A few blog readers will know to whom I refer , but out of internet modesty I will content myself with the relative anonymity of writing that I was recently in a meeting with a Government Minister. The purpose of the meeting was itself interesting (and not at all confidential). What caught my attention was a little phrase that the minister used in passing: referring to the general state of the nations the minister commented, "things seem to be falling apart everywhere at the moment".
In itself it is plain obvious. Libya, Syria, Iraq, Ukraine, Nigeria, Somalia, Central African Republic, South Sudan, Egypt, Tunisia, Palestine, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Mali and even, in its own way, the (formerly) United Kingdom.
I suppose if I'd heard two congregants in Church, two people at a bus stop or two people watching the news on TV saying it I'd have barely noticed. But a Government Minister? So even up there at the Top it looks scary?
Well, thank God that Top is not the real Top.
Among a thousand Bible verses that help - but less well known than most - the disasters of the human story are characterised as God gathering grapes . . .
Still another angel, who had charge of the fire, came from the altar and called in a loud voice to him who had the sharp sickle, "Take your sharp sickle and gather the clusters of grapes from the earth's vine, because its grapes are ripe."
From the real Top it really does look different.
