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It’s Children in Need Day - for many the climax of months of fundraising fun and hard slog. Along the way, they’ve had glimpses of young people whose lives have been changed dramatically by the efforts of previous years, always a great incentive to keep going on that marathon or soaking in the time-honoured bath of baked beans. For me the most powerful image this year came in the special edition of the Â鶹Éç One property renovation show DIY SOS. As usual, it brought together a team of specialists with a small army of volunteers. They transformed a church hall in Blackburn into homes for young people from the streets: six beautiful apartments which would grace any colour supplement, places where they can be safe, learn to live independently, discover a sense of their true worth. There was so much to admire in this massive community project, but the image which has stuck with me was conjured up by the leader of the charity involved. She’s been working in this field for thirty years, and spoke of meeting a homeless teenager who slept beneath a canal bridge. He asked for just one thing - a tub of salt that he could sprinkle around his sleeping bag so that at night the slugs didn’t crawl over him. ‘The thought of that has never left me,’ she said, ‘I never want it to.’ It’s not a nice picture - one to make us squirm in disgust, maybe. Yet it reflects a grim reality in towns and cities across the country. Rather than blocking it off, it’s a thought to keep close, and to disturb any complacency. There are things to be done, priorities to be assessed, real human beings to be recognised through whatever squalor they’re struggling beneath. In a passage we know as the Beatitudes, Jesus sets out for his followers the marks of a life being lived as God intends and attracting his blessing: they include being humble and merciful, working to make peace, wanting what is right above all else, and if necessary being prepared to suffer for it. And then he says, ‘You are the salt of the earth.’ That’s not a compliment: it’s an order. People living as salt are meant to preserve whatever is needed for a healthy human community - to enhance its flavour, to treat its wounds, to prevent infections. Salt as an ancient symbol of purity and straight dealing implies a commitment to seeking justice, and caring for those it fails. I’m glad that Children in Need, like so many of the charities it works with, reflects this - and that the salt it spreads is useful for far more than frightening off the slugs.