An island of strangers, and of friends

In announcing the latest "let's see which party can do the best job of blaming migrants for all the issues of late-stage consumer capitalism" measures, Keir Starmer made a speech in which he stated that we risk "becoming an island of strangers." 

On one level, he's not wrong. 

We do risk becoming an island of strangers.

But it isn't because of migration.

We risk becoming an island of strangers because, with our heads down and noses buried in devices we don't see the people around us. We risk becoming an island of strangers because we are allowing algorithms to choose what we hear and who we interact with. We risk becoming an island of strangers because we are surrounded by messages telling us to focus solely on ourselves and trying to convince us that it is consumption rather than community which will make us happy. We risk becoming an island of strangers because we are constantly being told to be afraid of anyone who is in anyway different to ourselves or to a perceived norm. 

I am not denying there is a problem here. The impacts of rampant individualism and of so many individuals drowning in isolation are significant for individual health and wellbeing, for the fabric of society and for the very future of our planet. 

But it isn't because of migration. 

On the contrary, if we let it, I'd argue that migration has the potential to be far more a cure than a cause of this isolation. My own experience tells me so.

We do not become strangers because our neighbours are from different countries or cultures: we become strangers because we lock our doors and do not ask their names. And when we dare to unlock our doors and speak to each other? ... We find ourselves living instead on an island of friends.

Of all the places I have ever lived, (and there have been quite a few!) Birmingham is the place I feel most at home. Initially, that took me by surprise: excited as I was by the opportunity that brought us here, one of my hesitations was that I wasn't at all sure how much I'd enjoy living in Birmingham. Those doubts have long since been dispelled. I have now lived here for longer than I've lived anywhere else and find it hard to imagine ever moving away. I describe myself, confidently, as an adopted Brummie.

The map on my living room wall shows the countries of origin of everyone who has visited my home 

If my itchy feet have more-or-less stopped itching, and I have reached a point of being content to put down at least some kind of roots, it wasn't because I lost interest in learning about other cultures and meeting new people: it wasn't because I was ready to retreat to an "island". It was because I came to rest in a place where staying put continued to allow me to feel connected to the world, for my story to be interwoven with and enriched by the stories of so many others whose lives look different to mine. 

Birmingham's diversity, and the communities I am privileged to be a part of which are made up of friends and chosen family from across the globe are definitely a core part of why this place is home. I am deeply grateful for the colour and culture and conversation these friendships have brought into my life. Oh and food, did I mention all the good food?! Far from making me feel like a stranger, migration has played a huge role in me finding a place where my life feels vibrant and fulfilled, a place where I feel I belong. 

I know I am, against all the odds, an incorrigible optimist ... but I am not naïve. 

I know there are people from every wave of migration who have, for a wide variety of reasons found integration incredibly challenging and have turned inwards into segregated groups, and that this does need to be addressed. I know resources are stretched thin and public services have been stripped bare by the systematic concentration of wealth into fewer and fewer hands, which places pressures on communities for which we need to find genuine solutions. I know there are issues around community cohesion that need to be faced head on. 

But I also know that more and more restrictive migration policies, and a rhetoric around migration that presents it as problem rather than gift is not the solution.  

I know this both intellectually and emotionally. I know it to the very core of my being. 

I know it, because I live on an island of friends. 

Reflections on Hope

Sometimes I have found a way to do Lent well; other years, not so much. I was short on inspiration this year, so as it approached I asked various people for suggestions about how I might mark the season. One of the responses was "write a poem every day". After quite a difficult start to the year, I was by that point, in a better place but I knew that I certainly still wasn't in a space where I was going to have the energy or creative spark to write a poem each day. It did, though, prompt what I actually decided to do which was to write, about hope, for three minutes, everyday. 

The three minute timer made it feel manageable: and I kept it up, almost every single day. The odd days I missed I caught up on the day after; at least until I went away for Holy Week when it fell by the wayside entirely.   

Sometimes ideas teemed and I could have filled three minutes several times over, other days I felt like I was forcing words onto blank white pages. Some days, I guess you might have called what I wrote poetry, of a sort. Other days, not so much. Some of the thoughts or words or phrases might turn in to something else at a later date. Others almost certainly won't. 

Here are a few snippets: 

• "In the painting over my dining room table, hope is depicted with a candle and a signpost. A light, albeit a flickering one, and a sense of direction. In the background is the image of an anchor. The holding firm, the holding still. Can hope be both the things that hodls us still and steady as well as the thing that points us forward, urges us on, shows they way?"
• "Hope is the voice that still sings, even as the tears fall unexpectedly, it is the voice that reaches for the tune even when it struggles to catch its breath, hope finds its way, even when it can't find the words"
• "Birthpangs. Miracles. Struggle. And Hope."
• "I was given flowers today: a bunch of tightly closed daffodils, bursting with potential and possibility, but at the moment looking like, well, not a lot really.... but we look at them and know. There is colour to come. This is hope."
• "There is no doubt in my mind that if hope was a person, it would be a small child ... a child who reminds us that when the pressures of life and societal expectation are stripped away, people are, at bottom, good. We are born capable of great compassion, empathy, love." 
• "Sometimes I find my hope in dreaming big dreams, making plans, creating a vision. But not always. Sometimes hope is found in an organised jobs list, in making manageable chunks, in jobs ticked off. In the little things."
• "Hope can seem soft and fluffy, as substance-less as the clouds ... that slips through fingers, turns to nothing when you try to grab hold of it. But I'm not so sure. I think there is something hard and strong at its centre"
• "There is something about waiting for the fun to start. A sense of anticiation. The quiet cup of tea. the calm before the chaos. Tinged with hope"
• Hope is in many ways the heart of my work, of my faith, of my life."
• "Sometimes hope comes in the form of a phone call"
• "Hope is green, like the fresh shoots of spring. Hope is glittering and golden like stars in the night sky. Hope is bright white, a pinprick of light at the end of a tunnel" 
• "Sometimes hope is found among friends. And sometimes, hope is a friend in its own right. A friend that shares in our joys, that looks towards the future, that cheers us on. A friend who sits by our side in the darkness, holds our hand and whispers, don't give up."
• "Sometimes hope is in the fresh-faced new beginnings. The fierce belief you can make a difference. Perhaps this hope is naive at times. Perhaps its exuberance feels misplaced. Maybe it talks too much, treads on the toes of the careworn. But all of us would do well to hold on to this, even overlaid with doubt and cynacism. And just as importantly, how can we nurture it, or at least not crush it, in one another."
• "Sometimes the right choice is to take off your shoes and socks and paddle in the sea at sunset"
• "I am pleased I planted so many spring bulbs because spring flowers bring me so much joy. There are signs of new life and new growth everywhere. And yes, some of those are nettles and tangled weeds. And yes, there is probably work to be done ... But such is life."
• "I wonder how much even a tentative and uncertain hope in the 'after' impacts how we live in the 'before'?"
• "On days like this, when the sun shines, when the birds sing, when there is community and friendship and love and laughter, and spontaneous trips into green spaces, and trees to climb, and conversations ... on days like this hope feels closer, easier to grasp, more tangibly present. It can be sought at other times too, of course, but I am grateful for days like these

It was a helpful discipline and I am glad I did it.

Aunty Mary

In a previous post, I mentioned that I had started the year with two bereavements. It was a privilege to be invited to give the eulogy / tribute at my Aunty Mary's funeral last month. Whether or not it is of interest to anyone else, my blog is also the place I keep a record of many of my thoughts and reflections so it feels appropriate to share it here: 

Mary Carmel, or Aunty Mary as I knew her, was born in 1942. Of course, I didn’t know her at all for the first half of her life and have only fairly hazy memories for a good few years after that. I have also never lived close at hand. Others among you probably, in many ways, knew her better. But I’m not going to try and speak about all the bits I don’t know, I’m simply going to share something of the aunty Mary I knew and loved. We hope that, in the course of the day, you will have the chance to share your own memories and stories of the Mary you knew too. Fundamentally, though, I suspect the Mary we all knew was very much one and the same.

Perhaps the thing I most associate with Aunty Mary is her consistent generosity. When we were kids, and came down to Dorset on holiday, she would decamp to Grandma and Grandad’s, leaving her flat for us to stay in. As a small child, I entirely took this for granted as just what happened. Now, as an adult with a home of my own, I can appreciate the incredible generosity of something she did seemingly without a second thought. On one of my very last visits here, I came with very dear friends of mine: people that Mary didn’t know and had never met. Her generosity, instantly, unquestioningly, extended to and included them too. It was clear that it had never occurred to her that it wouldn’t. I could, but you’ll be pleased to hear won’t, give many, many other examples.

She was fervently committed to her faith and to the church, which played a huge role in what she did, who she knew, who she was. My living out of my Christian faith looks very different to how Mary lived hers, but throughout my life she has been a witness to what it means to have an unwavering commitment to God, and to living out your faith with and for others.

Mary was an extrovert in the true sense of the word: she loved to be around people and, ideally, at the very centre of things. Not in a “look at me” kind of way, but in an “I don’t want to miss out on anything” kind of way. I suspect, know even, that in later years she was sometimes frustrated by things her health and mobility forced her to forego. And more than once, in my recent experience, she overdid it probably more than was good for her. I guess she figured exhaustion was better than the FOMO and if there was any way she could be there, in the midst of it all, she was going to make sure that she was.

She loved people, and put effort into building and maintaining friendships and relationships across time and distance. She was appreciative of any time or contact we gave in return. Even when I hadn’t seen her or been in touch for a while, there was never a hint of complaint or disappointment: I always felt she was genuinely pleased to see me or hear from me. She loved us, her nephews and nieces. She loved me, I never doubted it.

Over the years, she was genuinely interested in and reliably supportive of my many different adventures and projects.

Growing up, she was one of the few people I knew who had been to all sorts of interesting and exotic places: perhaps, subconsciously, that fed into my own love of discovering the world. When I was on my gap year at 18, she came to visit me in Belgium. I suspect that had she been younger and fitter she might later have flown out during my year in the Philippines too.

More recently she has been consistently supportive of the projects, causes, and charities I have worked with and believed in. She cared about the things I cared about, partly, I’m sure, because she genuinely did, but also, and perhaps more so, because she cared about me.

Obviously, I will remember Mary for smaller, more incidental things too: her love of word puzzles and of cheap cola. Her collection of pigs. Quite a lot of poorly-framed photos with people’s heads cut off. Helping her to fix some bit of technology … again. Eating fish and chips. It is wholly appropriate that one of the last photos I have with aunty Mary is of us eating fish and chips on the harbour wall in Weymouth. It is one of many such pictures taken over the years.

There’s a line that says something like “everyone has an aunty Mary”. I am very lucky that I had mine.

Answers (11)

This is it, we have reached the final instalment of the Q and A, the "to answer" jar is now empty so these are the last 6 answers...

49) What is your greatest regret?

I'm struggling to think of an answer to this. Obviously I have made choices that possibly / probably weren't ideal. Of course if I put my mind to it I can think of conversations that could have progressed differently, relationships I could have nurtured more, actions I possibly ought (or ought not) to have taken, places I perhaps wish I'd been. I am sure I have unintentionally (and sometimes intentionally) made decisions which have not been in my best interests and which have also negatively impacted on / hurt others. But while learning from our mistakes and misjudgements is of course incredibly important, dwelling on regret seems particularly unhelpful. We cannot change the past. We are shaped by it, and we can learn from it, but we can not rewrite it. It is easy to look back at decisions or actions we have made and judge them by the standards of the person we are today ... the person we have only become because of the things we did then. For sure, some of the choices my younger self made I might not make again as the person I am now ... but had I not made them, I wouldn't be who I am. So it is in all honesty that I write that I don't believe I am holding on to any really significant regrets.  

50) Where does happiness come from?

I consider myself immensely privileged to have found happiness, but that doesn't mean I have found the answer to where it comes from. Of course I experience all the other emotions too: I get sad, and scared, and frustrated, and lethargic and overwhelmed and ... but at some deeper level I know myself to be happy. I know that this is a privilege, one which I trust I never take for granted. I can identify some of the things that contribute to my happiness, but I don't think I have a universal answer to where happiness comes from: I wish I did. I have met so many people who wrestle with deep sadness and struggle to find true joy: if I knew the answer to this and could gift it to them, I would do so in a heartbeat. 

51) What is the weirdest thing about you?

Obviously I looked up a definition: apparently weird means "very strange, unusual, unexpected or unnatural." I suspect there are probably quite a few things I could choose for this one. In many ways I am an entirely conventional product of my culture and upbringing, but I also acknowledge that there are aspects to who I am and how I live my life that perhaps aren't entirely typical. Some are fairly superficial, others perhaps more fundamental. I guess some people find it weird that I honestly can't remember the last time I wore make up. I know quite a few people who think it strange that I have never learned to drive. Some might even think me liking marmite is weird (but they'd be wrong). I know, or at least hope, that some of my values and principles and choices are at least a little bit counter-cultural... but I hesitate to call them weird. 

To be honest, I think I am entirely normal, so this is probably really one other people need to answer for / about me!  

52) Who is your greatest hero? 

Google tells me that the definition of a hero is "a person who is admired for their courage, outstanding achievements or noble qualities."  I can't possibly pick out one individual. I am privileged to meet people every single day who meet that definition: People whose resilience and capacity to hold on to hope, whose ability to keep loving and keep laughing through unimaginable trauma, is nothing short of heroic. 

53) Is love a feeling or a choice?

I guess my answer would be that it is a combination of both. I do think feelings come into it: we have a natural affinity with certain people, often times in ways we can't really explain and which may seem entirely illogical, even to ourselves. There are people we click with, and who we naturally feel at ease around, or want to spend time with, or ... 

But love is more than that too. It is, most definitely, also a choice that we make and remake. Love is beautiful, but not effortless. It is about having in mind another person's wants and needs, and responding accordingly. It is about showing up and being there for each other when it is easy, yes, but also when it isn't. 

54) What's your biggest dream?

I honestly didn't plan it this way, but it seems fitting to end on a dream. I have mulled over for a while all the things I would love to see and trying to choose the "biggest". In the end, though, I think they all distil into one huge, but really quite simple dream. I dream of living in a world where we all, genuinely, see one another as fully human with equal rights, dignity and worth. I genuinely believe that if that dream were fulfilled, if we truly, genuinely recognised one another's humanity, everything else of which I dream would also fall neatly (or to be honest fairly messily) into place.  

Death is something, after all

There is a very famous poem by Henry Scott Holland which begins with the words "Death is nothing at all". I understand both the intention and the sentiment. I am sure there are many who have found it a great comfort and, of course, I do not intend to cast judgement on anyone who has found solace in it. There are lines within the poem that I like and with which I don't disagree.

But it isn't, in fact, true. And for me personally, it doesn't really feel comforting either.

Because death is not nothing at all. Generally, I think it is probably healthy and helpful to acknowledge that death is, in fact, very much something. When someone dies, even the language we use so often dances around the reality. How often do we hear people speak of loss, of passing away, ...? But refusing to name death doesn't make it go away. Shying away from acknowledging the enormity of it doesn't make it disappear or make it easier. Having had some involvement in such things recently, I can confirm that even on a purely practical level, death is certainly not nothing at all; on a social and emotional level, even more so.

Death is not nothing at all, because life is not nothing at all either. And our relationships with those around us are one of the things by which our lives are most enriched. Whatever our beliefs about what happens after death, however much confidence we have in eternal life and whether and how we might meet again those from whom we have been separated by death, to suggests that death is "nothing at all" feels like it denies just how much our relationships matter in life. It should be ok to acknowledge that death is painful, confusing, strange. That in their dying, as in their living, our relationships, with all their beauty and their messy complexity: with the light and the laughter, with the relief and the regret, with the poignancy and the pain: are most definitely not nothing.

Recently I have experienced the deaths of two people I knew and loved.

One of those deaths was sudden, and shocking. A friend who it had definitely not crossed my mind, the last time I saw him, that we would never meet again. He was one of those people who you'd not even realised you'd assumed would just always still be there ... until they aren't. He has left a gaping hole in a community which will probably never be entirely filled. A community which is still reeling. Whatever his death was, it was certainly not "nothing at all".

My aunt, meanwhile, had what can only really be described as a good death, at the end of a good life. She died after a short illness, well looked after and with family at her side. I have described her death to several people as sad, but not tragic. But it was not "nothing at all" either.

Over the past couple of years I have watched several other people I know struggle with the grief of the deaths of people they loved too: in some cases at the end of a long life, in others much too young, much to soon. None of these deaths were "nothing at all" either.

So in a similar vein to Caitlin Seida's response to Emily Dickinson's "Hope is a thing with Feathers", here is my response to Henry Scott Holland's poem:

Death is something after all, Henry.

Death is something, after all,
And while there may be times 

When it seems 

You have only slipped away to the next room

With a sharp jolt

Or a gentle whisper

We remember

You won't, in fact, 

Pop your head around the door frame

To interject

To take up where you left off

And if we call you by your old familiar name

Putting no difference in our tone
It hangs in the air

Unanswered

There is an echo to this emptiness

And silence does not fill the space

As the stories once did

We will, indeed,

Play, smile, think of you. Pray for you.

And I promise we will 

Laugh as we always laughed

But we will also

Cry

And sometimes 

We will laugh through tears

Or cry through our laughter

For there will be light

But there will also be traces 

Of the shadows it casts

And

Your absence will change us

Just as your presence did

For this is love

There is absolute unbroken continuity

But things are not the same

So you see 

Death is something, after all, Henry,

Because so is life

But you are also right...

That all will be well.

Resolutions

I am not a great believer in making new year's resolutions. I think all too often they can risk being just another pressure we put on ourselves to perform or achieve. Having said that, there are certainly times when I have found it helpful to reflect on those things that I know I want as part of my life that I have been neglecting and want to make a point of reprioritising. January is as good a time to do that as any. 

2024 was filled with many, many beautiful moments, shared with lots of very special people ... but it also threw a good many challenges my way, and more than once I only just stepped back from the brink of burnout. 2025 will undoubtedly have its own challenges. It will also be filled with many, many beautiful moments: but for that to be the case, I need to make sure I put in place the things I need to live it well. I know they include, among other things, time with others and time alone, spending time outdoors and away from a screen, a routine of prayer.

I also know that, when I make the time, space and energy for it, I value doing various creative activities. So I set myself not so much a resolution, as a challenge to put a bit more creativity back in my life. I decided that, for the whole of January at least, I would try to do something creative, however small, each day. I am not setting myself the target of keeping that up for the whole year. My hope is that, by cementing it into my routine at the beginning of the year, it will become sufficiently embedded into my life again.

I've discovered digital colour by numbers as a much better activity than doom-scrolling to keep me occupied on the bus; done the odd bit of painting; drawn, coloured and doodled. Some days I have set aside proper time, but more than once it has been a quick little scribble last thing at night. I have not produced any amazing works of art ... but that was never the point. 

So far, so good. For the rest, let's wait and see.  

Joseph is Missing - Christmas poem 2024

The Stories group Christmas party was a magical afternoon: Christmas dinner for 40 people, home-made cake and traditional Eritrean coffee, hilarious and highly-competitive games of pass the parcel, a visit from mother Christmas, music and conversation and laughter. There was a lot of noise and a lot of mess and at times utter chaos: but there were also plenty of people who by the end had helped restore some level of order. There was a whole lot of joy and a palpable sense of being community. 

At some point during it, Joseph went missing from the nativity scene.

A couple of days earlier, I'd had a smaller (all things being relative) gathering of ten for Christmas eve / day which had been also filled with so many beautiful moments, and during which the nativity scene had been augmented by home made shepherds and sheep and a wide variety of other toy animals. 

Another few days later we had another party ... one of the group had told me she had never had a birthday party or birthday cake so we were determined to give her a celebration to remember: another houseful (though only 33 this time!), more good food, more silly games, more music and dancing and karaoke and disco lights. Joseph did not reappear. The angel has now disappeared too.

In between times there were other lovely smaller gatherings with friends and family, and quiet days to myself with lots of preparing, sorting and tidying to do, but also space for the gathering of thoughts and space to rest and relax. 

I have often (last year being an exception) written a poem for Christmas and if I was going to write something this year, I really wanted it to capture the beauty of these Christmas celebrations with all these wonderful different people who I have in my life. I wanted it to capture the chaos and the joy, and perhaps a little of the in between downtime too. I wanted it to capture that this, for me, was a most fitting celebration of the incarnation and the kind of celebration Jesus would approve of and want to be in the midst of. 

The thought that "Joseph is missing" was a starting point which might capture some of that began to flicker around in my head. That, gradually became this, and as I am fully embracing the idea that the Christmas season lasts until Candelmas, I don't think it is too late to call it a Christmas poem.

Joseph is Missing

Joseph is missing
And the elephant, 

Yes, the one from the nativity scene,
Has lost a leg

He might turn up

But he wasn't under the table
With the widely-scattered popcorn

With the biscuit crumbs and sprinkles

Nor, seemingly, on the draining board

Or in a kitchen drawer

Put away 

Helpfully, unhelpfully, 

In the wrong place.

It's unlikely he's been eaten
But you never know

There was so much food

Which I'm sure tasted better 

Than a wooden Joseph
But nestled in the branches of the Christmas tree
A half-eaten bauble, 

Souvenir of another party,
Suggests others have different taste

He might turn up

Tucked amongst the tinsel, perhaps, 

Or at the bottom of a box

With the toy cars and the lego bricks

With the pencils, the pompoms and the plasticine

Or down the back of the sofa 

The one where Santa sat 

And inner children were embraced

He might turn up

But there's a pretty high chance
That as the music played

And the chaos reigned

He was bundled up, 

Helpfully, unhelpfully,

With the pass the parcel paper
And thrown away.

The elephant has, 

Definitely, 

Been thrown away
Sharp edges didn't pass the risk assessment to stay
But the zebras are still here
Worshipping the Christ-child
With the cows

And some time later
When the chaos has calmed
Fairy lights still twinkling like stars
The magi also arrive

And Joseph is still missing

But I can't help thinking
That looking out 

From this unconventional nativity scene

Jesus is smiling.

Reading List 2024

Having done it in 2022 and 2023, I guess it is now tradition that I collate my reading list for the year here on my blog. 

This year's again includes some books which I have really appreciated and enjoyed, but it is noticeably shorter than the previous two. This doesn't in the least bit surprise me, given how this year has been, but is perhaps something to deliberately work on for next year!

• On Heroes and Tombs - Ernesto Sabato
• Memphis - Tara M Stringfellow
• Absolutely and Forever - Rose Tremain
• The Forty Rules of Love - Elif Shafak
• Songbirds - Christi Lefteri
• The House of Doors - Tan Twa Eng
• The Bread the Devil Knead - Lisa Allen Agostini
• Wed Wabbit - Lissa Evans
• We are all completely beside ourselves - Karen Joy Fowler
• My Father's House - Joseph O'Connor
• An Unquiet Mind - Kay Redfield Jamison
• Brotherless Night - VV Ganeshananthan
• An Artist of the Floating World - Kazuo Ishiguro
• The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher - Hilary Mantel
• Why I'm no longer talking to white people about Race - Reni Eddo-Lodge
• The Life and Times of Michael K - J.M. Coetzee
• Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop - Hwang Bo-Reum
• Mothers Boy - Patrick Gale
• A history of the world in 10 1/2 chapters - Julian Barnes

I have just started "An Equal Music" by Vikram Seth, which will start off next year's list, but I am very much open to recommendations as to what else to add!