A month on, what am I thinking..?

I'm sitting in a meeting understanding very little, seeing mainly smiling faces which laugh in the way that people do to an in-joke. I wonder if I'm feeling a little of the disorientation that a refuge feels when people are talking about them rather than to them, when they are trying to navigate their way through an alien landscape. Most are talking about the issue from their viewpoint and in the interests of the organisation they represent. And now my translator has abandoned me to make a phone call!

It's strange a month on from the demolitions - this week the twenty-eight day cooling off time is up for the residents shipped to CAOs. I'm trying to gather my thoughts. I have wanted to sit and write to get some reflections down but I wonder if everything is still quite raw. I feel as though my mind is a dam behind which a lake of emotions is rising. Once the dam is breached I have no idea what will come out.

When people ask me about the jungle - often expecting me to say that there's nothing to do now, so I'm not going to Calais anymore - I can feel a river of information like a pent-up flood that will be released as soon as I begin speaking. I find myself having to check my sentences so that I give space for others in the conversation to tell me and the rest what they've been doing. But once I start, it's hard to stop.

I want to talk about the government and how woeful its response has been; I want to talk about the people I don't see anymore because they're scattered across France (and the pain I feel about that); I want to talk about my friends who are in the UK and who I don't see enough. I want to talk about the people I've met and how I've seen Jesus in their eyes and actions. I don't want to talk people into submission or drive them away because they don't know what to do with the feelings that I'm offloading on to them.

So I say I'm still going because of the house (I'm one of the managers of the association that runs the Catholic worker house in Calais). As a follow-up, I say that there are still three refugees in the house who have various medical needs, that we are hoping they will be moving on to the next stage of their journey very soon, into a place where their needs will be more fully met. There were five but one has gone to Paris, the other made it to the UK earlier this week; both need mental health support.

But I can't leave it there. Suddenly I'm railing against the inertia of a system that is only now - only when the twenty-eight day window has closed - beginning to assess people. Suddenly I'm asking in a voice being overcome with pain why the home office hasn't seen any of the kids we were working with who have a claim to go to the UK to be reunited with family, why no Dubs children have left France for the past month, why we think this is an acceptable way to treat people. But, of course, no one in the conversation thinks this is an acceptable way to treat anyone - let alone a vulnerable child refugee. And of course, few know what a Dubs child is or how the Dublin treaty works and they are not sure they should ask me for definitions at this point!

So, I stop. I ask how they are and what they've been up to. But they are looking for someone easier to catch up with.

I find myself asking (myself) if I've become too political, too absorbed in this issue that is complex and overwhelming and leaves so many feeling powerless. I wonder if they are a bit in awe at what I've done over the past year, feeling that they don't know how to engage me on it, what questions to ask. I wonder if I've come across as too bolshy, like a demonstrator ranting at the police for want of making my case to an authority figure who could actually make a difference.

Calmer now, I tell my friends that I've been to see my MP, raised some specific cases with him, urged him to urge the Home Secretary to pull her finger out. I do this in answer to the question I get asked more and more: 'what can we do?' My answer is always 'write to your MP, try to meet them, make a noise, sign a petition.' It's safe but I wonder whether it does any good. I feel I ought to be saying that they should be ripping up paving stones launching them at lines of riot police... I feel the heat rising.

Of course, I don't think that. I believe that we need to raise the issue peacefully, move to learn the way of non-violent resistance to power, find ways of adopting the techniques of civil disobedience to bring the traffic to a standstill and inconvenience the government into pulling its finger out (without, of course, making life harder for the government's many victims over here). I find myself so far out of my comfort zone, I begin to stop talking. Where's Arthur when you need him? A reference to a wonderful volunteer who always talked about mobilising along these lines!

So now I'm asking how I can gather my thoughts and reflections on this year. What can I write? And suddenly I'm mute. I'm back in that place of feeling a dam solidly stopping the flow of thoughts and feelings from spilling onto the page. 

So I wait.

I know, however, that the thoughts won't appear until I sit in front of the keyboard with a blank screen and a free day.

So I wait.

Why planning matters

As the last bus leaves the camp, I am reminded of a second curse of today's world (after too few people doing important jobs). It is our apparent commitment to brinksmanship. We leave everything to the last minute. Now this is ok when you're thinking about an evening out or a weekend away. It's not a good strategy for sorting out complex problems affecting the immediate safety and long-term futures of some of the world's most vulnerable people.

But it seems to be the mindset of both the French and British governments in relation to the children of the jungle. Our government has known since the start of this year of the presence of many hundreds of unaccompanied children who have a Dublin 3 claim to asylum in the UK (because they have close family already settled here). The government knows because of the work of Citizens UK identifying and registering them, taking a test case to court and opening up a channel with the Prefecture to transfer children from Calais to London. 

Yet our government did nothing. Indeed it opposed Citizens UK in the courts. It lost the first round but won on appeal - lots of money spent to keep children out of the country that could have spent bringing them to safety. 

Then when the French finally decided that they had to remove the jungle, the British sprang into action with all the all the energy of a lethargic snail. Acknowledging that something needed to be done, they then allowed any and every obstacle to slow the process down. They managed to transfer 200 unaccompanied minors in a week but there it has ended. Our government is now locked in unseemly buck-passing with the French government. The thinking seems to be 'who can be seen doing the least to resolve this situation?’

Last week's chaos in the camp that has resulted in 2,000+ people, many of them children, existing with precious little support and no idea of what the future holds for them, is down to a lack of planning on the part of both governments. Now we all know that lack of proper planning results in piss-poor performance. But it reveals something more than that. It reveals a complete indifference to the consequences of our poor planning, in this case, the abandonment of some of the most vulnerable people in France.

Proper planning is evidence that we care. It shows that we are prepared to put ourselves out, commit resources to ensure that those who need our help, get it. Lack of planning demonstrates that we actually do not care at all about these people. The lack of proper planning on the part of our government and the government of France shows that neither really cares what happens to those who have come seeking refuge, safety, help.

Yesterday, the buses took unaccompanied minors to accommodation and assessment centres across France. Some of them were accompanied by officials from the UK border force whose job will be to assess Dublin 3 claims that any of the minors have. This is a change from last week when the mood music was that children who had been registered as having a Dublin 3 claim would be bussed to the UK to have it sorted out there. The upshot of this is probably that fewer of these children will make it to the UK, more families will remain divided, more minors will remain stuck in limbo.

Today the final residents - women and children and a few male partners - left the Jules Ferry centre. The camp goes quiet for a while.

witnessing the jungle's last gasp

It is the curse of today's world that companies and organisations, even governments think it is efficient and cost-effective to run any operation with the minimum number of staff. It isn't. 

I arrive at a virtually empty house to be invited to take a young man to register with the minors at the camp. He has mild mental health issues and gets agitated in crowds. Some in the stationary queue have been there for two hours already. It doesn't look good. We stayed about five minutes in the melee and it was clear that he wasn't coping. We left. 

We bumped into a colleague on the way out of the throng, told her what was happening. She confirmed the under-staffed chaos within and regretted that she couldn’t pull any strings to get our friend fast-tracked. We’d have to find another way 

We went off to find other friends under the fly-over and plan our next move. 

The only place where the staffing maxim doesn't apply here is with the CRS, the armoured, tooled-up French riot police. The more the merrier. They've booked some 1500 bed spaces across Calais for the foreseeable and now a great phalanx of them Is deployed as the prefect's people arrive for their photo call with the world's press.

it’s mid-afternoon, an autumn sun is warming the air and the show is about to begin. A spokesperson for the Prefecture, a petite, almost chic early middle-aged blond woman in fur topped wellies, tells the waiting media what’s about to happen. She makes it clear that it is not a ‘destruction’ but a ‘cleansing’. I turn to my French speaking colleague to confirm what I’ve heard. The prefecture would prefer the world’s press to describe the removal of mainly black and middle eastern people by a mainly white, European police force as a ‘cleansing’. She seems to have no idea of the bloody swathe this word has described through European history, including the recent story of the Balkans. But she sticks with it.

Almost comically she then warns the press not to speak of the deployment of bulldozers to effect the cleansing. Rather the contractors will be using 'bobcats'. The small machines that appear almost as she speaking are track vehicles fronted with small claw-bottomed hoppers that look to all the world like bulldozers, albeit small ones, but bulldozers all the same. We point this out later to a journalist on a mobile, phoning in copy, telling the ears at the other end that the machines are bobcats not bulldozers. He stresses this as if his story hangs on it. He doesn’t appear to be from Construction News, so we turn to him and point out that a bulldozer is a bulldozer is a bulldozer whatever label the prefect’s spokesperson attaches to it. He looks non-plussed!

And so on cue, dozens of men in pristine orange jump suits and white hard hats, equipped with a range of tools from spanners and wrenches to chain saws and hammers, appear and start ‘cleansing’ a shelter.

It is testament to the tireless team of British shelter builders who put up most of the structures around the camp last winter with the help of the residents, what great work they did. The shelter is virtually indestructible. For twenty minutes and more, the team pull and push, poke and prod, bang and twist the panels, eventually deploying the chain saw to cut some 2” by 4” timbers at the base, but seem to leave little mark on it. Eventually it succumbs and the bobcat comes in to take way some of the bits and deposit them in a skip.

All this is watched by a posse of camera crews ranged on the two vantage points left vacant by the CRS.

At this rate of progress, it will take until Christmas to cleanse the camp.

Of course, this is a stunt for the press. Offer them something compelling for the six 0’clock news and they’ll disappear to their hotels leaving the authorities to scythe through the camp with their usual brutality.

A colleague watches all this and a Sudanese boy turns up having queued to register and been turned away because there were too many minors and far too few staff. He needs to get his papers. His caravan is earmarked for destruction and cut-off by a line of CRS. A bit of negotiating ensues and he is allowed to retrieve his documents and a few belongings before having to vacate the site. Now he has nowhere to sleep. His lack of registration means he has no wrist band and does not appear on the lists for the containers. He is homeless.

It’s ironic that this should be the case because the spokesperson from the Prefect’s office had said that the authorities had chosen to start the cleansing here in order to create a cordon sanitaire around the container park so that the young people housed therein would feel safer. You couldn’t make it up.

Of course the day after this charade for the press, things get mildly uglier. Registered and unregistered residents of the jungle, faced with eviction by the French state, burn their shelters, the homes that they have made from the scraps around them, the community they have forged in the teeth of opposition and harassment. It is their final act of agency in a situation where they are being systematically stripped of any control over their lives, herded like cattle on to buses in some ghastly though far less grisly reenactment of recent European history. The Prefect’s spokesperson, lacking any sense of irony, misses this.

The rest of us turn away weeping, ashamed.

witnessing the jungle's last gasp

It is the curse of today's world that companies and organisations, even governments think it is efficient and cost-effective to run any operation with the minimum number of staff. It isn't. 

I arrive at a virtually empty house to be invited to take a young man to register with the minors at the camp. He has mild mental health issues and gets agitated in crowds. Some in the stationary queue have been there for two hours already. It doesn't look good. We stayed about five minutes in the melee and it was clear that he wasn't coping. We left. 

We bumped into a colleague on the way out of the throng, told her what was happening. She confirmed the under-staffed chaos within and regretted that she couldn’t pull any strings to get our friend fast-tracked. We’d have to find another way 

We went off to find other friends under the fly-over and plan our next move. 

The only place where the staffing maxim doesn't apply here is with the CRS, the armoured, tooled-up French riot police. The more the merrier. They've booked some 1500 bed spaces across Calais for the foreseeable and now a great phalanx of them Is deployed as the prefect's people arrive for their photo call with the world's press.

it’s mid-afternoon, an autumn sun is warming the air and the show is about to begin. A spokesperson for the Prefecture, a petite, almost chic early middle-aged blond woman in fur topped wellies, tells the waiting media what’s about to happen. She makes it clear that it is not a ‘destruction’ but a ‘cleansing’. I turn to my French speaking colleague to confirm what I’ve heard. The prefecture would prefer the world’s press to describe the removal of mainly black and middle eastern people by a mainly white, European police force as a ‘cleansing’. She seems to have no idea of the bloody swathe this word has described through European history, including the recent story of the Balkans. But she sticks with it.

Almost comically she then warns the press not to speak of the deployment of bulldozers to effect the cleansing. Rather the contractors will be using 'bobcats'. The small machines that appear almost as she speaking are track vehicles fronted with small claw-bottomed hoppers that look to all the world like bulldozers, albeit small ones, but bulldozers all the same. We point this out later to a journalist on a mobile, phoning in copy, telling the ears at the other end that the machines are bobcats not bulldozers. He stresses this as if his story hangs on it. He doesn’t appear to be from Construction News, so we turn to him and point out that a bulldozer is a bulldozer is a bulldozer whatever label the prefect’s spokesperson attaches to it. He looks non-plussed!

And so on cue, dozens of men in pristine orange jump suits and white hard hats, equipped with a range of tools from spanners and wrenches to chain saws and hammers, appear and start ‘cleansing’ a shelter.

It is testament to the tireless team of British shelter builders who put up most of the structures around the camp last winter with the help of the residents, what great work they did. The shelter is virtually indestructible. For twenty minutes and more, the team pull and push, poke and prod, bang and twist the panels, eventually deploying the chain saw to cut some 2” by 4” timbers at the base, but seem to leave little mark on it. Eventually it succumbs and the bobcat comes in to take way some of the bits and deposit them in a skip.

All this is watched by a posse of camera crews ranged on the two vantage points left vacant by the CRS.

At this rate of progress, it will take until Christmas to cleanse the camp.

Of course, this is a stunt for the press. Offer them something compelling for the six 0’clock news and they’ll disappear to their hotels leaving the authorities to scythe through the camp with their usual brutality.

A colleague watches all this and a Sudanese boy turns up having queued to register and been turned away because there were too many minors and far too few staff. He needs to get his papers. His caravan is earmarked for destruction and cut-off by a line of CRS. A bit of negotiating ensues and he is allowed to retrieve his documents and a few belongings before having to vacate the site. Now he has nowhere to sleep. His lack of registration means he has no wrist band and does not appear on the lists for the containers. He is homeless.

It’s ironic that this should be the case because the spokesperson from the Prefect’s office had said that the authorities had chosen to start the cleansing here in order to create a cordon sanitaire around the container park so that the young people housed therein would feel safer. You couldn’t make it up.

Of course the day after this charade for the press, things get mildly uglier. Registered and unregistered residents of the jungle, faced with eviction by the French state, burn their shelters, the homes that they have made from the scraps around them, the community they have forged in the teeth of opposition and harassment. It is their final act of agency in a situation where they are being systematically stripped of any control over their lives, herded like cattle on to buses in some ghastly though far less grisly reenactment of recent European history. The Prefect’s spokesperson, lacking any sense of irony, misses this.

The rest of us turn away weeping, ashamed.

Firm action brings more questions

So, my young Afghan friend finally got his ticket and was reunited with his brothers two months after the UK home office agreed to take his claim under Dublin 3. In the late autumn warmth of St Pancras station, brothers embraced and we wept tears of joy into our take-away coffee.

And the haunted young man who asked our help three weeks ago is also in the UK, swept up in the sudden rush of Dublin 3 cases the government wanted dealt with before the jungle succumbs to the bulldozer. He is impatiently awaiting reunification with his brother, giving constant updates on WhatsApp about his mood and worries.

Two shafts of light in the darkness of the camp. But we always stress that while you can snatch someone from the jungle in the blink of an eye, it takes weeks, months, possibly even years to extract the jungle from the minds of its former residents (whether refugees or volunteers).

And now the camp is in its end-game. The day of closure has arrived and sullen ranks of residents queue with their meagre possessions to get on buses taking them to the stage on their journey to peace and security. We knew the day was coming and have felt it to be right that comes. But now it's here and tomorrow they'll start pulling physical structures down, I feel a sense of impending bereavement.

And another boy assumes the centre of my attention. His sister is willing to welcome him into her family but with the demolitions getting under way tomorrow and no one being registered today, we are anxious for him. And he represents so many for whom this is just one more uncertainty, insecurity.

Tomorrow I head back through the tunnel clutching my little red book and my association registration allowing me to come and go and do the things we need to do. And I'm wondering what difference are we making? What are Europe's governments and peoples learning as this sea of people ebbs and flows through their lands? How are we allowing God to reshape our thinking about his priorities for us?

The agony of inertia

Yesterday I sat in the sunshine with friends outside a hospital block. One of then, a young man recovering from horrific leg injuries, is almost ready to be discharged though he still needs a good deal of treatment and intensive physiotherapy. He is also waiting for a ticket that will enable him to travel to be reunited with his brother. He is excited at the prospect.

He is also close to despair. What the psalmist said of his people is true of my friend: 'their spirits languished within them.' (Ps 107:5). My friend has a languishing spirit.

I first met him on dank afternoon in November outside the library. He was cold and haunted by fear. He had only recently arrived and had not yet found a permanent shelter. He was desperate to get to his brother. But he was stuck. He had no idea how he could manage it and was afraid of trapped in this in-between place forever.

Eventually he got a shelter near the library and as winter set in, he hunkered down. Then early in the new year, something happened that left him with an aggressive infection that threatened to cost him his left leg. Months of treatment followed in hospitals where he didn't speak the language or fully understand what was going on.

He was haunted by a new fear: would he ever walk again without assistance? At 19 with dreams of riding a motorcycle and being someone, he was facing a life of disability. And he was alone. We visited him as often as we could but that did not really touch his sense of isolation. Every time I see him I catch that haunted, fearful look behind his greeting and his hug and his smile and his welcome.

And now he waits for a ticket.

This young Afghan man, whose family is scattered by the war in his land across at least three countries, whose father died in service of the Nato forces, waits for a ticket. He is on the final agonizing stretch of his journey. Fit enough to be discharged from hospital, he received word from the UK home office that his Dublin 3 claim for reunification with his brother has been accepted on 8 August.

And here at the end of September he is waiting for a ticket.

Maybe it will come next week after visits to the Prefects in both Calais and Arras.

Maybe.

And so we leave him, urging him to be patient, and as we round the corner into the welter of tents and shelters and people, a young man with the same haunted look as my friends stops us. He's 16 and has a brother in London and no other family in the world (as far as we can ascertain). Can we help him? And so it begins again. Taking details, making calls. urging patience and offering support.

How long? How long O Lord before their cries - and our cries - reach your ears and you deliver them (and us) from this agony of inertia?

The agony of inertia

Yesterday I sat in the sunshine with friends outside a hospital block. One of then, a young man recovering from horrific leg injuries, is almost ready to be discharged though he still needs a good deal of treatment and intensive physiotherapy. He is also waiting for a ticket that will enable him to travel to be reunited with his brother. He is excited at the prospect.




He is also close to despair. What the psalmist said of his people is true of my friend: 'their spirits languished within them.' (Ps 107:5). My friend has a languishing spirit.




I first met him on dank afternoon in November outside the library. He was cold and haunted by fear. He had only recently arrived and had not yet found a permanent shelter. He was desperate to get to his brother. But he was stuck. He had no idea how he could manage it and was afraid of trapped in this in-between place forever.




Eventually he got a shelter near the library and as winter set in, he hunkered down. Then early in the new year, something happened that left him with an aggressive infection that threatened to cost him his left leg. Months of treatment followed in hospitals where he didn't speak the language or fully understand what was going on.




He was haunted by a new fear: would he ever walk again without assistance? At 19 with dreams of riding a motorcycle and being someone, he was facing a life of disability. And he was alone. We visited him as often as we could but that did not really touch his sense of isolation. Every time I see him I catch that haunted, fearful look behind his greeting and his hug and his smile and his welcome.


And now he waits for a ticket.




This young Afghan man, whose family is scattered by the war in his land across at least three countries, whose father died in service of the Nato forces, waits for a ticket. He is on the final agonizing stretch of his journey. Fit enough to be discharged from hospital, he received word from the UK home office that his Dublin 3 claim for reunification with his brother has been accepted on 8 August.




And here at the end of September he is waiting for a ticket.




Maybe it will come next week after visits to the Prefects in both Calais and Arras.




Maybe.




And so we leave him, urging him to be patient, and as we round the corner into the welter of tents and shelters and people, a young man with the same haunted look as my friends stops us. He's 16 and has a brother in London and no other family in the world (as far as we can ascertain). Can we help him? And so it begins again. Taking details, making calls. urging patience and offering support.




How long? How long O Lord before their cries - and our cries - reach your ears and you deliver them (and us) from this agony of inertia?

Replacing inertia with action

It was good to see the jungle leading BBC news bulletins today and with none of the hysteria, hype and hogwash of the tabloid news papers.

In particular the beeb highlighted comments by the president of the Calais region suggesting that migrants in the camp in Calais be allowed to claim asylum close by in France.This is a view that is gaining traction in the country with two of the candidates for next year's presidential election also weighing in in favour of changes to the Le Touquet treaty.

Tomorrow our new home secretary is visiting her French counterpart in Paris. It is to be hoped that this issue will be on their agenda. Of course, we know the UK government's view. That was put to the beeb by a former ambassador who trotted out the line the government has been spinning for the past two years - handling things differently in Calais will act as a magnet. This is unlikely given the tiny proportion of refugees heading for the jungle compared the numbers going north to Germany and Scandanavia.

Instead the UK government thinks spending upwards of £60m on fencing and other security enhancements (which is the cost of the CRS in the camp) is the sensible choice.It is also wedded to the Le Touquet agreement whereby the UK was moved to Calais and the French one to Dover in a bid to quell the 'illegal' movement of people across the border. It hasn't worked.

And the people of Calais are fed up of living in what is increasingly feeling like a prison such is the rash of razor wire topped creeping across the city, shielding various sites from the migrants.

So they are beginning to ask what does the Le touquet treaty give them? And the answer is not much. It certainly isn't doing anything for the refugees living in increasingly squalid and overcrowded conditions in the jungle.

And the answer would seem to lie in the UK giovernment having a little immagination and making it possible for those in the camp to claim asylum in the UK. If they have a strong claim, then ship them to the country to be properly assessed. If they don't, then tell them that even if they can make their way into the country, they will not be able to claim asylum and will be returned to the first place they set foot on European soil. n that way, it wouldn't be a magnet; it would be a more humane response than the inertia that is currently our government's policy.

God Works Through the Weak to Thwart the Powerful's Plans

God Works Through the Weak to Thwart the Powerful's Plans



Here's a link to my blog as it has been picked up by the wonderful Ethics Daily

The meaning of witness

Ten days ago, I visited the jungle with Lynn Green from the Baptist Union to help her see what was happening and give her some insight into the work I and some colleagues (notably Juliet Kilpin) are doing there.

In the course of our visit, we spent half an hour with some Iranian brothers who started a hunger strike on the day the demolitions of the southern part of the camp started. They had sewed their lips together and refused food until the French authorities acted to resolve the situation of everyone in the jungle justly, in accordance with France's commitment to the human rights of all people.

A good number of these Iranians are Christians, fleeing religious persecution but facing (as they see it) complete indifference from Europe.

As I sat with these brothers I reflected on the fact that I have many times shared with my students at Spurgeon's College that the New Testament teaches that Christian witness often involves the church being shredded for the salvation of the nations; that Jesus' call to take up our cross and follow him is potentially an invitation to die. As I looked into the eyes of these Iranian brothers, I saw what that meant: here were people prepared to suffer - perhaps even to die - for the peace and freedom of those who shared their current plight. Greater love has no one, I thought, than those thst lay down their lives for their friends.

I was deeply affected by this half hour.

Last week - on Wednesday afternoon - the prefecture visited the Iranians. They offered them the chance to have their asylum applications fast-tracked, even to get assistance to apply for asylum in the UK if that's what they wanted. All they had to do was give up their protest. Their response was to remind the prefecture that they are not protesting on their own behalf but on behalf of everyone in the jungle, that they will not stop until everyone receives justice.

I gather it was a bit of a dialogue of the deaf, with the people from the prefect's office leaving feeling completely baffled at the Iranians' stance. But I wonder if that's how it was.

On Friday afternoon word reached us that the prefect's office had decided that it would not proceed with the destruction of the northern part of the camp. Indeed, it would work with the volunteer groups providing support and assistance to the community to ensure that the camp got the resources it needed. To this end, L'Auberge and the other groups that provide support to the camp are conducting a fresh census in the coming week to determine how many people now live in the northern part of the camp, so that support can be directed at the most vulnerable.

Now this is good news. And it seems to have come out of the blue. But I wonder...

Could there be a connection between the meeting of the Iranians and the prefect's office on Wednesday and the prefect's announcement on Friday? I have no evidence to support this, just a hunch that there is something powerful about the witness of the powerless to those with power that turns events in unexpected ways. Paul said something about God choosing the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 'God chose the the lowly things of this world and the despised things - and the things are not - to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.'

It seems to me that this explains what happened in Calais this week: the nothings of the world nullified what is and God's wily way of working through weakness and insignificant things changed the plans the powerful made to silence the powerless. God once again shows himself to be sneakily at work where he's not invited or welcomed - except by those who have no other prayer but that he'll come to their aid in their distress.

Just a thought...

Lessons for Europe in owning responsibility and moving forward

A lot's happened in the jungle since I last blogged. There have been times over the past couple of weeks when I thought that the community would be sent to the four winds as the Calais Prefecture moved to sweep the camp away. But that hasn't happened for reasons that I don't fully understand but which  I think are profoundly linked to Christian witness (I'll explain that in a second posting...)

Having won the court case, the Prefecture moved fairly swifly to demolish the southern half of the jungle. While this began three weeks ago very aggressively, they remained true to their commitment not to demolish community buildings such as schools, the church, the youth centre and the library. These now stand in splendid isolation in a charred wasteland that used to be a vibrant community.

And although they began aggessively, in the second week of the clearances the CRS, the armoured French riot police, began to allow volunteers and residents to move shelters that had been earmarked for deomolition. So when we visited on the second Thurdsay, we witnessed amicable negotiations going on between clutches of volunteers and squads of CRS over which shelters could be moved from the clearance zone to another part of the camp. Through the day a steady stream of walking groups carrying someone's home wended their way down the jungle's high street from the southern to the northern part of the camp. Several shelters were also moved on low-loaders.

Visitng the northern part of the camp later in the day we found acres of newly inhabited land, home to rows of shelters and new residents settling into their new environment. It was a sight to put a smile on our faces in the early spring sunshine.

Of course, it was almost inevitable that cramming so many people of so many different nations so closely together could result in friction, neighbour disputes, turf wars of one kind or another. And sadly, the week after I'd seen so many people moving, word reached us that there had been a big fight between Sudanese and Afghan residents. It happened on a wednesday evening, the day before I was due to visit.

So, I have to say, that on that Thursday as I appraoched the camp, I did so wih some trepidation. I expected there to be a heavy police presence;  expected an atmosphere of suspicion and fear, where volunteers like me would maybe be less welcome than we have been. I needn't have worried. We passed the handful of CRS at the entrance and strode into the usual vibrant and bustling scene that we have come to expect.

We were greeted by members of our team and some community leaders with smiles and offers of tea. But it was clear that there the events of the previous evening had left a mark that needed to be addressed. So in the early afternoon we were invited to attend to a meeting at which the Sudanese and Afghans were going to resolve their differences. I asked one of my colleagues whether it was wise for us to be there and he replied that it would be good to have a group of people present who were not angry; that perhaps our calmness would lower the tensions in the tent where the meeting was to happen. So we all duly pitched up, removed our shoes (the space being used is a mosque) and sat around the sides of the large tent.

We needn't have worried. One by one Sudanese and Afghan community leaders rose to do two things. The first was to say that the unfortunate events of the previous evening had been everyone's fault, including that of the community leaders. I have to say that seeing gentle men who have never lifted their voice in anger, let alone threatened someone with a rock, owning responsibility for what had happened was extremely humbling. I reflected on the fact that as we met in this makeshift mosque, a hundred or so miles away in Brussels, EU leaders were meeting to pass the buck, blame others for the situation Europe finds itself in for the migration crisis and cobble together a solution that treats the people gathered around me as packages to sent here and there at the whim of a politician. What I saw in the mosque was true servant leadership of a kind I rearely experience or offer in the UK

The second thing my friends all said was that they were determined to work together for as long as the camp remained to ensure its peace, to ensure that it operated in the interests of all its residents, to ensure that no one lived in fear of their neighbour. They reminded each other that they had each fled places where they'd lived in fear of their neighbours and their governments. They needed to ensure that having come all this way, no one felt such fear again. So they called for others from each community to come forward to support the efforts of the leaders to create mechanisms to ensure the camp runs smoothly, that everyone's needs are met in food distribution, that no one goes without shoes or warm clothes, that no one feels unheard and resorts to violernce to make themselves heard.

After an hour, during which time everyone who wanted to speak seemed to be able to so so, the members of our team were asked if had anything to add. It seemed to me that it wasn't our place to say anything so all I said was that I was hunbled and moved to see the communities working to settle their differences and work together. After which the Afghan Iman was invited to lead in prayer (I have to say that he could have passed for a pentecostal pastor, so fervent and passionate was his invocation of God's blessing on this decision!).

And then everyone stood and moved around the room embracing everyone else and wishing them health and happiness and good fortune. It was an amazing moment. It reminded me that the jungle is more than merely a place, it's an idea; a concept rather than a location. What has been created by the community leaders and their willing communities aspires to be an expression of humanity at its best in the midst of continent of indifference and alienation.

I left the meeting feeling humbled and elated (a common reaction to life in the jungle).

I was also forced to reflect on why I had felt so anxious when I heard the news on wednesday night of the trouble. I had felt an immediate concern for my friends, people from Syrian and Sudan, Ethiopia and Afghanistan who have made their home there - would they be ok? What would they need in the morning when I turned up? How could  best help and support them? I had immediate anxiety for volunteers I have come to know and admire - would they be safe? would they be able to do their work? how would they cope with the fact of violence happening around them? I realised that I was connected to this community, that it's pain was my pain, that it's anxiety was mine. And I recalled that the Bible says something about this....

And this led to another reflection that I'll blog abaout presently.

The finely crafted art of not settling down

Sometime towards the turn of the millennium, I was speaking at a conference in the south of England. In between sessions I wondered into the shop looking for something to stimulate my rather torpid mind. I flicked through a couple of books and then thumbed through the CD rack until I came upon a white cover with a charcoal grey seascape on it.

It was called Free for Good by a band called Vigilantes of Love. I had vaguely heard of them but not heard anything by them. I bought the CD on the basis of the cover (cardboard tri-fold) and the description under the title of the first track on the lyric sheet: ‘everything from the ghettoization of faith music to yearning for my wife.’

I fell in love before I heard a note.

I took it to my car, put it in the player and went for a long drive listening over and over. The music was a revelation. I fell in love again. Here was a song writer of rare talent with a sharp focus on what was right and wrong with being people of faith. And here was a band that played up a storm.

So began a twenty-year journey with Bill Mallonee. His songs have sound-tracked sessions I’ve led at conferences, services I’ve conducted at my church; more importantly, they have enriched my evolving faith and grasp on just how it is I should be living in these troubled times. Like Mallonee,

I always felt the world was “off axis.” Not “the thing it should be.” I knew early on “I” was part of the problem, as well.

At their best his songs have provoked engagement with this world and the God whose shadow is cast across it. They have always entertained, made me smile and tap my feet. Of late his music has acquired a fresh depth. A string of albums from 2012’s Amber Waves to last year’s Lands and Peoples reveal a song writer at the peak of his powers.

And now comes Slow Trauma, an album he suggests is much taken up with death and the end of things. And yet on first acquaintance, it’s a bright work awash with mellow guitars and brisk songs about life on the road, the struggle to make ends meet and how we might hold love together.

On the basis of this work I’ve decided to avoid Denver cause ‘there ain’t nothing for you now.’ But I’ll keep listening to the track for the languid, note perfect guitar solo that leads back into the refrain, ‘doldrums in Denver...it’s time you left this town’.

But leaving is ok because this is not an album about settling down. Mallonee might be reaching that age when most of us begin to think about slowing down, putting our feet up on the porch and letting life come to us (if it must). But he is always straining to see ‘over that last hill’ (as he sings on the final track) to see where the new set of wheels you get on the king’s highway will take you. Even dying is not really the end of it because we’re just waiting for the stone to be rolled away (presumably so we can get on with the journey).

And it’s this sense of restlessly moving on that brings us to the spiritual heart of this lovely record. The four line, one-minute opener alerts us to the fact that ‘what’s gonna save you and what makes you smile/sometimes, they are one and the same.’ It’s a reminder that being on the side of the angels sets our toes tapping and puts a smile on our faces; and if it doesn’t, then it’s because we’ve not heard God quite right.

Mallonee has always been at his best when he’s looking at the world and thinking about how faith helps us make sense of it. It seems to me that this is what Only Time will tell is about; is there an economic miracle round the corner or does the seeking of fame and fortune always result in ‘parcelling out the earth with barbed wire and hard sell’? It’s a key question of our age and one that is not answered in election manifestoes but in the choices our souls make.

Not that the church has much light to shed on this (sadly). ‘You cannot speak in tongues if you’ve got nothing to say.’ Perhaps there’s more enlightenment to be found on the journey ‘down these sad, back streets of doubt to a new and brighter day/waiting for the stone to be rolled away’. (what a great line that is!)

Slow Trauma is neither slow nor traumatic although it chronicles the pain of living with our eyes open. But it does so with a heart alive to the rumour of God out on the road. And it does so to an immaculate soundtrack of beautifully judged guitars, a great rhythm section, and gravelly rich vocals (all by Mallonee), occasionally supported by Maria Rose’s keyboards. The whole effect is dazzling. It’s a journey I’ll be wanting to take time and again because it gets better every time.

[Thanks to Bill for a pre-release copy of the album on which this review is based. Slow Trauma is released on 15 March and is available from his website]