Nice to see yesterday that the football team belonging to the town where I last worked beat the high-flying Baggies to ensure they escape relegation (barring a spectacular goal-difference accident). Also they did their West Yorkshire neighbours a favour by making sure they go up. I guess some of the fans will be less chuffed about that.
In competitions like this, when one side wins another loses; when one side goes up, another goes down. In life, with limited resources, it’s the same – the more land I have, the less you have. But it’s not quite as simple as that. Wealth an also be created – human ingenuity and labour working to convert natural resources into goods and services that benefit people. … although it seems to me that many people who claim to be creating wealth seem only to be reallocating existing wealth to themselves. And then there’s the Kingdom of God, in which the last shall be first and the first last. Are there losers in the Kingdom? Read the Magnificat with a bit of anger in your voice and it would seem so. However, there’s also the imperatives of love, forgiveness, justice and mercy – building a community in which everyone has something.
Dear God,
I often feel like a loser,
I often want to be a winner.
Then I feel ashamed that someone else has lost.
I am glad that now (at least) my country has
ventilators, PPE.
But I am sad that many nations go without,
and many people will die.
God forgive us the mess we get into
and inspire us to navigate a way out.