Our World Today

Posted on October 1, 2012 by Bert Hielema

Till Debt does us part.

Ponderings on a Parable.

The parable of the Ten Bridesmaids, as recorded in Matthew 25, starts in a unique way. Jesus continues his outline of the End of the World, as related in the previous chapter, a time when suddenly everything goes haywire, simply with three words: “at that time.” How do we know that ‘the End is near?’  We don’t. Everything is completely normal, because ‘at that time’ people get married and life goes on as if nothing is the matter. No warning whatsoever that time is up.

We know the parable of the five wise and five foolish bridesmaids. If I were to film this scene I would see ten excited young women, each having done her best to look pretty, but still a bit unsure how they would compare to the chosen. Only when they had examined how the others were attired, did they feel better and more at ease.

To me they all look equally qualified. But somehow Jesus makes a definite distinction: five he calls foolish, five he calls wise. That’s one thing I found questionable because the foolish were labeled that way because they had not taken extra oil along.
Question: What would you have done? Look at it realistically. Use your common sense. The wedding is at three o’clock, the party is somewhat later, but certainly it’s all over before midnight, because tomorrow is another busy day. The lights are needed for that short trip to the wedding hall, so, until that time the lamps are trimmed low. With a full tank there’ll be plenty of oil, with fuel to spare. After all, the Bridegroom is known to be a punctual man, so why take along extra jars of that stinking and expensive kerosene? Suppose that the heavy jug would break and spill its contents all over the new dress. These containers weren’t like the metal or plastic ones we have:  no, they were frail, cumbersome and weighty. Mother was right: just to carry a lamp with a full tank would be enough. Also, how to bring along the presents when one hand is needed to carry the light and another for the extra oil? I agree with the so-called foolish maidens. Their action made perfect sense.
“But,” says Jesus, “the five wise women took the trouble of lugging these heavy jars with them.” Why would they do this? How could they properly attend to their task preparing the bride, and also the extra wine and food? That smelly stuff could easily mix with the other provisions! Nothing could be more impractical. Those who Jesus called ‘wise’ do things totally beyond the call of duty, needlessly complicating their lives. To me the foolish made much more sense.
What had Jesus in mind when he called the practical teens foolish and the overcautious wise?
Going to church is a bit like going to a wedding: it can be compared to the normal supply of oil. But we all know there is more to going to church or meeting the Bridegroom than routine matters. That’s why the super-cautious-oil bottle- bearing women are called wise. They are prepared for more, and they probably don’t even know what that more is. However, they found this out when the Bridegroom took long in coming, signaling that the End times are different, requiring the unexpected. That is plain from the context of this parable, which is set after Matthew 24, which has as its heading, “Sign of the End of Age” and “The Day and Hour of Jesus’ Return Unknown.”

Jesus, after a long sermon on the final days of humanity, spoke this parable. He began, “At this particular moment, at the End of Days”. That could mean ‘Now.’ Today too there are two kinds of people: foolish and wise, people who think that science will save us and those who expect Jesus to come. Jesus also knew that at the End of Days oil and debt would be a key element in the world. Jesus has a perfect overview of history from the embryo beginnings to the pollution- saturated end. Then and now he delayed his coming, with the result that the young girls, exhausted after extending their teenage chatter well beyond their usual bedtime (which was at sun down as oil was too expensive to use), turned the wedding feast into a slumber party. All ten sacked out on the couches.
Then, finally, at midnight, there was a cry, “There comes the Bridegroom. Wake up to meet him.”
The parable portrays the practical reality of life: the unexpected does happen. It happens all the time. Fish stocks collapse. Ozone layers disappear. Entire regions lose their pine trees to a tiny beetle. Arctic ice is melting at a record rate. Suddenly the doomsters have substantial evidence for their message. The unexpected does happen. Before you realize the Lord is there, still quite unexpected while we slumber the time away.
“Then all the maidens rose and trimmed their lamps.” They straightened out their dresses, quickly combed their rumpled hair, turned to their lamps and five of them discovered that they have practically run out of oil. They are no longer ready to welcome the Bridegroom. All the wick-trimming in the world, all the shaking and trying is useless: their lights are dead: the oil is gone. The always reliable, punctual bridegroom was late for his own party.
What does this all mean?

Well, listen to the rest of the parable.
“And the foolish said to the wise, “Give as some of your oil, for our lights are going out.” But the wise replied, “Perhaps there will not be enough for us and you. Go to the fuel dealer and buy some.”
How is that for a Christian answer? Aren’t we supposed to share things with others? Try to buy some fuel at midnight!
That was another mystery for me. For a long time I really did not know what to think of that rather snotty reply. Now I think there comes a time that we have to shrug our shoulders and go our own way. “There is a time for everything, a time to be born and a time to die,” says Ecclesiastes, “a time to share and a time to refrain from sharing.” The parable suggests that a day will come when it will be too late to reform society. I think we have reached a point in world development where it is too late to turn the ecological balance in the world, too late to reform the ecclesiastical situation, too late to revamp the economic structures, too late to change the political system. Now matters everywhere have their own inevitable momentum, leading to total chaos and anarchy and to Jesus’ return.
It’s on that note that the parable ends. “While they went to buy, the Bridegroom came, and those who had the extra oil went with him into the marriage feast and the door was shut. Their debt was paid. When the others came, knocked and said, ‘Lord, open up.’ But he said, ‘Sorry, I don’t know you, your debt is not paid.” Suddenly there is a parting of ways, due to debt.
Isn’t that a strange reply? The Lord doesn’t say, “I have never called you, or I have never loved you.” No, he says, “Listen, you have never bothered to get to know me. You never really took the time to seriously find out what I really stand for. You ignored my signature on creation, turning your pious pronouncement of “hallowed be thy name” into a blasphemy. You forgot that to be my follower is to love creation for whose redemption I died. That’s why I now reject you. You followed the commonly accepted, pragmatic way. Sorry, I now don’t know you.”
It’s difficult to learn about God’s Kingdom/Creation. In this age of instant solutions, instant heating and cooling, we expect instant salvation and an instant Jesus. Life doesn’t work that way: a marriage, a faith, a friendship, one’s life in Christ takes a long time maturing. Jesus has come late to give us more opportunity to see what is good and what is bad in this world, so that we can avoid errors later.

In this late hour of our present civilization, the remaining time is of the utmost essence. How do I utilize this last hour before entering the wedding hall?

There is a curious word in the last verse of Matthew 5. The Greek word there is teleios, which is translated as ‘perfect: “Be perfect as my Father is perfect.” Of course, we can’t be perfect. But we can be ‘teleios’, of which a better translation is ‘all inclusive’, ‘holistic’, having the ‘telos’ (the Greek word for End) in mind. In everything we do we must contemplate its final destination: will it pollute and so help Satan who wants to destroy creation, or will it help the coming of the Kingdom, the New Creation.’

The parable shows that the End times are different for Christians, requiring a different view on life. We must – the church must- explore ways to understand the creation-killing life style we are engaged in - and which leads to death for all - and try alternatives, so that we can prepare ourselves for Life Eternal.
Perhaps, given the urban world we live in, all we can do is to constantly make an effort to understand what we are doing and have done to God’s earth, try to make amends, and pray for forgiveness where we fail, knowing that Jesus paid the debt and made us free.

“At that time.” We don’t know the day and the hour. But we can read the signs of the times: they are very clear to those who have their eyes open to the happenings out there. The Lord uses such phrases as ‘I come like a thief in the night.’ Revelation too shows the suddenness of the event with civilizations fully engaged in trading and manufacturing.

Be prepared. There will be a time of reckoning when debt does us part, when the wise and the foolish go separate ways.

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Our World Today

Posted on September 11, 2012 by Bert Hielema

WHERE DO I COME FROM?

My grandparents on both sides were elders in the “Christelijk Gereformeerde Kerk in Kornhorn, Groningen. If in the afternoon church service a nap was more seductive than the sermon, my grandfather whose name I share- a dairy farmer- would resolutely stand up so not to succumb to an unholy bit of shut-eye. Yes, my parents, my wife – a minister’s daughter!- and I have our roots in what here is called the Netherlands Reformed Church, better known as the heaven-fanatic, very conservative, black stocking church. The last words my late older brother –who kept the faith of the fathers – said to me “We will see each other again in heaven.” Indeed, my background is convincingly pious.

I was slated to become a minister, and was sent after grade school to the minister-doctor-lawyer preparatory school, the Christian Gymnasium, 6 grades with some 100 students in total, almost all male. I still have a picture of the grade 5 class: 13 young men 18-20 years old, all in suits and ties. Besides Latin and Greek – Hebrew was the only option, which I now regret not taking- and four European languages and six mathematical subjects, it taught me discipline.

No, I did not become a minister. Instead I moved to Canada in 1951, after serving a short time in the military. I could have become an air force pilot, but my father refused to give his approval.

Independence categorizes me. Within a year in Canada I was my own boss, selling insurance. Formed my own agency in 1957, became a real estate broker in 1965, the same year I was chairman of the Young People convention in Niagara Falls with the motto “Alive for Christ in ’65.” Always active in something: school boards, Ontario Alliance, an elder. In 1959 when I saw a client die of lung cancer I decided to quit smoking and take up running. Ever since then running has been part of my life.

1972 was for me a turning point. Three books changed my life: Lappe’s Diet for a small planet, Teller’s Sterven,,,, en dan? (After death….what?) and The Club of Rome’s Limits to Growth.

Lappe’s book convinced us to become vegetarian. Telller’s book made me see the importance of the earth as our eternal destination, and the Club of Rome taught me that we live in a finite world.

The church?  I still love it, but had my disagreements there. I remember speaking at a chapel service at Beacon Christian High School in St. Catharines right after I had seen the Light about creation and wanted to share that not heaven but the earth needed our total devotion. My minister was also in the audience, disagreeing so much that he sent a letter to all parents. Later he wanted to discipline me. Fortunately he left the denomination.

He was one reason why in 1975 we sold our house and business and moved to Tweed, far away from it all. I also wanted to use less of earth’s resources. We bought 50 acres from friends and built into a southerly slope an energy efficient house, two storeys on the south side with large windows on both floors, and one storey on the north with only one small window there. I even made insulated shutters for the windows as glass is a very poor insulator.

Again I created my own job. Living on savings, I used my time to qualify as a real estate appraiser, taking courses at Trent, Queen’s and York Universities and preparing three master appraisals of more than 100 pages each, one on a single family dwelling, another on apartment complex and a third on an industrial building, all required to become an accredited appraiser. In 1978 I had all my qualifications and launched Hastings Appraisal Services, subsequently hiring residential appraisers, one for South Hastings County, one to cover Central Hastings and another for North Hastings. I did all the commercial stuff, an airport, river dams, the entire Bruce Peninsula for an Indian land claim  – 500,000 acres  – , lots of work for Public Works Canada, as well as an uranium mine with 4,500 acres and numerous summer camps, grocery stores, hotels, schools, you name it.

When I sold out in 1993 I installed 10 solar panels and expanded my garden, converting the soil from pure sand to something fertile, wheelbarrow by wheelbarrow, carting from a neighbour’s yard pure precious black manure and also working in our compost. I grow much of what we eat, bike to town 11 km daily – in June I ran a 10 km race in 1.05 hour-  grind our own flour with an electric mill, buying the kernels from Grain Processors, where we also obtain oat flakes and other bulk foods, bake bread.

I try to work out my salvation with fear and trembling, fully realizing that this path is different for each person.

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Our World Today

Posted on September 1, 2012 by Bert Hielema

September 2012

Was that “The Global Swan Song?”

I don’t like mega churches, but I loved it when 400 million people world-wide heard an old-fashioned sermon at the opening ceremonies of the 2012 Olympics. It happened at the end of the show recalling the sinking of the Titanic, a name now synonymous with disaster. The ‘lesson’ was delivered by a regal-looking Emeli Sandé who sang all five verses of Abide with me, the hymn supposedly played while the ship slowly sank into the icy seas. She projected into the planet such biblical truths as:  “Change and decay in all around I see,” but also beamed across the globe the glorious gospel of “I need your presence every passing hour. What but your grace can foil the tempter’s power?”

The Titanic reference couldn’t have been more up-to-date. In 2012, one hundred years after its sinking the entire world is in a Titanic mode: drowning in an ocean of debt. The phrase fast falls the eventide reminded me of Oswald Spengler`s famous book Der Untergang des Abendlandes, the Demise of the Evening Empire: our Western world, yet few, if any, of the 400 million viewers realized that then and there they may have witnessed “the global swan song”, when she intoned Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day, earth’s joys grow dim, its glories pass away. It may seem farfetched but to me it meant that Brazil’s preparations, already underway for 2016, may well come to nought, because the London Olympics could well have been the final one.

Do I really think that the 2012 Olympics could be the last of the global games?

Here’s what could very well happen. Today a four year term is like a century, that’s how fast events are happening. Just look at the speed of Climate Change. Next year millions will starve as harvests are down everywhere, with worse to come. The most e-mailed article in a recent New York Times issue was: “Hundred – Year Forecast: Drought.” Imagine no rain year after year!

Staging the Olympics depends on a growing world economy, generous governmental support and global stability. Instead everything points to negative growth, budget cut-backs and climate-induced universal bedlam. At work are two opposing trends: expanding populations and rising expectations versus fast fading food – and water supplies, perfect recipes for food, water and resource wars.

Then there is the debt bomb which will affect us all, even those who are rich and debt-free. It used to be that large government borrowing would stimulate growth, but that is no longer true. It now takes an unsustainable $20 of government debt to produce $10 of GDP growth.

A long time ago the Roman Empire was in a similar situation, also highly dependent on expansion to maintain its structure. Its growth came from slaves and treasures taken from ever more distant territories. However when these resources declined and were too remote, the outcome was contraction and implosion.

Today, no matter how fast we dig, debt keeps piling up more than twice as fast. All debt comes at a price, that’s why Psalm 15: 5 and Proverbs 28: 8 warn us against lending at interest, because interest must come from continuous growth, simply impossible in a finite world.

God created the world with organic growth in mind- greater faith, love, wisdom – not exploitive excess. Usury lending works only in ever expanding economies; once growth stops – as is the case now- the balloon pops. Also all paper money relies on trust, trust that tomorrow will be better. This is no longer true, not in a world full of peaks: peak population, peak food, peak water, peak minerals. The real scary scenario is that after the peak it’s downhill, perhaps quite steeply.

We are in a real quandary: we have based our society on continuous growth, allowing large pensions, expensive medical and educational structures, libraries and museums, but in a shrinking world all these will become millstones around our necks, sinking the economy as sure as the Titanic. Put the blame on money and its lenders. No wonder Dante in his Inferno consigned usurers to the lowest pit of the seventh circle of Hell.

July 27 was a memorable day: then, it seemed to me, the Global Swan Song echoed through the cosmos. Multitudes of many millions heard the message: Abide with me, fast falls the eventide, the darkness deepens, Lord with me abide. Change and decay in all around I see.” But also “Who like yourself my guide and strength can be? In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.”

Matthew 11:15 comes to mind.

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Our World Today

Posted on August 1, 2012 by Bert Hielema

RED ALERT: Become a mole for Jesus!
From1929 to 1933 Republican Herbert Hoover, the Depression President, insisted on balanced budgets and forcefully suppressed demonstrators. And this while 28 percent of Americans had no income whatsoever. Hoover was replaced by a Democrat, Franklin D. Roosevelt, who pulled America back from the brink by flooding the nation with make-work projects through deficit financing, which remained so popular and caused so much debt that now more of the same will simply spell ‘death-knell.’

Debts are like sins. Isaiah (1:18) calls them scarlet. In financial reports debts are coloured red –- scarlet. I raise the RED ALERT warning because complacency has conquered common sense. Superficially all looks well. Teenagers chat on their cell phones and text as if their lives depend on it, clueless that their world is drowning in debt.

Here’s what happened. When I came to Canada in 1951 most women didn’t work. Soon, however, we were sold on bigger suburban dwellings, which called for a second car that was paid for by putting the spouse to work. When that was not enough to make ends meet, middle Americans started using their homes as cash machines. The crash meant that there’s now nowhere to go but down:  only the year of Jubilee – when all debts are forgiven – will extract us from our self-induced predicament, coinciding with Jesus’ return.

We are in the midst of a slow-motion demolition of society:  failure in politics, failure in the environment, failure in public health, and failure in education, all the direct result of the world-wide worship of Mammon. Politics has become a question of money; the environment is a slave to economic growth; fast food diets and lazy living are causing an epidemic of obesity and diabetes; schools at all levels prepare students for an outdated future where ‘peak everything’ rules.

The root of all evil

I see the number 666 as depicting money – the root of all evil – with everything expressed in certain digits: credit cards, debit cards, PIN and social insurance numbers, trillions of debts in Euros or Dollars. My study bible suggests that each digit of 666 falls short of the perfect number 7, which suggests to me that every remedy involving money – 666 – will fail. The current Euro crisis is a prime example.

Money is so totally intertwined in our lives that disentangling is impossible. We are caught up in such an unprecedentedly dangerous situation that, I think, it’s time to heed Revelation18: 4: “Come out of her, my people, so that you will not share in her sins, so that you will not receive any of her plagues.”

We need a new way of life, away from the causes of climate change, away from our forced slavery to factory foods, away from chemicals to enhance produce appearance, from stabilizers that fake freshness, all causing obesity, cancers and heart attacks.
Yet it’s impossible to opt out: there’s no escape, but that doesn’t mean that we are helpless. We can become moles for Jesus.

Being moles

In spy terms, moles seemingly work for one boss but, in secret, report to another. The bible is full of such people. Take Obadiah. In 1 Kings 18, while Jezebel, the wicked queen, was out to kill the prophets, Obadiah was the mole right under her nose, stealthily keeping 100 prophets alive. No mean feat in times of extreme famine. These people, together with the 7,000 then and the saints today who refuse to worship idols, keep adhering to the covenant of the Lord. Nicodemus is another such character. We owe to Nicodemus that Jesus left us with John 3:16 telling us that God’s love for the cosmos trumps any other expression of love.

Become a mole for Jesus. In our lives we must always act with Jesus’ love for creation in mind: how we eat, where we drive, what we do. My wife and I have given up television, the very instrument whose sole purpose is to promote 666. Not only do we save $65 monthly, but we now listen more to radio, music, read more, and talk and walk more. We are trying to adopt a completely different mindset, while praying for forgiveness when we have no other choice.

RED ALERT.

I believe that there is a more than even chance that the world’s financial system will collapse, perhaps as early as this fall. Like a pile of sand that has reached its maximum height, the addition of one more ill-timed bank failure, natural catastrophe, or terrorist attack could cause our financial foolishness to collapse in an uncontrolled cascade. We are in uncharted waters. We live in a world that is but one errant keystroke away from serious calamity. That may mean no access to ATMs or credit or debit cards, making it prudent to keep a $1,000 in small bills handy just in case.

For more columns, essays and books, see www.hielema.ca/blog

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Our World Today

Posted on July 1, 2012 by Bert Hielema

Does the church still remember “semper reformanda?”

On a hotter than usual day for early June I was running on the Bruce trail in a cool tunnel of green growth. Tiny sun-spots made the dark path resemble a star-studded sky. I was thinking.

Physical exertion always lubricates my brain. My mind was busy with climate change, visualizing Eve and Adam at that tree, full with good fruit. I imagined them absorbing that bitter bite, and experiencing a world-altering event: climate change. They needed clothes not only because their thoughts had taken an erotic twist but also because flies, mosquitoes, bees, formally solely agents of pollination, were stinging them all over.

Climate change is more than temperatures rising. It also causes cancers and withholds wisdom, evident especially in political, ecclesiastical and financial circles. Take Perpetual Growth. Every day we hear economists and politicians, in unison, laud its miraculous merits as if a constant repeat will make it come true, and so lower deficits and create greater prosperity.

But… perpetual growth is impossible. These same people in essence deny Climate Change which necessitates fundamental changes as motor vehicles, all industrialization, generate CO2 , the hot weather maker.

I was there when Climate Change was debated at the Christian Reformed Church synod. It was a fascinating US congress-resembling  scenario. In other words I heard a lot of nonsense. The proposal passed with a reluctant majority: one vote on a minor matter went 98-68, a 40 percent disapproval. Earlier I had attended a combined delegate / young adult service. The singing there was interspersed with bible readings and a quote from the Belgic confession: “We know God first by the creation, as the universe is before our eyes like a beautiful book”, based on Romans 1:20 where it says that contemplating our wonderful world alone should convict us of God’s eternal power and divine nature. Believe it or not, creation is God’s holy primary word.

Once the communal part was over, the audience was asked to form small prayer circles. In my group were some important movers of the denomination. When I suggested that, based on what we all just had recited, creation too is God’s holy word, this was met with stony silence. Even though the bible and our songs – This is my Father’s world –   state that God made the cosmos which makes it holy, it’s much easier to ignore that part because it entails a drastic reversal of our daily doings, requiring constant forgiveness as driving a car or even switching on a light causes pollution.

Will the church ever make God’s holy primary creation-word an active part of the liturgy? Liturgy literally means “the work of the people.”  Has ‘semper reformanda’ become an empty slogan? Is the church still capable of ‘always reforming?” I love the church.  I am often moved to tears by the singing and praying (I am an emotional sob). By and large the sermons, based on God’s secondary Word, are mainly monologues of which only 10 percent is retained. Church services would be far more effective if the original meaning of liturgy was implemented, if preachers act as coaches to involve people, elicite testimonies, having them share practical energy-savings, food-growing tips, and walks in the woods to learn about God’s created word. With direct participation the learning index increases to 90 percent.

As a Christian community, in the prelude to the Lord’s return, we must unflinchingly face the current situation, and integrate scriptural insight with cosmic concerns, use the Bible as a lamp for our feet while becoming much more knowledgeable about Creation, God’s ever valid direct Word.

Frankly I don’t think church denominations can still change. At the CRC Synod I noticed that many are still caught up in the Greek philosophy of nature and grace, where the church is in the soul business and has nothing to do with stuff out there. It seems to me that changes are up to clusters of people – “where two or three are together” – or perhaps a “small is beautiful” congregation.

Reforming means a radical departure from the centuries’ old format of church services, which is losing appeal everywhere. Reforming means implementing what 2 Corinthians 5:17 tells us: “When we are in Christ the old has gone, the new has come.” That new is outlined in Revelation 21 which reveals a new creation – God’s holy primary Word – without a temple or church or synagogue or bible. I believe that we slowly must move that way, especially for the sake of the young people, many  of whom no longer feel at home with the current set-up. When we dare to worship in an integrated way, they will remain with us and even teach us a thing or two.

Bert Hielema lives in Tweed, Ontario, 200 km from both Toronto and Ottawa.

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Our World Today

Posted on June 1, 2012 by Bert Hielema

The era of fear
The American Department of Homeland Security has 230,000 employees, of which 30,000 are equipped with electronics that monitor every telephone call and every e-mail: be careful what you whisper or write, because the CIA now stands for “Collecting Information Anonymously.” The total cost for spying on all of us is $49 billion, more than twice the entire Canadian Air Force-Navy-Army budget of $22 billion.
In the past the U.S. government mobilized for wars, and de-mobilized after. No longer: the war on terror is “War without end. Amen.” The U.S. may have declared victory, but it looks more like a victim than a victor. It resembles a scared security seeker, prying into every person’s private prattle.

Welcome to the new era of fear and of a future failing any safeguards. Gone are the days when the skills with which a person entered a profession or job would last a working life time. Gone are the days when a person could reasonably expect a comfortable retirement after a successful career. Gone are the days when good health care was guaranteed, when weather was predictable, when governments provided financial security in old age.
Our fears span the globe. We fear that Islam will overtake the world, so we view every dark face or every burka with suspicion and suspect bombs under their belts. After decades of openness we are back to barricaded borders. Our fears are local too. We fear that dangers lurk in polluted water, in incurable infections, in tainted meat, in minute microbes, in tricky ticks, in dengue fever, in yet un-named ailments for which no cure is available.

Europe fears that the entire concept of the Euro was a momentous mistake, pushed by Germany , the main beneficiaries of this move. Everyone fears that the welfare state  that my generation has enjoyed is coming to an end.

Not unreasonable

These fears are well founded. How can we save for retirement when money earns less than the rate of inflation? How can young people save anyhow when jobs have gone global, going to the lowest bidder? How can the next generation pay off the national debt and  its educational debt when incomes are down but costs are up? And what about climate change with more drought, flooding and food insecurity?
The 20th century saw not only the fight against fascism and communism, but, in the second half, liberal provisions for public health care and universal  pensions that gave people protection against all ills, whether economic, physical or old age. This was made possible by high taxation and by religiously banking on economic growth. Now staggering deficits prevent governments from being everything for everybody, while the unintended consequences of century-long extravagance, courtesy of carbon-based living, are evident in booming populations, weird weather, sharply reduced growth, and looming commodity shortages. All this signals extreme uncertainty. Whereas familiarity breeds contempt, unfamiliarity fosters fear.

We just have had another G-20 meeting, this time in Mexico. The press releases stated that the world’s leaders discussed economic stabilization and structural reforms as foundations for growth and employment, vowed to strengthen the financial system and strive for financial inclusion to promote economic growth, and promised to improve the international financial architecture in an interconnected world while pledging moneys to finance food security and address commodity price volatility. All of this is pure bull’s bowel products. They even talked about promoting sustainable development, green growth and the fight against climate change: equally empty expressions, because no state still has the money or the political power to implement these lofty goals. We might as well call the G-20 the G-ZERO as zilch is the result.

Is all doom and gloom? Of course not. 1 John 4: 18 says: “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives our fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.”
Is that a cheap way out? No. I do believe the solution lies in loving each other, and loving God’s good earth. “The greatest of these is love” is Paul’s famous saying. “God so loved the world” indicates that we too must cherish the earth, which means going back to fundamentals. Our basic needs are food, shelter and clothing, the three essentials we need in addition to love. With all institutions in the process of failing, faith must continue to fashion our actions, faith that God looks after us when we “prepare the way of the Lord.”

Bert Hielema worked all spring to prepare his 2000 sq. ft. veggie garden, this year also mixing in five years of accumulated compost. His blog can be found at www.hielema.ca/blog.

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