Someone Ought To Do Something!

Ironically, coming on the day that I have realised that I hate someone, I find that they might be the same person who builds our church, brings relief to those caught up in debt, resolves all the ills of the global banking excesses and counsels those people who tick us off by their errant lifestyles.

I've had a telephone call from a lovely Christian person who has rung to tell me that they have noticed a new person begging in the centre of town. Apparently they looked really cold this morning as they sat in the covered shopping area begging.

I asked what the caller had done regarding the new addition to our community and asked what their name was.

"Oh, I don't know, " was the response, "I didn't talk to them. I just noticed they were there and thought that someone needed to do something about it, so I rang you."

Well, the good news is that 'someone' will do something about the new arrival (going to have a look now) but it's sad that people can identify needs but don't set about addressing them but pass them on to someone else.

Perhaps the Good Samaritan needs a rewrite whereby the hero of the piece merely phones someone who then takes care of the battered Levite?

When you see a need this Christmas (and after Christmas too) could you do more than just pray - because good as it is, there's something more that needs to be done. Mind you, it wasn't that long ago that one of our beggars (Mick Weir) froze to death in a bus shelter and despite all the good intentions, determined words and posturing, we haven't moved on from the attitudes and haven't made any provision for people such as him.

Perhaps we're waiting for someone to do it?

Governed by Children - Elastic Money

Listening to R4 this morning I was entertained and enraged in equal measure as those who occupy the House of commons put on an early season pantomime.

We had the Conservatives looking all too fixated on the trade unions and whilst we know that Milliband (whom I liked more when he was working with Grommit*) and his party owe their position and much of their money to these bodies, it spoke greatly of something sinister lying beneath the surface.

Better still we had plans unveiled to put young people (NNETs) into some for f training or employment. There was talk of funding apprenticeships and it was all sounding rather familiar until the source of funding was pointed out - it will come, in part, from the young person's family's Tax Credits being 'squeezed' i.e. they won't rise with inflation with the effect that there a family member might have a job, albeit temporary, and the family will suffer for the privilege!.

Wow, at last we are seeing Biblical from the government in that those who have will be given even more and those who have less will see it taken away! When I said I wanted to see Biblical stuff associated with the running of our nation, this wasn't what I had in mind!!!

Turning over there was a trade union representative who was bleating about the fact that the government was illegal and undemocratic as they, "Didn't vote for them!". What a plonker, the reason we have a coalition is because no party received the mandate to form a government! (PR isn't the remedy to this situation either). As the unionist continued it transpired that what they meant was, "The government isn't a Labour government!" A blinking good thing when you see the mess they made of their time in office.

The very bestest bit came this morning when we were regaled with, yet another, way in which the money that a 'banker's tax' will be used to aid those less well off. This was the seventh use of the same pot thus far and it made me realise that perhaps the monetary assumptions made by our younger children might not be as flawed as we assumed. After all, one gets a tenner as a birthday present and for the next month they ask if they can have 'mmm'? When asked how they can pay for it, the same old tenner is mentioned. Seems Gorgeous george (Osborne), Calamitous Clegg and Camaeron (the calamitous twins?) are all using the same mathematics!

So where are the Christian voices being raised over this nation and the way it is being run (reading the Daily Fascist perhaps?) and the fact that I meet families whose children are NEET (Not in Education, Employment of Training by the way) because they have lost £20-30 a week EMA (Education Maintenance Allowance). I wonder how much of that sum is now paid in JobSeekers Allowance and what the monetary cost to this nation will be when we take into account those who will be untrained or uneducated such that they swell the ranks of the unemployed (and receiving benefits) in the years ahead. I deal with children who eat once a day because they receive free school meals (so what happens on an INSET day or in holidays?) and no one even flinches. Shameful!

* QED

Pax

Home Interests Versus Foreign Aid

I received this from a friend:

I'm still scratching my head at this one.

British Homeless go without eating.

British Elderly go without needed medicines.

British Mentally ill go without treatment.

British Troops go without proper equipment.

British Veterans go without benefits they were promised.

Yet we donate billions to other countries before helping our own first.

Have the guts to re-post this. 1% will re-post and 99% won't have the guts!!..

Having worked in poorer nations, I see the comments above as being relative, but have enough truth in them to make people respond, and respond negatively, which I assume is the purpose of the post.

I am reminded of the words of Mark 7: 25 - 30:

"Immediately a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit heard of him and came and fell down at his feet. Now the woman was a Gentile, a Syrophoenician by birth. And she begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. And he said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” But she answered him, “Yes, Lord; yet even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” And he said to her, “For this statement you may go your way; the demon has left your daughter.” And she went home and found the child lying in bed and the demon gone."

Here we have a foreigner coming to Jesus asking for healing for her child. There are a few ways to interpret this story. The first being that once the 'children' are fed and full, then the dogs (the name for Gentiles i.e. foreigners) can be fed. Meaning that we look after our own first and then, when all are replete, we will turn our attention to the foreigners. The question here is, "Will we ever have enough for others?"

Another is that the children are being fed and so the dogs can eat what falls to the ground from their plenty. They realise that they aren't allowed at the table, but from the much that the children have, enough falls to provide also for them. The question here is, "Will we ever be good stewards of what we have or will we continue to be wasteful and profligate?"

Is this about us, or about others?

Why are homeless people homeless and what do we, and those who post the comments above, what do they do about the homeless? My experience is that they complain that not enough is being done by the welfare state rather than get involved. It becomes all about them and their actions (or inaction) and expectations of others doing something (after all, that's what we pay taxes for).

Drugs for the old? Aren't they in receipt of free prescriptions? Is this a statement of fact or just manipulative and sensationalising the situation for their own ends?

Mental Health issues? Working in this area (I'm a Vicar, it's what we do!) has shown me that we live in a society which tolerates the mentally ill badly, provides for them scantily and supports them woefully. But this is about more than money (although more would be useful)!

I have to say that the equipment situation is improving and it's more logistics than anything else that appears to be the problem a lot of the time (if what I'm told is true) rather than cash. I'd be more supportive if the reference was about establishment and manning!

I deal with a number of British Veterans and whilst I don't always think we honour the Covenant to the full, and whilst I see a great many errors and frustratingly awful procedural things, these are organisational rather than financially motivated. Lost files, stuffed up medical issues and the like rarely have anything to do with finances.

So I have posted the piece here.

Do you think we should feed our own first? Where do we start feeding others and being responsible for others in the global village that is the world?

Pax