Foreseeing how things may work out in the future can be a risky business. In the last edition of Chipperfield News I assumed that those who took a balloon ride on the Common at the Village Day would have had a clear aerial view of the village – it did not work out that way!
Now as I come to write for this edition (in late May), the Government have just outlined the preliminary spending cuts they intend to make to start tackling our enormous debt problem. I don’t think I will be wrong in saying that tackling the debt problem will impact on us all. It seems to me that this is, however, a double–headed problem. There is clearly a fiscal issue but there is also an attitude issue which we need to face. The latter is the more important; indeed, without facing this the fiscal one will be much more painful and damaging to our country.
Firstly, we need to avoid the blame culture which puts the blame for what we face on ‘greedy’ bankers or on MP’s expenses. Doing this fogs the issue that as a nation for many years we have lived in a culture that has been one of ‘have today and pay tomorrow’. In one way or another we are all responsible – in different measure may be, but…
The next issue is that the pain of facing all this will inevitably hit some harder than others and this calls for a generosity of spirit all round: towards our Government as they struggle with this, (they will never get everything absolutely right!) and towards those hardest hit in our society (and beyond!). We do need to have a real care for the poorest of our land so those of us who have more resources under our control, (whilst we, too, will find this crisis affects us), could in a spirit of generosity learn to be more supportive of those most deeply affected by all that faces us in the future.
This crisis (the word really means judgement!) challenges us all to learn to live with less; generosity prevailing over acquisitiveness. That is deeply counter–cultural. To put it in New Testament terms ‘Godliness with contentment is great gain’. Only the Spirit of God within us can bring about such a transformation.
May his Spirit be at work in me, and in all of us!
With my prayers, Jim Stevens