Thanks Sir Francis

I came across a prayer attributed to Sir Francis Drake the British explorer of the 16th century. It is a long one so excuse me if my waffle is mostly poem:

Disturb us, Lord when we are too pleased with ourselves, when our dreams have come true because we have dreamed too little, when we arrived safely because we sailed too close to the shore. Disturb us, Lord when with the abundance of things we possess we have lost our thirst for the waters of life; having fallen in love with life, we have ceased to dream of eternity and in our efforts to build a new earth, we have allowed our vision of the new heaven to dim. Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly, to venture on wider seas where storms will show your mastery; where losing sight of land, we shall find the stars. We ask you to push back the horizons of our hopes; and to push into the future in strength, courage, hope and love.

It must be a part of the process of age; but I have to confess to frustration at what I frankly see as a narrowing of vision in society today. When something of a controversial nature crops ups like disposal of nuclear waste or the settlement of a less than popular ex-criminal, we often come across the letters NIMBY – Not in my back yard. ‘Yes, we know that something has to be done; but not in my back yard.

Might I suggest that here in good old OZ – I can only speak for what I know – we might also suffer another societal malady called OIMBY – only in my back yard. I am thrilled that we can invest so much money into research for the many cancers that assail us across the world and that a worldwide disaster invariably finds Australians digging deep to generously give support; but what are we doing on a regular basis, week in and week out for a pain wracked world?

It is estimated that a child dies every ten seconds in the world and many of them don’t have to. We have the resources – money, medicine, food – to prevent this yet somehow these children keep on dying. Ronnie and I have sponsored children via Compassion Australia for many years now and will no doubt continue to do so, probably only increasing our support. I have taken too many funerals of little children; but my heart also breaks for the ones that we never hear of. Do we not bear a responsibility toward them?

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Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’ Matthew 25:40

Are you aware that slavery is still rampant in the world today? Known today as people trafficking, some 700,000 to two million people are trafficked each year. Children of primary school age are sold into slavery – most often prostitution – just so that their families can eat. As the Delhi Commonwealth Games are in full swing it is worth noting that of the 74 million women reported missing in South Asia, some 20 million are thought to be in Indian brothels of Mumbai, New Delhi and Kolkata.

It is over 200 years since William Wilberforce and his supporters brought an end to the African slave trade and yet slavery continues in 2010 right on our doorstep. ‘Disturb us O Lord when we are too pleased with ourselves, when our dreams have come true because we have dreamed too little, when we arrived safely because we sailed too close to the shore.’

I don’t believe in the church because of what it is; but because of what it might be, if we could only break the sin of apathy and neglect that contains us in middle class mediocrity, where we have convinced ourselves that all is well on our little ship, while all around others are sinking. Thanks Sir Francis. I appreciated the wake up call.