waking up to prayer

Yesterday was the first day of our summer break from the routine of public community prayer. Generally, our pattern of daily prayer has more or less followed the pattern of school holidays, with regular breaks in the rhythm. Last year, though, I opted out of the summer break (apart from a couple of days during the Stories of Hope and Home camping trip), and we have continued to pray, here in this space (and occasionally elsewhere because "have facebook will travel") throughout the year.

On 16th March 2020 we began livestreaming morning prayer. A small community gathered. Since then I reckon that's a total of 353 times of prayer of which I have missed only a handful due to commitments elsewhere.

So yesterday was the first weekday since last February when I could have had a lie-in (needless to say, didn't!); the first weekday, more or less, when I have not woken up to pray with others.

I love the rich variety in my life and the fact that no two days are exactly the same. I know that I would not be suited to a 9 - 5 lifestyle. But I do also appreciate the importance of routine; the points which hold everything else together, the frame on which the rest of life can hang. Maybe all, or at least many, of us need both of these things: structure and variety.

I have long valued our rhythm of prayer, for reasons I often find it difficult to articulate. This past year and a half, perhaps more than ever, I have been grateful for the constancy of it. When everything else had to be reinvented, multiple times, often at short notice, there was, always, prayer.

In the midst of the storm, this has been my anchoring point. 

I am very grateful for its existence and very grateful for those who have shared in it.

A conversation of two halves

A significant chunk of the early part of the Stories of Hope and Home session yesterday was spent discussing football. It is not a subject in which I am an expert ... unlike, it turns out, several members of the group. So I mostly listened: I listened to their knowledge, their interest and their passion. 

All of them will, it seems, be supporting England on Sunday night (though they vary in how confident they are about our chances!)

One, no less, described himself as "England's number one fan"

He did so despite the fact that the UK has yet to tell him whether he will be allowed to stay; has yet to make a decision on his asylum claim five years after he arrived; has yet to allow him to settle, to rebuild; has yet to tell him when, if, he will be able to be reunited with his family.

That was the first half.

And then, perhaps inevitably, seemingly disconnected from the conversation thus far, someone brought up the Nationality and Borders Bill which had its first reading in parliament this week. It felt almost like we had all, perhaps subconsciously, been waiting for someone to be the first to mention it, to ask the question, to acknowledge the anxiety. 

Up until that point I had been very much a bit part player in the conversation. Quite rightly, no-one was really turning to me for my opinion or expertise on the England football team or the other football related tangents. But now eyes and ears turned to me as the one who might be able to describe and explain. It felt like an uncomfortable place to be. 

I didn't really want to explain to this amazing group of people just what the government was proposing. I didn't really want to describe a law which is being introduced in my name, in the name of my country, the name of the country they will all be supporting on Sunday evening. I didn't really want to be the bearer of the news that, however you try to dress it up, the new bill is downright nasty, further eroding refugee rights and further emboldening the destructive rhetoric designed to divide and exclude. 

Every sentence I uttered in that conversation felt like it needed prefacing with an apology. 

But this conversation mattered and so did the space in which to have it.  

One group of people. Two entirely separate conversations.

But something in the juxtaposition of their willingness to warmly embrace their host country; and the said country's failure to reciprocate seemed particularly stark.  

I am glad they will be supporting England. I long for the day when England will be supporting them too. It feels like there is much work to be done to get there.