Urban outfitters, street parties and 'Generation X'

When I can't sleep or I'm thinking too much about things, I have certain "comfort" books I pull out- they're typically short (I can read them in a few hours), easy to read (sometimes trashy), I've probably read them upwards of five times (so sometimes it's more like a mix of reciting and skim-reading really) and for various reasons they comfort me (I would be baring my soul a little too much if I told you what they were and why they comforted me. Ask me in real life or something.)

So, last night, I pulled out 'Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture'- Douglas Coupland's 1990's novel about a group of disaffected twenty-somethings that kind of drop out of society and form their own community. They are fed up of consumerism and the rat-race and their dysfunctional families and the media and expectations and dating and being in their twenties and being a target market and sitting at a computer all day and trying to conform and being the same but trying to look different-but-not-too-different. So, Andy, Dag and Clare move in to these faceless bungalows and sort of drop out of life. They get "McJobs", with low-pay and no commitment and they share their lives with each other and they tell each other stories- funny stories and sad stories and stories about themselves and stories about made up people and made up towns and stories about nuclear war and stories about their fears and stories about falling in love. And they try to make sense of their anxieties and their frailties and their hearts.

Why is it one of my comfort books? I don't know. I like the stories, I like the way it's written, I like the characters and I guess that what it was criticising chimed with me. As a Christian, I don't want to buy in to the greed and the lust (for money and for bodies and for things) that characterises my generation (which is admittedly a little younger than the Gen X gang). I like the idea of dropping out of that kind of society. I like the idea of telling stories to make sense of things. I like the idea of your friends and those around you becoming like your family and inviting people in to that to combat the loneliness and the feeling of being disconnected.

But last night, it didn't comfort me. It made me worried and a bit lost. And then it made me annoyed at things and at myself. It made me think about twenty-something Christians, like me, who see something wrong with the way our world is. And like Clare and Dag and Andy, we sort of drop out of the world and create these hip little communities that are comforting but a little bit cliquey and we listen to good music and dress cool and read Rob Bell and are sarcastic and ironic and cool and we shop at Urban Outfitters. And I got scared because I think I might have been making the Bible in to the stories they tell to each other, recognising the counter-culturalness and the upsidedown-ness of Jesus' stories, seeing how post-modern and beautiful and eclectic they are but just telling them to each other, over and over, saying "yes, we got it right. yes, the rat race isn't for us. yes, capitalism sucks. yes, we aren't the rich", not declaring them to the people the stories could transform, just telling them, over and over, to each other. And please hear me, the stories of the Bible ARE beautiful and good news and we should keep telling them to each other to encourage and change each other but maybe we should tell them to other people too. Maybe we should invite other people in to our communities- even if they aren't indie or they aren't funny and if they don't like foreign films or read the Guardian.

Maybe I haven't explained this well. Maybe it's offensive (mostly to myself, I think). I just realised for a long time that I LIKE a lot of the disadvantaged areas, but only when they're cool and they have good street art and cool art spaces and street parties in summer and only when skinny jeans outweigh drug users and sex workers and the homeless. And because it's actually cool to be anti-consumerism and anti-war and politically aware. I think I've forgotten the transformative power of Jesus and just kept talking about how cool and counter-cultural He is. And even then, only to my friends and to people like me.

The town mouse and the country mouse- or thoughts on exciting news.

I want to tell you (I want to tell the world!) about some exciting stuff going on at the moment. It struck me that I make a massive fuss about the hard things and the sad things and the confusing things but say very little about the cool things- and this is very cool!

Okay, so, the girls I live with have wanted to move to an area of Bristol (Called Barton Hill) for a long time now because that's where they (and now I) do youth work on a Friday and because it's an exciting area and because well, we feel an undeniable and unexplainable pull to this area, despite the fact that it's a little run down (not in a cool, Brixton-y way either) and it isn't really an area that people are fighting to move in to. And we've long (separately and corporately) dreamt of having a house big enough to be hospitable- where we could have a room or two for friends and people who need to crash somewhere to come and stay, a kitchen big enough to have people over to eat with us and just space to make it a bit of a haven. But the thing is, there aren't really any houses with more than two or three rooms in this area, because it's mostly small council houses (with long waiting lists) and high rise flats. So, we've been living in a little (but lovely) house in Easton- where the girls have let me live with them for the last six months and kept looking out for houses. And we've kept dreaming and praying about some place to live. My housemate painted a picture, out of nowhere really, of high rise flats with flowers growing up around them, taking it over and bringing beauty in to a grey area. But nothing seemed to come along.

But, there's this beautiful big 18Th century vicarage with a huge walled garden right at the heart of Barton Hill, about a minute's walk from the church we do youth club at and exactly in the area we wanted to move in to. And, my housemate had this idea lodged in her head that this was the place we'd live. And after loads of really weird God-coincidences, we decided to see what the score is and email the diocese to see who lived there (we knew the vicar of the church it was originally attached to didn't live there anymore). They emailed back that a charity called "Earth Abbey" was taking it so that they could start a community project in the garden (which is a third of an acre- a huge garden, especially in this area. We were a bit gutted because we really wanted to live there and make it a bit of a hub for the community, somewhere for the kids from youth group to hang out etc but the diocese said the charity were having an open meeting about it, so (slightly grudgingly) my housemates attended, if only to show that they weren't being resentful...

So, it turned out at the meeting, that they needed four people to live in the house. The catch was that they wanted people who cared about the area, who would be happy for the garden to be used as a project for the community and who were sold out on the idea of being hospitable and generous with the house. And after a few exciting meetings, they gave us the house! (well, we rent it but you know what I mean!)

So, a few months down the line, here we are! We moved in today and the house is beautiful- we have a spare room for people to stay and a massive kitchen with tables to seat loads of people and a beautiful, beautiful garden. The whole thing has been a miracle- promised to us in dreams and prophecies and even visions painted more than a year ago. And the view form the house is the smae as the view painted in the picture- before we'd even been to the house or the garden! And the garden will be used for kids that don't have a garden to come and run around in, with a tree house and a big swing. And the charity, Earth Abbey (a bunch of amazing people), will start planting things and invite local people to come and learn how to garden and grow fruit and veg. And asylum seekers and refugees, the dispossessed, (of whom there are many in this area), can have some land that is theirs to grow things in, that can belong to them. And the garden is going to have a kitchen built outside in it, so that people can learn how to cook with fresh fruit and veg, in season. And people like me, city kids, can learn what it's like to live more in harmony with the earth- learning how seasons change and things grow and God provides abundance for us. And maybe, flowers will start to grow and bring colour to the grey, just like in that picture my housemate painted.

So, this is a happy post, and a grateful one and an excited one. My posts are often about the hard things, and I'm sorry for that- but I want to be honest and write about what I'm grappling with- but I also want to share the happy things- the miracles and the provisions and the gifts and the extravagance that we have in our life. Hard things may come but this is a story about fun and joy and flowers and promises and I hope you're as excited as me!

Thoughts on Love- or What Shane Clairborne doesn't tell you.

About 4 years ago at Spring Harvest I went to see a guy called Shane Clairborne speak. What he said, and what he wrote about in his book "The Irresistible Revolution", really clicked with me. I felt like he summed up and expressed and was actually living out what I think Christianity should look like today, what I want my life to look like but am a little bit too attached to money, clothes and I-D magazine to manage. He talks about the bits of the gospels that other people leave out, the bits that challenge and inspire me and frighten me- about giving away what you have, about not being attached to possessions and property, about being counter-cultural, about being anti-war and about loving those that society rejects. It's beautiful stuff. There are stories about caring for people- the homeless, the destitute, the chronically poor, the dying, the unwashed, the addicted- and about how he encounters Jesus in these people and loves them and sees lives changed and people come to know God and live a fuller life.

I've been trying to see what this looks like more and more in my life, not that I'm "there" yet and not that I've got my stuff together- I haven't. But I'm writing this at 4am in the office at work because I am on a night shift and I can't sleep because one of the residents has gone missing- she walked out yesterday, leaving her baby (who she loved SO much), calling up old acquaintances and going out to score drugs. She had been doing so well, three months clean, a beautiful little baby girl and just starting to really engage with a new, hopeful life- she was genuinely one of the best mothers I have ever seen and she had just started going to church and was planning to go to college. But she walked out, abandoning her little one (who has been taken straight in to care)because she couldn't take it and she really, really wanted to use. I am so gutted, I was her key worker and we spent a ot of time together and I really, really cared for her and I prayed for her and I really tried to love her and treat her with compassion and love and respect. Apparently, when she left, she was crying and said that we couldn't have done anything else to help, that we were perfect, that she loved us.

And this is the last straw in a few weeks for me of things going really wrong- a lot of sadness and mistakes and walking away- things going wrong and sleepless nights. My life, my personal life, is pretty a-okay- it's the lives of those I love that are spinning out of control. And I am wondering if when people say "Lord, break my heart for the poor, the lost, the outcasts" they would mean it, if they knew it felt like this- disappointment, anger, hurt, rejection, sadness, despair. Babies left alone, hours and hours of meticulous love and care thrown away, all my energy spent. I know about the success stories, I'm inspired by them and I know they are reality- that hope comes, that people are saved, that addictions are overcome- but what about the heartbreak and the not-yets and the refusals of help and the being shouted at and the hit where it hurts? Please hear that I am not being cynical, I want to spend my life on this, I do, I just want people to be real about it. And I am left here thinking about the editing that goes in to Christian books. Did Mother Teresa ever break down, was the sadness ever too much? Did Shane Clairborne ever have his heartbroken when someone went back to drugs? Does Rob Bell ever invest his life in someone that walks away?

And then somewhere in the back of my mind, I see a man looking over a city and crying for it, because he loved the people that lived there so much and it broke his heart and he would have gathered them together like a mother, safe with him but they walked away (Matthew ch23). And I see a Father waiting at the gates every night, squinting down the road to see if his kid is coming home, waiting with love even though he took all his money and squandered it on bad things, heartbroken but eager for his sons return. And I see myself, throwing everything away, time and time again, and being welcomed home time and time again. And I think I understand a little bit more.....

Let's hear it for the boys....

I was talking to a friend of mine a while ago about her Monday nights. With a few of her female friends from church, every Monday night she goes in to brothels and massage parlours and lap dancing clubs and chats with the girls there, eating with them and praying with them, talking about God with them and trying to meet any needs they have. She was telling me about how she chats to the pimps and the men that frequent the brothels too, telling them about God and trying to chat to them about what's brought them to these places on a Monday night etc. One day, she called me up, super excited because she's had a "breakthrough" with one of the men that work as pimps- he's really opened up to her and talked about his childhood, his experience of rape and being abused, and his problems with eating. She was really able to speak God's love in to his life and hopefully, he's going to come along to church.

This really challenged me. I work with women who are exiting the sex trade and sometimes, it can be hard not to judge the men that keep the sex trade alive. I hear about the punters that beat them up, that make them do things they don't want to, that steal their money and that humiliate them. I also hear about pimps and violent partners and men that treat them badly. But what my friend told me about this guy that she'd prayed with really made me think- she reminded me that these men need love too, that they need God's healing and restoration. She speaks kindly to the men that she sees in the brothels and even the pimps that treat the women badly, she talks to me about how we should have compassion for them, that they have to face up to themselves after they've left, that they must be hurt and messed up to do what they're doing.

Because if, as I wrote in my last blog, large proportions of women have experienced domestic violence, rape and abuse at the hands of a man, it means that there are literally thousands of men in our country who really, really, really need God. Similarly, the Home Office estimates that between 4.3 and 11% of men in Britain use prostitutes. That is huge. In the foreword to the 2008 Home Office report on how to tackle the sex trade, Jaqui Smith (the Home Secretary) wrote Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, "So far, little attention has been focused on the sex buyer, the person responsible for creating the demand for prostitution markets. And it is time for that to change." I agree.

And I'm thinking about how this looks and how it could work. The Church (and many other charities and organisations) are just starting to engage with vulnerable women- those working in the sex trade, those suffering domestic violence and those who have been hurt and abused. But what about the men? What about the men that my friend meets in brothels? What about the men that use violence to coerce, hurt and control women? What about these men? Who will help them break out of their behavioural patterns and show them what redemption looks like in their lives? And how will this work?

I guess part of this is down to youth workers and teachers- helping all young men to grow up to love and respect women, to treat them as their equals and to understand their own impulses to violence and the things inside of them that make them act a certain way. But also, it is down to Christian men to get involved in the parts of society that we don't like to look at- to be positive male role models for a country that obviously has a problem with objectifying women and using them. Because I know so many Christian men that treat women like God does, with respect and love and care and compassion. They don't use women for sex or to make themselves feel better. They act with infinite gentleness and care and this takes strength. And I can't wait to see what happens when these two types of men collide, when people in the community see what it looks like to treat other people like the prized, valuable, costly things that they really are. So, I guess, this is a call to arms. A call for Jesus' disciples to show another way, to break cycles where little boys grow up and beat their girlfriends just like their dad beat their mum, where guys secretly pay women for sex and treat them like they don't matter, where women are scared to go out alone at night and where both sexes aren't living to the fullness of what they were made to be. Because it's not about men and women and gender and statistics, it's about this country being messed up and not knowing how to love anymore. It's about Jesus telling us to put down our stones, stop standing in judgement and getting us out in to a world that desperately needs to see another way of being men and women.

Why I am a feminist and why you should be too.

I am a feminist. There, I said it. The "F" word. And I am sick of having to qualify it by prefacing it with words such as "moderate", "Christian", "modern" etc. And I am more sick of having to defend my self-identification as a feminist to people who either assume that feminists are men-hating, bra-burning, hairy-arm-pitted women who spend their time pursuing some kind of separatist agenda that would ideally keep men only for the purpose of reproduction OR to people (sorry girls, but it's often you guys) who think that feminism is obsolete now that we've got the vote (although Saudi Arabian women are better represented in their Parliament than us British women are), we have equal pay to men (Really? http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/jul/29/gender-pay-divide-women-inequality) and we don't have to stay at home and look after the kiddies (although, in this post-feminist society, women that do choose to look after kids at home/keep house are often denigrated by society- the hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world, my friend- it's about choice). Even those who are quite progressive, left-wing types often see feminism as women making a bit of a fuss about not much. Christians too often see feminism as either unneeded, a waste of valuable energy or some kind of inverse snobbery that sees men as less than women.

But here's the thing- feminism has been radically misunderstood- and the chances are, if you're a Christian you are already a feminist or you SHOULD be! Feminism is about ensuring that both men and women live up to be the people they were created to be, that they live equally, unharmed, unhurt and free to exercise their rights in a world that respects them. Some people have dropped the word "feminist" and prefer to use "humanist". I guess that works but I kind of feel like, why subjugate women AGAIN, even if it is only with language and definitions? The Church should be trailblazers here, we should be leading the way, showing the rest of the world what tolerance looks like and what the world could be like if women WERE able to be socially, politically, economically, creatively and philosophically treated equally to men.

Now, a lot of people think that women ARE treated equally to men in all these ways but it's just not true. In the UK, one in four women will be victims of domestic violence in their life time, often more than once, one incident of domestic violence against a female is reported EVERY MINUTE and there are, on average, two women a week killed by a male partner or former partner (check out womensaid.org.uk for statistics and an analysis of how they are collected). As many as one in four women have been raped or suffered an attempted rape and the conviction rates are horrifically low (check out www.rapecrisis.org.uk). There are estimated to be 80,000 people involved in the sex trade in the UK, with the vast majority of these being women. These statistics are just one, tiny slice of gender issues (there's pay, the objectification of women's bodies, everyday discrimination, the sex double standard, health care provision, political representation etc) and this is only about women in the UK (there are thousands of other issues globally- as well as some other countries where women are afforded a fraction of the rights British women are).

These statistics aren't meant to typecast men as ogres or sexual predators or women as victims but they are there to show that there is a problem in this country with the way women are treated. Actions come from mindsets and worldviews and clearly, there is something wrong with the way women are viewed (by men and by women themselves) if this level of violence exists in our country. And when you look at it like this, suddenly, feminism doesn't seem such an outdated word at all. And it seems like our journey as Christians, bringing God's wholeness and happiness to individuals and bringing God's kingdom of liberation, freedom, mercy and love to the world IS feminist and it does have something to do with women and gender. Because this pattern of violence and degradation and power isn't okay and we, men and women, have a duty and a calling to deal with this- not as a niche issue (women's groups and Captivated books and "feminism" as a girls only seminar issue) but as the body of Christ together. So, my lovely Church, let's deal with this together and redefine what a feminist looks like.

Light, more Light.

I've been thinking a lot this week about light; Light and dark, Sunshine, Stars, Light bulbs and fairy lights, Night lights on the stairs, Candles. And I've been thinking about darkness; Night time, winter mornings, shadows and bad things. And Jesus; Light of the World, light in a dark place, "Let there be light", light chasing away dark.

It started because I was listening to Mumford and Sons, a song called "Roll away Your Stone", which I love, and there's a line of it "Darkness is a harsh term, don't you think? Yet it dominates the things I've seen". It made me laugh because describing the world as "dark" is very un- me, It's a bit too Conservative/Evangelical for me- a bit too dramatic, and a bit too old school. But increasingly, I feel more and more aware of how dark the world can be- how twisted and messed up and violent things can be. There's the things I hear about at work- the hidden, everyday, violent stuff that goes on in our cities- the seediness and sadness of sex work, the tragedy of drug addiction and how it steals from people, the everyday terror of domestic violence- all the sad and dirty and scary things that happen where we live, even though we pretend they don't. And then there's the stuff in our lives' and our family's- the secrets that eat away at us and the shame of hiding things from people that we love.It reminds me of the Sufjan Stevens song, "John Wayne Gacey Jnr", about a serial killer, who killed boys and hid them under the floor boards and Sufjan sings "But in my best behaviour, I am really just like him, look beneath the floorboards for the secrets I have hid"- we all hide things under the floor boards- sad things and secret things and dark things. And sometimes, it can be overwhelming this darkness, it can seem hopeless and sad and too much.

But it's November and Christmas is coming and the other day, I was walking along the harbour at night after seeing a friend and it had been a hard week and I had spent a long time talking to my friend about all this dark stuff that seemed to be around me and I was walking home, and I saw these workmen (and women) stringing up these Christmas lights from lamp post to lamp post. And suddenly they turned them on and they were beautiful and reflecting all on the water and what had seemed so dark and sad suddenly lit up and took my breath away. And Christmas reminds me of this- it is perfection and beauty and hope bursting in to a dark world like strings and strings of fairy lights turned on. The Light of the World came to bring hope to this dark world and suddenly, it seems like dawn is breaking on what's been a long night.

And the world is dark sometimes- full of secret things and hard things and horrible things and things that are hard to say out loud- but a Light has come and that has changed things. It doesn't mean that we should be naive and say there isn't darkness and it doesn't mean that we should back away from the darkness into the light because we're scared but it does mean that the darkness gets chased away, scattered, pushed back by the hope we have. And I am asking for more light in my life, more hope and more daylight and more dawn and more Christmas lights strung out across my life. And I'm looking forward to seeing how that looks.

Thoughts on Bristol, feeling liked and learning about obedience.

A while ago, I felt like God was telling me to move to Bristol. Now, for me, God's voice doesn't come in thunderstorms and rushing winds and booming tones- it comes in thinking a lot about stuff and sensing something and it tentatively feeling right. So, part of it was living in Bristol last summer and it feeling RIGHT and part of it was wanting to live with Laura (who is kinda the Naomi to my Ruth) because I think she's doing good things and I want to be part of that and part of it was just, well, a sense. And a big part of it was feeling convinced that my purpose in life (for the foreseeable future) was to work with women in the sex industry and I knew that this super awesome charity in Bristol, One25 ltd, was doing that. So I figured I'd move to Bristol and that God would sort some kind of Mcjob for me and then in my spare time I coud volunteer with One25. So, for once in my rebellious little life, I trusted my sense of what God wanted me to do and I moved to Bristol. And it was a hard decision for me to make- I could've stayed with a bunch of people I really love at my Uni church- a place where I feel valued and cared for and where exciting stuff was happening. Or I could have stayed in London, where loads of my friends are and where I'd been offered a job. Or I could have done an M.A in English Lit- satisfying my inner geekdom. But I trusted and I moved.

And in many ways, the risk paid off. I live with three beautiful, kind and lovely girls and we have super fun times together and we do nice things. And I love the area I live in. And I love the church I'm going to. And I've made friends. And Bristol is a brilliant, messy, pretty City and I love it here. And I love the things I'm getting involved in and the life I'm starting to build here. And guess what? The week after I moved here, a job came up at the charity I wanted to work for- One25, as a key worker at their residential safe house. And guess what? I got the job- despite a lack of qualifications,lack of experience and lack of maturity, they took me on. And if that isn't a risk paying off, I don't know what is! God totally provided for me and I am 100%, absolutely sure that I only got this job because God wanted me here.

But here's the thing. It's hard. Really, really hard. Sometimes it's lovely and sometimes it's fun and sometimes I feel like I might be part of changing someone's life. Everyone always says it must be rewarding but the thing is- the GOOD bit is that the women have moved in here and the GOOD bit is that they have their babies and they haven't been taken in to care and the GOOD bit is they're drug free. And those things are really, really good but it doesn't mean my day-to-day job is rewarding. You see, the good thing is they're here but it doesn't mean I see breakthrough every day or even every week. I spend a lot of time feeling too inexperienced, too young, too silly, too naive. And I get hurt very easily and shouted at a lot and I HATE it when people don't like me. And actually, I'm not 100% sure that I'm good at this- I'm getting better but it doesn't feel good and I don't get much job satisfaction and I feel like crying a lot. But I'm 100%, absolutely sure that I'm meant to be here- it's too many coincidences- moving here, the job coming up, me actually getting to job etc- I know that this is what I should be doing.

And I think I'm slowly learning what obedience is like- that the important thing is I'm here. And it sucks to not be good at something. But I was called here and I came. And He didn't ask me to come and be the best at this. He asked me to come here and follow Him. And it bites sometimes, it really does, but I think it feels right and I think that's what obedience is about.