Thought for the Day

As presented to Breakfast at BBC Radio Bristol this morning, trying to link with today's three top stories:

1. Car-parking now being planned at the new Bristol Arena when all along it had been suggested it would not.
2. Someone had put two pots of daffs and a welcome mat in a place where the homeless often sleep.
3. Football fans had joined together to form a fit club to lose weight.

The Bible begins with a couple given a garden to look after. To tend it and care for it. It will provide them with food. They work; they eat. Job done.

Didn't work out as straight-forwardly as I made that sound. Only one rule, they broke it and off they set for a life of labour. The story, once told around middle-eastern camp fires, answers universal questions:

Why is work so hard?
Why is childbirth painful?
Why do snakes slither?

Answers in Genesis chapter 3.

Disobedience got us banned from paradise and we all, the story goes, had to sleep rough once.

Step forward four millennia and we live in a convenience age. We want to park our cars nearby, to eat quickly - only noticing what that might do to our waistbands when it is too late - and we even want to avoid the awkwardness of having to step over the poor as we enter a shop.

How on earth did things get so messed up?

Now I'm a realist. There is a line between sin and suffering but it isn't a straight one. I drive regularly and over-eat from time to time. I fall short of the glory of God I'm meant to reflect. Bet you do too.

Convenience is a luxury. Our success at this civilisation thing has made it so. The car park discussion is about making sure my convenience is not at the expense of future generations. Likewise surviving on fewer calories. But the shop-doorway sleepers report points its finger at all of us. Surely in this age of convenience we ought to be able to find everyone a bed? Two pots of daffs and a welcome mat is at least a start.