In human history, from time to time heroes have arisen to meet the challenge of the times. At times of crisis this has been especially important, and not just in the age of the media soundbite.
Over the last few months a lot of focus has been on America, as the whole election process moves on from selection of candidates and soon to the election itself. This time period has seen no shortage of major news.
For the first time in recent history, America did not win the most medals in the Olympics. That honour went to the host nation of China, in a Games which has been described in ways which see it as China’s greatest entry onto the world stage as the new superpower, with America itself declining in a way paralleled by the relative success of its athletes. Even if Michael Phelps may have won more medals on his own than many entire countries, the showcase athletics sprint events which have been largely dominated by America saw victory for other nations and more than one American athlete reflected ruefully on the disastrous men’s and women’s 4 x 100m relay [and Britain, the reigning champions in men's 4 x 100m, were disqualified..., even if Britain had her most successful Olympics for a very long time]
Talk of credit crisis has spread around the world, seeming to stem from the corruption of the American dream bloated on the empty promise of cheap loans aggressively marketed by banks who now find themselves unable to meet their own borrowings. Capitalism itself has shown its evil under-belly, but is there a better way?
And in the middle of it all a hurricane hit Houston …
Who will step up and be elected on 4 November in the hope that he will be hero in this context of crisis?
Whatever happens in the US elections, many people are talking about the shaking of their confidence. What CAN we put our trust in?
In this context I find myself more and challenged by the ancient words:
“Do not tremble, do not be afraid.
Did I not proclaim this and foretell it long ago?
You are my witnesses. Is there any God besides me?
No, there is no other Rock; I know not one.” (Isaiah 44:8 )
dadfest
Back in June, we held our second Dadfest father’s day event and we took ‘heroes’ as our theme. It is an evocative idea in many different realms – the battlefield, the workplace, the family home…
There are so many films which explore this theme. Dadfest was a lot of fun, and ‘heroes’ gave us a great opportunity to explore some of the exciting challenges that God presents to us all, particularly men. We had a great big garden party afterwards – in fact 200 people made even bigger than last year when we 80 people came along. It was wonderful that people had a lot of fun. Many from St Mark’s Church found it much easier to invite friends with last year’s experience to look back to.
For months, we have been talking about little baby brother …and those last two months did seem to be very long!
