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Yesterday the Â鶹Éç interviewed several people who have recently lost their jobs as a result of Covid-19. This comes as people are talking about a looming ‘cliff-edge’ when unemployment is set to worsen, as the furlough scheme winds down Restaurants, retailers and a raft of UK businesses are already planning job cuts with approximately 140,000 redundancies announced in June alone. During the interviews, those who had lost their jobs spoke about their own personal fears. A young person feared not finding work that they will enjoy and the desperate need to pay rent, another felt the weight of responsibility to provide for a family and dependants, and a person from an older demographic, felt he had been deemed too old to employ. Each expressed the lack of certainty and security in this current climate and unemployment, like a mountain to climb, with many jobs advertised seeing hundreds of applications. Franklin Roosevelt said ‘No country, however rich, can afford the waste of its human resources. Demoralization caused by vast unemployment is our greatest extravagance. And Morally, it is the greatest menace to our social order’. For our sense of worth and morale are often rooted in purpose and contribution; without work, simply staying positive can be the hardest work of all. Not to mention the emotional toll unemployment can bring, in the blurring of days, where a whole week can feel like a long uneventful weekend. As we approach the cliff-edge, in the coming months and more people find themselves unemployed and redundant; the unexpected kindness and local generosity that has occurred in lockdown will likely need to continue, perhaps more now than ever. For people are going to have to rely on generosity to get through this. In a story from the bible, during a famine in Canaan, Elijah had lost everything and as he sat by the brook full of dread and uncertainty, the ravens would bring him food to eat. Not only does this speak of God’s unexpected provision but also of the unlikely sources, which can provide the care that comes in times of need, in this case the raven who is among the lowest pecking order of all. We are in a better position to cope when we have structures of love and support, it can even be the difference between life and death. It is therefore incumbent on us to widen our reach. To examine our structures and to change our conscious habits and mindset as we look-after each other, this carries even greater intensity in our human to human contact, for the morale of the individual and for all.