This BBC last week showed to episodes called 'Rich, Famous and Hungry.' I was asked by a friend yesterday if I had seen it. I admitted I hadn't and he told me I should. So this morning I did. It shook me, again to the core and then I remembered a couple of weeks ago I wrote this blog but never published it, so here it is...
The disruption startled me. Barriers left lying haphazardly, pathways precarious, with boards for crossing holes. The stark baroness struck me. My heart ached. I felt love, compassion and pain. If I felt like this, how much more would the loving God of creation feel?!
Instantly numbness and mindful distractions overcame me. A friendly face and future dreams caught my imagination. Brief bliss.
Water mixed with cast off furniture, mud ridden driveways and barely standing walls. In contrast, a cross the road, a newly built housing estate, prim gardens and sparkling 4x4's. Extreme poverty back-to-back with wealth.
A slum in Nairobi? No, but this is what flashed into my mind.
Perhaps because I am meeting with dear friends who I shared existence with for a week in Nairobi, and three months in Tanzania, this morning. Or perhaps, God is opening my eyes to what surrounds me.
This week bishops, and other church leaders, have bombarded new articles with their condemnation of the way the government is treating UK citizens. The third wealthiest country in the world has poverty, the like of which I have observed and written of above!
Starvation, malnutrition and desolation grips our country. And the governments response? To tell the bishops to shut up and mind their own business.
A few weeks ago I wrote an essay on how the established church has a right to speak into Parliament, where other denominations would find this difficult. I can proudly say, they have proved my argument correct this week. For once, I am incredibly pleased to be a member of the Church of England, not just any member but an ordinand training.
Our God is a loving God. He does condemn us, but not without first trying everything He can to save us. He loves us and therefore, as a parent would try anything to help, support, nurture their child God, the ultimate parent, does ALL He can too. The problem? We like things done our way not His.
I am one of the worse! I like things to run as my imagination dictates, how grateful I am that it doesn't. Sometimes I am not grateful. It hurts, it sucks, and I don't like it. But I know from experience God is good.
