Adjusting to a new reality

It's about a month since I last posted anything on here. As always, there are a few unfinished drafts which may or may not see the light of day at some point ... but suddenly most seem less relevant to the strange new reality in which we find ourselves. In one sense it feels like hyperbole to suggest 'everything has changed' but actually, it kind of has: and it means that I feel like to write something, it has to, at least somehow relate to this new situation. Perhaps that will change, when this becomes our mundane reality, but that's not how it feels right now. And so here I am, just one more person casting their disparate and at times dysfunctional thoughts about life in the pandemic into the ether, perhaps as nothing more than a reminder to myself, in times to come, of how it felt to be caught up in the story of this generation.

As it became increasingly obvious that, some point soon, we'd be heading to a time of increased physical distancing and lock-down, my brain was teeming with ideas of things that I would do with all the extra time I found myself with: jobs that had been hovering at the bottom of jobs lists for a very long time, creative projects, more writing: I nearly posted an apology on here for the inevitable deluge of blog posts to follow.

You'll have noticed. This has not been the case.

Time has become a strange paradox of stretching indefinitely into emptiness and flying by as quickly as ever. Whole days seem to disappear with the same struggle to fit everything I want to do in. No change there then: but it is not how I expected this time to feel.

In some ways, life looks very, very different to it did a month ago, but in other ways, not as much as I thought it might. My energies have, for the most part, been directed exactly where they always were: towards building relationships and community with those I love and care about. There's still some stuff that could be very loosely defined as teaching mixed in. The fact that the format is very different, and I, like the rest of the world, have discovered new depths of appreciation for technology, has not detracted from my first priority in my new routine and reality being sustaining human connection.

I abandoned the term social distancing almost as soon as it had become common parlance: this is not, I suggest, what any of us need right now. Physical distancing, certainly, but that is a very different thing. I know that the last thing I need right now is to feel more socially distant from my communities I would say it is part of the human condition to need social connection, perhaps even more so in times of uncertainty and crisis. We are made for togetherness. Perhaps the imposed separateness has given many of us a renewed appreciation for this need.

Despite the reality of almost no physical face-to-face contact (answering the door to the postman has become one of the highlights of my day, I kid ye not!) there have definitely been times when I have felt almost overwhelmed by the quantity of social contact. There is, perhaps a certain increased intensity inherent in continuing conversations and 'holding space' online rather than in person. Overall though, I am pleased with how my (virtual) social connectedness is shaping up.

I know myself well enough to know that a sense of purpose is deeply important to me. I know how much I would struggle to feel I wasn't able to contribute or make a difference: it was one of my biggest fears as we headed towards this strange new reality. For different people, I am sure the approach of lockdown presented very different things to stress about for different people. This was mine. When so much of my raison d'etre is focused around human encounter, what would I still have to offer from being tucked away in a corner?

I am deeply grateful that the reality has felt much more constructive than some of my concerns beforehand suggested. Much of what I am committing my time and energy to has, I hope, great value for those towards whom it is directed: but I make no illusions that this is entirely altruistic. All this reaching out in support of others is also fulfilling a deep need in me. I had twinges of guilt about that to start with as I questioned my own motivations.

This is not the first time I have wrestled with such a thing, working out how to justify whether roles which bring me great joy and fulfillment can really be called work. But I think I have made peace with it, at least for now, at least in the context. I don't think it detracts from the good I can offer others if it also gives me life: on the contrary, perhaps it is this which will make it more sustainable. Perhaps it is this which confirms it is vocation.

Now I've started writing, I have a number of other tangentially related things I think I want to say, but this post is probably already long enough, so maybe that's for another day.

Wonderful Wales

It is now almost a fortnight since I got back from a truly wonderful few days in Wales with the participants from the Stories of Hope and Home project. Nearly everyone I have spoken to about it has said I should be "writing all this down" so I guess this is my attempt to do so, at least in part.

Perhaps I should have written something immediately when the impressions of the trip and all that it meant, to them and to me, were still fresh and raw. But at the point I was certainly too tired to string together a coherent sentence! I came home utterly exhausted ... and with zero regrets about a truly wonderful shared experience.

I was fairly tired even before we set off... after a few semi-sleepless nights worrying about ensuring everything was in place for it all to go as smoothly as possible and for everyone to have a wonderful time: expectations, mine and theirs, of this being a very special experience, were high, so I was desperately keen to ensure it lived up to the dream! But with the activities planned, the resources collated, the menus decided, the participant list finalised, what could possibly go wrong?

By departure day, it was fairly obvious that Storm Dennis was going to be wreaking havoc across the whole of South Wales. Red weather warnings are hardly an auspicious start to a few days away to enjoy the countryside! We were travelling as far as Cardiff by megabus (because it was cheap, but given the number of cancelled trains that weekend, it turned out to have been an excellent choice). By the time we were en route (with everyone having made it comfortably on time, thereby alleviating the first of my significant worries) it was clear the train we were due to get up to the village where we were staying was not running; but the local bus service wasn't showing any disruptions, so it looked like we weren't going to have to change our plans too much, and we enjoyed a couple of hours in the National Museum before locating a bus stop.

I think it's fair to say it was pretty obvious we weren't locals: the ethnic mix of the Stories of Hope and Home group is somewhat different to the general make up of the population in the Welsh valleys. It wasn't surprising we attracted a degree of interest. We were asked by interested locals where we were from and where we were going... When I said (with some trepidation about my pronunciation of Welsh place names), that we were en route to Troedyrhiw, the reply "but you can't be, the village was evacuated this morning" was not, if I'm entirely honest, what I wanted to hear. Not that anyone else understood what was going on ... this was one of several occasions when I had to identify that no, that wasn't welsh,just English with a strong welsh accent. So I spent the rest of the journey carrying out hasty google searches to try and work out whether the place where we were staying was outside the evacuation zone. 19 people including a toddler in self-contained accommodation with a clear plan of activities was quite stressful enough ... ending up in an evacuation centre with a lot of undoubtedly distressed locals was probably not my ideal scenario at this stage.

As we walked passed lots of houses with their sodden furniture and carpets out in their front yards; rarely have I been so grateful for the fact that we were walking uphill!  Anyway, we arrived and if the downstairs kitchen floor showed some evidence that flood water had made its way in, it was not going to deter us from settling in and having a good time. And after that beginning, the only way was up, surely!? It was just as well Helena was joining us the next day and that, as well as bringing the food for the rest of our trip, could throw in a few extra essentials ... such as a mop and bucket!

By dinner time on the first evening it was fairly obvious that the timetable was going to have to be fairly flexible, ... and that was even before such complications as a stay in a local hospital for one of the participants were added to the mix the following day. Frequent adjustments to the timetable were probably inevitable, adapting to various complications and to the weather forecast; but having a timetable and a plan meant that we did fit a lot in to the time we had together. Helped, undoubtedly too, that everyone had come with a desire to get the most they could out of the trip.

While we may have come to the table late, come to the table we did: all of us. It was something of a squeeze to fit everyone into the dining room, but we managed it: this was to prove to be a significant and beautiful feature of the trip: to sit and eat together as family; with good food, conversation and laughter. 

I'm not sure I slept at all the first night, a situation that improved slightly, but not hugely on the following nights. It meant I was already awake when I heard someone in the kitchen making falafel for breakfast ... at 4am! You'd think, after the early start (I gave up all pretense at sleeping and was in the kitchen myself, watching rather than being useful, by 5), that breakfast would be ready on time, but in a pattern that was to be repeated throughout, that didn't exactly come to pass.

The locals we met on the bus had suggested that Troedyrhiw was not a particularly attractive place, but I guess it depends on your points of comparison .. because no, this was not the Brecon Beacons, but nor was it inner city Birmingham, and to be able to step outside and be on a grass covered hillside within a few minutes walk from the front door was a much-appreciated novelty, even for those who were not particularly motivated by outdoor activity and opted for the shorter version of the walk each day. For those who were more adventurous, and continued for a longer walk, being caught on the hillside in a hailstorm was all part of the experience. For me, it feels like a feature of British holidays that if, when walking in the countryside you find yourself in a mix of sleet, rain and hail, you do up your coat a little tighter and carry on regardless, so I consider them now to be fully inculturated! The weather was kinder to us the following day (for February, anyway), and after a visit to Aberfan with the whole group, about half went on for what turned out to be about a five hour walk. Those who know me will be aware that the fact I was the one entrusted with an OS map was always going to be a bit of a risk, but we only had to climb over one (or was it two?) fences when we got slightly off track, and a good time was had by all! The rest of the group who had wandered back to the house to chill out also seemed to have had a nice time too, so everyone was satisfied.

In between and around all that, we did various activities back at the house: this was, after all, at least in theory, a residential trip not just a holiday! And so it proved to be. I continue to appreciate the enthusiasm with which this group of people throw themselves into the things I invite them to do: which this time included art, charades and drama as well as discussion. There was lots and lots of laughter, a healthy dose of competitiveness at times, but also some deep thoughtfulness and careful reflections shared. Some of the foundations for our summer play have certainly been laid and our community is a little, or maybe a lot, closer than it already was.

And so we arrived at the final evening, and if I hit a wall of utter exhaustion and slightly overwrought emotion by early evening, I think that's allowed! And I came out the other side to a lovely evening of good company, and expressions of gratitude and friendship.

By some minor miracle, we managed to leave the house not just on time, but early, for our return journey; which meant we had longer in Cardiff than I had dared to hope... although after a fascinating visit to the Senedd we did end up cutting it rather more fine than was good for anyone's blood pressure to make it back to the megabus stop. But we made it, and the rest is history. By early evening, as planned, we were back in Birmingham, and I suspect the suggestion of stopping for a cup of tea was as much because of an unspoken desire for the experience not to come to an end as for any other reason. I know, because despite my exhaustion, there was something of that in me, too. That said, when every did, finally, wend their way homeward, I appreciated an early night and a very good night's sleep!

So that was that, in the broadest of broad brushstrokes, our few days in Wales. Lots of joy, a few tears, and, as I mentioned more than once during the trip, "only manageable amounts of stress!" This blog post is already (more than) long enough but in fact, it is probably not the broad brushstrokes and sketched outlines that best tell the story of this trip. It is the endless little anecdotes of individual moments, the mundane as much as the noteworthy, which really tell the story. Or perhaps it is a story which can't really be told, and had to be lived. That too, probably.

There is also this post https://www.storiesofhome.org.uk/2020/02/wales.html which says something about what the trip meant to those who I accompanied.

Stories of Hope and Home (2)

Scrolling through my blog feed, I realised it was a long time since I wrote anything here about Stories of Hope and Home... which is some what surprising, given that it has very quickly expanded to fill much of my time and even more of my head-space.

The last post on the subject was written way back in September, before it really even existed. Five months later, it is in a very different place.

Much has happened, and it has been (and I am sure will continue to be) a truly amazing privilege to help this fledgling project take flight. Somehow, though, it seems pretty hard to put into words, which is ironic, given it is a project entirely based around doing exactly that. It surely shouldn't be so difficult to tell the story of telling stories? And yet, somehow, there is no simple, coherent narrative to capture all that this project has very quickly become. Perhaps though, that is one of the many things we are learning together: that stories are not simple and ordered and complete. They are made up of seemingly throw-away comments which tell deep truths, and of tattered scraps of paper which reveal something of ourselves.

The Stories of Hope and Home group started meeting at the beginning of October. Since then, 30 different individuals have engaged with the project, from eighteen different nationalities. Men and women, of different ages, different cultures, different religions, different languages ... who have built a truly beautiful, supportive community which cradles both laughter and tears. The numbers only tell a tiny part of a story which is woven out of so many other stories being brought together and held in this space.

And for me, in the midst of it all, to be entrusted with so many snippets of so many stories feels like an immense privilege but also a significant responsibility. Back in the autumn, I asked one of the participants for permission to share a part of their story. She replied "you don't have to ask, because my story is also your story now" That, which encapsulated in words much of what I feel I have been given by those I am working with, felt like such an act of trust and such a very precious gift.

The other part of the project, to create opportunities for the project participants to share their stories with children and young people in schools also already feels like it is bearing fruit. A rough calculation suggests we have spoken to almost 300 school students, plus their staff, since we got started. But again, the numbers tell only a tiny snippet of the story. The real story lies in watching young people's faces change as they listen, in hearing them respond, in sensing their engagement; and in listening to conversations between participants about their own reflections on what and why they are sharing their stories with these young people.

There are still, for me, questions and challenges around this part of the project that whir around my brain. I really believe in the power and possibility of this: my own life has been significantly enriched and transformed by my own encounters with these stories and these people; I want to be part of offering something of that experience to others. I have also seen the value for individual participants of having space to share their stories, and having those stories really heard. But none of that has fully assuaged my nagging doubts and questions around the ethics of this work, and I am continuing to reflect on how to ensure I am respecting the integrity of those who are participating in the project and ensuring I do not abuse the trust they are placing in me. I hope I am getting the balance right. I hope I will be forgiven for the occasions I inevitably get it wrong.

Saying goodbye

On the 31st December 2019 I was walking along the spectacular coast path of northern Cornwall. It was also, officially, my last day at St Chad's Sanctuary.

In reality, my last 'proper' work day was ten days earlier when I had helped welcome seventy children, and their parents, to a Christmas party: complete with Santa, pass the parcel, and a scratch nativity play; to a room filled with noise and mess and laughter and joy.

Last Sunday I gathered together with some of the many, many friends I have worked alongside there, to mark the end of an era.

You cannot possibly have either known me personally over the last few years, or have followed this blog, without understanding that this place has been hugely important to me. It is where I met many of those I am privileged to now call my friends. It has played a significant part in Birmingham becoming a place I call home.

Deciding that the time was right to part company was, therefore, never going to be easy. There were, predictably, tears. There was a period of angst and uncertainty. But, in the end, for all the sadness, I am at peace that I have made the right decision. Of course there are many things, and people, and activities, that I miss. I'm sure there will be for many weeks (months, years ...) to come.

But there is much I will not miss ... because while I am saying goodbye to St Chad's Sanctuary, I am not going to be saying goodbye to much of what it has given me. There are many, many friends, who, I hope and trust will still be part of my life. The passion it has given me for campaigning about asylum issues and caring about those caught up in the struggle has not diminished. The desire to build supportive, inclusive community which offers safe space to hold both the beauty and challenge of life has not changed. All of that I will take with me, into the new projects I am trying to build and more importantly, I hope, into my approach to the kind of life I am trying to live. And tea. I will continue to drink countless cups of tea.

I will always carry a deep gratitude for St Chad's Sanctuary and all it has given me. In the past six and a half years I have learned a huge amount and grown much. I have discerned and deepened a sense of vocation, discovering and refining where my gifts and enthusiasms lie. Until recently, St Chad's Sanctuary was the right place to fulfill that vocation. Now, new adventures call. My head is already fast filling up with new ideas and possibilities; my diary is already fast filling up with new activities and commitments; and my heart is already overflowing with the love and energy to continue.

The farewells have been said, but the work is only just beginning.

*            *            *

I somehow feel I can't write a blogpost entitled 'saying goodbye' without at least a passing reference to the fact that there was that other significant farewell last week too: the one from an institution which, for all its deep flaws, (and however much I would like us to still be in the EU I'm not going to start pretending it was / is perfect), at least partly tried to stand for a sense that we are better together. 

So I will mourn the small inconveniences it will cause me, but more importantly I will mourn for the attitude of insularity it portrays and the insidious injustices that will cause to many much more vulnerable than myself. But while it is ok to make space to mourn, now is not the time to curl up in a ball and weep... now is the time to stand up and be counted.

The farewells have been said, but the work is only just beginning!

Answers (7)

It continues ...

30) What's been the biggest mistake so far in your life and what did you learn from it?

I found this one so hard! Actually, we all did, and in fact, it's still blue-tacked to the wall because none of us has really come up with a satisfactory answer, but we were at a bit of a standstill so just sort of left it there while we moved on to the next one!

Don't get me wrong ... it's not as if I haven't made plenty of mistakes: I'm pretty sure I've got a whole heap of things wrong, and that I've hurt both others (if that's you, sorry about that) and probably at times myself by my choices and my actions. I'm sure I've had times where I have knowingly made the wrong choice, and there are plenty of occasions where with the benefit of hindsight I might (but also might not) have done something differently. I'm not in denial about that ...but whatever those things are, I've also moved on from them and let them go. I've had, all in all, a pretty easy and privileged life so far, but even the bits that have been the hardest, and the choices that may or may not have been mistakes, have been part of shaping the me I am today: and I have no regrets about who and where I am.

31) What matters the most to you?

What, not who. That was the clarification for this one. Because, yes, people and community would probably have been my go-to answer, but with that excluded I had to think again.

I think then, aside from people, it is having some sort of purpose and feeling like I can have a positive impact on the world which matters most to me.

32) If you could do one thing and get away with it, what would it be?

A lot of different people visited while this one was up on the board ... and many and varied were the ideas (and that's just the ones people felt able to share publicly!) We established that it was 'get away with' not just in a legalistic sense,but genuinely, no repercussions,no guilt, ... 

In the end I settled for acquiring one of the right wing newspapers, changing it to a progressive one without people stopping buying it, and in so doing having a major influence over the opinions and values of the population; and thereby significantly change the political landscape of the country. I do realise there are a number of flaws in the plan (I don't want the former owners to financial benefit from my acquisition of it, deep down, I don't really want one newspaper to hold such deep influence over people, even if it is saying things I agree with, and so on ...) But hey, we can all dream ...

33) If I could change one thing in my life, what would I change and why?

I write this as we approach the end of 2019... which is a year in which I have experienced a fair amount of change one way or another. To be honest then, right now, the answer I want to give is that I think I would choose not to have any more change for a little while, that I want to first give myself time to allow the current changes to settle into place before looking ahead to the next desire for newness and adventure ... which I'm sure will come again soon enough! 

It is interesting (to me at least, perhaps not to anyone else!), that this is how I feel as I reflect on this question. Interesting because it is probably relatively unusual. I think most of those who know me have long given up on the idea that I might "grow up, settle down", and they're right ... I love living a life in which I'm able to be open to turning off down unexpected side roads which open into incredible possibilities. But today is a day for walking down the path I'm currently on, and knowing that's ok too.

34) If you could have anybody else's life, who's would you take?

You know what, actually, I think I'll keep my own. I know my life may not be perfect: but overall, it's hard to imagine anyone else's is much better. I have all the material wealth I need to live an extremely comfortable and privileged life; I have a sense of vocation and a fulfilling work life. I have a faith which sustains me; I am involved in loads of different things which add variety and interest to my week; I have endless opportunities for fun and laughter; I have a wide community of different people to love and by whom I know myself to be loved. 

I am not only satisfied but happy with the life I live. I know that in itself is an immense privilege which I hope I will never take for granted.

This has been sitting unpublished in drafts for a while, but still, we have reached the end of our "year of questions" with a fair few still in the unasked questions jar. We have not yet, after the Christmas break, quite got back into the habit of drawing out a new one, but I think we probably will; so there may yet be a few more of these posts to come. 

Election reflections

I started writing this post a while ago, when the election results were still a very fresh memory invoking very raw emotions. Since then, other priorities and activities mean reflecting on it has easily slipped down the agenda. There are still things I want to say.

Late on that Thursday evening, after the exit poll but while a small glimmer of hope was still alive before the results were actually confirmed, I wrote the following as my facebook status:

Tonight could be very depressing ...

Were it not for the fact that democracy is not just, and not even mostly, about what happens in the polling stations. It is about the choices we make every day. About the lives we choose to live.

So yes, I'll stay up shouting at the television tonight.

But tomorrow I will stand up and do my bit to create the kind of world in which I want to live. It might be a bit harder, but it will still be worth the effort. I am not giving up.

I wrote it because I needed to find a way to remain hopeful and believe I can still make a difference in a society which felt a little more broken than it did the day before. I wrote it because this is the reality we find ourselves in and I know that just blaming "the other" who voted for a set of values I find impossible to understand ultimately isn't helpful. Most of all, I wrote it because I really believe it to be true.

Those words remain at the heart of where I am at in relation to what happened on election night. They remain my most coherent reflection, but I have, unsurprisingly, had plenty of other thoughts too. Despite the elapse of time, my disparate collection of thoughts have not coalesced into some kind of succinct discourse; and if I wait until they form some kind of coherent reflection, the moment will have passed (to some extent,since I started writing this, it feels a little like it already has!), so I thought I'd just share them as random snippets, for what they are worth, just as they are:

*          *          *

I know I am very privileged that my every day reality provides me with many opportunities to help try and create this 'better place' I say I believe in. The tomorrow of which I wrote on Thursday night, mostly involved teaching twenty-something refugee and asylum-seeking children who are waiting for school places. Some of them have been waiting several months for a school place in a system that is clearly not really able to cope, many of them are living in temporary accommodation, in some cases in one room in hostel accommodation with no kitchens, no washing machine. I know their lives are not about to get any easier, and I may not be able to do much about that. I also know that for those couple of hours they learned new words, they shared ideas, they built friendships with each other, they smiled and they laughed. I know that is a good thing.

*          *          *

It feels like on Thursday simplistic certainty won over nuance and compromise. Whatever else one can say about the winning election campaign (and there is much I could write on the subject) it was unquestionably successful. Like the Brexit campaign before it, the strategy of choose a simple message, repeat it endlessly regardless of the topic you are supposed to be discussing, the question you have been asked, seemed to work. And if I found the failure to drop the stuck record intensely irritating ... I guess that didn't matter, because I was never the target audience. My immediate temptation, I think, was to wish that "my side" had perhaps done the same: found a simple, catchy repeatable message to hammer home. Given how election campaigns and media soundbite collection works, maybe some of that would have had value ... But at a deeper level, I know, ultimately, that isn't the solution. It is not what I want. I do not want a political game that is reduced to who can come up with the catchiest slogan. I do not want further polarisation of an already divided society. I want to remind myself not to give up on nuance, and complexity, and grey areas, and doubt.

*          *          *

Fear is an extremely powerful force. I've written about that before. I probably don't need to do so again now, but this election reminded me again of how significant a force it is in the way our society operates, and therefore how important it is, in lots of different situations, to resist succumbing to it. The election result didn't happen in a vacuum: lots of other decisions and scenarios where fear is allowed to dominate discourse have brought us to where we are. I think the message that love overcomes fear, the challenge to not be afraid, lies at the heart of the gospel call. I will continue to aspire to heed it.

*          *          *

One of the conversations I had with someone the day after the election was about the fact that I and others, were quite openly sharing our disappointment and disagreement with the election result. It was one of multiple conversations in recent weeks with those for whom government repression on a scale I in my privilege will undoubtedly never experience, has been a very tangible reality. Those conversations stand as a rallying call: that apathy or running away is not a solution. I remain in an immensely privileged position and it comes with a great responsibility to struggle for those who, in myriad different ways, don't share that privilege.

*          *          *

If fear is an extremely powerful force,the desire to find someone to blame is an incredibly powerful temptation. 'Othering' and creating scapegoats to shoulder the blame has been a powerful political tool which has, in my opinion helped bring us to where we are... but for those of us who are unhappy with the results said election, the desire to apportion blame to those whose choices were different to our own is also a strong one. In some cases, and in some ways, that is possibly / probably justified. Democracy works on the assumption that people can take responsibility for their choices. But what to do when you have the deep sense that many of those who voted for the current government have and will suffer more as a consequence than I will, protected as I am by my privilege? And if I blame "them" in the way they blamed "the other" in the way they voted, am I not just perpetuating the same story that there always has to be someone to blame, and that someone is always someone else.

*          *          *

I have struggled to try and understand why it seems so many people are voting against their own best interests. Don't get me wrong: I get that there's a place for voting or acting against your own interests: for choosing to take the "preferential option for the poor", choosing to do what is best for those weaker or more vulnerable or more in need than ourselves even when it is against our own personal benefit. But to vote / act for something that is less good for ourselves than it is for those already richer or more powerful than ourselves? I have really struggled to make sense of that. I have more to say on that subject, I think, probably. But that might be a post in its own right at some point.

*          *          *

Enough. I think. For now at least.

Christmas Poem 2019

And this is hope

Fragile shards of light

Pierce pinpricks through

The darkest night

And this is peace

This captured dream

Is gently bathed

In a starlight stream

And this is joy

In the vast expanse

Bright colours shine

Amid sparks that dance

And this is love

Whether we laugh or cry

Stars are scattered

Across the endless sky

And this is God

Dark and bright collide

And heaven chooses

To on earth reside

Merry Christmas!

Praying ... together

Of all the aspects which make up our life here, the prayer is the foundation around which everything else revolves. I genuinely believe that without it, it is not just the routine of the day which would change, but the whole of life, what I am involved in and capable of, which would look very, very different. Despite its centrality, it is something not easily defined. I believe there is an inherent value to the routine of prayer, without necessarily being able to articulate why.

From the beginning of our time here in Birmingham, it has always been important to us that the routine of prayer is consistent, and that the times of prayer are open and public. Often we pray alone, but we pray always with the possibility that may not be the case. There have been many, many challenges and barriers (in some cases literal ones) to ensuring this. There are struggles and frustrations. There are times when it seems almost impossible to continue.

And then, one morning or one evening, someone hesitates at the door. They ask tentatively about the prayer. They come in and join us.

Sometimes, they say little or nothing about the experience. Sometimes, they find a way to express very simply that it was what they needed, right then, in that moment.

We may or may not see them again.

In the midst of what can be a challenging environment in which to pray; these are the necessary reminders that perhaps we are doing something right.

NaNoWriMo

This is partly a post justifying why I haven't written a blog post for a while (which even if you noticed, you probably didn't mind!) but also a bit of a reflection of the writing-shaped-thing that took over the last month instead.

Several years ago I registered on the NaNoWriMo website. This year, for the first time, I actually attempted to complete this crazy challenge which consists of writing a novel (albeit a short one) in just one month.

The idea that I could possibly do this: to write 50,000 words in thirty days, without really giving up anything else or creating additional space in my already overloaded schedule was, frankly, bonkers.

Perhaps needless to say, I didn't manage it.

But, that said, I did commit to writing something, at least, every single day, for thirty days. Which I managed to stick to. In total, in November, I wrote 28,512 words. Which is quite a few.

By any normal standards, that feels like a phenomenal achievement.

So it is an interesting dynamic to still feel somewhat disappointed that I didn't "win" and write the full 50,000 words despite every little bit of my rational brain telling me that it really doesn't matter. I knew by about half way through the month I definitely wasn't going to hit the total. I tried to let go of the pressure of the word count and just enjoy the achievement of writing as much as I did. Mostly, I succeeded, but not entirely.

But if the word count was a pressure and a source of mild frustration or disappointment, it was also a motivation. I have often thought about wanting to do more creative writing, but the NaNoWriMo challenge encouraged me to make it a priority and, mostly, I genuinely enjoyed it. It will be interesting to see whether I manage to carve out time to continue.

A lot of it, unsurprisingly, isn't particularly good. Some of it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. There are plenty of badly written bits that don't scan and inconsistencies and general things that good writing doesn't have. But, in between, there are some bits that I think are perhaps reasonably well written. With a lot of editing some of it might, even, at some point, be something I'd be ready to share. No promises.

So yes, that was November.

Playing with colour (again)

Musings on care for the climate

My rational brain tells me that, of all the issues which currently confront us, and let's be honest,the list is quite long, climate change is the most significant. It is both the biggest threat, in that it bears the potential for the total destruction of life as we know it; and the most imminent, in that if we don't do something soon, it will probably be too late to do anything at all. That being the case, I know there is an urgency to this issue which surpasses that of other concerns.

At events and in discussions relating to climate change, that is what I will say: that this is an emergency on which I feel compelled to act. And it is, and I do. I am trying to reflect (with varying degrees of success) on at least some lifestyle choices which will have a positive impact on reducing my carbon footprint. I played a (tiny) part in the Extinction Rebellion protests in London. I marched for the climate with the school strikers and will probably do so again.

And yet ... while this is rationally true, I have to confess it is not the issue about which I feel the most passionate. What ever my brain tells me, somewhere deep in my gut this is not the issue which most stirs my emotions; it is not the issue about which I get most angry, fearful or sad.

I guess one of the things I am trying to figure out is both why not, and whether that is ok.

While my head tells me that all my campaigning energy should be directed to fighting climate change, my heart insists that it is the prevalence of global conflict exacerbated by the global arms trade; the insidious rise of ever-greater financial inequalities; and the creeping, gradual acceptance of destructive, divisive, racist political ideologies which demand my attention.

I know, ultimately, that all of these things matter and that all are interrelated in complicated ways. I know that no social justice issue can be fought in isolation and I guess I will continue to struggle with knowing I can't do it all, and with assessing and evaluating where my energy is best directed. I suspect it will be a lifelong struggle. I think I am prepared to keep struggling.

Take off your shoes

"Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground"
(Exodus 3:5)

This summer (and early autumn) has involved lots of 'taking off your sandals'.

There have been no burning bushes. On the contrary, my 'take of your sandals' moments have generally involved some kind of stream (or the sea, or a waterfall, or a water feature). There is something deeply attractive about water in the sunshine to which my inner child is irresistibly drawn!

 Unlike Moses' experience, my 'take off your sandals' moments have not been when I have been alone in the wilderness, at a distance from my community; rather they have been moments of laughter and friendship, with lots of different people.

I guess there are a fair few other differences between my experience and Moses' too ... aside from the obvious few thousand years and contrasting geographical locations. Not least that Moses was a member of an oppressed people, into whose experience of slavery and oppression a liberating God spoke a promise of freedom: I meanwhile am acutely aware of my position of privilege. I know I have a wonderful life, one for which I am sincerely grateful.

I believe there is something inherently beautiful about the sight and sound of water: be it a gently tumbling stream, or the crashing power of north sea waves. There is something beautiful too about shared moments of joy with those who one loves and by whom one feels loved.

There have been no burning bushes this summer but there has certainly been Holy Ground.

Answers (6)

After a summer interlude, so it continues ...

25) What's one thing I'd like to do more of and why? How can I make it happen?

I'm allowed two, right? I have recently (although not so recently that I should have made as little progress as I have) started learning Arabic. Having decided to do so at all, I guess I'd like to make the time to put a bit more time and effort into it. I have no illusions, language learning, especially of one so different to my own, is really hard, so I'm not, at least at the moment, aiming for fluency, but the capacity for some basic conversation would be nice!

The other is that I would love to write more, particularly to continue developing my creative writing. I have been inspired (or more accurately re-inspired), recently about the power of story and poetry and would like to explore that further. I know that kind of thing takes not only time, but mental energy and I'd like to make more space for it. Apologies in advance for the potential increase in blog posts if this one actually happens ...

26) What are my personal gifts?

The thing that was most obvious in the discussion about this one is just how hard we all find it to celebrate our gifts: to talk about the things we believe we offer to the world. I know there is a fine line, and self-adulation isn't helpful either, (there is plenty of evidence in the political sphere of the damage that can be done by individuals having too high an opinion of themselves!) but it strikes me as also kind of sad that we are so uncomfortable with answering this question among friends. Of course we could all have identified gifts in each other, but there is something about sharing our own gifts, the things we believe to be of value, the things we offer from the deepest part of ourselves, whether or not they are the first things others would identify.

So, after that unnecessarily extended preamble ... I think one of my personal gifts is an ability to approach situations and encounters with enthusiasm and passion and hopefully to communicate some of that to those around me and inspire them too. 

27) What is one thing I'd like to do less of and why? How can I make it happen?

I'd like to come up with something meaningful and profound for this ... but in reality, wasting time scrolling through social media is the main thing that springs to mind! How can I make it happen ... well a bit more self-discipline I guess! Removing the facebook app from my phone has made a difference, but I still log on to the web browser version more often than I should. 

I don't want to give up on social media altogether: I get much of my news from twitter (not necessarily a good idea, I am aware of the echo chamber effect, but it brings me into contact with lots of interesting articles, some of which at least I skim read, others of which I am at least glad to have seen the headline) and I keep in something approaching contact with many friends through scrolling past the highlights of their lives which they choose to share on facebook; and while I know its not a great way to sustain relationships it is potentially better than nothing (I know there are others who would disagree) But I'm not sure I have yet struck the healthy balance I would like to achieve. So I'll keep working on it!

28) If you could tell your younger self one thing right now, what would it be?

I guess this depends, among other things, on just how much younger. 

I think the me who was probably in most need of advice from my older self would be the teenage me, and I guess I'd advise myself not to worry so much about whether you fit in or not: to be myself without worrying too much about trying to get it "right" by the standards of your peers or societal expectations: because if its all a bit of an act, it probably won't work anyway and certainly won't make you happy ... And in the end, you will find people to love you just for being who you really are.

And probably, I'd have ignored my older self, and carried on, because that is just the nature of things, I suspect.

29) What are my most important dreams and desires? How can I make them happen?

I'd been thinking about this for a while and struggling to come up with an answer: and then it was sort of out of the blue, when I wasn't really thinking about this, that the answer I wanted to give came to me.

There are certain people I have met or known who make me feel better about myself or about the world; who enable me to go on into my day, into my life feeling happier, or more optimistic or that more is somehow possible. Some are people I know or have known well; others have been those with whom the encounters have been fleeting but important: their role in my life should not be underestimated. Each of them, in different ways, has helped me to journey forward with trust and hope and joy.  

That. My dream is that I might sometimes, at least a little, be able to be that for others. 

I looked back at the first of these 'answers'posts recently ... My answers seem to have become progressively longer and more convoluted (some of you may not be surprised!) Perhaps I'll try and get back to something a bit more snappy for the next one!

More fun with colours

#GlobalClimateStrike

Yesterday was the global strike for the climate and I knew I wanted to be there. To stand in solidarity with those who would gather here in this place, and in so many other places across the planet. I don't know whether any of this is going to make any difference. I worry that we are too wedded to our greed and privilege to really take the steps needed to avert the catastrophe. I still want to be able to believe that I tried.

Friday is a day I teach at the Sanctuary, though, so it didn't really feel appropriate to strike from teaching refugee kids for whom I am fighting for the right to an education! My plan was to teach my class, and then head down to join the Birmingham protest.

Until I realised that this was a youth-lead strike, and my students might have better reasons than most for understanding the issues and wanting a better future. So I wrote a risk assessment, filled bottles of water (reusable ones, obviously) and rapidly replanned my lesson, to spend the first half of it talking about climate change and the global climate strikes, and the second half joining the climate procession with my little class of teenagers and nearly teenagers.

They did need to be given some vocabulary to know what it was about. The word climate was new to most of them. The word protest, likewise.

But the concepts of both were deeply familiar.

Despite hesitant English they could speak about experiences of protest, both peaceful and violent. And while they might need me to supply the words, they didn't me to explain the impact of climate change: for them it is not some future possibility, but a current reality; summed up for me in this contribution to the conversation "My dad is a farmer in Sudan. There is not enough rain any more."

And so we set off. To play our part. To stand together with others who care.

For these kids, climate change is a matter of life and death in a very real sense. Taking part with them made it all the more meaningful for me. It was a privilege to march alongside them.

Stories of Hope and Home

In this post, I spoke of new adventures ahead, nebulous ideas which I hoped would start to take shape through the autumn. I guess this is the update that follows the "watch this space" with which that ended.

It is all very exciting, but I admit, also slightly daunting. It is an act of faith: and while the parts about believing it's an amazing idea and that it will be a great project are easy; it also requires me to believe that I can make it happen, and that's a different type of confidence which I mostly have, but which sometimes wavers.

The exciting part is that the project now exists. Well, it has a website, a twitter feed, and a facebook page, so it certainly exists in the virtual world; there is probably a little more work to be done for it to become real in the real world. Even there, though, it is slowly starting to take shape, and I am beginning to believe it will happen.

New beginnings involve plenty of dreaming dreams; but mixed in with reflecting on possibilities ahead, there are plenty of mundane realities to put into place too: opening a bank account, looking into public liability insurance (talking to insurance brokers is definitely the most grown-up thing I've ever done), risk assessing, applying for grants and even starting to think about the dreaded GDPR. It is a probably a good indication of how passionate I feel about this undertaking that even these administrative tasks haven't felt overly burdensome, and even things like receiving a debit card in the post has been tinged with excitement (which may be even more the case when the bank balance goes above £00.00).

I know that, for all my enthusiasm, there will be plenty of challenges ahead. The thing I am currently finding most difficult is the bit that involves working out what I am worth, financially speaking, although it comes with all sorts of overtones of how we experience value.

Budgeting probably isn't the greatest strength which I bring to this anyway; but I have had no problem working out costs and asking for money for bus tickets, for tea bags, for paper and printing, for all that stuff which will make running the project possible. What is proving much less comfortable is writing in payment for my time. I am not naive. I know projects like this don't run themselves, that potentially it will take a huge amount of time, energy and commitment to make it a reality. And while I know that I have many failings and things which are not my strengths which I will have to seriously work on, I do think I am the person who has the gifts and skills and perhaps more importantly the passion, to make it happen. I know all that, I think, but it still doesn't sit easily or comfortably to turn that into monetary value. It is perhaps hard to explain why, but writing my working hours into a grant application feels somehow different to applying for a job with an advertised pay scale. I know it needs to be done though, but it has made me reflect on how we place value on ourselves and on our work; perhaps that, in and of itself, is not a bad thing.

There will, undoubtedly, be more updates to follow as I attempt to turn a vague idea into a concrete project.

The sound of sheer silence (2)

He said, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.”  Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. (1 Kings: 11 – 13)

Second bit of art (this was the first) in not very many weeks based on this text about Elijah on the mountainside waiting for God, who has promised to pass by. 

First came earthquake, wind and fire. Signs of power. The very same signs of power in which generations earlier, as Moses had stood in this same place, he had experienced and understood the presence of God. Fast forward to a different time, a different context, and here we have Elijah, another man of God, who did not experience God in these forces of nature. 

I guess Elijah would have known the Moses story. Maybe he went out on to the mountain with a tick box list of how God was going to appear based on the cultural assumptions passed down to him through story and scripture. Maybe there was disappointment as the earthquake, wind and fire seemed devoid of God's voice. Maybe there was temptation to define the experience differently from how it was, writing a script for God to follow because of how it was supposed to be. Maybe there was a wondering about the judgement others would make about whether he had experienced God 'properly' if it wasn't how it had been for one who went before.

I love this text for its promise that God speaks in a whispered voice of subtle gestures. But it is also beautiful for its reminder that our own experience of God doesn't have to be defined by how others have found Him / Her / It.

As he stood on the mountainside waiting, Elijah didn't attempt to twist his own experiences to fit a prior understanding of how God was supposed to be. He was able to recognise that, whatever may have been true for Moses, for him God was not in the earthquake, wind or fire. There is no suggestion that he denied the validity of Moses' experience of God in those signs of power, or questioned how another who had stood in this place had seen the face of God. But this was not to be his experience. 

He recognised God's absence from what was perhaps the expected experience ... But he also did not give up on the promise that God would be present to him too. He waited with an expectant openness, and the reward was an experience of the mystery of holiness. If there is a parallel in Moses' and Elijah's experiences, it is precisely this: that the presence of God is experienced in a willingness to wait for the unexpected. Perhaps, if there is a universal experience of God, it is that it will be unique and personal, but it will never be forced, so is dependent on being open to receive. God comes, in unexpected ways, to those who wait. 

It seems to me that Elijah's experience is a reminder that there is no need for us to try and measure our experience of God against somebody else's, or to try and replicate what they may have seen, felt or heard, however beautiful or powerful it may appear to have been. It also communicates that there is no conflict between acknowledging and respecting the authenticity of someone else's experience of God, whilst recognising that it is not one's own. 

Whether it is in approaching intercultural or interfaith relationships, or exploring new expressions of faith which do not sit comfortably with the culture of biblical times (or even the church of the 1950s), an expectant openness that each individual's experience of the divine will be unique and personal, and that different experiences are not necessarily contradictory feels like a healthy starting point for dialogue. Elijah's is a wisdom which it seems to me the world, and the church, would do well to heed. 

The joys of summer

September has somehow arrived again, constituting, for me and the many others who still work in academic cycles, the new year. And, while I hope there will be at least a few more sunny days ahead, there is no doubt that the evenings are getting shorter and we are heading towards autumn. The summer, then, is drawing to a close, but it was certainly a lot of fun while it lasted!

Usually, we have been highly organised and had our summer plans fixed long in advance. For a variety of reasons, that was far less the case this year. Likewise we have often gone away for an extended trip (or sometimes trips), which again, wasn't on the agenda for this year. Partly, that's been about adapting to our shifting commitments, and to not having the luxury of school holidays at the moment.

But we did close down our community commitments for the best part of two months, and other activities took on a different shape and rhythm so there has certainly been a different feel to July and August. And while we may not have been for away for a major holiday, that has made space for lots of shorter trips and days out with lots of different people. If I was summing up the summer it would above all be this that stands out: that it has been a summer of fun and friendship, characterised by a whole lot of laughter shared with a whole lot of wonderful people. I am very grateful to the many friends who enrich my life: those who have added so much joy to the last couple of months, those with whom deep and important conversations have taken place, those whose love I know I can count on in so many ways!

The highlights have been many and various, but include:

Keeping a promise to walk part of the London loop with a very good friend

Four amazing days out with the families I support at St Chad's Sanctuary; shared with a total of over 100 children and 50 parents and from which I emerged exhausted but exhilirated.

A few relaxing days of beautiful surroundings and good conversations over leisurely meals in Lancaster and Kendal

Beautiful moments of friendship over cups of tea, glasses of wine, or chutney on the roof

The first hot, sunny greenbelt festival for quite some time, with plenty of space to reflect and be inspired

An evening of cricket at Edgbaston

A lovely summer activities week rounding off my time as ESOL co-ordinator.

Impromptu meals with friends and trips to the pub.

Walking in the Malvern Hills in the sunshine and a very rainy trip to Lichfield.

Celebrating results

An amazing road trip to Whitby, including such highlights as swimming in the sea at sunrise, more fish and chips than would be considered healthy, walks on the beach and clambering down to the plunge pool at Falling Fosse.

So that was the summer, and the good news is, the autumn is shaping up to be full of exciting adventures too!

Success

Significant though it is, I rarely write about the dynamics of having our now nearly seventeen year old Goddaughter living with us and sharing in our life. If she has scarcely been mentioned since since this post, it certainly isn't because her presence isn't a major part of my life, it is perhaps primarily because it is only partially my story to tell.

When we began to plan for this summer one date was fixed in our diaries before anything else: GCSE results day.

After the early part of the summer was dominated by revision (I have refreshed my memory on all sorts of topics I haven't thought about for a long time and am not overly sad that I probably won't be thinking about again anytime soon), followed by the stress of exams, an ordeal I frankly wouldn't wish on anyone (I suspect those who claim school is the best days of your life has probably blotted the majority of the experience from their memory); results day was the final stage in this particular part of a journey.

Today, the first day of sixth form college, is the first stage on the next part.

I don't really want this to be a post about GCSE results, because they are not the measure of a person. I hope no young person, ever, feels defined by a series of numbers, though too often I fear they do, enforced by months of messaging from an education system that has all too often forgotten its primary purpose.

This is not, then, about the results themselves, but there is no doubt that this summer is a staging post, a marker in the road, so an appropriate moment to reflect on something of what having a teenager in our lives has brought. The post is entitled 'success' not because she did well in her exams and got the results which will enable her to pursue what she wants to do next, but because I want it to in some way be a celebration of what success really looks like, a celebration of this amazing young woman who has brought so much to my life. I knew, long before that late-August date, that I consider the last two years of her life, a resounding success.

Uprooted, albeit by choice, from all that was familiar: family, friends, school, community. Plunged into a new, and lets face it not entirely conventional, life, with people she ultimately didn't really know. Thrown into an inner city Birmingham school environment which can't always have been easy to navigate. And that's before you get to the normal pressures of being a teenager: the usual toxic mix of academic pressure, social expectation and the marketing of an image of what perfection ought to be, all blended together with a strong dose of hormonal overload and adolescent angst.

None of this has been straightforward. And through all of it, she has not only survived, but thrived.

She has set herself ambitious targets and has worked extremely hard. She has given me some of the best gifts I have ever received. She has helped others with great generosity. She is great at looking after small people. She has built good friendships. She has said yes to new experiences. She makes excellent brownies and a very good malteser cheesecake (among other delicious things). She's a dab hand with an iron and transfer paper. She really thinks about stuff. She has learned to relate well to an enormous diversity of different people. She has massively grown in confidence.

She is, of course, not perfect. Her bedroom is rarely tidy. She is as susceptible as the rest of us to the temptations and trappings of the worst excesses of the world in which we live. But on balance all of the above and so much more is, I think, what constitutes success.

She is,little by little, turning into the person she is destined to be, and that is a very beautiful thing to observe and support.

And so the next stages of the journey await, with fresh beginning and new adventures. I look forward to sharing them with her.

The next adventure

I feel like this is a blog post title I have probably used before ... But it seems fitting once again, even if the 'next adventure(s)' to which it refers are not in this case some concrete plan but a collection of nebulous ideas, which may or may not find a way to leap from the world of my imagination into reality! Hopefully, somewhere, there will be a meeting point between passion and possibility in which something will take shape.

There have been lots of changes at St Chad's Sanctuary in recent months, and while change can be daunting it can also provide a healthy space for reflection and discernment. Healthy doesn't necessarily equate to comfortable or easy, of course, and the last months have certainly also had their challenges as I have struggled with the process of figuring out the 'what now?' There have been tears.

I realise I am in a very privileged position to have a huge amount of freedom to reflect on and seek to pursue my dreams. I have the support of good friends, and I am grateful to those who have journeyed with me through this process. In some mysterious way that I don't even pretend to entirely understand, I believe God has been an important part of the process too.

I have always loved teaching through poetry and story. It is a standing joke that if I cover a class at short notice, my go-to activities usually involve resorting to poetry. This year, perhaps more than ever before, I have seen the power of the story. Through the play "Home" and all that preceded and surrounded it, I have seen the power of individuals whose voices are not normally heard finding their voice, sharing their story and understanding that they have something to say that is well worth hearing.

I saw the impact it had on the students involved: on their confidence and character, on the way they interacted with each other and their world. Others too, who knew and met them, commented on the changes they saw in them. And I also saw the impact it had on those who encountered those stories, confidently shared, by real individuals. I saw the ways those telling their stories could reach out, and make people think and feel differently. I saw a way of sharing this space for human encounter which has changed and shaped me over recent years. I came to the end of that experience thinking, knowing, "we need more of this."

And so, for these reasons and others, after three years of much of my life being intricately intertwined with the life of St Chad's Sanctuary, I am branching out.

I am not moving on completely, and even if I were, St Chad's Sanctuary will always have an extremely special place in my heart. I will never be anything but grateful for the opportunities it has afforded me: for me, no less than for the asylum seekers and refugees it seeks to welcome, it has played a very important part in Birmingham becoming a place I call "Home".

The current incarnation of my plans for the autumn is that I will continue working at the Sanctuary, but only for a few hours a week, running the family learning activities. Many of my other activities and commitments will remain the same. And then, somewhere in the space that is created by stepping back from my ESOL co-ordinator role, I will try to get a project off the ground using story-telling, poetry and drama to help asylum seekers find their voice, share their stories and in so doing contribute to transforming the communities around them.

After much soul searching, I have emerged from a period of inner turmoil with a sense of peace. I am stepping out, again, in faith and hope.

I am not naive. I suspect the coming months will have many challenges. There will, undoubtedly, be times when I feel I have made some wrong decisions. I will need much grace.

When I came back to my previous post, it had been sitting, incomplete, in my drafts folder for over a year. Some parts were less apt than when I started it. But the essence: that I believe in vocation, in a sense of calling, not as a static reality but as a journey of discovery; remains as true now as it did then.

Onwards! The next adventure awaits. It remains to be seen exactly what said adventure may be. Watch this space ...

Vocation

I really believe in the idea of vocation: not as a defined or prescribed direction we have to find and follow, but as a gradual and continual seeking out of God's will for our lives. Contrary to how it is sometimes presented in certain sections of the church, I don't think there is a list of 'vocations' that some people have and others don't ... I believe we all have a vocation, or vocations. Vocation is, I think, about discovering those things which make us feel most fully alive. It is the meeting place where that which will use our talents, that which will bring us joy and satisfaction and that which will do good in the world around us come together in harmony. If we're really lucky, it is also something that pays the bills!

A number of years ago (way back in 2005, long before I was writing a blog!), during a workshop in Taize, I discovered my vocation to be a teacher. I had already been working as a teaching assistant for a few months, and was due to start another teaching assistant post in the autumn, but it was there, in the midst of a reflection about Caravaggio's call of Matthew, that I knew that teaching was the direction I wanted to go. It is the closest I have come to hearing the voice of God in a very immediate way and is a moment I have not forgotten. A copy of the picture hangs above my desk. Come that autumn, it felt like everything fell, very simply, into place. A year later I began teacher training, and another year on I began my first teaching job. I knew that this was what I wanted to do. When we moved to Birmingham and I was looking for work there was not even a blink of hesitation, I knew that I would teach.

It was this love of, this vocation for, teaching which first took me to the doors of St Chad's Sanctuary. I didn't approach the Sanctuary because of a passion for working with and supporting refugees and asylum seekers. It is hard to recall exactly, but I was, I suspect, deeply ignorant of the related issues. I went because someone had mentioned that they needed English teachers and I thought I could probably help.

3 years later, I was faced with a choice: the job at St Chad's Sanctuary would of course involve teaching: I wouldn't be giving that up entirely, but it was certainly a change of direction and of priorities. There was much soul-searching. Partly because I was giving up a stable job for one which was distinctly precarious, but also because it was moving away from teaching in the traditional sense. I think it has been clear from many, many posts here, that I have no regrets about the decision I made. I also don't think it changed the realities of my earlier discovery of my vocation to teach: I think it was simply a reminder that vocation, like so much else about the lives we lead, is a journey not a destination, and mine was now taking me down a different road.

I am coming to the end of my third year working at the Sanctuary, but in some ways my role is unrecognisable from how it began. This too has been not a static vocation but a journey of discovery and adventure. I am aware it has been a privilege to have had a huge amount of freedom to develop new ideas, to bring much of myself: my own passions and gifts (as well as my own failings) to this place that I love. I am aware it has been a privilege to allow my vocation to have been shaped by so many precious encounters and beautiful relationships.

Family learning didn't exist at all when I first started, and the growth of first the Learn and Play group for parents and pre-schoolers, and then the Little School project for newly arrived children waiting for school has been a source of great joy (and only occasional stress!). I looked at the statistics recently. We ran our first family trip in the summer of 2016, with 5 mums and 8 children. This summer, on our most recent trip out, we took 37 parents and 78 children ... and it was truly beautiful!

I have had all sorts of opportunities to try out different creative teaching strategies (not least in the creation of Home, the play which took over much of my life earlier this term). I have worked with groups of students to produce two wonderful newsletters celebrating their love of the Sanctuary. I have answered queries with varying degrees of success or ability to make a difference. I have listened to stories which have evoked the whole spectrum of human experience. I have visited all sorts of places in the company of some wonderful people. I have shared delicious food. I have watched friendships blossom. I have had opportunities to share something of what is so special about this place and these people with lots of others, and hopefully, story by human story, helped challenge and change perceptions. I have learned far, far more than I have taught.

Most of all perhaps, I have had the privilege of standing alongside some of the most courageous, resilient and hope-filled people I know in a place which has provided a safe space for tears, as well as lots and lots of laughter.

I have, undoubtedly, discovered much about the vocation(s) I feel called to live out.

There are new adventures ahead, shaped and informed by all of the above, but this post is already quite long enough so I think the story of the next steps will just have to wait!

The sound of sheer silence

He said, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” 

Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire 

a sound of sheer silence. 

When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. 

(1 Kings: 11 – 13)

Baptism

The original opening line of this post "within the last year" is no longer strictly true as it has taken so long for me to finalise, but the rest of it is as valid today as it was when I decided to try and write something on this subject.

Within the last year I have had the privilege to attend three baptisms: each very different from the other, each attached to a sense of huge privilege to be part of the story, each a window into something of the mystery of faith and grace. I feel I want to in some way try to capture here something of what it meant to be a part of three very different expressions of a community of faith welcoming a new member.

The first was Rasul, an Iranian friend, expressing his new found Christian faith by full immersion baptism, as an adult, into the Vineyard church. I knew before I went that this was going to be somewhat outside my church comfort zone. But there was certainly energy and a deep sense of faith. For Rasul, there was also the very tangible, visible expression of great joy and deep peace: an undoubtedly welcome respite in a troubled life.

The next was the baby son of an Eritrean friend, baptised into the Orthodox tradition at forty days old. I think I am probably relatively well-versed in a wider range of different church traditions than many; but this involved spreading my ecumenical wings a little further than they had stretched before. I had little idea what to expect (and a lot of the time, little idea what was going on). I was the obvious outsider (not a bad thing to experience from time to time), and I was made to feel wonderfully welcome, not just by the family who had invited me, but by a wider community who opened their arms to embrace me. It felt like an immense privilege to have been invited into something I will undoubtedly rarely have the opportunity to experience.

And the third was our niece, and now God-daughter, who, at four years old, was being welcomed into her local church community and into the Church of England. This one was a much more familiar tradition, I knew what to expect, how to participate. I too, after all, was baptised, as a four-year-old into this same denomination, and while I may not remember that day itself, it is a tradition which, while it is no longer all of my now many-faceted Christian identity, has certainly played a significant role in forming it, and which still feels comfortable and familiar.

In many ways, everything about these three occasions was different.

One participated with not just full consent but commitment and great joy; another, too small to have any idea at all what was going on; the third, a generally willing participant. One was modern, lively and loud; one deeply rooted in tradition that has probably hardly changed in many generations; the third embraced a certain informality while still drawing on liturgical structures. There were differences of language, and fusions of cultures, and a thousand other ways in which they differed.

Yet at some deeper level they were, in many ways, all exactly the same. Each was a community of faith and love opening its arms in welcome, expressing a willingness to support someone on their journey, desiring to share something that matters deeply to them with another, full of hope for the gifts of the kingdom, however that may be understood. And tea, they all involved tea.

For all three it was important to be there. Important, and a wonderful privilege. To be there as part of a community, to be there to stand as witness and to open arms in welcome. To be there to express a willingness to share in the journeys, wherever they may lead.

I think the reason this has sat for so long as a "draft" is I probably thought I could use it as a vehicle for some significant theological point, but maybe there is no need to do that. Maybe it's fine just to acknowledge the beauty and privilege of being part of these special days for these three different people.