A Year On

I went to an AGM on Thursday night. It was a real sacrifice let me tell you, as I am trying to give meetings up as a reward to myself for leading a good life.

 

It was the annual reckoning to its supporters of Gloucester City Mission and it was the usual mix of reports and chocolate biscuits. There are now 20 rough sleepers in Gloucester, and many many, more people living in poverty helped by GCM , which means, a little, helped by people like me. 'Grannies for God' I call us, because most of us are: not because we're especially holy, but because we're free during the day to go out on the streets.

 

On the same point, and by way of conclusion, I found a piece I wrote two years ago for a friend describing a visit to The Day Centre for the homeless before it closed last January:

 

Mission work was rewarding yesterday. I walked to the Vaughn Centre with Dennis, Ethlyn and Maureen. We had a lot of goodies, so were very popular.

I talked to Abs, an Indian guy in his twenties, a drinker, sent by his parents to India for six years, where he was abused. And more and more... But what impressed me about him was his gentleness, his politeness, and the way he was seeking a way out. Maureen, who is a baptist and a bit more overt than me, took over, and Abs seemed to be earnestly engaged. Funny, I just realised that he has the the name I use for Abigail...

Then there was Dave - indeterminate age, be-stubbled (undesigner), missing teeth, happy, well under the influence... He's just out of prison, has got back with his partner, hence the happy.

'Do you want to see my tattoo?'

Well, what girl could refuse?

He'd seen the text on the wall of the prison chapel, it was, 'God alone is my judge' and it was tattooed down his left calf. ('Now THAT'S irony, Dave,' I didn't say.)

I tried to think of what I would have tattooed, and where, and drew a blank on both counts.

I tell you I came away with a great deal of admiration for prison workers. 'Janice' had really looked after him I could tell, keeping him company, getting him a radio, encouraging him and - not judging him.

Dave wants to be baptised. So, I called over Dennis, who is great with men under the influence, having been one himself once, and he talked about the implications...

There's a great little church in the Docks nearby, the old 'Mariner's' church that had served the sailors and bargees when the docks was more than a Mall on water. The vicar is enthusiastic, and the church is alive to the needs of men like Dave.

Which ALL churches will need to become when the Night Shelter closes and the Vaughn Centre loses its funding next year. We have to get good at doing the real stuff. As I often say to people of faith, the Christ won't judge us on doctrine, theology, or the magnificence of our buildings (not in a GOOD way anyway) but on what we did for the widows, orphans and drunks.

What a witness it would be if the church, in all it's manifestations, spent as much time and energy on the latter as the former! By any criteria, I would say we have failed miserably in what should have been our prime purpose. It's no wonder thinking people don't want to know.

There! It's out! I am bordering on disillusionment. And yet, and yet, I'm not ready to jack it all in. I really don't know why!

The AGM was a reminder that whilst some things get worse, others get better. The street friends mentioned above have moved on, as many do, hopefully to better things, and GCM is now in a position to rent a permanent home. We will share premises with the Homeless Healthcare Team. Christians Against Poverty, and the Food Bank. A Poverty 'One-Stop Shop' which I wish to God we didn't need. At least there will be food and shelter for people who need it this Christmas.

 

 

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I Follow Jez:A Twitter Update

My emergence as a political activist has had a surprising result. I have doubled the number of followers on Twitter!

In the interests of veracity, I have to say this was not hard to do, as I only had twenty-something, but nevertheless, I am heartened by it, and every Follower is welcomed and esteemed.

By the way, I learned a lot about twitter and the fickleness of its adherents the day I was unfollowed by Cheltenham. Imagine that! Unfollowed by a town! Thrown aside by 116,000 people in an instant! That, I reckon is an achievement, and possibly a record.

I often intrigue my husband with my obsession over the epitaph destined to adorn my tombstone. I say, 'intrigue', because 'bore', doesn't quite cut it. Intrigue enters the equation when you factor in the certainty that, at my own request, I will not have a tombstone at all. (I'm heading for a woodland burial, under a beech tree...) My long-standing favourite was, " 'She Made Herself Laugh' Phil 4v4", but I am now leaning towards, "'Unfollowed By Cheltenham" Ecclesiastes 1 v 2".

I digress.

Twitter is proving invaluable as a resource for keeping up with the Corbyn4Leader debate, as I follow several newspapers and some commentators, though I am careful to abide by my own confirmation bias and leave 'The Daily Telegraph' and 'The Daily Mail' to get along without me.

So. My eyes are being opened to the weird world of the newspaper comment columns. I am tempted to dip my toe in, but am reluctant to do so, because everybody is so nasty to one another. I don't do nasty, and I know jolly well that engaging in these debates achieves zilch, unless you enjoy swearing in public and shouting over a fence with your hands over your ears. (Which pretty much explains 'confirmation bias' in case you wondered.)

The piece by former Prime Minister Tony Blair accusing Jeremy Corbyn of living in an 'Alice In Wonderland fantasy world'. really caused the fur to fly. Personally, I would have loved to have known what was in those comments that were withdrawn, as the ones that were left up were pretty eye-watering.

I actually supported Tony Blair: he did some good things, and he made some mistakes, (as my brother, when a communist, once famously said about Joseph Stalin). I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt over the Iraq war, at least until the Chilcot Report is published. Duped by the CIA is my opinion as of now ... Therefore I don't come at this as the hard-left fantasist as my commentator- friends are wont to call me: I am a centre-left Social Democrat, who condemns wildcat strikes and zero-hour contracts in equal measure. (As a for instance ... )

However, I think that Mr Blair has misread the supporters of Jeremy Corbyn, and here's why:

The current crop of political leaders have insulated themselves from the lives of people who struggle. Leftish leaders, like Mr Blair have swallowed the 'orthodoxy' (challenged by many top economists) that austerity is the only way to make Britain great again. The problem is that, in terms of human misery, the cost is too high, and people like me, run of the mill soft-lefties, are waking up to this.

It is not OK to redefine child poverty so that the numbers could be massaged down. It is not right to introduce further cuts to benefits, so that more people have to resort to Food Banks. It is not humane to remove benefits in order to punish people with homelessness and starvation. (Think of the outrage if Putin announced something like this!) It is not compassionate to cut the benefits of people who are dying. it is not just that the poorest amongst us should bear the social cost of the banking crisis that they did not create.

Those of us who work with the victims of these policies know this, and this is why I voted for Jeremy.

Whom I now follow on Twitter.

Postscript: I read that this week bankers bonuses returned to pre-2008 levels. Because I don't do nasty, I have nothing to add.

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#MicroblogMondays: A Change Of Mind

I wish I could draw cartoons. I'd have a go at one of those of a bearded guy in a long robe and sandals carrying a placard that reads, "REPENT! THE END IS NIGH!" He'd have a smug look on his face that says, 'I told you so!'

Yes, I've been reading Pope Francis' Encyclical, 'Laudato Si' which speaks powerfully of the globalised industrial machine, powered by greed, turning our planet into 'a pile of filth'. And in doing so, destroying the biosphere. Mass extinction, irreversible climate change, inhuman exploitation of the poor, to whom he acknowledges an 'ecological debt' ... Here's a Bishop of Rome who won't fiddle while the world burns. Perhaps by giving strong moral leadership he will have an impact. At least 1.3 billion Catholics no longer have the option of denying both the reality of man-made climate change, and a responsibility towards the people losing their homes and livelihoods because of it. Will it make a difference? We shall see.

I discovered recently that 'Repent' is a translation of the Greek word 'metanoia', which has nothing to do with sackcloth and ashes. It means to 'change your mind'. Pope Francis calls those who deny responsibility for the catastrophe we may not even be able to avoid, to do just that. While there's still a chance to salvage something habitable.

 

 

 

 

 

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NO POOR PEOPLE NEED APPLY

My landlady died in January. This came as a huge surprise, not least to her, because everyone, including she, thought her indestructible. Mrs Jane Brooks. I knew her not-so-well, because she didn't let casual people like me get very close, but she was a jolly good sort. There are not many people it would be at all appropriate to label so these days, but Jane was one of them. I feel slightly guilty, calling her , 'Jane' because she never allowed it, and I was always, firmly, politely, MRS FRANCIS. In capitals, like Terry Pratchett's Death character, because Jane was no shrinking violet.

I called her after her first operation for a brain tumour last Spring. 'I'M STILL HERE, DEAR!' She trumpeted, and I was glad. 

Do you know ANYONE who watches 'Ready Steady Cook!' and then makes the  dishes? Mrs Brooks did. She was, as it happens, a jolly good cook, along with being a jolly good sort. Once upon a time Mrs B was a midwife and District Nurse in the less salubrious suburbs of Gloucester. "I COULD TELL YOU A FEW THINGS DEAR! Give her her due, she never did. What happened in the birthing room, stayed in the birthing room. 

She was very old-fashioned, and I loved her for it. After her husband died, she came to play in Assembly (Collective Worship you have to call it now. Funny, the less like worship it became, the more you had to say it.). All my kids would be able to belt out the old hymns at weddings and funerals, thanks to Mrs Brooks. And many other beautiful works besides. 

In an act of utter vendetta, she was sacked as Music Director at her beloved Parish Church, in Ledbury, where she led one of the few real Choirs (besides the cathedral of course)  left in the county. I knew it, but never spoke of it. Mrs Brooks would not have wanted me too, she carried her emotions very close to her chest. 

Church people can be very cruel. 

It would never have been appropriate to tell Jane how fond I was of her, and how I admired her courage, especially as death approached. I'm doing it now for no other reason than that it's true. 

I wasn't going to write about Mrs B, but she came to mind because there are men in, replacing the windows, and the cottage echoes to hammering, sawing and -worse - the builders' radio. Mike and Brian, are good guys, hard-working and conscientious. Mrs Brooks would never be doing with new windows. She held her pennies in like-vein to her emotions, though she wasn't mean. We pay way under market-rate for our home even now.

That's going to change, and  I'm not complaining. There's a lot of work needs doing to weather-proof the house, and it'll have to be paid for. But it did start us thinking we ought to be looking around in case the lovely Mr Brooks (Jane's step-son) decides that at 75, he's too old for landlording. 

What a shock! Pokey little hen-houses 'For Seniors' (I'm NOT a bloody 'Senior'! Call me a Senior and you'll regret it!) which would make cat-swinging laughable, ARE available if you want to pay £550 pcm for them. Computer designed too - which means you can have French Windows that give you three feet of vista before a 10 ft high brick wall! No wonder they don't sell. 

Don't worry about me, I'll manage, and well, but, I was thinking, as I looked at pages of over-priced apartments, how do people on low incomes, or worse, none, ever get housed? There's the high rent for starters, rising ahead of wages, for sure, then the month-and-half deposit, PLUs estate agents' fees, and then the fee to have you 'checked' ... What a bloody cheek! £75 for accessing information about ME that I never agreed anyone could hold in the first place! More on this later, I feel. 

'NO DSS' appeared on every single letting advertisement. Which means the unemployed, no matter what their circumstances, needn't bother to apply. A whole swathe of society indiscriminately discriminated against... . 

I wonder why this is even legal. I do not wish to be the tenant of anyone so mean-spirited. But. I doubt I'll have any choice. 

Good old Mrs B. You didn't ask for references, and didn't do a credit check, and I'm certain we'll get our deposit back when we have to leave. We thought you'd live for ever, Jane, and we sure wish you had!