On Easter Monday

The first time I experienced a 'walk through Holy Week' was when I joined the Ichthyan Singers in Cambridge. The name of the choir was taken from the Greek word ἰχθύς (or ichthus) meaning fish. One of the symbols used by early Christians was the fish. The Greek word 'ichthus' is an acronym for 'Iesous Christos, Theou Hios, Soter', the transliterated Greek words meaning 'Jesus Christ, God's Son, Saviour'.

The choir sang the full range of church choral music from Palestrina, Bach and Tallis to Bairstow, Finzi, Howells and the blues! Each Holy Week we spent the eight days in one parish, singing all the services. This introduced me to the practice of journeying through the events of the last week of Jesus' life and, to some extent, experiencing the emotions they engender. It's an overwhelmingly powerful story of celebration, betrayal, misunderstanding, political intrigue, legal process, torture, crowd pressure, forgiveness, death, grief, astonishment, reconciliation and hope. Over the years I've continued to keep Holy Week with Christian communities as varied as a Roman Catholic seminary, a Maltese parish, four British cathedrals, churches on vast outer city estates and the deeply rural churches of North Yorkshire. For the past three years, worshipping as a Quaker, I have not kept Holy Week but have endeavoured to focus on recognising the experiences held within the story through weekly contemplation at Quaker Meeting, meditation with other Christians and people of prayer in our villages, and through daily silence and private meditation.

The purpose of this post is not to suggest that one way of marking the events of Jesus' death and resurrection is 'right' or 'better' than another. It is, rather, to try to express something of the impact of dwelling on them on everyday life.

It's undoubtedly true that the journey I embarked on with the Ichthyan Singers was the beginning of a life long practice of drawing strength and inspiration from the many layers of the stories in the Gospels. There is something about living, if only for a week each year, with the words of Jesus ringing in your ears and His, at times, puzzling actions at the forefront of your imagination that builds into a rich storehouse of imagery and thought resourcing you for everyday life. Facing death, bereavement, grief, pain, argument, betrayal and life's inevitable tragedies has been done through the lens of Jesus' story. Darkness, conflict, despair and death are very real and feel very much like endings but the events of Jesus' death and resurrection allow us to tangle with what life sends in the light of a broader context where death is experienced as the precursor of a renewed and different life. In particular, for me, the liturgy and poetry of Holy Week have been sources of inspiration and empowerment for nursing and for ministry with those facing terminal illness and the loss of loved ones.

However, it's also true that there is a danger in this concentrated form of remembering. For years I've been very aware of the way Christians tend to stuff Lent and Holy Week full of extra activity and extra talk of sin without there being a noticeable sense of renewal beyond the emotion of the activities themselves. For seven weeks of the year there is a psychologically heavy feel to the words and music of the churches. Sometimes this coincides well with the period just before the earth wakes up and trees and plants spring into bud; other years, when Easter is late, there is a dissonance between the sombre world of the desert prophets and the joyously emerging spring. Either way there can be a sense that the spiritual path you are invited to walk is not touching the real things of your life as much as it might. It's sometimes more like a soon-forgotten pilgrimage of good intentions rather than a slow dawning of renewed and sustained changes in behaviour.

Quakers look to experience divine life in the here and now, in our own lives this very day. To that extent, although there is no problem with remembering and celebrating texts and events that speak of how God inhabits death and life, the focus of our attention is on the ways God inhabits both the created order and the individual human spirit now, today. The desire is to see and hear where the Spirit is leading us. The themes of betrayal, death, resurrection and the indwelling of God are lived out in acts of truth-telling, justice, reconciliation and restored dignity only as we attend to the leadings of the Spirit of God within us every day. One of the conditions for this 'leading' is silence in which listening can happen. And one of the conditions for silence is a greater simplicity of life where everything is stripped back and the important begins to emerge.

Perhaps it's worth lingering over the meaning of some of Jesus' post resurrection words, and pondering how they shape us and our living?

'Do not hold on to me, but go.' Don't cling for safety to the familiar, even the familiar things of faith. Go to all without preference or favour?

'Peace be with you.' Be people of peace whatever the cost?

'Receive the Holy Spirit.' Search out and live by that of God within you?

'Tend my lambs, feed my sheep.' Work for the practical, physical well-being of all people and the distribution of the earth's resources so all can live? 

'Someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.'  Be willing for whatever God's Spirit directs you to?

What's Stopping Women?

Jess Phillips MP writes in the Huffington Post here today about the things that support women's ability to be fully active in the workplace. She was a child of the 1980's and took advantage of maternity and paternity leave, tax credits, free nursery places, nursery vouchers, Sure Start, children's savings accounts, care workers, attendance allowance for the elderly, hospice services and NHS services. This is the kind of practical support that is vital if women are to make sense of their lives as workers with family responsibilities. Just as important is a community of mentorship and proactive encouragement to be fully engaged beyond home and family. The full use of women's skills to increase productivity in this country can only, she argues, become a reality if there are moves toward an infrastructure of care and toward 'industrial strategies' that take seriously the shape of women's lives.

This Woman Can; 1997, Women and Labour
Published 10th April 2017, Fabian Society
Fabian Ideas 643

I'm thirty years older than she is and have no children. I've worked all my adult life, usually at more than one job at a time and with occasional forays into education and trusteeship alongside work. I've seen things improve dramatically in terms of women's pay and access to mid-ranking, medium-income jobs. I've witnessed an increase in access to child care but always with the impression that there is not nearly enough to go round and that what there is often uses up an unmanageable proportion of parental income. I've experienced amazing care-of-the-elderly and end-of-life-care services. But it has been a battle and, even for me, without children, has at times been almost impossible to negotiate.

One particular phase perhaps illustrates the kinds of balancing act required. I was Rector of a busy parish for a number of years during which time my mother became unable to cope in her own home, five hours drive away, and my husband went down with a prolonged and serious bout of pneumonia. In between fitting in funerals and weddings, I managed, with five days leave, to close up my mother's house 260 miles away where my parents had lived for 35 years and find and furnish a warden-aided flat for her near to us. Traumatic is not the word for it! All the time my husband was so ill at home he could scarcely get out of bed, never mind look after my mother, and we were totally dependent on the wonderful care workers who came in to look after Mum - all arranged within 24 hours in a city where she had never been resident. That was in the early 2000's in Nottingham.

My partner and I have coped with sudden deaths, slow terminal illnesses at home, accidents in the family and working in different cities at full time, demanding jobs with long hours. I have no brothers and sisters so responsibility for elderly relatives has not been shared with anyone. I have to say that I don't know how people with children do it! Undoubtedly, without the access to social care and the support of equipment and workers we have not had to pay more than a contribution for, we could not have done it. It has sometimes felt as though we have had five jobs between the two of us!

We've tried very hard not to make heavy weather of facing our responsibilities and we haven't seen our roles as sharply gendered. However, I have been aware that the burden of actual physical care and the responsibility to be the person who, when the chips are down, sees that it happens often falls to the woman. My partner is outstanding (I'm biased!) in terms of taking on care and he's excellent in a crisis but it remains the case that the majority of people I have organised care with, received care from and met through the care system are overwhelmingly women. And women who have children appear to be vulnerable - they are, in a sense, sitting ducks. If you are on maternity leave or working part time to care for your children or in a lower paid job that brings in less income than your partner earns, it almost invariably falls to you to be the one who can squeeze in a few more hours to give or arrange care for another family member or three. I know there are men who do this too but not, it seems, in anything like such large numbers.

My work has been in the university and health care sectors and in the church's ministry. The NHS and the churches provide 24 hour, 7 day-a-week services and this adds another level of complexity to the work/life balancing act. Shift work can be very rigid and unsocial in its demands while parish work has moments when it can feel you are almost indispensable.  I think of a colleague whose young child was taken ill with acute appendicitis on a morning when she was committed to take a funeral - this was the point at which she discovered for real that the church's back-up call-out systems do not always operate like clockwork! 

Every job has its own particular rhythms, priorities and consequent stresses. What the female workforce requires is a root and branch examination of the measures that create the kind of environment in which work and care can reasonably take place alongside each other. Phillips' argument is that until we begin to address workplace issues of time, time off, pay, benefits*, leave, location, communication, child and elderly care from female-driven perspectives, we will all (not just women) continue to miss out. Women will continue to be relatively handicapped and/or stressed in making the contribution they would like to make to society. She concludes her article, 'What is lost in missed contributions to both the Treasury and society must run to billions of pounds. Thousands of missed opportunities for innovation, lifesaving medicine, beautiful things and technical revolutions. What could have been if only we’d thought to remember the women keeps me awake at night. What have we missed?' And indeed, what have those being cared for - children, elderly relatives and relatives with illness or disability - missed out on by being part of a slightly frazzled existence where the meeting of everyday needs only hangs together by the skin of its teeth, people are stressed, and relaxed time spent together is a rare luxury?

The Fabian Society has just published a pamphlet that looks at some of these issues through the eyes of the Labour women MPs elected since 1997. Undoubtedly, having more women involved in the creation of legislation has helped. But has it helped enough, or even as much as it should have in 20 years and what is preventing progress? What would work be like if men worked in ways that were shaped by expectations of flexible working hours, career breaks, job sharing, care-leave? And expectations that taking advantage of this way of working did not debar you from training opportunities, increased responsibility and promotion. I can hear the laughter echoing in my ears, 'What world does she live in?' But that's the problem in a nutshell - I live in my world which is populated by managers, directors, colleagues, family members, poorly neighbours. I can't ignore any of them but I have to make sense of it all and respond appropriately. And my female perspective ought to be able to inform work place assumptions and infrastructures as well as those that drive patterns of care.

Out today

This Woman Can: 1997, Women and Labour
Editor Sally Keeble, published for the Fabian Society 
Fabian Ideas 643

This woman can, this woman is...


* benefits is an interesting word. You might argue that what a male-centric society sees as 'benefits', a female-centric society would see as essential to the good of all.
      

End Slavery in the UK

Nottingham University is running a Stay Safe From Slavery  conference on June 21st as the city works toward becoming a slavery free city. The conference will focus on prevention while the city-wide campaign focuses on local initiative and joined up action across agencies to identify and assist those caught up in slavery. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Nottingham has also been running training events during the year to raise awareness of the presence of slaves in the area - how can we see what is in front of our eyes more clearly, notice people who may be enslaved and help the 'slave next door'? 

I attended one of the events run by the Diocese of Nottingham recently and was impressed by the approach being taken. The plan is to train as many people as will come this year, helping us to understand the issues and, indeed, acknowledge that there is such a thing as modern day slavery in Britain. Next year, the plan is to move on to working with organisations by bringing them together to combat this real twenty first century evil more effectively.

It's estimated that there may be 13,000 people enslaved in this country. Modern day slavery affects people of many nationalities including British citizens. They may be subject to domestic servitude, forced labour, criminal or sexual exploitation. Other kinds of exploitation involve forced begging, forced marriage, illegal adoption and organ removal. Some are children.

We might think that there is no slavery in our own neighbourhood. It's often well hidden but it may be present across industries and sectors we are familiar with. Slaves have been identified in most regions in 'jobs' such as domestic service, laying drive ways, cleaning vehicles, serving at nail bars and more generally in the beauty industry, in manufacturing, hospitality, agriculture, food packaging and preparation, and as sex workers.  

Recognise the signs
People may

• avoid eye contact and social contact
• look withdrawn or frightened
• refuse to get into conversation
• look malnourished and unkempt
• have few personal possessions
• often wear the same clothes
• be dropped off at a location regularly, early or late
• appear unfamiliar with the neighbourhood
• seem under control with little opportunity to move around freely
• might sleep and work at the same address
• might seem to go out seldom
• live in premises with obscured windows, poor access, heavy security, visitors warned off
• show signs of physical or psychological abuse 
• have little or no access to money

Since doing the training, I have been much more careful to think about the people I meet asking to wash my car, do unsought work on our house and garden, and those who serve me food and other goods. It's also important to ask retail suppliers where they get their goods and under what standards they have been produced. Nottingham is slowly working to eradicate slavery from all contracts and supply chains within the city.

If you suspect that you have met victims of slavery, it will almost certainly be difficult or impossible to talk to them directly about their situation. However you can report your observations anonymously to Crimestoppers on 0800555111

The Salvation Army have a 24 hour confidential referral line for those who have escaped servitude and need urgent assistance on 03003038151

www.salvationarmy.org.uk click on 'Ways We Help'