The thing that should the THE thing

I’m part of an alternative church in Exeter which meets throughout the week and on Friday nights we meet in the Cathedral to open it to the public, provide a safe sacred place and serve whoever comes in, from the homeless to bishops, tourists to our neighbours.
We’re trying to create something which balances building community with being outward looking; and with a team made up of people from such a broad spectrum of life I sometimes struggle to find what we all have in common!
There’s been an interesting phenomenon recently. We have a lot of drifters who come and take what we offer and drop in and out as it meets their needs or lifestyle. However, what we’re seeing of late is the complete opposite – people, of all ages, coming along often by coincidence or accident, and by the end of their first evening they’re helping us tidy up and have joined the team mailing list. I find this baffling, I thought that ‘people these days’ came along to something like church, saw if it met their needs, came for a while, got accepted by the group and eventually got asked to join a rota.
In my church what we have in common is unconditional service. And people want to be part of it. Like so many, they are looking to make a difference yet so few seem to look to the church, maybe because they see that there’s a code of conduct to be signed up to before they can start to be of any use.
I wonder if the church makes the most of advertising what it’s there for. Surely it is the perfect place for people to find something to live for, to be a journeying community of loving servants, and a channel through which we can really make a difference.

I was a bit ranty when I wrote this one...

Someone once said to me ‘wow look they’ve got brick homes, lights and a school building and a doctor that visits’. I told her that this village in Africa she was talking about had electricity for 2 hours a day, school classes of 60 and the hospital was miles away with no access to an ambulance.’ She replied ‘but what they’ve got is still quite good for a poor village, they’re the lucky ones aren’t they?’

The more I think about it, the more I get a bit annoyed. I know things have been hard financially for our country recently, and hopefully that helps us empathise. But I can’t help wondering whether we have some double standards. While we worry about the state of our school playgrounds, 75 million children are not in primary school at all. While we complain about the state of the NHS, a woman dies every minute because she can’t access healthcare. I don’t mean to sound preachy or self righteous, I am ashamed that I am guilty of this. Just yesterday I was complaining about the road works in my street, when over 220thousand people died in the Haiti earthquake and the rebuilding from that will take years.

There’s been a lot of talk in development circles about how we can measure poverty, is the dollar a day line ignoring the many different dimensions of poverty? More and more people talk of a ‘moral poverty line’, how poor is too poor? Scraping by is not life in all its fullness, and it is not OK that the majority of people in our world struggle to survive day to day. We do not deserve more than anyone born anywhere else.

As we accept that the poor in our world are whole human beings with the same rights as the rich, who are so vastly in the minority, our response to the need we see becomes a lot more generous. Fewer coppers, and more calls for change.

The black thing again

When I visited Christian Aid projects in India I met some of the most fearsome women imaginable! These were women who had been empowered to fight for their rights, stand up to corruption and tackle the culture of inequality that keeps women oppressed.

I had the privilege of meeting staff of women’s organisations that were focussed on helping women out of dangerous situations and offering education and support to girls to provide them with the many opportunities they deserve.

On one particular day I sat in a tiny room with an interpreter and one by one, men, women, parents and children told me of their experiences. Some, like Gina, had saved their mothers from neglect. Others like Reema, had been forced into marriage at the age of 13 and been abused and denied education. Others like Ramesh, watched their daughter become trapped in a vicious cycle of domestic violence. I heard some appalling stories that day. I cried with parents as they asked me to make sure it doesn’t happed to anyone else’s children. I got angry with the staff who are fearlessly tackling the corruption and culture that means that most of these atrocities are swept under the carpet.

I came back from India changed and a bit broken. Yet I have a confession… I knew that unless I made an effort, everything I felt in India would fade as I readjusted to my comfortable life. I decided I wanted to stay a bit broken, so I joined the growing movement of people who wear black on Thursdays as a peaceful protest and a symbol of solidarity with all those fighting and affected by gender based inequality and violence. I’ve not missed a Thursday yet, and it has connected me with those who showed me just how uncomfortable I should feel with the way the world is for far too many people.