“I see a man of around 50, coming back from his work in the City of London.It’s a soft summer’s evening, so there’s no need to put the car in the garage.
He can hear the sound of his children’s voices coming from the garden, and he feels an acute sense of wellbeing as he walks around the side of the house, only pausing to smell the exquisite scent of the white roses he planted last year. Earlier that day, the man, a senior accountant at one of Britain’s leading oil corporations, had presented the final spreadsheets in the report which determined that a coastal area the size of Scotland in southern Nigeria would soon be developed. He cannot connect this fragrant evening in leafy north London with his work earlier that day. He cannot, or perhaps will not allow himself to, connect his life in London with the lives of those in Nigeria about to be devastated by his tapping at a keyboard.
Who was the senior accountant who looked at the spreadsheets for this project?
Who at the merchant bank dealt with the finance capital?
Who authorised the project to go ahead?
Who decided that they wouldn’t negotiate with the Ogoni villagers?
Who telephoned the Nigerian Government to ask for the mobile police force to be sent?
How are we to show the violence of a spreadsheet?
How are we to show the violence of a set of minutes?
How are we to show the violence of an idea?"
From the performance of
Killing Us SoftlyI like this... although it is intended to speak specifically to Oil and bureaucracy etc, I think it also portrays the power of an individual to impact the world for good or bad (in extremes, sometimes) as well as highlighting the potential violence of some very mundane, everyday procedures (Buying that latte from Starbucks from example!)
Let us believe that God can bring more than aid and debt relief; true freedom and empowerment for the developing nations. Would God do it through the G8? Shivers, who knows, but at least we can pray that they won't get in the way eh...
(Here are some more photos of the day.)
He can hear the sound of his children’s voices coming from the garden, and he feels an acute sense of wellbeing as he walks around the side of the house, only pausing to smell the exquisite scent of the white roses he planted last year. Earlier that day, the man, a senior accountant at one of Britain’s leading oil corporations, had presented the final spreadsheets in the report which determined that a coastal area the size of Scotland in southern Nigeria would soon be developed. He cannot connect this fragrant evening in leafy north London with his work earlier that day. He cannot, or perhaps will not allow himself to, connect his life in London with the lives of those in Nigeria about to be devastated by his tapping at a keyboard.
Lifelong friend and ministry tool of the Roots Engage Team.
"The remarkable thing about television is that it permits several million people to laugh at the same joke and still feel lonely." T.S. Eliot
So, the other day I was pondering on the idea of Jesus followers being "in the world but not of it" (this chap goes into it well) and had a vision. 
"If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what then, is an empty desk?" 
We sung this old Salvation Army hymn at the church service today (lyrics just there in the red.) I dug it. . . I dug it because for me the fact that Jesus dying and coming back to life means "the end of mortal days", floats my boat. Do you ever sometimes wake up and think 'sheesh, life is like a shrivelled up raisin' ? (I do.) I love it that Jesus offers a way out of meaninglessness... mere mortality... simple survival... This verse is a reminder that Jesus opens the door to a life deeper and more colourful than we can imagine, a life where darkness is defeated, and where love oozes over us (and hopefully) out of us.
