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.