Editorialby Ernest O'Neill |
(28 December, 2008)
As the whole world of finance collapses round our ears, our Maker teaches us once again that work and business and finance are all here for the development of his world in his way and by his power. They are not here for our profit and aggrandizement. Our satisfaction derives from fulfilling the abilities we have been given to “multiply and fill the earth and subdue it” not from indulging ourselves.
We can only be grateful that these laws are built into the universe so that irresponsible lending and borrowing to buy houses eventually destroys the very value that it tries to create. Then as these “sub-prime” mortgages are packaged into shares and used as collateral for other loans, the whole house of cards brings everything down when it collapses.
If our maker did not build such corrections into the world-system, we human-beings would lose all touch with reality. What we need now as the innocent suffer with the guilty is love for one another and a return yet again to honesty and use of business to “fill the world and subdue it”.
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(20 March, 2009)
Just as the tide comes in and goes out, taking with it all the garbage
and refuse that lies on the beach, so the Creator has created other “tides” that cleanse and renew the world as it balances unsteadily
between renewal and destruction through the centuries. Once more we see
this happening to us in these days of the world-wide recession of 2009.
Every nation was awash in debt – almost every business throughout the
world has become burdened with the debts it owed to others. But beyond
just debt there have also been lies and deception because thousands of
bankers and stockbrokers have lied to each other about how much debt
they had. A whole system of mendacity and indifference to truth has
taken hold of personal, commercial, and national life that has finally
paralyzed the business of the world.
We can only be grateful that our world is designed so that it cannot
continue with such attitudes – business depends on trust and ceases when
trust disappears. So once more we have the opportunity to return to
business as a way to develop the world's resources so that its beauty
and design are displayed for all to enjoy and appreciate. Business dies
when it is used just to make money and profit – it grows and inspires
when it is used to fulfill all the capacities of the earth and its
inhabitants. As we now return to doing business well for reasonable
rather than unreasonable profit, our personal and national lives will be
lighter and brighter.