Tonight I went to see Paul Field's musical 'Cargo', which is his response to the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade.  It is powerful stuff, and combines his great singer/songwriter talent with some powerful narrative.

I don't suppose he is saying anything that, say, Riding Lights or Saltmine or a dozen others aren't, it was just that he happened to be saying it locally.

For me, one of the most powerful things he did was to compare the money involved with consumer goods - a child sold for the price of a Big Mac, for example, or a young girl sold into prostition for the price of an inexpensive second hand car...

Twenty million people currently in slavery is a massive number - too large to mean much.  About the same as 40% of the population of England, or around the whole population of Australia (assuming things like Wikipedia are roughly right.)

"Nothing changes because people think there's nothing they can do - but we can all do something, however small"

"No-one is truly free until everyone is free"

These seem to be the two messages of today - and they are good ones, I think.

(This is a bit of an aside but still...)  One of the big themes this year is about saying sorry - and it's one I find slightly bemusing and bewildering.   Saying sorry without acting differently is rather hollow.  I also wonder where the apologies start and stop - not because I don't think they are worthwhile, but because my ancestors have been both victims and aggressors, sometimes on the same issues (not least, somewhere along the line having both Campbells and MacDonalds; both Jews and Christians; to say nothing of French, Dutch, German and Spanish (I'm not actually all that English really!), soldiers and contientious objectors.... the list is endless).

I guess I end up concluding that how I behave in the here and now is of greater import than who beat, bullied or burned my ancestors.  There's only one person whose actions and attitudes I can control - and that's mine; my challenge is to do my little bit to learn from the past, allow it to inform my present and hopefully contribute to everyone's future.  (Adn that, I think, is called Practical Theology!)