The Last Chapter in the Last Book in the Series

“We may not be on the last page but it’s the last chapter in the last book in the series.”

That was a comment from a pensions manager friend of mine relating to what we are seeing around the world and I think he’s got it about right.

I’m not one to go on about ‘end times’ and try and plot and plan what the Bible says on these things, but I’d be pretty blind not to see the relationship between what we are seeing in Japan, New Zealand and Northern Africa and some of the apocalyptic verses in the last chapter of the last book in the series!

The Bible says a lot about the times we live in. More importantly, it points to the answer. Have a read.

My thanks to Jim Churcher for the quote

Windmills

Hidden away in my middle-class, safe-as-houses existence, it is hard to begin to understand what the people of Libya, Egypt, Tunisia and other countries are going through.

The bravery of those standing in the streets of Libya, seeking freedom and democracy is astounding. The best I can do is to offer my prayers for peace and a quote to encourage:

"When the winds of change are blowing, some people build shelters; others build windmills." (Chris Bucchere)

Where Am I?

This is a story attributed to the great Reformer, Martin Bucer. He tells of a forgetful Rabbi.

Each morning the Rabbi would wake up and forget where he had put his clothes. It would literally take him all day to find them and put them on. And by the time he was dressed, it was time to go to bed again.

This was happening day after day. One day he had an idea. ‘Why not write down where I store my clothes and put the note by my bed?’ So he did.

The next morning, he saw the note and was able to dress straight away, with all of the rest of the day still ahead of him.

He looked around the room. ‘Now’, he said, ‘where am I?’

How many of us are so busy with ‘getting dressed’, doing the day to day chores of life without thinking too much of the more fundamental questions such as ‘where am I’?

Pardon?

THE SCENE: Early Saturday morning. Ralph & Roh still in bed. Ralph snoozing. Roh doing and early morning Bible study.

ROH: “I didn’t realise how much the Ferris’s dislike Jesus”

RALPH (suddenly fully awake): “What did you say?!”

ROH: “The Ferris’s. They really hate Jesus.”

RALPH: “No they don’t.”

ROH: “They do!”

RALPH: “But Roh, Ian Ferris leads worship on Sunday’s and Gill works in the church office.”

ROH: “Not the Ferris’s you deaf old thing. The Pharisees!”

Pensions Rocks

Over two nights this week, the great and the good- and the musically talented- of the pensions industry have been gathering at a night club on Oxford Street for a battle of the bands. (Well done to Towers Watson who won on the night I was there. Although I though the Standard Life lot pushed them close with a great version of ‘Smoke on the Water’!)

And pensions really does rock! What started for me 34 years ago in the Clerical Medical & General Insurance Society pensions legal department has served me well. In those days, pensions really was a bit of a ‘backwater’, but I stuck with it, saw the light and got out of the legal department (apologies to lawyers reading this) and have enjoyed a great career. What I saw as ‘boring’ at the start of my career has ended up as anything but- challenging, political, front page, but never boring!

The reason for writing this then? It’s not going to be so much of my career from April. I will be stepping down as Pensions & Benefits Director at Mars and stepping into something new. A bit of church work, a bit of charity work in India, finishing my third book, a part time MA in Theology.... and, I hope, keeping a foot in the pensions industry with a trustee position or two. Anyway, no one is allowed to use the ‘R’ word. No retirement yet.

So thank you pensions, you really do rock. And thank you to all my friends and colleagues who have worked with me over the years at Clerical Medical, Bowring & Layborn, Swiss Life, EMI. EMAP, Brambles, ICI and Mars. Here’s to pensions continuing to rock (slightly more gently) for a good few years yet.....

This Good Day

I had the privilege as a trustee director of the Leprosy Mission of interviewing eleven candidates for the National Director’s job last week. At the end of each interview, one of our panel, a Quaker by background, prayed. This is how she started each prayer:

“Dear Lord. Heavenly Father. We thank you for today. This good day…..”

What a beautiful way of praying. ‘This good day’. After eleven times, I really got into this prayer. It meant so much.

We can choose how we manage our day. We can decide it’s an average day if we want. We can be forever looking to the future and awaiting the next big thing. We can look with fear on a particular meeting or job requirement. Or we can declare at the beginning of the day that this is a good day.

Lord I thank you for this good day.

Heartwater

Her heart was pounding. Slowly she opened the door. As an ‘outsider’, a prostitute, she had no right to enter the house and interrupt the meal. But her passion was greater than her fear. She ran to him, poured perfume on him, washed his feet with her tears, dried them with her hair.

This story from the Bible (Luke 7:38) is a beautiful picture of worship.

In those times, it was usual for the host to arrange for his guests feet to be washed- kind of necessary because of the state of the roads. But the host had not done so.

This lady does what should have been done. She should not have been there. She should not have entered the house. But her love for Jesus overcame her fear of being turned away.

It’s a powerful picture. Giving her all. Overcoming fear. The reformer Martin Luther called her tears ‘heartwater’.

As we go in to another year, what is it we are worshipping? (We all worship something!) What are we passionate about? And when we cry, cry out, shout or sing- are the tears heartwater?