House of Sand

'The Pope likens banking system to 'a house of sand' was a pretty outrageous headline for The Guardian to print. In fact the Pope said, 'He who builds only on visible and tangible things like success, career and money, builds the house of his life on sand...'

Which is entirely different, and which is exactly the point of this credit crunch. No one can tell what will happen next, who will be affected by this money cancer that is spreading through the world. Who could have predicted that children's charities and local councils would be affected by the predicament that Iceland finds itself in? And it is ridiculously oversimplified to blame this crisis on the banking system as a whole, or on hedgefunders.

There is no point being afraid: There will be winners and losers. What we all have to do is be sensible with our money and learn to value what really matters. Money is not bad; it is neutral, something that enables us to interact. But God is bigger than money and He knows how to give us good things. Anyone can turn to him and then we become trustafarians of the greatest family of all.

Meanwhile, the more money people have the more they seem to be panicking. The Telegraph seems utterly rattled, but we have to remember that the worst that can happen is that we lose all our money. That's all. No one has died of it, unless driven suicidal by gloom and doom headlines in the media. We need to get on with living, in order to know how to enjoy our inheritance when we find it in heaven.
And even the Vatican has stocks and shares...