, a longstop.
I've found the phrase longstop or long-stop or long stop date, but it doesn't seem to make sense in the text. References to longstop as a single word without hyphen appear almost only in .uk domain, so I think is British English. I also found this explanation in a book:
In cricket a 'longstop' is a fielder who is placed a few yards
directly behind the wicketkeeper so that if the wicketkeeper fails to
stop the ball then the long-stop is there to provide cover for the
wicketkeeper and stop the ball reaching the boundary. The principle in
Hastings-Bass used to have this role in case trustees caused a loss in trust in the exercise of their powers (like the ball getting past
the wicketkeeper) by simply having the exercise of those powers
reversed after the event.
But I don't fully grasp it. What is the longstop Barnes is referring to? Would you provide any examples or synonyms?
Best Answer
I believe that "longstop" is referring to the cricket position, and that makes sense in context: the job of the longstop is to act as backup for the wicket keeper.
If everything goes according to plan, they will never have to do anything - the wicket keeper will stop the ball. But, sometimes, due to a mistake by the wicket keeper, or an unexpected bounce, etc, the ball will get past the wicket keeper and the longstop will step in to stop the ball instead.
In this sense, the longstop position is a form of insurance - like a breakdown specialist, and an insurance company (the other examples) - you only need them when things go wrong, or not as planned, but when you need them you are glad that they're there.
The writer is saying that God might be like this - that He only intervenes in emergencies, perhaps to save someone from dying in an accident, or when someone is very depressed, etc.