If you've been listening to the British news you can't have missed the controversy surrounding MP's second home allowances.

There are many responses to this that a Christian needs to give. One, of course, is to reflect on the responsibility that comes with leadership. Christians are called to pray for our leaders and respect their authority. Leaders in turn are called to recognise that they are responsible not just to us, but also to God. I wonder how the MPs will give account of their second homes before God. I also wonder whether he will be concerned about the same things we are.

You see, I suspect that the second home that God cares about is the home that we are building in eternity. The Bible talks about the vital need to consider where we are investing most actively. This world might seem to be the only home we have; but we were created for eternity. Jesus' death and resurrection invites us there and opens the way. Our investment appears, if we take Jesus seriously, to count there.

How will your second home look?

Good News! The banks are beginning to make profits again (or so it said on the radio this morning).

That only leaves me with two questions.

Will anything have changed as a result of this crisis. (I mean really changed, deep down in your heart and mine. Regulations are easy to change.)

And is it really good news?

Seriously, this isn't a joke...
... apparently there is a shortage of donkeys in Yorkshire this year for Palm Sunday.

Forgive me for the radio silence for a couple of weeks and then an inane story gets me thinking, but I have found myself wallowing in the news recently. Credit crunch, renewed violence in Northern Ireland, credit crunch, ministers expense claims in Westminster, credit crunch, soldiers dying in Afghanistan, credit crunch, Joseph Moessel in Austria, and did I mention the credit crunch? It has left me drained and empty of any enthusiasm to comment...
But a donkey shortage; now that's news.

Well, of course, it isn't really massive in the big scheme of things, but it matters to some people (and, presumably some lonely donkeys). I think I noticed the story because it crept through my compassion fatigue and made me smile and feel sorry for all the people who would miss out on a bit of donkey-action this Easter.

Of course I care more about people dying than the lack of a processional beast, but I have been reminded that there is room in God's heart for the small concerns this week. And that matters to me, because it reminds me that I matter to him.

Now then, if I can just work out where can I get a donkey for Palm Sunday...

... without the Messiah...

So said the lady on the radio this morning.

OK, so she was actually talking about Handel and the way his piece 'the Messiah' has taken on far too great a role in our popular imagination, but it did make me chuckle. The irony of course is that many of us have every Christmas with plenty of Handel's Messiah and little of God's Messiah...

... and if it's true of Christmas, it's equally true of the rest of life.

But maybe not today?

I must confess that I am worried about how much the government is borrowing. I don’t know if I am being ‘played’ by the tory spin on Brown’s handling of the international crisis, and I freely confess that I am glad I do not need to decide how to handle this whole situation, but I do get concerned when we solve today’s problem by handing the problem onto a future generation.

Of course, we see this repeated every day on a smaller scale; the level of personal debt in the UK is staggering. In Sepembert 2008 the personal debt of UK citizens was £1,457bn. The average household debt was £9,740, rising to £22,190 per household if you include unsecured debts. In October 2008 personal debt in the UK rose by £1m every 8.5 minutes and every 5 minutes someone went bankrupt. We are paying for today’s commodities with tomorrow’s earnings. Where those commodities are essential I guess that we have little choice, but so many purchases are luxuries. Is it worth the debt to have 300 TV channels to watch on a television bigger than the average double bed, surrounded by every game console known to man (and, indeed boy – they know more of them!)

These are complex decisions which we sometimes avoid by simply taking out another loan, but for all of us there are costs that we have to think carefully about. Will I sacrifice something to pay for something else? I guess it depends on how much we value what we want. I sometimes wonder how long it took God to decide that He would become incarnate in Christ at Christmas? For here is a real miracle; something essential for today and all our tomorrows which was paid for by someone else sacrificing all they had.

I love Advent. In fact I think it is one of the most important times of the year, and it's a travesty that it is reduced to shopping, baking, card-writing, and little windows that open on disappointingly small bits of chocolate.

I also quite like facebook. I have come to it late in life, but a friend of mine moved to Australia with her horse to get married - to an Aussie not to the horse - and I was intrigued to know how you get a horse to the other side of the world. She told me (you get it a passport and stick it on a plane - how else?) and sent me to facebook to see the photos. Now I am hooked. I am catching up with all sorts of old friends.

Why am I telling you this. Well two of my friends saw a photo of me on a bike on facebook and started sharing stories of how I scared them stupid on the back of my bike almost 20 years ago. I don't remember it at all, but they seem to and now the whole world thinks I sit at 95 on the M69 scaring mates in the rain.

Advent reminds us that in the end it is not our memories of our life that count - it is someone else's, Jesus' in fact. When he comes back we are held to account for all that we have done. It's as if we have a facebook wall with all that we have done and everyone will be able to see it - warts and all. For none of us make the grade when it comes to God's perfect standards.

But here's the amazing thing - the great transaction that God offers in Christ is that we can have Jesus' page and he'll take ours - more faithbook than facebook, perhaps?

Advent is a time of hope, a time of reflection, a time to think about the eternal things of life - don't miss it this year.

It's hard to believe, that Robert Mugabe is still at it, isn't it? We had almost begun to hope that the situation in Zimbabwe was resolved, or at least on it's way to resolution. The road was never going to be easy, but there was a plan and a way forward. However the news is not that simple. Not only has power not been shared, but now we hear that Mugabe has snubbed Kofi Annan, Jimmy Carter and Graca Maca Machel (Nelson Mandela's wife, if you are interested) I do find it amazing that one man can exercise so much power. It is the thing that I have never quite grasped about the second World War, that Adolf Hitler exercised such enormous personal influence and lead a nation so far from where it wanted to be. This is, however a situation which is repeated over and over again for both ill and good. Even in our personal lives we find ourselves lead, sometimes being lead astray and sometimes positively influenced. I guess this leads me to two reflections. The first is the vital importance of choosing those we associate with wisely. We are deeply formed by our relationships and our heroes. Most of us learned as teenagers that who we befriend matters; let's not forget it as adults. Secondly I never cease to be shocked by the pervasiveness of what the Bible calls sin. It spreads and gets everywhere, far beyond where rational people would choose. Of course it is easy to condemn the Mugabes of this world, but on a basic level we need to be watchful and alert for we too are all too easily lead. And it's a basic truth, but non-the-less a vital one that the one relationship which is vital if we want to be lead rightly is the one into which God invites us in Christ.

I have been wondering how the prophets of old would have written about the credit crunch? Obviously they would only have said what God inspired them to say, but I do wonder. I can 'hear' them saying for example: 'In those days men and women gave themselves over to the love of money. Their children were placed aside, their worship relegated to a mere irrelevance, their possessions and prospects elevated and the LORD was grieved. So God gave them over to inequality, to insecurity, to family breakdown, and to an endless dissatisfaction. And behold, man's pre-occupation with wealth was so great that few stopped to notice. And so God, in His great mercy, cast the financial systems into ruin that men and women might stop and notice the futility of their search for meaning and return once again.' Or indeed the prophets might well have written of the Lord's anger burning at the oppression of the poor, be it in body, mind or spirit. I am not saying that this crunch is a divine judgement, but I do believe that it is an invitation to search afresh for grace. We live in a crazy world, but the good news is partly about the security that we can know in God. Let's not be afraid to invite people into it.

Is it only me or is anyone else wondering how come we can find billions of pounds to save a bank but not find a few to save a life? The global economic crisis raises many questions, but I think this is one of the most important.

It is easy for us to be all judgemental, but I do find it difficult to understand how the German Chancellor can say one thing in conference with European leaders one day and then return home the next and do the opposite... ... except that it is just human behaviour writ large. It's so easy to condemn our leaders (and I am not saying that she's right to do what she has done; I have no crystal ball!), but sometimes what shocks us in others should help us to what is closer to home. I ask myself two questions today. Am I a man of my word? As the weekly bit says we need to be transparently trustworthy if we are following a God of truth. And secondly, how do I deal with it if I make a mistake and need to change course. Politicians rarely seem to admit error, but it seekers of grace need to. It is at the heart of the Christian life.

I went caving on Saturday. It was an extraordinary thing; I didn't expect to like it, but I had a chance to go but I had the chance and I do like to try things... The thought of spending a couple of hours in the dark, slithering through narrow gaps half filled with water odesn't sound too appealing. But I was very wrong - it is lots of fun. Perhaps not enough fun to get me doing it every week, but enough fun to make me want to do it again some time. Why do I tell you this, when I am meant to be reflecting on current affairs? Well, because when I was deep underground and completely absorbed in what I was doing it occurred to me that almost nobody in the world knew what I was doing and that I was completely oblivious to what was going on outside. Furthermore it seems to me that this is a good picture of how most of us are most of the time. So not a reflection on a current affair in the media sense today, just a marvelling that God's interest in current affairs is able to encompass yours, and mine, and all of us in our own caves. Certainly he also calls us out to engage with him and others, but he is juts as involved in my cave as he is on Wall Street or Number 10. He's that current...

I'm struggling here - I feel I ought to write a blog about the credit crunch, but I don't understand it. In fact I am sitting here with one of my children on my knee with my brain aching. I do understand, though, that a lot of people are hurting, and worried, and confused. It seems to me that we find ourselves in places like this for all sorts of reasons, and sometimes it doesn't matter why we got there, it is what we do when we get there that matters. CS Lewis said "Pain is God's megaphone to a dying world". He wanted to point out that when things go wrong it can be a strong prompt to drive us back to the only palce we can find eternal security. Odd isn't it, that so many could find enduring peace in the one who gave up the riches of heaven and had no place to lie his head, while so many find turmoil in the richest money markets the world has ever known.

We wake this morning to news that Lehman Brothers is filing for bankruptcy and that Merril Lynch has agreed to be taken over by the Bank of America. I am not sure that this will have a massive effect on me, if I am honest, and part of me wishes the media would wake up to the fact that America is not the centre of the universe. However, that is not what what I am really pondering this morning. I am wondering if a takeover is always such a bad thing. I know that it is not nice to have something that you have invested in overrun by a corporate giant. I also realise that all too often things of great value are swallowed up in the name of profit. Supermarkets, for example, are not always better than the grocers they replaced, although we must admit that there is a high degree of romanticism involved when we make this judgement. However, sometimes organisations, and even people, cannot survive on their own. Is a takeover so bad? I guess it depends on who is doing it, and how they are doing it. I observe that some people fear that God wants to take over their lives. I don't believe he does, in the common sense of the phrase, but he certainly wants to provide resources that we cannot find on our own... I am not sure I like takeovers in business, but when it comes to God... ?

OK, so that's not really the news, today, but I bet I am not the only one to have had that thought when I woke up and heard that Andy Murray has won his semi final in the American Open. It is funny how fond we are of Wimbledon despite the fact that it only seems to show how rubbish we are as a sporting, or at least a tennis, nation each year... ... but we live in hope, don't we? It's just that this kind of hope is very different from the Christian sort. The bible talks a lot about hope, but I worry that we get confused. To hope that a brit will win Wimbledon is a wish, a desperate longing. To hope that Christ will return, that he will bring in his kingdom of peace and joy, that all will be right as God intended; that is a 'hope that is steadfast and certain', it is a certain hope, it is a knowledge of that which is as yet unseen. It is hope that brings life and peace, and even more joy than if Andy Murray goes on to win the final.

Firstly an apology for the blog silence - a couple of weeks speaking away, a couple of weeks holiday, and a smashed screen have not allowed much internet access - it's amazing how you can survive without the net when you have to! Anyway, I am sure that you are as relieved as I am that New Orleans has not been massacred by hurricane Gustav. (Although, I do also pray that places which don't have so much media-power are not suffering without us knowing). The next few weeks and months will see masses of clearing up, rebuilding, construction of new defences and warning systems and so on... What will be fascinating, though, will be to see if anyone takes an environmental line on the situation... and if they do, whether anyone responds. No one seems to doubt that Gustav has been exacerbated by climate change, but I bet the next time something like this happens we will see more pictures of 'SUV's queuing to get out of the city. Humanity does sometimes seem to have an aversion to treating the cause of problems when it is easier to address the symptoms. And as so often happens, what is true physically is true spiritually; we are blind to the spiritual catastrophe being wreaked among us, and unwilling to pay the price to address it, even when the price has been paid for us and all we are called to do is follow.