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<\/p>\nDay 58 of the End to End in 2019 was the official half way day. Somewhere on a rural road in the Howgill fells, reclining on a bench, I was officially half way. During the walk I followed in Quaker footsteps, enlarging on some of the names and places I mentioned yesterday connected with this area, most particularly Brigflatt Meeting House which dates from 1675.<\/p>\n
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However, the most important thing about Day 58 was that I had three lots of ice cream in the day. Now that’s what I call the new normal. There are things I forgot about LEJOG but it’s not usually ice cream. There had been a few 3 ice cream days, but not for a while. However, I can’t remember if there were ever days in which more than\u00a0 3 ice creams were consumed.<\/p>\n
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Farming ice cream has been a great spin off for walkers like me. Surplus milk which no longer demands a fair price in the shops, gains value when made into ice cream. Of course it means a lot of investment and it also creates a few jobs and in addition is very tasty. So here’s to ice cream: the New Normal. Or will that just melt away, back to the old useless normal, like virtual voting for those unable to access the Houses of Parliament?<\/p>\n
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I remembered visiting the House of Lords in 1993 for a meeting of the Association of Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus. Baroness Masham told us some interesting stories about the accessibility of the House from the point of view of a wheelchair user. She was determined but there are other ways of doing New Normal.<\/p>\n
Normal is actually a fairly unhelpful word some of the time. I’m not normal and probably never have been, for lots of reasons. Too often normal is used as a means of exclusion and marginalisation. What you set up as normal defines what is pushed out and marginalised and that in turn can evoke resentment, frustration and anger. It’s not a society I want to be part of.<\/p>\n
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I want to be part of an inclusive, diverse and accepting society in which each person is valued and given opportunity to thrive, nurtured by the community together, whatever their differences. But I fear, we’re not yet half way.<\/p>\n
From the remembered bible Of course some will say I am making the bible up again (sigh), but I think that’s better than holding it up outside a church for a photo opportunity.<\/p>\n Crucified Christ, visited with violence, body torn, bleeding, dying, JAL: 03.06.2020 in Longdendale.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Day 58 of the End to End in 2019 was the official half way day. Somewhere on a rural road in the Howgill fells, reclining on a bench, I was officially half way. During the walk I followed in Quaker footsteps, enlarging on some of the names and places I mentioned yesterday connected with this … Continue reading “Back to normal?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-remembered-bible"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/foowr.org.uk\/lejogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/foowr.org.uk\/lejogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/foowr.org.uk\/lejogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foowr.org.uk\/lejogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foowr.org.uk\/lejogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1067"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/foowr.org.uk\/lejogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1067\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1070,"href":"https:\/\/foowr.org.uk\/lejogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1067\/revisions\/1070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/foowr.org.uk\/lejogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foowr.org.uk\/lejogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foowr.org.uk\/lejogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nBlessed are those considered different and who accept that differences of others; may they be welcome everywhere as models of the kindom.<\/em><\/p>\n
\nyou hung on for us,
\neach agonising breath its own torture:
\nmay we hang on for and with each other,
\nnaming the need to breathe as basic as justice,
\ncrying out for the traumatised ones.
\nOnly your love can make the new normal
\nthe place where difference flourishes.<\/p>\n