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Only Jesus can bring transformation

THE recent letters from Zoe McCormick and Craig Halliday regarding the violence and hatred in our society today made for interesting reading.

That our nation is divided,with a lack of respect for each other, with violence, hatred and fear stalking our streets is an undeniable fact.

We as a nation have turned our backs on the Lordship of Jesus Christ, and what we see on our streets and in our society today is the result of that rejection.

No human will ever have the answer to our nation’s problems and the only hope that this nation has if it is not to spiral down into complete social breakdown and anarchy is a return to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

So, Zoe and Craig (and anybody else) before you dismiss me as some ‘religious nut job’ please Google what happened in the Welsh Revival, Azuza Street and Hebridean Revival, and what happened in Cali Colombia in 1995 when people got on their knees in prayer in their thousands because they had enough of the violence, corruption, murders and the drugs that were devastating their city.

These revivals were very real and brought real transformation because when God comes down everything changes resulting in totally changed lives and changed communities and changed nations.

Our country desperately needs this transformation to happen here. Without it we will plunge into a darkness that we will never emerge from and, Zoe, your hope of a nation without violence and hatred will be dashed.

Only Jesus can bring this transformation. My prayer is that the people of this nation will realise this before it is too late.

Steve Jack, Parsonage Court, Highworth

Food recycling fears are wide of the mark

In his letter ‘Food recycling scheme will bring problems’ (SA, July 9), Steven Blanchard is certainly shooting from the hip, imagining all sorts of nasties.

Well I can assure him that in my experience, over several years of food separation, he is worrying over nothing.

We have three under-worktop bins, a large flip top one for dry recycling including shiny crisp packets, a small flip top bin lined with a Co-op plastic bag for mainly plastic packaging waste and a small green recycling bin similarly lined.

I should admit at this point there is just my wife and I.

The green bin has filter on the lid and a doubled-over paper kitchen towel lines the bottom before the ubiquitous Co-op bag is inserted and turned over the top of the bin with the loose lid holding it in place.

The main items going in to this bin are tea bags, banana skins, orange peel, apple stalks and vegetable and salad offcuts, with the occasional meat and fish scraps.

There are no perceptible smells – I have just taken a good snort of the open bin – no flies and in a two-week period not much in the way of rotting, banana skins naturally go black.

The only changes I anticipate is substituting biodegradeable bags for the plastic bags I presently use and putting out a separate container rather than chucking the bag in the wheelie bin.

With regard to containers outside I am sure they will be reasonably robust and secure.

I have just collected, in the last week, new black bins which are a lot tougher than the bins we have had for the last 10 years or more.

No, I do not work for Swindon Borough Council but I could not let such an uninformed and biased letter go unchallenged.

Henry Smith, Peatmoor, Swindon