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:

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Enough. I think. For now at least.