A no-longer-blank canvas

Having not painted much at all for a while, why wouldn't I, for my next artistic project, take on "the big canvas"?

Back in early March 2020 as the prospect of an inevitable lockdown crept closer; some people stockpiled toilet rolls and pasta. I, meanwhile, was more concerned with how I was going to keep occupied and went to The Works to stock up on arts and crafts resources. One extra large canvas which I thought would be a new and novel challenge was one of my purchases.

As things turned out, due to both remaining busier than I anticipated or feared throughout the lockdowns, and to having less creative energy than I thought I might, it has sat unpainted, taking up space, ever since.

Until now.

I am still not entirely sure whether it is finished, but I'm done for the time being.

Stories of Hope and Home ... 2021

It is no secret that a lot of my time, energy and passion over the last two and a half years has been dedicated to bringing to life Stories of Hope and Home.

Setting out in autumn 2019, I probably wouldn't have chosen to throw a global pandemic into the mix in the first year, but even with that added complication, I genuinely think that this little project is doing some very good and important things for those who are involved with and encounter it. 

It is incredibly hard to capture and quantify what it so special about this group of people and why it is such an absolute privilege to work with them; but I recently wrote a blogpost on the Stories of Hope and Home website which at least tried to sum up some of our activities and achievements over the last year. I don't think there's much traffic to our website (even less than to this one), so I thought I'd share a link to it here too and invite you to take a look:   

https://storiesofhopeandhome.blogspot.com/2022/02/the-year-that-was-2021.html

#pray24brum

I wrote the following for Churches Together in England, so although it was written with a slightly different audience in mind which accounts for some of the content and style of it, I thought I'd share it here too:

Pray24Brum, 24 hours of prayer in and for our city during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, is now an established feature of the church year in Birmingham. The event began back in 2015 making this our eight edition.

Coming at the beginning of the calendar year it is a beautiful way to begin the year, reminded that we are a gloriously diverse collection of individuals and communities but that we are united in our common commitment to prayer. This year, as Birmingham prepares to welcome the world as host city of the commonwealth games, it felt if anything more important than ever to come together across our many traditions and expressions of faith to turn together towards the God who loves us.

The structure of the event has changed little year on year. Each year is hosted by a different city centre church, and this year we gathered at The Church at Carrs Lane. Churches, charities, schools and Christian groups from across the city, and at times beyond, are invited to lead an hour of prayer according to their own tradition. Every year we welcome back groups for whom this is an important part of their year, but there are also always churches or communities participating for the first time.

This creates huge variety in style and subject of prayer, and yet, without it being planned as such, strands and recurring themes often emerge throughout the 24 hours. For example, this year one group focused on praying for children and young people, little knowing that the hour after them would be led by a group of school children. It was totally unplanned, but seamless (apart from the technical hitches) and beautiful!

Last year pandemic restrictions meant Pray24Brum was an online-only event. Having thought we might have to cancel completely, it still felt precious and meaningful to be connected through cyberspace but for those of us who met again in person this year, there was something particularly beautiful and poignant. Previously I'm sure we took for granted this possibility of gathering together to pray and it has certainly taught us all gratitude for these simple things. Some hours attracted more people than others but often it was only small numbers who gathered in person to pray. We live by the promise of the gospels “Wherever two or three are gathered, I am there with them” and those of us who were present recognised something powerful about the simple constancy of being together in prayer.

It was also our first foray into a hybrid model, with everything being streamed online as well as open in person. We were fortunate that the technological aspects all went remarkably, and perhaps surprisingly, well! It was heartening to see how many people engaged online but Facebook statistics not withstanding we have no idea, really what the reach of the event is. We never really know who the event touches and in what ways. But then again, it is not our job to know either. 

We trust that it plants seeds. We trust that God will make them grow and flower.

https://cte.org.uk/pray24brum-2022/ 

I am not shocked

Recently I was at a hotel being used to accommodate people seeking asylum. As people arrived and left they said a number which was duly noted down on a list. I presume the justification was some kind of fire register.

It made me deeply uncomfortable. 

Perhaps it was because it was shortly after Holocaust Memorial Day where images of individuals with numbers tattooed on their bodies were much in evidence, or perhaps simply because I know these people as individuals with names and stories; I found it extremely troubling ... 

And yet I wasn't shocked.

I think I have lost the ability to be shocked by anything at all in relation to the hostile environment.

I don't think that means I have become hardened by my exposure to these realities, or desensitised to the suffering ... on the contrary I continue to experience deep emotions in relation to what I see my friends experience on a daily basis.

I am often frustrated, angry, outraged. At times I feel a deep sense of guilt and shame that these things are perpetrated in my name. I have been reduced to tears, or held them back out of respect for those living with these realities.

But shock implies something unexpected and sadly, though I wish it were not so, it seems there is nothing that surprises me about the way we as a country (and the west more widely) respond to the desperate people who turn to us seeking sanctuary.

While I was reflecting on this I saw a tweet by UNHCR expressing that they were shocked and saddened about the deaths of a group of asylum seekers in Europe's borders. Perhaps they were. Perhaps it was just a turn of phrase. 

I wish I had been shocked. Just as I wish I had been shocked when the bodies of 21 people were fished out of the English channel. 

And it's not just about the stories that make the headlines, I also wish I was shocked by all the little individual stories of suffering which are never going to make the news but which impact on the lives of those I care about every single day. 

I wish I was shocked about the person in a wheelchair who has no step-free access to their accommodation. I wish I was shocked that there are people who have been stuck in inadequate "contingency accommodation", unable to so much as cook a meal for themselves, for more than a year. I wish I had been shocked when a mum and new born arrived in their accommodation to find the heating was broken. I wish I was shocked when people are counting in years rather than months how long they are waiting to be interviewed by the Home Office, let alone receive a decision on their claim. I wish I was shocked when people are ripped away from their communities to be taken to accommodation many miles away in other parts of the country with no thought to the impact on their wellbeing. The list goes on.

I wish I was shocked by those individual human beings who are finding themselves identified by a number. 

But there is something else which used to take me by surprise and no longer does, but which I am determined always to celebrate and never to take for granted ...

I am also no longer shocked by the hope and resilience, by the generosity and open-heartedness, and by the capacity for laughter and joy I see in the midst of all this too. 

A tale of two Christmases

Despite being surrounded by commercial Christmas in the shops and city centre streets, it took me a long time to get into the Christmas spirit. I suspect it was partly because of all the ongoing covid uncertainty, and doubts about whether and how we might be able to celebrate this year: perhaps subconsciously, maybe even consciously, I didn't want to get my hopes up only to have them dashed by a positive test... I know for many that was, indeed, their reality.  

Because for me Christmas is not about stuff, it is very much about people. And it is people, not stuff, we have so often found ourselves deprived of these last couple of years. 

In the end, although there were some changes to some of the things I had planned over the festive period, and some of those I would have shared them with; I was lucky enough to be able to enjoy not one, but two beautiful Christmases. 

On 25th December, we had something that I had perhaps previously come to take for granted and that this year we had hardly dared to hope for ... a beautiful celebration of Christmas with lots of people gathered together in the flat at Carrs Lane. 

There was laughter and noise and a fair amount of mess and chaos ... but also a very unchaotic, perfectly orchestrated delicious Christmas dinner for 13. There was lots of food, endless washing up, the sharing of thoughtful gifts, the excitement of children.

There was conversation and warmth and friendship and family.

Then, on 7th January (because of something to do with the Julian and Gregorian calendars and the extraction of a number of days at a certain point in history), many of the Orthodox traditions celebrate Christmas.  And one of the group decided that Stories of Hope and Home, this group of people, this family, was exactly who she wanted to be celebrating Christmas with. 

So once again there was laughter and noise and a fair amount of mess and chaos but also delicious food and traditional Eritrean coffee with fresh-roasted beans (without setting the fire alarm off!). There was a gathering of friends as well as those we had never met before made to feel welcome. 

There was conversation and warmth and friendship and family. 

All of these, and others, are those I call family. And this, for me, is what Christmas spirit looks like. The building of communities which stretch wide in welcome, the creating of spaces where light and laughter shine. 

So although everyone else had apparently already moved on by then: I found Easter Eggs in the shops almost a week before Christmas, and the German market and all its paraphernalia was already being tidied away two days before the 25th; and although I wasn't sure I would, I did, in fact, in the end find my Christmas spirit. 

But now, it is the 2nd February, Candlemas, today I will finally be taking the decorations down and I declare Christmas closed!