Becoming a Political Animal #3 - Into the Psalms

I’m reading my way through the Psalms, making notes as I go. Yesterday I came across a question  pertinent to becoming a political animal and not least the Localworks campaign: 

“When the foundations are being destroyed, what can the righteous do?”  (Psalm 11:3)

Mrs Mandylion is reading the Bible in chronological order using a book called Cover to Cover. This scheme places Psalm 11 with Saul’s behaviour towards David in 1 Samuel 19, and David’s friendship with Jonathan in the following chapter. One part of an answer to the question above is that if we consider ourselves to be righteous (always potentially dangerous, admittedly), we need to ally ourselves with others who are righteous, just as David did in his friendship with Jonathan, not in order to bring Saul down but to enable David to keep saying what he needed to say, to keep being what he needed to be, and stay in touch.

It was encouraging at the Sustainable Communities Bill rally to see members and leaders from the Women’s Institute, CAMRA, several large unions, The Conservative, Labour, Lib Dem and Green Parties speaking in support of the bill. Each was there because they see, as I do, some foundational things in British society being swept away. It is happening, I believe, in the name of following a raw socio-economic dogma that has some very debatable precepts at its heart.

There is, of course, room to argue about what is ‘foundation’ and what is dispensible (and I am not one just to preserve ‘in aspic’ anything to the detriment of genuine progress and improvement), but in this instance at least there is a growing consensus that many many good things, things which are to the benefit of local communities are on the brink of being sacrificed and lost.

In the 1950s and 60s in the UK many attractive and functional buildings were lost, demolished to make way for ‘modern’ developments (which later became slums and housing nightmares). Are we about to allow the same on a much grander and more catastrophic scale with British society? Alone, we might feel like this, but collectively we may have more of a say. I hope and pray so.