Choosing our narratives

I spend a lot of time thinking about stories: about what stories we tell and how we tell them: about who tells those stories and to whom, and who gets to frame the narratives.

Earlier this week I attended an excellent workshop as part of the Refugee Week Slow Conference which focused on storytelling ... and identifying and unpacking both the power and the problems of inviting and encouraging asylum seekers and refugees to share the first-hand stories of their lives.

Little of what was said was new to me ... this is, after all, what I try to do and while I'm sure I have made many mistakes along the way, I was reassured that much of what I hold to be important was reflected in the speakers' contributions.

A lot of it was about process and not just product. A lot of it was about ownership and agency. 

And a lot of it was about simply creating a space that respects the humanity of each individual. Any of us may sometimes find ourselves speaking as the "representative" of a group or type, but all of us, also want to be heard as speaking simply for ourselves.

Some of that touches on moving away from how migration stories are very often framed: the good immigrant / bad immigrant; worthy / unworthy; legal / illegal narrative. The narrative that starts by suggesting the migrant protagonist of the story must be either victim or villain or hero. A narrative which is unhelpful because most migrants, like most of the rest of us, are none of those, or perhaps a mixture of all of them. Our humanity encompasses our flaws and failings, our suffering and our triumphs. 

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In another of my many zoom calls this week, a Lenten liturgy session, we were invited to reflect on forgiveness. Among other things, the person leading commented on the fact that knowing what we do about child development, about the teenage brain, and about everything hormonally, socially, emotionally, that teenagers are going through; they are generally much easier to forgive than adults. She suggested that perhaps we should reflect on how we could learn to offer that same grace that we feel able to give to them to ourselves and one another in adulthood. At least that's my memory or interpretation of it.

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So all of these thoughts, and others, have been floating around my mind this week when today I found myself scrolling through the Stories of Hope and Home twitter feed. It is mainly made up of refugee charities and campaign groups, the odd immigration lawyer, with the occasional faith or arts organisation mixed in for good measure. I am well aware it is an echo chamber which doesn't represent public opinion. For at least some of those I follow, today's hot topic was the supreme court judgement in the latest stage in the Shamima Begum case.

In case you missed it: the edited highlights (as far as my non-legal brain understands them) are that this was not a ruling about whether or not she should have been stripped of her British citizenship but on whether she should be allowed to enter the UK in order to make that appeal. And the upshot is that despite acknowledging that it means she will not be able to have a fair appeal process, that is not sufficient reason for her to be allowed to come to the UK to contest the case. For any more than that, Free Movement offers a much fuller commentary of what it is all about.

To my mind there are a few facts which need to be remembered. 

She has Bengali heritage but was born and brought up in the UK and has never lived in Bangladesh, the other country for which she is potentially entitled to citizenship. When she travelled to Syria to join ISIS she was legally a child at just 15 years old. Whether it was her own fault or other wise, she has suffered an extremely traumatic six years including, while still a teenager herself, giving birth to and losing three children.

More than any of that, she is, as should not be forgotten, a human being. This too is a fact.

Alongside the facts there are lots of very, very strong opinions about this case. I know. And plenty of suppositions too. 

Perhaps she was a victim, groomed and abused by others who exerted power over a vulnerable young person. Perhaps she was phenomenally stupid, with consequences that turned to be somewhat more far reaching than the phenomenally stupid decisions of lots of other fifteen year olds. Perhaps she actually intentionally and deliberately acted in ways that were very, very wrong and destructive. 

Perhaps she is still a risk to national security, and perhaps she isn't. Perhaps she should have to face some kind of justice or accountability for her actions. Perhaps that needs to be in the country where, whatever the circumstances surrounding it, she made the decision to travel to a warzone and join the side we hold to be the enemy. 

Perhaps she needs a whole lot of help and support. Perhaps her experiences have given her something she could offer back to others.  

Perhaps some mixture of all of the above is true. Perhaps none of it is

Even in the worst case scenario that she is in fact a very unpleasant person who poses some level of risk to the rest of us ...

There are plenty of unpleasant people who I would still argue should have the right to a fair trial; who I would not want to see stripped of the citizenship of the country of their birth; who I think should still have their human rights respected rather than dismissed as secondary considerations. 

There are plenty of unpleasant people who can still be forgiven, who still have some hope of redemption. 

There are plenty of unpleasant people who are still human.

I wish we as a nation had remembered something of Shamima Begum's humanity before we turned this child into a pariah. Before we decided that someone else was always going to be able to frame the narrative. Before our home secretary, upheld by our highest court, ruled that whoever else is going to be given ownership and agency in telling this story, it won't be her.

(If you want a powerful and coherent explanation of why the removal of anyone's citizenship is problematic: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/nov/17/unbecoming-british-kamila-shamsie-citizens-exile)

Transfigured

Today, the Sunday before Lent begins, the lectionary followed by many churches features the story of the Transfiguration. Although the text is a mere 8 or 9 verses long, it is packed with rich imagery and meaning... some, perhaps, relatively self-explanatory; some, perhaps, fairly incomprehensible. Like many bible texts, it is also rich in both promise ... and challenge. 

Having been reflecting on this text during the week there are so many aspects of this texts which interest and intrigue me but I thought I might share my thoughts, in particular, about how the disciples respond to this mountaintop experience. After initially being stunned into silence and inaction, the disciples, or specifically Peter, do finally, respond to the scene unfolding before them. With an offer to set up three shelters. 

Aside from my possibly slightly irrelevantly wondering whether or not they have come prepared for shelter building, there are several things that strike me about what this response seems to symbolise. 

The first is the desire to contain. The transfiguration takes place away from the city, on a mountain top. We can probably assume it feels wild and exposed, and that there is a pretty good view for miles around. Mountain tops are one of the places where we become aware of magnitude, of vastness. They often feel wild and exposed. 

Peter's response is to take this thing which is out in the open, which is somehow wild and uncontrollable, and to put it inside. To draw boundaries around it. To define the space it takes up. Where it begins and where it ends.

The second is the desire to compartmentalise. Here we have Jesus, Moses and Elijah, in conversation with each other. A coming together of these different strands of understanding of the journey towards being in relationship with God. The law, the prophets, the messiah: united in conversation with each other. 

And yet, Peter does not suggest building one tent where the conversation can continue, but three. Separate shelters. To take these overlapping circles which both connect and contradict and to pull them apart, each into their own place. To divide in order to more easily define.  

The third is the desire to prolong or make permanent. Jesus has come away with three of his disciples, leaving behind the rest of them, taking a break from the ministry of teaching and healing, stepping out of a journey towards crucifixion of which he has already spoken. The disciples possibly ought to know by now that Jesus never stays anyway for long. 

But Peter responds by wanting to build here. To create shelter. To cling to the moment. To tie down and hold on to something which was probably only meant to be temporary, only meant to be one part of a continuing experience, to be one more step on the journey.

I think the reason Peter's response to this situation strikes me is because it symbolises something so very deeply human about our response to the divine and the mysterious, something which is easily recognisable because I can see so easily the parallels to how the church as both communities and institutions, to how I (and probably many of us) are tempted to respond too. 

That faced with the vast, wild and uncontrollable nature of God, we have a natural desire to control and contain.

That faced with the incomprehensible and seemingly contradictory expressions of the divine, we have a natural desire to divide and define.

That faced with mountaintop moments of majesty, we have a natural desire to cling to that which is meant to leave us marked and changed but not hold us back from journeying onwards.

Although not explicitly stated, it seems pretty obvious from the text that those shelters do not get built. I suspect we probably shouldn't be building them either. I suspect we too are supposed to come down the mountain. 

Life choices

I was recently trying to answer a question ... I can't remember exactly how it was worded, but the basic premise was why have you chosen to live your life the way you do: community, work, stuff I am involved in ... a life which is a bit less conventional than the one they had, I guess, identified I could be living. 

I think I probably gave a rather waffly answer (no change there then) so this is my attempt to write the (slightly) more coherent (but probably still quite waffly) answer I wish I'd given.

Privilege

One thing I undoubtedly failed to acknowledge but of which I am in fact acutely aware, is the level of privilege which has certainly been a factor in allowing me to make many of the choices I have made. I know that the range of possibilities from which I am able to make my life choices are not something available to everyone and are not of my own making. Not everyone starts out in life with as many options. I am lucky enough to have had access to a good education and have good qualifications to fall back on; I have always had very good mental and physical health; I have a safety net of family and friends who are able to offer me security and support in immeasurable ways should I need it; I have a British passport not because I deserve one but because I happen to have been born here. None of this is of my own doing.   

Perspective

I think one of the reasons I struggle with this question is I'm not sure I feel that my life is so very unconventional, or radical, which was a word that also came up in that conversation. I have lots of the trappings of a comfortable middle class life. I know plenty of people who are doing far more radical and impressive things with their lives, who have made choices I can't even begin to contemplate.

So much depends on where we are looking. Some of those who did their teacher training at the same time as me have probably climbed the career ladder and are head teachers by now (not that I envy them that). But Martin Luther King had lead the civil rights movement and got assassinated at about my age so ... 

Prayer

I did talk about prayer. I find it quite difficult to talk coherently about the importance of prayer in shaping my life ... although those of you who follow this blog will know I have used a good many words in the attempt! I genuinely believe that a commitment to a regular routine of prayer has been an essential element in shaping the life I lead. Not as a direct cause and effect, "Jesus told me today to do this so I did" but in some way that is deeper and more mysterious than that.

Partly it's about stopping. About having conscious time when I am not 'doing' am simply 'being'. There is something in that of accepting not being in control, not having to do everything.  

Partly it is about experiencing the unconditional love of God. There is something about knowing myself to be loved which both helps me cope with all the stuff I cannot do, all the problems I cannot solve as well as feeding my capacity to offer my own imperfect version of that love to others. There is something about love which overcomes fear: the fear of the future, the fear of letting go of some of our security blankets, the fear of the other, the fear of the unknown.

I am, I hasten to add, casting no judgement on the many amazing people doing phenomenal things with their lives in whose lives prayer does not feature. We are all on our own journeys. This is mine.  

Process

All of this has been and still is a journey. I can look back and know I am not the person I was ten years ago, or twenty years ago. I hope I will say the same ten and twenty years from now. Each decision feeds other decisions. My life hasn't involved any major u-turns, any complete re-orderings of my values, principles or lifestyle, any starting again from scratch with a different worldview. 

I wrote that and then realised I did at one point go from teaching in an academically selective private school on the outskirts of Paris where I could have fresh baguette for breakfast and visit the Eiffel Tower on a school night to living in a religious community and teaching in a vocational training centre for disadvantaged young adults in the Philippines which could, on the surface, look like a pretty major shift!

But overall, it still feels true to say that life hasn't been, mostly, about big decisions, but about little steps which have engendered experiences which have lead to other little steps. 

Certainly that is true of my passion and commitment to attempting to be in solidarity with those who have sought sanctuary in the UK. When I moved to Birmingham I knew little about those issues. I offered to volunteer at the Sanctuary, not because I cared deeply about refugees, but because I was looking for volunteering opportunities that would use my gifts and they needed English teachers and I thought I could probably do that. It was the people I met, the stories I heard, the friendships I made that brought me to where I am now. 

One foot in front of the other. Step by little step, it is a journey which feels like it has taken and is taking me to somewhere very beautiful and exciting. There's the risk of all sorts of cliches and potential internet memes in this, but, from experience, it feels true. Each step leads to the next one.

I really really wanted to come up with another word beginning with p to make my final point, but unless I fall back on privilege again, I can't think of an appropriate one.

So the other struggle I have when answering this question is that I wonder whether it comes from a place of others feeling like I am making a huge sacrifice by the way I have chosen to live. And that's just not how it feels from where I am standing.   

OK, I acknowledge, probably (although nothing is ever guaranteed) I could have more material wealth than I have if I had made some different choices along the way. But I don't feel like I am making any great sacrifices, that I am experiencing any hardship. I still live an extremely comfortable, privileged life.

I do work hard, mostly. I do witness pain and suffering and there is a cost to that. I do get angry and frustrated at a church, society and world which I believe could be so much better. I do at times feel powerless and occasionally overwhelmed. And yes, life can be draining and exhausting. (But hey, my other option was being a teacher and most of them are permanently tired too!)  

But all of that is far, far outweighed by the fact that when it comes to all the things that really matter, my life has been immeasurably enriched by the encounters and experiences that I have been privileged to have. The main beneficiary, the person who gets the most from the way I live my life is, undoubtedly, me.

I am not saying I am happy every moment of every day. My life involves tears as well as lots and lots of laughter: and I wouldn't want it not to. But on balance, at a deeper level, I am living a life which brings me great joy. 

I wouldn't exchange it... But nor am I content to stand still. I know there are more steps ahead. I don't know what they are yet. I trust they will also take me to places which are even more beautiful.