Hope

This month changes to the primary school curriculum in England were announced which would teach children how to live “happy and healthy lives”. Earlier in 2008, responding to a study in the United States which found that teenage children who had been taught “positive psychology” performed better at school, the Work and Pensions Secretary, James Purnell said:

"Wellbeing has gone from being a new and interesting idea to becoming a
mainstream idea in policy, embraced by politicians of all stripes."

The Government, it appears, is taking seriously the issue of wellbeing and “happiness” and using it to inform policymaking, particularly within education. Happiness – the state of well-being – can be an indicator of the health of a nation. Therefore our communal thirst for happiness is entirely consistent with what it means to be human. Christian faith calls this hope. And what makes us happy or hopeful must therefore continue to be a matter of keen interest to a society in search of meaning and meaningful existence.

This hope remains firmly on God’s agenda too. In our preparations for the year ahead, this Christmas we might pause to reflect on our response to God’s eternal and beautiful plan for our happiness. As the light of our trust in the economy flickers under the strain of a looming recession, God’s eternal promise of hope shines strong and bright.

Identity is not Biography

I've been thinking a lot lately about to what extent we are the product of our circumstances. Is biography and identity the same thing? How we tell our story is central to how we see ourselves. If we tell our story as one of circumstance, one of events that have happened, things that have been done to us then are we presenting ourselves as a product of our past? If, instead, we tell our story as the people that have shaped us, the places we've seen, the joys and the sadness we've experienced, we perhaps begin to express our identity.

But that's not the full story. I am not, as Orange would have me believe, the sum of my relationships. I am not my family, my Scottish upbringing. I am not my education, my travels. I am not my faith, my beliefs. There lies a place, deep within me that is my identity. It is hard to express and harder to explain. Our creator knows who I am and He knows why I am. I am made in God's image and I must rest-assured that that is good. It is very good indeed.

If identity was the same as biography then where is the hope of a new tomorrow? There has to be that hope. The hope to someday, somehow escape the confines of your childhood and be free to be you.