Deficits..

Good morning God,
The talk in the newspapers this morning is all of cuts.. the need to address the county's deficit (which apparently is almost as bad as the Greek deficit).
The charge from the Institute of Fiscal Studies is that none of the political parties are really being honest with the electorate about the extent of the cuts needed to come anywhere near to balancing the country's books.  Well of course they aren't - they have an election to win - but to be honest, most of us don't want to hear it either.  If we think about it, we all KNOW that cuts have to happen, taxes will inevitably rise, redundancies will result - so austere times lie ahead - but we would rather not have to face that now thank you IFS - that's tomorrow's news, and to quote a good book 'sufficient unto each day is the evil thereof'.

The same is true of course, of the Church, which also has a massive deficit (Spiritually speaking) and which is also painfully trying to claw its way out of a serious recession caused largely by propping up failing institutions who were/are grossly overextended.

The parallel between Church and state is quite marked. My guess is that although Church members will protest, most of us actually know that whatever Conference decides about a presidium this year, and whoever it appoints or elects to office - the end result will have to be the same - cuts. The different factions in the Church might argue about where the axe should fall, and where we should prioritize our spending and investment, but those things are just the dressing on the wound:

Unless of course... new sources of Spiritual capital can be found - and no, I don't just mean financially.