Resilience and rest

Following on from my two previous posts, I knew I wanted to write something about, in the midst of all of the stuff, how we, or at least I, strive to look after myself too. 

My refrain to others around me the last few weeks has been "marathon, not sprint": I have been repeating it as much for myself as anyone else. I know I need to still be standing tomorrow, and next week, and next year. I know I have more to do, give, be that I can't if I get broken at this stage. And yes, of course I have my moments of feeling utterly overwhelmed and there are occasional tears: I don't ever want to get to the stage where I can remain entirely impassive and unaffected; but on balance, I'm doing ok. Even if it doesn't always seem like it from the outside, I think I am in fact reasonably good at looking after and out for myself. I live life to the full and often stretch myself to my limits: but I do also know where those limits lie and generally don't cross them more often than I can cope with. 

I wrote in my previous post of the many things community looks like, and the many beautiful expressions of it I have seen and been part of in recent weeks. On a personal level it has also looked like a whole lot of people looking out for me too: people who have checked in, people who I know care and worry about me. People who have been there with supportive messages and conversations, with cups of tea and glasses of wine, with invitations to relax and have fun and with hugs on demand. I am very grateful to them / you all.  

So I was all set to write a post, about how, individually and collectively, resilience and rest matter, and the different ways in which I try to build them into my life and create rhythms and realities that work for me but what I planned to say has now been slightly derailed / reconfigured. 

This week, we re-enter ordinary time in the church, the coming Sunday's gospel reading is Mark 2:23 - 3:6 and it has fallen as my turn to prepare something to say for our Tuesday bible discussion group. It has proved to be a reminder, should I need one, that the lenses through which we read these texts are so often strongly influenced by our current context and experience.

In the story, the disciples pick and eat corn from the fields as they walk and then Jesus heals a man's withered hand. Both take place on the sabbath, and Jesus uses them to challenge the rules of what is and isn't allowed. I am sure there have been, and will be, times when I would read this text as a comfortably reassuring reminder that we are not called to a blind following of restrictive rules and that faith is something mor active and dynamic than that. 

That is not, at least initially how I read it this week. I'm never afraid to sound mildly heretical, and on first reading this time around I was, frankly, a bit irritated with Jesus. In the story he asks the question, what is lawful to do on the sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?"

 

I aspire for my life and my work to be about doing good and bringing life. I am not pretending I do so perfectly or consistently, but I am trying to do my little bit. In many ways, these things are the very hardest from which to 'take a sabbath', to recognise the need for rest and recuperation. I have had to learn that it is ok to stop, even when the stopping means that good and important thing may not get done. I have had to learn to switch off, even while acknowledging it is a luxury those I support don't have. These have been hard learned lessons, and continue to be something which takes conscious discipline. I definitely do not need Jesus to tell me that I can give up my sabbath as long as it is to do good. I need to hear that it is ok to stop doing good, too. Fortunately, my inner voice, which may or may not be of God, continues to say exactly that, even if it is a whisper I have to consciously make space to hear.

And no, I don't want a strict set of rules: either external or self-imposed, by which to live the sabbath, but I do also recognise the value of doing sabbath well; and while Jesus may have had a point, in our current context and culture, I wonder if he'd have been trying to convey a different message to his audience. 

We (I) live in a society that has made a virtue of being constantly busy: where having something else on is considered a valid reason to not accept another commitment but just wanting time off isn't. We may have made a joke of the idea of turning down invites because "I'm washing my hair" but it does play into a deeper reality that just stopping and doing nothing isn't considered reason enough. While there have been certain positive steps in recent years, with looking after ones own wellbeing being increasingly recognised as valid, there is still a deeply embedded culture of 'busier is best'. I have no doubt that this culture contributes to my own struggle with building in 'sabbath time'. But it is not the only thing. 

My life, like many peoples, is made up of many, many blurred boundaries: of space and time and people. In many, even most, ways this suits me exceptionally well. I know I would hate (and know I would be spectacularly unproductive) in an office job with set hours. I like being able to choose what I do, and when I do it, but it mans there are no hard and fast lines drawn around what counts as work time. Technology, and the communication it facilitates, is both blessing and curse. The people I work with are also my community: they are the people I socialise and celebrate with. I enjoy their company and some have become people I count among my closest friends; but in many of these relationships I still fulfil a role of offering support where it is needed. I would not change any of this: but I acknowledge that it means working harder to identify the best ways to find sabbath in its midst.

And then there is this question, straight out of the gospel "is it lawful to do good, or to do evil?" One doesn't have to look far to find the suggestion that, where evil exists, and when we look around us it is ever-present, that to fail to do good is already to do evil. So wherein lies our right to pause and look after ourselves too? A couple of weeks ago I found myself responding to a friend who said "I should have been there" by trying to reassure her that no, she shouldn't. It was ok, right even, that she had not been there, even if that meant the situation didn't have as satisfactory a resolution as it might have done if she had been. On another day, those words, said out loud to someone else, could just have easily been the ones I told myself. When it comes to mundane admin tasks or replying to emails, anyone who has ever had to chase me will know very well that I don't find it so difficult to stop and not get them done! But when it comes to those things which feel like they will genuinely effect other people's lives and with which they need help, the things where I ask myself, 'yes, but if I don't ...': those are definitely the times it is harder to switch off. The resilience part of the blogpost title at least partly relates to this: the gradual learning to find ways to manage doing what I can, while also dealing healthily with what I can't or don't. The learning to know that other people can and will pick up the pieces too, and that even if they can't or won't or don't ... that I am still not called to do it all. 

Despite these challenges, I have learned to build sabbath time into my life in lots of different ways. My frequently lapsed and frequently reinstituted routine of prayer; days out and weekends away; time spent with friends and time spent alone; creative interludes, cooking nice food, and sitting on the sofa doing very little at all; not (or not always) feeling I have to explain or justify why something might have taken longer to complete or reply to than it 'should'; days, including work days, where I make a decision not to set an alarm, ... the list goes on. 

My version of sabbath probably looks very different to anyone else's, as well as looking different to what mine has looked like in the past, or will in the future. And that is ok. Maybe, now that I am past my mild irritation at what I read as Jesus' slightly unhelpful intervention, that's the point he too was trying to make. He does go on to say that the sabbath was made for us, not we for the sabbath ... he does not actually question the reality or value of the existence or principle of it. Maybe the point is that we can be the "Lord of our own sabbath" too. I am doing my best to find ways to do exactly that.

And so here we are. Bank holiday Monday. And I refuse to feel guilty that I am sitting in my pyjamas as I write. 

Rwanda (2)

It is perhaps somewhat ironic that just 24 hours after writing my previous post, I was catapulted into what was, even by my standards, an exceptionally exhausting week on both a practical and emotional level. 

I wrote a post about Rwanda when the idea was first raised, way back in 2022. I stand by everything I said then, and more. The 'Safety of Rwanda' law received royal assent on Thursday 25th April. The following Sunday a Guardian article revealed the intention to immediately start detaining people in preparation for removal, taking away the last vestiges of hope that the law wouldn't be acted on quickly, or at all.

If detentions were beginning, we knew that one of the places people would be most at risk was the home office reporting centre. Many people seeking asylum, and others who are subject to immigration control have a regular reporting condition, meaning they have to attend the home office centre to sign to say they are still here and still co-operating with the system. It is, at the best of times, a degrading and scary experience. With the threat of the Rwanda plan, those feelings were hugely amplified. If this was happening, I was not the only person to feel very strongly that was where we needed to be. 

Within hours of the article, a flurry of WhatsApp messages, much sharing of information, finding and creation of resources and the setting up of a rota meant we were ready to be on hand by the following morning. Whatever else the last couple of weeks has thrown at us, it has included an incredible showing of solidarity, and shown the value of being able to be flexible and responsive. What we would be able to offer the next day wouldn't be perfect, it would need to be refined as time went on, but we would be there.

The following morning I (and others) were outside the Home Office reporting centre by 9am. We were aware of the risk of whipping up further fear, but on balance, we knew people were already terrified, so helping people to be informed and prepared felt like the right response. We were still vaguely wondering / hoping that this could be a false alarm. It didn't take long to know it wasn't, as we realised that some of those going in were not coming out. 

I spent over twelve hours outside that building that day. During the week that followed, I lost count of the number of hours I worked, and the number of incredibly difficult conversations I had. Everything I have learned about having challenging conversations, about having to say no or not make promises I can't keep, about reassuring without offering false hope, were put to the test. 

In between there has been a lot of trying to keep on top of accurate information in a rapidly changing landscape where what seemed to be true on day might be different by the next; and attempting to disseminate that, and other, information and some gentle education for those who wanted to help but knew they had a lot to learn along the way. There is the building of a movement drawing together a diverse community of people who really care, coming from all sorts of different overlapping but not necessarily entirely aligned perspectives.

As if that wasn't enough there were also all the complexities of handling the media, the home office and the police in the mix too. 

And of course the rest of the world didn't stand still and the other demands didn't go away. Holding in tension the need for an emergency response to a specific situation and the need to continue offering the ongoing support for those facing all the other ongoing hostility and aggression of the immigration system has also been part of the picture. Building the sustainability of both will continue to be something to wrestle with.

The detrimental impact of these policies, and their implementation on those affected (and those who aren't but fear they might be) and those who care about them is significant. The fear in these communities and individuals is palpable. It will force people to disappear into places where they are at risk of destitution and exploitation. The acute mental health impacts will be felt immediately, and continue to be felt far into the future. I fear people will, literally, die. 

There is so much that we cannot do or promise. But I am also confident that almost everyone who has gone into our local reporting centre in the last fortnight has done so with a piece of paper with key information in their pocket and having seen a friendly face outside, hopefully giving them at least a vague understanding that there are others fighting for them who don't want this to be happening. When we can't do it all, sometimes we have to focus on what we can, and find ways to let go of the other. 

When the information-sharing with those reporting gradually morphed into a solidarity protest on that first day, one of the chants was "Tell me what community looks like: this is what community looks like".  And in the midst of some very, very dark days, it has looked like a lot of different, beautiful things: from being present on the ground alongside those who need it most to a whole lot of messages in support, from colourful banners and endless printing and copying to offering space to store materials, from lawyers fighting court cases, to individuals and organisations translating and sharing information in every way they can, from all important spreadsheets to donations of bottles of water and doughnuts, from lively chants to gentle conversations. And a whole lot more. On a personal level, it has also included lots of people checking in to make sure I am ok too, and hopefully me doing a bit of the same for others. Many many people, in many many ways are standing in solidarity. 

Much as I wish it didn't, this law exists and this government seems determined to implement it. But there are still ways to support, and ways to rebel: and all of them rely on an underlying willingness and ability to remain hopeful. So while I am not overly optimistic, in the midst of all the reasons why I might, I refuse to give up hope.