beached as on wall street

If you're one of those people who are yet to be able to distinguish an Australian accent from a Kiwi accent, youtube has a video for you. Search for "beached whale NZ," turn on your best Kiwi-accent-distinguishing-ears (or find yourself an interpreter) and you'll soon be having fush and chups and plinktun for dinner, feeling "beached as."

Now if there was ever an example of that, you just need to take a look at America's financial situation right now. Wall Street is beached as. Tell me something I don't know, bru. It's all over the news and it's got everyone in a flap. Listening to a talk on NPR the other day, callers were frantically wanting to find out if they were going to be okay: "What's the safest investment I can make? How can I make absolute certain that my money will be there when I need it?" What I found interesting was that the guest financial expert could offer no perfectly risk-free investment strategy.

It got me thinking about some of the things Jesus said about money: "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal." Jesus was pointing out the uncertainty of investing in things on earth. I think it's easy to forget that sometimes. In good times we are happy to accept a small risk when investing. But in a time of financial crisis when the things we once thought to be stable are starting to falter, that risk becomes much more real and it dawns on us that we could lose it all.

I think what Jesus encourages us to do here is to take an eternal perspective. Of course, this does not mean that we should neglect what earthly wealth we have. In a parable about a shrewd manager Jesus teaches his disciples that if we have not been trustworthy with worldly wealth we can't expect to be trusted with "true riches." He also tells us to use our worldly wealth to gain friends for ourselves, "so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings." So while he encourages us to use our finances, we are to do so with a mind to the kingdom which is eternal, producing a treasure that will outlast this world. Now that's the kind of investment I want. It won't leave me beached as, when everyone else is saying, "Ah noo!"