The news is full of the Pike River Mining Disaster, made so much more tragic in the light of the recent Chilean mine "miracle".
God forgive us glib comments about miracles and prayer and the sovereign grace of God.
God forgive us that we take the dangers that miners (and oil platform engineers, and deep sea fishermen) face, for granted.
The loss of these 29 lives is a tragedy...
But it has also raised for others the many livelihoods lost in coal mining areas in the last major recession in the 1980s... The work down the pits may have been hard and dangerous but it was all that the people of those areas ever knew... And nothing adequate has ever replaced it in most cases... Call centres and car washes... The same is true of all the old industries including the shipyard in Belfast...
In memory of those who have died, and in honour of all those who have worked in coal mines the world and the industries fuelled by it, here is Sting's "We work the black seam together..."
As New Zealand premier John Key said this morning: "We are our brother's keepers..."
God forgive us glib comments about miracles and prayer and the sovereign grace of God.
God forgive us that we take the dangers that miners (and oil platform engineers, and deep sea fishermen) face, for granted.
The loss of these 29 lives is a tragedy...
But it has also raised for others the many livelihoods lost in coal mining areas in the last major recession in the 1980s... The work down the pits may have been hard and dangerous but it was all that the people of those areas ever knew... And nothing adequate has ever replaced it in most cases... Call centres and car washes... The same is true of all the old industries including the shipyard in Belfast...
In memory of those who have died, and in honour of all those who have worked in coal mines the world and the industries fuelled by it, here is Sting's "We work the black seam together..."
As New Zealand premier John Key said this morning: "We are our brother's keepers..."
Selah
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