Somewhere Firm to Stand

The world as we know it is shaking. Today I received one of those familiar circular emails that talks about all that has changed since we were kids, and much has, like, sadly enough: fireworks - but it’s also fascinating to realise how much hadn’t... until now.

I saw photos last night of Christ Church cathedral, minus much of its spire and bearing gaping wounds, I remember taking the tourist tour as a kid, it seemed so old to me, so permanent. I’ve been watching with fascination the developments in the Middle East and North Africa and watching dictators who have ruled their petty fiefdoms for longer than I have been alive, staggering, if not toppling from their once apparently unassailable positions. Much like the fall of the soviet block in 1989, these givens of the international political landscape are suddenly and unforeseeably passing.

And this instability is only the distant sort. In the last few years Australia herself has seen droughts, floods, fires, cyclones, international economic collapse, and all on a scale not seen for a very long time, if at all… things are changing.

And it just strikes me how fragile so many of the things we take as certainties are. We live each day, and make deals and buy and sell and love and laugh, all dependent upon the assumption that the society in which we live and move, will go on, much as it did yesterday, at least until after our retirement. But where do we get this assumption from? If anything, history should teach us that virtually everything societally, environmentally and economically that we generally depend upon, is actually fragile and subject to change at very short notice. Just take a look at the garage of someone who grew up in the depression. Notice all the ‘this might be useful one day’ odds and ends, and you’ll realise that former generations didn’t see life with the same blind trust in its stability that our younger generations seem to.

And if they are fleeting and passing, why do we put so much store in them?

If a flood can take a house, if an economic collapse can take a retirement nest egg: perhaps it might be time for a reassessment both of what we value, and in what we trust?

When change comes, what will we try to preserve? When necessity forces us to choose only a very limited selection from the things that fill our lives, what will we deem truly valuable? And when the people and institutions we look to and depend upon, reveal themselves to be unworthy of our trust, to whom will we turn?

Biblically, there are only two things significant enough to committ your life to: People and God. By implication, there are only two things really worth treasuring and building your life around: People and God. As the world changes around you, make sure the important stuff is kept at the centre, where it belongs.

May you find a firm place to stand, in a shakey world,

Blessings,

Douglas Haley.