This is a talking point published in the Hereford Times on November 28.

Rob Thomas, lead executive, Vennture

DISASTERS flood our lives. We want someone to be accountable. Perpetrators of catastrophic failings must face justice. Public inquiries are not enough– things need fixing. We want better things, and we want things to be better.

Sam Freedman’s Failed State: Why Nothing Works And How To Fix It, argues that governments each face a disaster unique to their time. Covid, the banking crisis, 9/11 and Afghanistan. Each predicament reshapes how things work.

Now, Freedman argues, we face a crisis of nothing working and no way to hold anyone to account.

Jesus faced tough questions about the disasters of his day– a horrifying genocide and a tower block collapse. People wanted someone to blame. Jesus said, think again. It’s more about us than them. In grief, we realise how small we are. We think life goes on forever– it doesn’t. We think this life is all there is– it isn’t.

A friend– frustrated by seeing so much injustice in the world, asks me, ‘Is there a hell, where all the bad people can just go?’ It’s not for me to judge. Jesus says, disasters remind us to be ready to give account. Except we change, He says, we die unprepared.

ALSO READ:

What are your thoughts?

You can send a letter to the editor to have your say by clicking here.

Letters should not exceed 250 words and local issues take precedence.

The musical Les Misérables is all about lives shaped by disaster. The desperate man stealing to put bread on the table. The girl, whose dreams are wrecked by a thoughtless man. Angry students building street barricades to protest society’s unfairness. The cold-hearted bureaucrat, who confronted with the law’s inability to reform, commits suicide. Yet out of this mess, hope dawns.

The forgiven convict rediscovering his identity. The orphaned daughter finding love and life. The martyred protester marching with singing people climbing to the light. A land beyond the barricade, in a world we all long to see.

When disaster floods my life, I need to think again. Someone must give account – it will be me.

I need to find my identity in forgiveness and rediscover love and life. Climbing to the light, I will find better things. Things will be better in a world we all long to see.