Friday 12 April 2013

The great leveller

The passing out of this present life of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher has brought many things to life... but this quote from Bernard Jenkin strikes me especially:
It was often difficult to believe that this frail figure once held the world in the palm of her hand and yet there would still be flashes of the Margaret Thatcher of Downing Street.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/apr/10/margaret-thatcher-final-days
The article contains the rather strange line "Lady Jenkin, who together with her husband Bernard Jenkin MP, became friends with Thatcher, added...", omitting all mention that Bernard Jenkin's father, Patrick Jenkin, served Margaret Thatcher as Secretary of State for Social Services, then for Industry, then for the environment.

Old age and death and the great levellers. At one time, two may be holding the great offices of state, and even (surely some hyperbole) "hold the world in the palm of the their hands". A few years later, they are frail old folk who struggle to make outings to the garden - or become nobodies who are completely forgotten.

Thus, the Bible says, is the glory of man. The flower flowers; and is gone. The mighty become the weak - or the completely forgotten; and then they are scarcely thought of any more. Today's political titans are tomorrow's names in dusty old books read only by the specialists. And that happens just in a few turnings of the earth, whilst we were looking the other way.

There is another world in which man, because of the death and resurrection of Christ, is immortal. Mrs. Thatcher has enough quotes on record concerning her faith in Christ to give us hope that she was and continues to be part of it, and will be part of all its fullness. Will you?

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