Monthly Archives: November 2016

Mary’s story

Over twenty years ago a friend of mine, called Mary was detained by Border Control Officers. This is her story as I remember it.

Mary was my friend, a black woman I understood to have been born in Britain some twenty-five years previously; she worked in the local social security office. We went to the same church and sang together in the choir. I had known her about two years when she and a fellow member decided to marry. She asked me if she could borrow my wedding dress (I’d got married about 6 months previously) as she didn’t have a dress. That was fine: it fitted her, we were the same size.

About a week after the wedding, she was detained at work and taken to a detention centre near us. We visited her regularly and her husband often stayed with us too. A different story emerged that Mary was from Tanzania and in the UK illegally according to the Border Agency.

During a visit to see Mary one afternoon, she told me that she had indeed been born in Tanzania and grown up there. In fact she had a daughter who lived there with her parents. She had come to UK via Germany, first as a student and had then overstayed after her visa expired. She had made up the story of begin born in Britain. She was crying and apologising for not telling me the truth.

She was deported back to Tanzania. Before she left UK I gave her some money and bought her a new pair of shoes as she asked me. Mary was the first friend I had who this happened to. Although it happened 20 years ago, it’s still happening now to more people like Mary.

I was not angry with Mary. I was angry that the situation we were both in had her as a migrant and me as not a migrant. Mary was my friend and she had worn my wedding dress. This is the time to think of Mary’s story, that the poor be lifted up and for us to show mercy.

In our coming and our going

The peace of God

Advent and Solstice: a contemplation

As we slip gently into darkness again;
the street lights caste their halo,
the park gates close early
and the last of the unhelpful leaves clog the gutter.

Far off, someone starts a spark:
a beacon on the beach,
lit with imagination for the suffering
of a distant besieged city .¹

We have reached that season again,
when light and dark tussle
for the lives and souls of the population
of a small island groping for good news.

So bring in the yule log,
strike up the band,
sit a merry Santa on a sleigh
and keep future uncertainty at bay.

Because, we who age, limp and scar,
who look down the tunnel of our own existence
to a mean spot with confining walls
and machines that bleep out the beat;
We, who seek to preserve yesterday
because we cannot hope in tomorrow,
who have put the ‘f’ into prophets,
so they are reassuringly fat;
We who shun addictions and abuse,
yet indulge our socially destructive habits;
We who wall ourselves up against the world
and yet demand rights to global markets;
We who hover between life and death,
who have every choice for last rites;
how can we embrace the dark-light way,
and live as winter people today?

Last night, in darkness,
I traveled a high street ²
with its seasonal cheer hung out
and crowded pubs and bars.
For each shop front garlanded
others were boarded up,
still bearing the marks
of a relentless river in spate
that came and went almost a year ago:
the two economies of cheer and grief
existing side by side.

This then is a way to navigate the season;
where darkness drapes itself around
and we search for quick fix lighting
to lift our plunging spirits.

Hold them both then,
one in each hand,
balancing concerns;
weave the two paths together
with honest acknowledgement
of the place of both
in your life and community.

To the Solstice say welcome dark night,
grey day, heavenly movement.
To Advent say welcome small spark,
weak flame, heavenly moment;
for dark and light are both the same
in the heart of heaven, ³
where we are called only to live honestly,
not off of the backs of one another,
but with open hearts and doors
to welcome all who appear in this season.

In our life and our believing

The love of God

Advent Sunday 2016

¹ Aleppo of course #StandWithAleppo

² In Calderdale,West Yorkshire, which was flooded on 26.12.2016

³ Psalm 139, verse 12

Dance, then, wherever you may be

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Video of Harry and Jacob showing us a dance they learnt from children in Tanzania at Chapel yesterday.

Each day this week we have had a presentation from members of the Tanzania Team telling us of their experiences during half term. It was an opportunity to hear them give voice to the experiences that they all acknowledged as ‘life-changing’.

In a week that has also seen us undergo a full school inspection, it is true to say that what they said sums up what we are about: the development of the full potential of each child and young person, not just in academic terms, but as rounded human beings.

In 14 days, 46 young people and 6 staff, working with members of the local community and a voluntary organisation they transformed two schools together, both inside and outside and made resources for the local community and school to share, principally to improve the local supply of water. On the way they ate, slept and used toilets way outside their previous experiences and interacted with people of all ages. Life-changing for all involved.

On our life and our beleiving

The love of God

I want to live

I want to live
To see an albatross
Glide over the southern ocean.

I want to live
To know that babies
Are born safely world-wide.

I want to live
To understand
How East and West can feast together.

I want to live
To read the books
The children of Aleppo will write.

I want to live
To ensure that any woman
Can walk any street anytime anywhere.

I want to live
In peace with justice
Sharing the promise of abundant life
With all of you.

Who am I?

(this crucifix is in the church in Messines in northern France)

The pace of the journey had always been hard. The circumstances in which we traveled were never comfortable. There were constant demands on him from both outside and inside the group. He pushed on. That’s when we found we had climbed to the top of another mountain. These places meant much to him; isolated, quite, an awesome view. It was in places like this that he often chose to be alone. On other occasions it would be a major expedition, getting us all up there and back.

We were all still getting our breath when he started: ‘Who am I?’ he asked. Some thought it was a trick question and stated the obvious: ‘You’re Jesus, from Nazareth’, said one, laughing. He went on, going round the group, getting more insistent; ‘Who do other people say I am?’ He came to me: ‘Why do you ask us?’ I said. He licked his cracked, dried lips, and said in a barely audible voice; ‘I don’t know who I am anymore’.

The members of the group looked at each other and no one knew how to break the silence. Eventually, one said; ‘I heard someone say you’re John the Baptist’. That triggered them all off. ‘Well that’s rubbish – he’s already dead’. ‘Herod got him, so what do they mean?’ Another said; ‘Well I’ve heard Elijah’, and another said ‘Yeh, and Jeremiah’. They were all talking at once, trying to help I know, but not really in tune with his state of mind or what he needed right then.

The babble eventually trailed off into silence again. He looked up at Peter and asked him ‘Who do you say I am?’ I wondered what Peter would say, as did we all. What would we have said if he’d have asked us? But Peter, not always good with words, chose a few and tried them. ‘That’s easy’, he said, looking him straight in the face. ‘You’re the one we’ve been waiting for, the Life Giver. God is in you and because of you we have seen God’.

This time no one broke the silence which followed until he did so himself. He weighed up what Peter had said and then he said; ‘Thanks, Peter, you’re a rock to me. I will build on what you’ve said. It is the key to God’s plan and you will be the key keeper. But let’s keep it to ourselves for now, shall we?’ And we did as he asked.

I wrote this in 2010 and I republish it here after a Twitter conversation concerning images of Jesus living with impairments; in this example a challenge to his mental health. You can use this free in your church, school or community groups as long as it is not for profit and you acknowledge my copyright.

Making a quilt

The quilt top that I began earlier in the week is progressing. Like any quilt it tells stories at many levels; in the colours, the patterns, the motivation behind the quilt and in the actual piecing.
This quilt began with the idea of remembering my recent visit to the Battlefields of WW1 with the students, but that idea of using a quilt fir this kind if remembering is not new. Whilst on the trip we saw some quilts made by Canadian women at Vimy and Beaumont-Hammell. We started some fabric work at school last summer, which we may yet complete before 2018.
I had thought to reflect some of the colours that recalled the visit as well using up some fabric from my stash of course. The layout based on different sized squares came from a recent quilting magazine and I’ve adapted it, as most of us probably do.
So that’s something about the background.
In the foreground are some of the traditions of remembering like the poppy and the cornflower with the maple leaf another motif seen on our visit.
As I piece the top together each section currently looks like a small section of the journey; a street, a walk, a crater, a cemetery, a field or wood. Later they will be joined together in one piece. At the moment they continue to occupy a space on the dining room floor.

Notes from Chapel

a blog from Silcoates Chapel