 ‘Sometimes I arrive just when God’s ready to have someone click the shutter.’ (Ansel Adams) I was completely blown away this Easter weekend by a presentation by world-renowned Peter Caton: a ‘documentary photographer with a social conscience’. I found it incredibly inspiring to see a follower of Jesus using his gifts and talents so powerfully on behalf of the poor and most vulnerable people in the world. This was faith in action, love in action, hope in action. As Peter shared brief glimpses of his experiences over the years, ranging from gruelling days spent in crocodile and mosquito-infested waters in South Sudan to precarious hours in harrowingly dangerous refugee camps in Somalia, I felt myself gripped by his resilience and courage. I was moved and impressed by Peter’s personal ethics and humility too. He has no interest in parading himself before the world’s media. Instead, his goal is to raise awareness of the plight of those living, surviving, sometimes thriving in some of the most challenging of circumstances imaginable, to engender action. He always asks permission first, explains exactly how photos will be used, and avoids insensitive or intrusive images of distress. He builds authentic, caring relationships and takes his striking pictures from low-down, looking up at his subjects to preserve and reinforce a sense of human dignity. Peter calls each person by their name. Respect.
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 ‘If you seek me with all your heart, I will be found by you’, says the Lord, ‘and if you seek yourself you will find yourself – but to your own undoing.’ (Thomas à Kempis) Valentines Day seems like an appropriate occasion to write on the theme of love. While the origins of the event have become misty over time, St Valentine was murdered, by most accounts, because he refused to give up his faith in Jesus, in God who is love. This example of self-sacrifice, like that of Jesus before him, is a hard act to follow. I’ve decided to reflect on a prayer attributed to St Francis, another remarkable example of self-sacrificial love, which draws on Jesus’ and St Paul’s teachings in the Bible, and to use it as my own prayer for today: ‘Make me a channel of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me bring your love. Where there is injury, your pardon Lord. Where there is doubt, true faith in You. Where there is despair in life, let me bring hope. Where there is darkness, only light. Where there is sadness, ever joy. Oh Master, grant that I may never seek so much to be consoled, as to console. To be understood, as to understand. To be loved, as to love with all my soul. It is in pardoning that we are pardoned. It is in giving to all that we receive and in dying that we are born to eternal life.’ 
‘When we know people whose lives are being destroyed and there seems to be no way of reaching them; when people are in impossible situations and there are no words to help them…hold them at the centre of prayer, where the divine Christ dwells, and expose them to the rays of his love.’ (Iain Matthew) Friedensgebet (‘prayers for peace’) felt even more earnest this evening than last time I was here. As we entered the church, each person lit a candle and placed it on a silver cross before a figure of the crucified Christ. It felt like holding the suffering of the world before one who knows what it is to endure pain. The candle I lit barely flickered at first, as if struggling to spark itself into even the tiniest glimmer of a flame. Hope, too, can sometimes feel like that. Those present reflected on certain parallels in German society today with those that preceded the rise of the Nazis so many years ago now. That was an unspeakably dark period in German history which, at times like this, still surfaces, smoulders and burns in the people’s collective psyche. I could feel their sense of concern and anguish about the forthcoming general election. Would Germany learn from its history, or would it find itself condemned to repeat it? As we prayed, I recalled Iain Matthew’s soulful spiritual wisdom: ‘Feel the way to the wound that is in us, to the place of our need. Go there, take it, name it; hold it before Christ. Feel our way to the wounds of this world, to those people or situations in dire need of healing. Go there, take them, name them; and hold them before him. Go there, not to dictate to Christ what the answer should be or what he should do about it; but to hold the wound before him.’ Yes.  ‘Who, being loved, is poor?’ (Oscar Wilde) Jasmin asks the poorest kids who live in a cemetery: ‘What do you dream of for this Christmas?’ ‘A school bag!’, they reply. This isn’t the answer I had expected. They live outdoors, playing and sleeping among the marble tombs and mausoleums of those who, in this life, had the benefit of greater wealth. It’s a precarious existence for these kids and their families with the risks of starvation, poor health, injury or criminal activity on the one hand, or of being suddenly and unceremoniously evicted from their makeshift home by the police or local authority on the other. It’s a safeguarding nightmare and some locals say the poor make the place look messy, untidy. Jasmin, a poor Filipina among the poor, does the maths. There are 127 children living there. One robust, durable, waterproof, cleanable and (importantly) cool-looking school bag each, plus 8 notebooks in each bag (one for each subject at school), plus pens and pencils. And a handful of special chocolate Christmas treats for each child too! For Jasmin, this isn’t just a project. It isn’t just about providing practical assistance to these families in material need. It’s a symbol, a sign, a positive action, that demonstrates to these children that they are seen…and that God sees them…and that they are loved. It’s about a sacred encounter with Jesus on Christmas Day. I love that. We too can be hope.  ‘Our children need our presence more than our presents.’ (Jesse Jackson) The pilot’s announcement came as a surprise as we sat on the runway at Amsterdam airport, waiting to take off. ‘Apologies for the delay. There’s a technical problem.’ 15 minutes later, ‘We need to refuel the plane.’ Bemused faces among the passengers – didn’t it occur to anyone to refuel the plane? 30 minutes later, the captain again over the tannoy: ‘I have good news and bad news. The good news is the plane is now refuelled. The bad news is that, while refuelling, the ground crew noticed evidence of a bird strike on the plane’s engines. We can’t take off safely until the damage has been checked and repaired.’ Looks of stunned disbelief all around now. A 13 year-old girl sitting next to me looked up and spoke to me, a total stranger. ‘Where are you travelling from?’ she asked. ‘I’m on my way back from Germany,’ I replied, ‘How about you?’ ‘I’ve been here for a hockey competition with my school,’ she said, pointing to the 49 or so other children sitting around us and the teacher sitting beside me across the aisle. ‘How did you get on?’ I asked. ‘Well,’ she replied, ‘they were 17 year-olds, and we still won.’ She went on to tell me about her life, all the astonishing things she had achieved in so many fields. ‘Your parents must be very proud of you.’ I said. She looked down, sadly, and sighed ‘I don’t think they feel proud of me.’ I didn’t know what to say. ‘You remind me of my youngest daughter when she was your age.’ I said, and I showed her a photo on my phone. ‘Yes, I can see the likeness.’ she smiled. I shared a story of how I used to take my daughter to her primary school and hold her hand all the way to the door. One day, in a deeply sensitive and diplomatic tone (well beyond her years), she said, ‘Dad, I know you love holding my hand and taking me to the door. I love it too. But have you noticed the other parents wave goodbye to their children at the school gate?’ I knew what she was trying to tell me. I learned to let go and wave from the gate. It was a parental rite of passage. My neighbour looked deeply thoughtful. ‘I would love to have had my parents walk me to school and to hold my hand like that.’ ‘Didn’t they?’, I asked. ‘No,’ she said, ‘They made me walk to school alone because they wanted me to be independent.’ I felt her sadness. Here was this young person, so very talented, with wealthy and high-achieving parents who clearly support her in so many ways (including her determined ambition to become an Olympic athlete in 2028). Yet, nonetheless, at a simple human level, she felt so alone. The pilot interrupted our chat, ‘The repairs are done and we’re ready to take off now’. We were both very quiet during the flight back.  ‘People who are homeless are not social inadequates. They are people without homes.’ (Sheila McKechnie) A crisis moment. Sink or swim. Thrown in at the deep end. With no experience of management, residential care or homelessness, I was suddenly and unexpectedly handed responsibility for 3 hostels for young single homeless people with a 4th in the pipeline. The hostels were in crisis too, having being set up with little thought to the required expertise or financial resourcing. It was a stressful experience that I only survived thanks to God’s help and the good people around me. As part of my orientation, I visited a local project where a group of Christians were working with ‘rough sleepers’, that is people who lived on the streets and, for a complex range of reasons, at that time didn’t want to be housed. It turned out this group was very different to the hostels’ client group which comprised 16-24 year olds who found themselves homeless, mostly owing to mental health or relational breakdown, and wanted housing with resettlement support. The Christian group had conducted light-touch, sensitive research among local rough sleepers to find out what, if anything, they could offer in support. Most suggested very simple, practical things – ‘A place to take a shower’, or ‘Somewhere to wash and dry my clothes and sleeping bag.’ ‘And what else?’, the group asked. ‘A haircut’, ‘A shave’ or ‘To get my nails trimmed.’ The latter requests were all about feeling more human – and being seen and treated as more human. I found these insights very striking. The Christians opened a church building; lovingly fitted hot showers with perfumed, fresh-smelling shampoos, soaps and towels; installed washing machines and tumble-dryers; invited in local hairdressers to offer free haircuts and shaves and local beauticians to give free manicures and pedicures. The rough sleepers were still sleeping rough, but the restoration of their sense of human dignity, worth and self-respect was amazing.  ‘Small things with great love.’ (Mother Teresa) It’s one thing to flee your home from violence and war. It’s another to feel pushed to the edge of the place you hoped would show care and concern. The first thing Gill noticed about the refugee camp in Greece was its remote location, as if putting it there would keep Syrian and Afghan asylum seekers at a ‘safe’ distance from local people. Out of sight, out of mind. Police outside the walls helped to ensure that no-one escaped to the nearest town. Food was delivered by the army and was often infested with 'crawling things'. A child wrote on the wall of a tent in marker pen: ‘We are not animals!’ It was a silent plea to be seen, to be treated as human beings. Tents on dusty ground. No electricity. Water on-and-off. Hope withered under the heat of the sun. Gill volunteered at a family centre; a fenced-off tent where women could have some privacy, feel safe, together. She offered hand-massage and some took it up, sitting on the floor together as she did so. A little girl observed at a distance. She asked to learn, then massaged Gill’s hands. Gill offered to massage the women’s feet too, yet many refused. She discovered they were ashamed of their unpedicured, dirty feet. Gill brought in bottled water to wash, but those who accepted the offer felt embarrassed when their feet made the water in the bathing bowl dirty. But then a breakthrough happened. One day as Gill was carrying the bowl to the tent, a breeze caught pretty petals on a tree and they floated down, forming a beautiful pink canvas over the surface of the water. It felt like a miracle from God. The women were delighted: ‘That’s so lovely. We can’t see the dirty water now. Just the beautiful flowers!’ Gill added lemons too. It was a life-giving gift of dignity restored. As days passed by, a growing queue of women formed at the tent. One brought a radio and played music. Some started dancing, and they got Gill up to dance too. Women were chatting and laughing now. As Gill continued this work, a girl leaned on her shoulder and saw with her own eyes: pink petals and a human touch brought love, joy and hope.  ‘True compassion means not only feeling another's pain but also being moved to help relieve it.’ (Daniel Goleman) The elderly woman felt scared as she entered the care home. She has dementia and the change in surroundings left her feeling anxious and confused. That first evening in her new room, she wanted to lay down to sleep but she stood in silence, frozen in fear. Seeing her reaction, her care worker took her by the hand, led her gently to the bed and laid down beside her. In doing so, she modelled extraordinary empathy and compassion, stretched the boundaries of professional practice and, in doing so, enabled this woman to rest and relax. She felt safer now, not alone. I felt astonished as I heard this story from a good friend in Germany last night. I tried to imagine the scene and, in doing so, I felt quite tearful. It made me reflect on the deep, healing power of touch and of being-with, especially perhaps when working with people with dementia and other cognitive, emotional or relational challenges. Yes, we do need to take safeguarding concerns seriously. Yes, we do need to consider the needs and preferences of different individuals, cultures and circumstances too. Yet how to retain the human in the midst of formal roles and rules..?  ‘Anyone can be a Father – but it takes someone special to be a Dad.’ (Wade Boggs) Father’s Day will feel very different this year. My Dad died recently and, no matter how old a person is when they pass away, to me he was still my Dad. That gave him a unique place in my life and a special relationship in my world of experience. To be honest, on reflection, I don’t think I ever knew my Dad that well. Yes, we shared lots of different times together over the years and I have all kinds of memories of him, but that’s not the same as…really…knowing…someone. He came from a generation that didn’t really disclose or expose deep feelings. As a child, I looked up to him as a strong, dependable figure in my life: someone I respected, sometimes from a relative relational distance. He was a motorbike fanatic and had a significant influence on my love for motorcycles and motorcycling, as he did on my brothers too. He was great at DIY – a talent that, sadly, I didn’t inherit from him – and could build or repair just about anything. I hadn’t really realised until we were preparing for his eulogy that I had never heard him once speak badly about anyone. He was a man of integrity and kept his silence. Two weeks before Dad died, I was called back urgently from Germany. He had had a fall, with complications, and the doctors didn’t expect him to survive. I raced to the hospital and, thank God, had time with him. He was vulnerable. I stayed overnight, tried my best to advocate for him and fed him gently when he could no longer feed himself. I plucked up the courage to tell him, for the first time, that I loved him. He told me, for the first time, that he loved me too. The day before he died, he whispered, ‘Thank you for everything you have done.’ I cried. I had never felt closer to him than in those precious, painful moments. A beautiful sadness. Dad – I will never forget you.  ‘Empathy is about finding echoes of another person in yourself.’ (Mohsin Hamid) I remember Deryck Sheriffs, an inspiring South African lecturer, leading a seminar on, ‘Theology and Emotion in the Psalms’. He encouraged us, as students, to consider that there’s a critical distinction between propositional truth and pastoral response. Both are important. They are often intertwined. And we need to recognise which is which when reading a text. We must pay attention to e.g. genre; context; co-text; who is speaking; nature of relationship; underlying intention. I’ve noticed parallels in all kinds of communications over the years. Confusion and tension can arise when people speak and respond in conflicting relational modes. We could broaden this principle by distinguishing between a thinking and feeling orientation. If a person speaks in feeling mode and receives a thinking-mode response (or vice versa), they may feel hurt, unheard or frustrated. Here’s an example to illustrate this point. Person 1: ‘I wish the hospital staff would speak to me directly rather than through my carers.’ Person 2 (thinking mode): ‘The staff are very busy and it’s easiest for them to speak to your carers who can then explain everything to you.’ Person 3 (feeling mode): ‘I imagine that could feel quite isolating for you. What would you like us to do?’ The latter is grounded in empathy. |
Nick WrightI'm a psychological coach, trainer and OD consultant. Curious to discover how can I help you? Get in touch! 
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