To make an end is to make a beginning

In 1928 Reinhold Niebuhr left Detroit to take up a teaching position at  Union Theological Seminary in New York. He had been a minister for thirteen years and in " Leaves form a Notebook of a Tamed Cynic" recorded his experiences and thoughts of that time. In his last entry he speaks of the challenges of being a Christian in an industrialised society. He has seen what has happened to the ordinary worker who becomes unemployed  and the real hardship it causes. He has spoken out again what he sees as the injustices in the society he is called to minister to. In what he writes I sense a real struggle  in trying to live a Christian life and an honest acknowledgement of how so often reality does not match our ideals. That said the question is how do we live as Christians in that reality?  In 1928 the world economy is booming, people are getting rich as big industries grow. Before leaving Detroit  Niebuhr comments:
" If the Church can do nothing else, it can bear witness to the truth until such a day as bitter experience will force  a recalcitrant civilisation to a humility which it does not now possess".
Within a year there was the Wall Street Crash.

It was as the Great Depression was beginning that George Orwell left Paris to take up a job offer in London. On arriving he discovered that the people he was going to work for had gone "abroad" and he could not take up the job for another month. He was now unemployed, homeless and will little money on the streets of London..........

Trying to live out a Christian life it seems to me is just as difficult in today's society as it was for Niebuhr. Some of the challenges Christians face will be the same as his , others different. How far do we strive for the idea and how far work within the realms of reality? The plight of Orwell is still one many are in today. As economic forecasts look dim, just as in 1929, we may once more be facing challenges of working out what society means and where economic ideas and practice fits into it all.

T S Elliot wrote;

What we call the beginning is often the end

And to make  an end is to make a beginning.

The end is where we start from.

Dear God

In these times of uncertainty

help us to discern ends and
beginnings.

Give us the courage to move on
when it is the right thing to do;
to challenge injustice
when it is the right thing to do;
to be still in your presence
when it is the right thing to do.

We pray for all who work
to make our society a better
place for us;
especially at this time those in
the care and emergency services.
Keep them safe and valued.

We ask this in the name of Jesus
Amen