ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½

Available for over a year

Once a month I go to the barber to get my beard trimmed. We usually discuss life, football, faith, and his latest search for love. But lately, he's been keen to discuss the end of the world. He seems convinced that we are living in the last days. All the signs are there: wars, fires, storms and plagues. Maybe we are ripe for a Second Coming. As the poet Yeats described: the centre isn't holding; anarchy is loosed, the best lack conviction; and the worst seem full of passionate intensity. 'Careful with that razor,' I joke. Before asking him, half in jest, if he thinks he will find love before the world ends. He gives it proper thought. Before saying, 'I hope so.' 'Me too,' I say. 'Truth is, there's too much life to live and I'm twice your age. You've got a business to grow and love to find, I've got a beard to grow and stories to write - plus we still don't know who has won Traitors. On the plasma screen there's a clip of Attenborough's film about the Oceans showing a bottom trawler destroying the coral rich seabed. It may be legal, but this activity seems to capture humanity at its wilful and short-termist worst. Attenborough sounds like a prophet admonishing the world. Of course, there are people who want it all to end, and are keen to induce it. Like some who buy property in Megiddo thinking they'll have a front row seat for Armageddon. Or the mega rich who build nuclear bunkers beneath mountains, the survivalists stockpiling tins of over-dredged fish. Willing on a deus ex machina. Last time I checked, God instructed us to do the intervening, it is we who are to care for the planet and each other; Jesus was clear, too: there's enough to be getting on with in this life here and now. We can leave the Da Vinci code theology to the conspiracy theorists. There is a planet to fix, wealth to distribute fairly, and wars to be ended. And, thankfully, there are people trying to step up to these challenges - like those trying to arrest and reverse the damage we're doing to the planet; or those trying to find better ways to share the commonwealth; and the millions of kind people doing what they can to end wars by choosing to love their neighbour. Meanwhile on the Plasma, a miracle is un-folding: beneath the Ocean, the ruined seabed, with enough protection and good stewardship, shows a startling capacity for renewal. We watch a heaven growing back from a hell. 'Would you like some oil in that beard,' the barber asks. He anoints my beard. 'Cologne?' Splash it all over. We hug, I say see you next month, and at the door I make a prophesy that he will find love before the end of all things