Giving up Power

This week, two stories caught my eye.
The first was the letter the Castro sent to the Cuban people announcing that he was thinking of stepping down. Whatever you think about Castro, it's clearly a big thing for someone in his position to lay down power...
The second was the sale of one of the seventeen surviving copies of the Magna Carta - for 19 million dollars! The Magna Carta is the first legal document that limited the power of kings...
The issue of power is one of the central ones in our society. Some are trying to hold on to it - others are trying to get it. It is useful because it enables us to get things done - but it has a tendency to currupt...
The Christmas story has a lot to say about power. It's about God choosing not to be powerful, but to be powerless. Not to stop being God, but to be a different kind of God from the one we expect. It's about the lifting up of the humble and the pulling down of the mighty. It's about God with us - and our response.
We all have power - even if it is only power to effect the lives of those who love us. In relationships you loose if you try to win...
Love is only worth anything if we give it away. So is power...