The Wardman Wire

Touching Base – David Keen

Our marriage preparation course starts in a couple of weeks time, so I’m a bit more tuned into political debates on the family and family support than normal. Yesterday the Conservatives published their ‘Draft Manifesto on the Family’. That’s not quite as grand as it sounds – a 4-page excerpt from their draft manifesto, which is been released in bite-sized chunks on what seems like a daily basis.

Here is what I understand to be the aspirations, and concrete Conservative policies, for families.

The thundering knock came early in the morning. It was 6.30am. Without waiting for an answer the security chain across the door was smashed from its fittings. Feet thundered up the staircase. The five children, all under the age of 10, were alarmed to be woken from their sleep by the dozen burly strangers who burst into their bedrooms, switched on the lights and shouted at them to get up.

A full report by the Health and Safety Department into the carols sung on our doorstep last night by a horde of tuneless but hopeful teenagers.

the Advent season normally looks way past Christmas, to the goal and direction of all human history. It asks ‘does this life have a future’, and (ironically, at what’s become the busiest time of the year) challenges believers to stop and think about what pattern their habits are weaving.