A month in the life

A little over a year ago I wrote a post about a "typical" week in my life, or if not a typical one then at least a randomly selected specific one. It occurred to me that it might be interesting, a year or so on, to repeat the exercise, but as life is so varied, and every week so different, this time I have gone for edited highlights of "a month in the life". It's probably too long to be of interest to anyone but me, but for what it is worth, this was my November: 

Week 1: Tuesday 1st - Sunday 6th November  

Tuesday was an odds and ends jobs sort of a day including a trip to my old haunt St Chad's Sanctuary to pick up school uniform: it was nice to see a few familiar faces I hadn't caught up with for a while and I did also fit in a cup of tea in a coffee shop with a friend. Then I had back to back zooms in the evening which used to be normality but is very rare these days. Wednesday took me to London with some of the stories group for the "Lift the Ban" coalition gathering. By some minor miracle everyone arrived on time, it was a lovely but long day: extended even further by the fact that the person who told us they knew exactly where the restaurant they wanted to eat at was, and that it really wasn't far, may not have been as confident in their London geography as they thought! Thursday was another pretty busy day as I had a Birch Staff Meeting in the morning before going directly to run the Birch family drop-in, followed by another meeting, but Friday was a bit quieter with only admin to do in the morning ahead of the Stories group session which was an art workshop with Celebrating Sanctuary. It was particularly nice to see one or two people who hadn't been able to be around for a while. From there I went directly to see friends for a very lovely evening chatting and, due to the train strike that wasn't, ended up staying over. I had deliberately kept the weekend fairly empty ahead of what I knew was going to be another busy week ahead.

Week 2: Monday 7th - Sunday 13th November

Even by my standards, this week was set to be exceptionally busy. We had two school visits all day Monday and Wednesday: one in a primary school, one in a high school; one in a school who are already good friends of the Stories project, one to a school we were visiting for the first time: both went really well and I was, as ever, humbled by the incredible people I get to work alongside. From Monday's visit it was straight in to the evening Stories session where we began exploring the peculiarly British cultural phenomenon that is panto! Between the two, on Tuesday, a group of us went to Liverpool for the Churches Together in Britain and Ireland conference where we led a workshop, and contributed to the panel as well as to lots of informal conversations, and one of the group did an outstanding job of selling a box full of poetry books! Expected travel disruption meant the NACCOM conference on Thursday had moved online and while I was disappointed not to be meeting people in person, in the midst of everything else going on this week perhaps it wasn't such a bad thing. It did make for a very intensive day of screen time, and by the evening I had realised I definitely should have done other things during the breaks rather than trying to fit in other computer jobs! I was back out all day on Friday, including a meeting with my supervisor for Birch, and our second art workshop with the Stories group. We were due to be going to Doncaster on Saturday but I think it was the right call to do that particular encounter by zoom instead. On Saturday evening Welsh National Opera who we had worked with last year had given us tickets to their Opera "Migrations" which was absolutely stunning as well as deeply meaningful; and a small group of us went to a classical concert at the town hall on Sunday afternoon too so a very cultured weekend! 

Week 3: Monday 14th - Sunday 20th November

This week was, at least partly by design, much quieter. It is the nature of my life and work that some weeks are exceptionally busy and that is made manageable by the balance of the weeks with a bit more space in them: both to relax, and to catch up on the much needed admin tasks. On Monday I spent several hours meeting lots of newly arrived families and collecting information for the next round of helping with accessing school places; a task which took up a good chunk of Thursday morning as well. On both Monday and Friday we were playing with panto in the Stories sessions which involved a whole lot of fun and laughter! The Birch drop-in session was quiet but did include offering some much needed emotional support to some of the mums. And on Friday I had a meeting over doughnuts and another over delicious falafel wraps which was most excellent! Tuesday and Wednesday were both days almost entirely spent at home, partly catching up on jobs that desperately needed doing but with a very relaxed rhythm. I also had a friend staying throughout throughout this week while he recovered from an operation he'd had the previous week, so it was good that I was around a bit more and I very much enjoyed his company and many good conversations. A couple of evenings other friends popped round too, to see him or me or both. Saturday was a fairly busy day with an early start for a (sadly not well attended but you can but try) coffee morning about hosting, then lunch with prospective hosts, and then I had a really lovely afternoon having been invited to the birthday party of delightful twin girls who were turning 13. After a lazy Sunday morning the week was topped off by an afternoon of comedy and a visit to the beautiful Birmingham Progressive Synagogue.

Week 4: Monday 21st - Sunday 27th November

It was a thoroughly dull, grey and wet start to the week so in a way I was glad I had a meeting on Monday afternoon that forced me to get out of the house, because even if I got rather cold and damp, on balance, I always feel better when I get out and about. Usually, the Stories group would be meeting on a Monday afternoon but our venue isn't available for a few weeks and as there are plenty of other activities to keep us occupied we are taking a break from that regular session. On Tuesday, among various other things, I was at St Chad's Cathedral for a planning meeting for the next edition of pray24brum, and having not been able to get to the last meeting, it was lovely to be back in person with this little group. There were as always, a million emails to catch up on, conversations to have, things to organise and various meetings to attend, both in person and online: including the Migration Forum meeting, a "cathedral conversations" event, a meeting with a councillor and another about school admissions. I also went to not one but two poetry / spoken word events: the wonderful Steven Camden, aka Polarbear, who we worked with last year; and one of my all-time favourite poets, Brian Bilston. Plus on Saturday we had tickets to see nativity at the REP which I very much enjoyed even if I did spend a lot of it shushing small children! In the midst of all that, probably the most significant thing to happen this week was handing in the notice on my current flat and setting things in train for my next move which, all being well, will take place just before Christmas.

Week 5: Monday 28th November - Wednesday 30th

Monday was a fairly full day of mostly school related shenanigans as I continue the process of trying to help lots of newly arrived children into school. The absolute joy and excitement of the children at the prospect was well worth the slight sense of overwhelm when I was surrounded by families! But I was glad of a walk home in the fading sunlight to clear my head. I was expecting to spend a chunk of Tuesday moving a Birch guest in with their hosts but, as can sometimes happen last minute, the need for emergency accommodation was averted, which meant I had more time for a few other jobs, including continuing the school mission, but with an intentionally slightly less busy feel to the day. I rounded off the month with a day that included a helpful conversation with the person I meet to help me to reflect on and process the many experiences and stories I hold with my friends in the Stories group, then called in briefly to Carrs Lane before a fabulous school visit in the afternoon to round off the month.

And now December awaits. Bring it on!

Do we need God?

This blog post first came about after a conversation (quite some months ago now) with a very good friend for whom I have a huge amount of respect. 

She does good things in the world. She cares about humanity. She does not have a faith.

I am not entirely sure how we got on to the topic of religion but somewhere in the mix was what I took to be a very genuine question, which went something along the lines of "what is the point of religion and do we really need God?" It is not the first time I have faced such a question: from someone else or at times even from myself. 

I had no immediately coherent answer to offer. And not only because it was late in the evening and I was tired.

She is just as capable as me of doing good in the world. According to my theology, her chances of finding herself in heaven (if it exists) are just as high as mine. I am not somehow her superior ... there is nothing about me that is better than her because I have a faith and she doesn't. I have friends of many faiths and of none who have just as much to offer to the world as I do. 

And to be honest I can find much to criticise about the role of religion in our lives, communities, world. Over the years I have cried many tears over the church and its (as I perceive them) failings.   

And yet it is no secret that my faith remains important to me. I wanted to be able to try and explain why. 

I guess I started writing this as my attempt to do so: to myself, to her, and to the world. Many weeks later, more recent conversations with another friend prompted me to try and draw my scattered thoughts together. I have struggled to do so, because the mystery I call God defies explanation and eludes description in mere words, but this is my best attempt.

It comes with multiple disclaimers. My faith and my theology have changed significantly over time so if this stands as a (slightly blurry) reflection of where I am right now; it may not sum up where I was yesterday, nor where I will be tomorrow. Nor does it reflect a set of beliefs of anyone else or any institution: my faith has been shaped by my experiences of several Christian denominations but has also been worked out through reflection, conversation and encounter so doesn't sit easily in any of the pre-designed boxes different churches present to us and I like to hope that I would be seen as mildly heretical by at least most models of church. And just in case anyone is in any doubt, my explanation or defence of my own faith does not hold within it any criticism of anyone else's journey along this very winding road we call life. 

*     *     *

Undoubtedly, part of my reason for being an adult with Christian faith is that it was the faith I was introduced to as a child. I have no recollection of a time before church was part of my life. I do, though, have fairly clear recollections of the first times church was an active choice. 

At some point as a (probably slightly precocious) primary school child, I decided I would rather go to church than to Sunday school: I have no idea, now, what drew me to sit through the probably fairly dull church services instead of doing colouring in ... these days, I much prefer Sunday School! More significantly, when I was in my early teens, my parents stopped going to church. It was no longer something we were expected to do as part of our weekly routine as a family. If I wanted to be part of this thing, it became my own responsibility. I sometimes joke that going to church was my teenage rebellion. As my faith has developed and I have understood more about who I believe Jesus to be, I have realised maybe it wasn't as much of a joke as I thought.

My faith today is unrecognisable from the nascent faith I had then: my journey has taken me far from what I would probably describe as "dull, bog-standard Anglicanism" and the church which was such a haven for my fourteen-year-old-self would undoubtedly now be a place which I would find intensely frustrating ...  but the essence of perhaps the most significant aspect of why my faith still matters does seemingly date to those days, though I certainly wouldn't have articulated it thus at the time. 

I was an unhappy teenager. At home, though I never questioned the love of my family, I carried a deep resentment about being moved away from a place where I had convinced myself I'd have been happier; and school was a fairly miserable experience where I was torn between the desperate desire to fit in and the desperate desire to be true to the person I was who didn't. And then there were hormones and the general unease that probably afflicts all teenagers as they grow out of being children long before they grow into being adults.

Church gave me the incredibly precious gift of being a place where I didn't have to "fit in" in order to belong and a place where somewhere deep within I felt like I had inherent value, just as I was. I associated church, and therefore God, as a place of safety and acceptance. I have changed a lot since those days, as has my faith, but I still deeply believe that, at its best, an experience of God is an experience of learning that you can belong and have value and be loved, just the way you are.

*     *     *

The world can be a very dark place. Throughout history, and in the world we now inhabit, we can scarcely fail to notice the destructive capacity of humanity: the myriad ways in which people can commit acts of utter evil against each other, and even against ourselves. All too often there can seem to be so much to make us angry and so little in the world that inspires hope.

We have put our planet on a collision course for climate catastrophe. Dictatorial regimes and human rights abuses abound. Conflicts are proliferating. Far-right ideologies are increasingly unchecked and accepted in the mainstream. The rich and powerful continue their love affair with an economic system which thrives on an ever widening divide between the haves and have nots.

Many of the core messages which surround us, both the explicit and the implied are ones which want us to believe that the only thing that matters is looking out for ourselves and our own interests, or, potentially, by extension, those perceived as belonging to our group or sharing our identity. They are messages which tell us the pursuit of material wealth is the route to happiness, that we will find our worth in what we possess. They are messages which tell us the weakest and most vulnerable are at best, not our problem or responsibility, and at worst to be cast as scapegoats, blamed for a variety of social ills and subjected to further suffering. They are messages seeking to divide, telling us to fear or to hate those who are in any way different to ourselves.

Social pressure of this sort is insidious and, whatever we tell ourselves, nigh on impossible to entirely resist. We are products of the societies that form us. 

I do not want to believe this is all there is to the world. And for me it is God and the message of the gospels that allows me to hope in an alternative. I fear that without that sense of the divine, that sense of something beyond ourselves, I might just lose hope.

Faith is what gives me the strength to, however imperfectly, stand up as best I can to the rhetoric the world wants us to believe and to try to stand for something different. 

Faith is what makes me trust that, even when it doesn't feel like it, "the arc of the universe bends towards justice" (MLK)

Faith is what constantly reminds me that no human has any less worth or value than any other, that reminds me to stretch out a hand in warmth and welcome to the "other", because they are, as I am, loved and worthy of love. 

Faith is that which which ensures and assures me that good is possible. 

*     *     *

For many years my life has involved a routine of prayer and specifically, times of silence integrated into my day. I struggle to articulate how or why but I remain completely convinced my life would look different without it. It is my space to be reminded, or to remind myself of the possibility of joy, hope, goodness and unconditional love even when they seem so far from the reality every time we switch on the news. I believe those reminders come from somewhere beyond myself.

The essence of my faith remains that God is and only can be love and nothing we do, nothing we are can exclude us from that unconditional love. The essence of my faith remains that, created in the image of God, we are called into the experience of love and called to offer it onwards and outwards to others. The essence of my faith is that we exist to love and to be loved. 

Others perhaps have a different explanation, but for me, my way of making sense of the world and holding on to the possibility of hope, is the existence of a mystery I choose to call God; a God who is and only can be love, a God who ensures there is always a force for good in the world, a God who flares or who flickers in the darkest of places. A God from whom I acknowledge religions, as much as the wider world, have ofttimes turned away. 

I don't think having a faith in God has made my life any easier: nor should it: there is plenty of challenge inherent in the gospels. But I think it has been one of the ways in which I have discovered a deep joy that exists despite, beyond and in the midst of the world with all its broken beauty. 

So back to those conversations with friends that inspired me to write this ... 

Does she need God? Does he? I don't know and it is not for me to say. 

But do I need God? ... Yes, I think I do.

What I have learned

It is just over a year since I signed the contract on this flat (the anniversary was Wednesday), and slightly less since I moved in. This has been the first time for a very long time I have lived alone; the only other time being my year abroad from university when I lived in a school in France. 

As I look back on the past year (and prepare to move on again), I have been reflecting on some of the things I have discovered and learned. Here are a few snippets from those thoughts:

• It will come as no surprise to anyone, least of all me that I am still very much a people person. I love spending time with other people; both in group settings and one-to-one with friends. I love the fact that I have so many different, wonderful people in my life; and community and belonging are definitely important to me. Much of my people time is in other places, and I love hosting guests here too. But having my own space does, it turns out, also really suit me: I do also enjoy my own company and in between my very peopled existence, I have been very much appreciating time spent alone.
• My life is rich in variety and no two days are the same, which is exactly the way I want it to be. Having said that, I have found that having some elements of routine or structure in life do matter ... and so is the flexibility to bend or break those routines when necessary. I appreciate the fixed points, both external and self-imposed around which my life is organised. As a rule, I have intentionally kept the weekends having a distinct and different feel to them to weekdays too which feels like it is probably important.
• Before moving to Birmingham all those years ago, I was very unsure about how much I would enjoy life at the heart of a busy city: it turned out that I did, very much. It became my normality, and moving out into a residential area has been a reminder of some of the ways it was quite a distinctive place to live and things I was missing there: little things, mostly: such as having easy access to a proper supermarket that isn't just set up for convenience foods, and just the very different feel to the streets I walk around.
• Another significant change from being in the city centre revolves around transport and I acknowledge having lost a level of convenience on that front: many of my activities still take place in the city centre or now involve significantly more travel. It has meant some earlier starts, more time at bus stops and sometimes finding myself with time to kill between activities when I previously would have nipped home but it isn't worth coming back here. But I have also learned that you can get used to most things fairly quickly and I have adapted to this now just being the reality: I rarely find myself comparing it to an alternative.
• I've let myself know that it is ok to resort to 'stick something in the oven' convenience foods some of the time, and I've found batch cooking is a must since living by myself. It's also nice to have visitors which can be a prompt to make more effort ... but sometimes it is also nice to put in lots of effort to cook a really nice meal, just for yourself. 
• I am aware I am extremely privileged with the amount of space I have to myself here. Having my bedroom as a space distinct from my living and working space is definitely a gift I have come to appreciate. Admittedly, I haven't entirely kept technology out as I do still take my phone (maybe that's a next step!) but I have never taken my laptop in, nor many other things, and I have recognised the benefits of generally keeping my sleeping space distinct from the rest of life.
• One of the things I think others, perhaps more than me although I too sensed the risk, thought when I moved here was that I might not be able to switch off from work and the things that keep me busy. But while it does remain true that I lead a very busy life, and yes, I do occasionally have moments of being utterly overwhelmed and feeling like I am not on top of everything I need or want to do; actually, I have, I think quite effectively been able to build down time into my life. And if some of that is meaningless time wasting by scrolling through social media and the like, it has also included reading plenty of books, spending time with friends, arts and crafts, taking advantage of having green space at the end of the road, and plenty of other ways to relax.

I'm sure there are plenty of other things I could say, but those are my disparate thoughts at this particular point in time.