Diocese of Down & Dromore

Welcome to the uncer-'tens'!

The way in which we label decades is fascinating. It's quite simple from the ‘twenties' onwards, but the -00s and -10s give us some opportunity for creativity. As this past decade developed, it became known as ‘the Noughties' - a term which will, no doubt, be looked upon with affection in the future. But we now enter into the ‘tens' or perhaps even the ‘teenies', and we do so at a point of great uncertainty in our individual and national lives. The noughties seem to have, as their heritage, destroyed any remaining areas of security we might have held on to.

Here in Ireland, we enter a new decade where everything to do with finance is insecure - our jobs, our bank accounts, our benefits, our pensions. Though temporarily protected in the North by the stream of buyers coming from across the border, and many public sector jobs, we have a suspicion that the year to come will be far from financially easy.

Our once political certainties have gone, and the arguments in our community which led to conflict in the streets are being played out these days in Stormont - undoubtedly the right forum. This can, however, make us insecure and even cynical about our very structure of government and its ability to deliver anything more than conflict and impasse. Into the midst of that throw a general election in the UK where we hardly know what the parties stand for any longer! And, on the wider front, politics on the world stage continues to be worrying, conflictual, and costly to human life - and increasingly so.

We might also have good reason to be concerned about the apparent failure of the Copenhagen summit on climate change to deliver much of a concrete nature. The future of our very planet is uncertain and, many advise us, seriously time-limited if we continue to live as we have been living. What will the adults of the noughties hand on to the next generation in terms of care for the creation?

And, of course, the whole area of morality, family life, and the very ordering of our society is up for grabs to whoever can make the best case for the future. It seems as though a secularized society has to invent its moral principles pragmatically for each occasion, as it disentangles, intentionally or unintentionally, the Christian morality which undergirded many of our laws and social structures and gave us a common rootedness, and is deeply unsure about what will replace it.

But, at the end of this list of woe, is surely the church itself. The institutions of the church  which seemed to be set in stone have, for many people, let them down badly, and the apparently secure foundation of  ecclesiastical institutions has been revealed as having feet of clay. Things will never be the same again for the church in Ireland, and we may see a very different kind of church emerge on the world stage.

So, this moment of moving from the ‘noughties' to 2010 is a very important one. If our deepest certainty is to be found in the world around us, we will be rudderless, fearful and insecure. But there is a certainty which goes beyond our human wit and experience: a certainty only to be found in Jesus Christ who, after all, both loves and understands a fallen world, and reigns over all creation. When everything around us is moving and changing, he alone is the same -yesterday, today and for ever. Our trust is in the Word made flesh, and dare not be anywhere else at this crucial time.

May you have a happy move from the noughties to the teenies, in the deep knowledge that God is still on the throne.

+Harold Down and Dromore